The Connecticut State Historian supports the creation, preservation, and communication of knowledge about Connecticut’s history.
The Connecticut General Assembly created the position in 1935 and, since 1984, has charged the University of Connecticut with appointing the state historian.
Along with serving as a member of the UConn history faculty, the state historian works with the legislature and government agencies, museums, schools, cultural organizations, and individuals and communities to promote a deeper understanding of Connecticut’s history and why it matters.
About the State Historian
Andy Horowitz has served as Connecticut’s sixth state historian since 2022. He is an associate professor of history at UConn and describes his work as state historian as “supporting communities as they engage in acts of collective autobiography.”
Horowitz shares historical expertise through public programs, museum exhibits, educational initiatives, media interviews, and publications, and collaborates with organizations across Connecticut to support history and the humanities. He also serves on a number of public boards and commissions including, among others, the State Historical Commission, State Historic Preservation Council, the State Capitol Preservation and Restoration Commission, the State Historic Records Advisory Board, the Connecticut Digital Newspaper Advisory Board, the Connecticut Semiquincentennial Commission, and CT Humanities.
Horowitz is a scholar of modern U.S. history. He is the author of Katrina: A History, 1915–2015, which won the Bancroft Prize in American history; and teaches courses – primarily at UConn’s Hartford campus – about U.S. and Connecticut history. Born and raised in New Haven, he received his Ph.D. in History from Yale University and served previously as the founding director of the New Haven Oral History Project.
Recent Projects
- Connecticut’s Revolution: an exhibit about the American Revolution produced in collaboration with the Connecticut State Museum.
- Objects of the Revolution: a series of historical markers exploring the material culture of the Revolutionary era, produced in collaboration with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the UConn Design Center Studio, and more than a dozen Connecticut archives.
- Why CT 250 Matters: a series of public lectures produced in collaboration with the Connecticut Forum and several libraries, museums, and historical societies.
- Preserving Connecticut’s Revolutionary Archive: an initiative to protect and share eighteenth century records held by a consortium of Connecticut archives with the support of a $750,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Making History: a quarterly column about people who “bring the past into the present,” produced in collaboration with Connecticut Explored magazine.