Back on this date in 1874, that is.
Although it took a recent city charter revision to call for some members of the current board of ed — as well as, for the first time, student members — to be elected, “This Day In New Haven History” has uncovered that in previous decades and even centuries, voters in New Haven already had experience choosing Board of Ed members via the ballot.
My regular guest, the New Haven Museum’s photo archivist Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, brought in a notice from the Sept. 17 New Haven Daily Palladium about an “Annual School Meeting.”
Those school district elections, it appears, were regarded as importantly as those for the town’s treasurer, clerk, and collector of taxes.
To travel back to that date and year and to check out the elections, and what appears to be a recent re-districting — we had only seven wards at the time — just click on the audio above, or find it in iTunes or any podcast app under “WNHH Community Radio.”
