"Oysters & Clams—A Norwalk Tradition" Exhibit

Oysters & Clams - A Norwalk Tradition seeks to introduce Museum visitors to the importance of Norwalk’s oldest, continuous business activity; the advances the oystermen and clammers of Norwalk have made to the industry; and the boats, equipment, and the men and companies who work year round to care for their crops.

Oysters were the dominant local crop beginning in the Nineteenth Century.  Today they are Norwalk’s only significant food crop. 

A 2009 donation to the Museum from the Norwalk Seaport Association was the catalyst for this exhibit.  The contribution contains many diverse museum artifacts, documents, journals, and photographs including:  preliminary oil paintings (scaled down versions), oil sketches and photographs used by the 1930’s Work Progress Administration mural artist Alexander Rummler in creating his oyster murals that now hang in City Hall.

Also donated were dredges, tongs, a fluffing drum, oyster cans, oyster plates and forks, shucking tools, company signs, boat name boards and Sealshipt Oyster equipment.  Families and companies with names long familiar in Norwalk like Bell, Radel, Tallmadge, Bloom, and Standard are represented in photographs and artifacts. 

A twenty minute black and white 8mm film made up of footage from the 1940’s to early 1960’s begins to illustrate the back-breaking labor that was needed to harvest and tend the oyster beds and the mountains of oyster shells that resulted from shucking the oysters.

(The museum will be closed on Sunday, Sept. 11.)