About SWI

Boulders (probably from a gravel excavation) dumped at the end of a driveway in western MA. What do you think will happen next?

The Stone Wall Initiative promotes the appreciation, investigation, and conservation of stone walls in New England. The SWI emphasizes the cultural, natural, and aesthetic resources provided by historic walls, which are the closest thing New England has to classical ruins.

Anyone can join, simply by requesting to be added to the mailing list. Link to Contacts.

OFFICE

Administratively, the SWI is part of the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, which is supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Physically, it's an office in Building #5 of the Horsebarn Hill "campus" in Storrs. (Resource Center). Electronically, it is a web-based clearing house of nearly a thousand members. Though coordinated by Robert M. Thorson, the content of its books and web site represent the collective work of many individuals.

GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE

Though housed in a state museum of natural history, the SWI is emphatically regional. SWI programs have taken place in all six New England states. Regular correspondents are heavily concentrated in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York east of the Hudson River and Long Island. [See Maps]. The SWI seeks coordination with similar projects in other states.

Recognizing that the United States landscape is the sum of its regional geographies (the plural is from the writer Barry Lopez), the SWI has correspondents many other U.S. states where residents have local exposure to distinctive stone walls. The national significance of stone walls was recently highlighted by National Trust for Historical Preservation in Washington D.C, who highlighted the SWI in the Who's News section of the March/April issue of magazine, Preservation, its national magazine. Media stories about New England stone walls are increasing in frequency and scope (for example a recent Associated Press Story.

Though hard to belive, bricks are commonly found in stone walls. They demonstrate that land use history is long and complex.

HISTORY

The SWI was co-founded by Robert Thorson and Kristine Thorson during the summer of 2002 to coincide with publication of Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History In New England Stone Walls (Robert M. Thorson, Walker & Company, New York). This book adopted a more scientific approach to understanding stone walls, argued for their greater protection as a cultural and ecological resources, and encouraged readers to respond and share with each other. Its original purpose was to provide an easy way to manage reader feedback and to help support the book's policy objective -- stone wall conservation.

Nearly two thousand individuals have since contacted the SWI with a letter or email. Thousands more heard Professor Thorson give Programs at their community gatherings, annual meetings, schools, and conventions. Thousands more read articles and reviews in newspapers and magazines, seen him on television, or heard him on NPR radio affiliates.

It took three years, but the SWI finally managed to get out an email neswletter to its members; an informal regional coalition of property owners, local historians, nature seekers, officers of federal and state agencies, historical and archaeological societies, cultural resource managers, museums, land trusts, architects, scientists, teachers, and individuals empowered to advocate for conservation of what is increasingly being recognized as a cultural and ecological commons. Two years later we had our first list-serve mailing.

Along the way came publication of Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls. (Walker & Company, 2005). This book was written to provide answers to thousands of questions asked of Professor Thorson by stone wall enthusiasts. Its purpose was: (1) to lay the groundwork for a science of stone walls; (2) to provide a language for describing and classifying walls for the purpose of inventory and management, and (3) to stimulate the New England culture-tourism economy.

To strengthen its public outreach and archival efforts, the SWI merged with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History in the spring of 2005. It now operates out of the former Office of the State Archaeologist. The SWI has also established a mutual commitment with the TNE Project (Teachers for a New Era) at the University of Connecticut, funded by the Carnegie Institution of New York. Finally, the SWI is working with the University of Connecticut Foundation to help fund it's state and national goals.

And now...the movie! The film rights for Stone By Stone were sold to the independent filmmaker, Illusions Films. They are nearing completion of an hour-long, PBS-style documentary.