Their Kindred Earth: Photographs by William Earle Williams

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Land holds history. Some histories are better known than others, preserved by those who valued particular stories.

William Earle Williams, Witness Stones at the Florence Griswold House and Museum, 2023. Archival digital ink print. Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of the artist in memory of Florence Griswold, 2025.16.3.

What do we know about the land we live on and who preceded us? Since the mid-1980s artist William Earle Williams (born 1950, Vicksburg, MS) has made sites of American and African American history more visible through his evocative photographs. His recent residency at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, became a catalyst for rewriting local history—correcting the long-held myth that Old Lyme was a site of the Underground Railroad. Williams’s poignant photographs help audiences grapple with the difficult history of enslavement in Greater Connecticut. Sections of the exhibitions examine Connecticut sites of enslavement, abolition, significant events such as the Amistad rebellion, and pioneers like Prudence Crandall, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Paired with interpretation and new research, Williams’s photographs help us see beyond familiar conceptions of places we know so well, and to understand them anew.

William Earle Williams is the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts and Curator of Photography at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

This exhibition is organized by the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

The Old Lyme exhibition was made possible by the generous support of CT Humanities, HSB, Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut, as well as donors to the Exhibition Fund and the Annual Fund. Media sponsor: WSHU Public Radio.

Click here for more information on this exhibition.