Exhibit at Gateway Showcases Olin-Winchester Stories
Friday, January 24, 2014
Gateway Community College’s NewAlliance Foundation Art Gallery is now showing Our Community at Winchester: 
An Elm City Story. The collection will be on display until March 21.
Our Community at Winchester showcases the stories of the workers at the Olin-Winchester plant, a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, which closed and left New Haven in 2006. The workers’ stories—of labor struggles, workers’ culture within the plant, and the impact of the plant on the larger community—are the basis of the exhibit.
The exhibit is a collection of photographs and documents from the International Association of Machinists Local 609 records, held in the Greater New Haven Labor History Association’s archives, supplemented by oral history interviews with retired Winchester workers conducted by Association volunteers. Local 609 represented workers at the plant from 1956 until its closure. Images from earlier years as well as from workers’ lives in the community are culled from personal memorabilia and employee newsletters.
For more information, contact or visit the Greater New Haven Labor History Association at www.laborhistory.org.