Goddard Archives
Goddard College was founded by Tim Pitkin and an inspired group of students, staff, board members and faculty in 1938 as an educational experiment based upon the philosophy of John Dewey. Offering various programs as educational experiments, Goddard College and the range of imaginative people involved over many decades influenced other educational experiments elsewhere in the educational landscape until its closing in 2024.
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Today, Visitors and "Goddardites" returning to visit the campus are able to see shows in The Haybarn Theatre as part of the newly revitalized programming, or have some dinner at The Haybarn Pub restaurant, or spend the night in one of the many renovated dorms and campus suites.
Tim Pitkin
The Greatwood Farm as imagined and constructed by Willard and Maud Martin in the early 1900s was intended to be a showplace for modern farming methods that included the breeding of Shropshire sheep and short horn milking cattle. It was also famous for Maud's extensive formal flower gardens.
Martin's success elsewhere in the business world allowed him to develop the property first by building the Manor, designed by Boston architect James T. Kelly in 1908. Kelly also designed the rest of the shingle style farm buildings. In the years that followed, noted landscape designer Arthur Shurcliff designed the formal gardens and the Tudor Revival Garden House. Mr Martin passed away in the mid 1930s and a few years later, Maud sold the property to the newly formed Goddard College in 1938.
David in the Archives
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David joined the Goddard faculty in 1984. 20 years later when the Campus Program was shuttered, he began to volunteer in the Archives working with Forest Davis, Evelyn Bates and Forest's sister Priscilla Backman.
After a number of years working as a volunteer, he was hired as a 1/4 time Library Staff Associate Archivist and Goddard College Historian. As of April 2025, a good deal of Goddard's archival holdings necessarily found new best homes with other institutions. Still, a certain amount of archival material was left behind which now constitutes the present Goddard Archives.
With a renewed purpose, the collection continues to tell the story of the Goddard Seminary, The Greatwood Farm, Goddard College and the future good works of the Creative Campus at Goddard as well. David is available to field archival inquiries and to greet Goddardites and visitors to The Creative Campus in Plainfield.
David Halé, MFA
Goddard Archivist, The Creative Campus at Goddard
infogoddardarchives@gmail
