Celebrating A Century Of Service—

Calendar Will Celebrate Hartford & Benefit Six Arts Organizations

HARTFORD — 2008 will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Joseph Merritt Company in Hartford. To honor the tradition of excellence in a variety of digital printing, scanning and marketing communications services, the company has announced the availability of a full color calendar using historic and contemporary images of Hartford and highlighting significant landmark events that have occurred in the area since 1908.

The calendars are available for $14.95 at the Merritt corporate headquarters, 650 Franklin Avenue in Hartford, at any of their other seven New England offices (including locations at 60 Mill Plain Road in Danbury and 488 Watertown Avenue in Waterbury), or by calling 860-296-2500. All proceeds will benefit the six greater Hartford arts organizations.

Ed Perry, president and CEO of Joseph Merritt Company, wanted to use today’s digital technology to not only produce the company’s annual calendar, but to pay tribute to six historical and cultural Hartford landmarks also in existence for more than 100 years in the city where the company was founded.  Merritt Graphics has also created custom versions of the historic calendar for the six organizations that will benefit from the sales of the calendar: Butler-McCook House and Garden, Connecticut Historical Society, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Mark Twain House and Museum, Old State House and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.  Each organization has copies of their unique version of the calendar for sale in their gift shops.

“We have been researching photography and gathering data for these calendars since the beginning of the summer,” Mr Perry explained.  “We wanted the facts to be historically accurate and the images to be reflective of Hartford from 1908 to today.”  

From design to production and distribution, the calendars are a culmination of creative efforts by the employees of Joseph Merritt Company combined with meaningful contributions made by other individuals and organizations.  A complete list of those contributors is located on the back of each calendar.

Joseph Merritt Company is a marketing communications company that can produce any image on any surface at any time.  Founded 100 years ago as Hartford’s first commercial blueprinter, today the company employs 125 people in eight offices in New England and New York.