In front of her home on 10 Livermore Street, Wilton artist and activist Ann Putnam has installed a Pride-themed Little Free Library.
Little Free Library is a movement of building small book exchanges that are available in public areas, where people can take or leave books. Putnam said in an interview Thursday that she’s seen several across the region – there is one in the Wilton Main Street Association Park – and instantly wanted to build one of her own.
“I fell in love with this small way of sharing literacy with the community,” Putnam said. “I have a deep respect for the role of libraries in communities. They’re a free, truly public space where people from all walks of life can get together.”
Putnam ordered a kit from littlefreelibrary.org, which provides plans and tutorials for how to build your own free library, but didn’t get to work on it right away. She ordered the kit at the beginning of the summer of 2020, at the start of the pandemic.
“Last summer was in lots of ways, a moment of reckoning in my personal and professional life, and I decided to start to take steps on some of these pipe dreams of mine,” Putnam said. “Otherwise, I realized I was just going to talk about these things for years and it was going to be one of those things that falls into the category of things I talk about and never do.”
Putnam’s Little Free Library is decorated with the Progress Pride Flag, a version of the LGBT pride flag. The design includes the more well-known rainbow design, but also includes triangles of white, pink and blue, representing the transgender flag, and black and brown to specifically represent people of color within the community.
Putnam has been active in the Black Lives Matter movement, including attending a weekly rally in Peterborough, and in 2017, attended a rally in Manchester to protest restrictions on transgender military service enacted by President Donald Trump.
Putnam officially opened her Little Free Library on July 4, and filled it mostly with children’s picture books about the Fourth of July and the flag and other patriotic themes, as well as copies of pocket Constitutions.
She said while the Fourth of July is a time to celebrate freedom, it is also a time to think about whether all populations in her community are experiencing the same levels of that freedom.
“The rights of our trans, gay and lesbian community members should be the same rights as all our fellow humans. It shouldn’t be a barrier to rights in our society,” Putnam said. “Protecting the rights of the people in your community is one of the most patriotic things we can be doing right now.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertran script.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.