Richard Clark Carpenter was born on November 27, 1933, in Hartford, Connecticut . He was raised in Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he graduated from Wethersfield High School in 1951. He entered Boston College in 1951 and graduated in 1955 with a B.S. History degree. He joined the United States Army ROTC at Boston College and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army Artillery upon graduation. He served on active duty from 1955-1957 as platoon leader in the 66th Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion (NiKE) as part of the defense of the New York Region. After starting a city planning career in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1958, he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1960, graduating with a Master of City and Regional Planning degree in 1962.
After resuming his planning career in Hartford, Mr. Carpenter became the first town planner of Wilton, Connecticut, in 1963. He then became Executive Director of the South Western Regional Planning Agency in 1966, where he served until retiring in 1999.
Mr. Carpenter is currently a resident of East Norwalk, Connecticut . He married Mary Jane Campbell in 1958. They have two children, Ellin and John, and three grandchildren.
Mr. Carpenter is the author of the book series A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press of Baltimore. To date, three volumes have been published: Volume 1 - The Mid-Atlantic States (2003), Volume 2 - New York and New England (2005), Volume 3 - Indiana, Ohio and Lower Michigan (2008), and Volume 4 - Illinois, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan . Volume 5 - Iowa and Minnesota - is currently in production by the author.
Little is known about the two men whose drawings are in the papers. Mr. Henry T. Wilhelm (1906-1994) was an electrical engineer for Bell Laboratories in New York City and then in Holmdel, New Jersey. Over his lifetime he apparently visited 2500 signal towers. Mr. William Bruce Coughlin was originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and was a signal engineer with the General Railway Signalling Company in Rochester, New York .
From the guide to the Richard C. Carpenter Papers, 1889-2001., (Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries)
