Sandra Wheeler has two M.A. degrees, one in medical anthropology from the University of Connecticut and one in American history from Trinity College. She is an archivist who divides her time among Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, the Hartford Studies Project at Trinity, and an archival consulting practice. She is a visiting lecturer at both Trinity College and Wesleyan University. Her research interests center on the social history of Hartford from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century with a special interest in the provision of services to the immigrant poor.