Today in 1823, the first classes were held at the Hartford Female Seminary, a revolutionary new school for girls founded by author and education pioneer Catharine Beecher. Born into the wealthy and influential Beecher family in 1800, Catharine Beecher wholly devoted herself to advancing the education and betterment of young women after her fiancé…
Tag: connecticut women
May 15: Hotels’ “Queen of Mean” Checks Into Danbury For a Long Stay
Leona Helmsley was one of the most visible celebrity billionaires of late 20th century New York. The wife of hotelier Harry Helmsley, Leona became the face of an immensely successful marketing campaign that cast her as a “queen” who would tolerate only the highest and most exacting standards for the Helmsley-owned luxury-class hotel properties….
May 12: She Won More Oscars Than Any Other Actor.
Meryl Streep won three. So did Daniel Day Lewis, Frances McDormand and Jack Nicholson. But though she never attended a prize show to accept any of them in person, this actor from Hartford, born today in 1907, won four Oscars for her film performances, more than any other actor. Katharine Hepburn, who retained close…
May 5: The First Female U.S. Patent Recipient
Even though the U.S. Patent Act of 1790 allowed American citizens to apply for patents regardless of gender, women were discouraged from doing so due to local coverture laws that made it difficult, if not impossible, for a married woman to own property and titles independently of her husband. But today in 1809, nearly…
March 11: She Taught a Man’s World How to Build a Business
When Beatrice Fox Auerbach became president of Hartford’s G. Fox & Company in 1938, in an era where there were scarcely any female retail executives in the United States, neither she nor any of the popular department store’s board members expected her to remain in the position for very long. But instead of stepping…
March 10: Actor, Socialite, Editor, Playwright, Filmmaker, War Correspondent, Ambassador, & Connecticut’s 1st Congresswoman
Connecticut’s first congresswoman, Clare Boothe Luce, was one of the most professionally accomplished women of her time. Ann Clare Boothe was born on March 10, 1903. Her parents encouraged her early love of music and the performing arts. After acting in a few minor theater roles as a young adult, she married New York…
February 13: A Greenwich Girl with Great Hair Ices Olympic Gold
Today in 1976, a 19-year-old ice skater born in Greenwich captivated audiences worldwide with her masterful, gold-medal-winning performance at the Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. Her near perfect routine would catapult her to international stardom and, along with a unique hair style that created a national craze, it would also set Dorothy Hamill on…
January 12: Lifelong Civil Rights Champion Mary Townsend Seymour
Born in Hartford in 1873, lifelong civil rights activist Mary Townsend lost both her parents at the age of 15, and was adopted into the family of local black activist and Civil War veteran Lloyd Seymour. A few years later, she married one of his sons, Frederick Seymour, and the newlyweds settled in the…
January 4: A Girl with Soaring Ambitions.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO HEHEAR AN AI WRITTEN AND NARRATED VERSION OF TODAY’S STORY. HERE, THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY MEETS CONNECTICUT’S PAST. Comments invited to walt@uconn.edu. In the heady days of early American aviation, when tales of plucky pilots and ingenious innovators were a dime a dozen, few pilots stood out…
December 6: Florence Griswold and the Fine Art of Hospitality
Today in 1937, Florence Griswold died, having made her lifelong hometown of Old Lyme synonymous with art. Miss Griswold was born into one of Old Lyme’s most prominent families, the youngest daughter of wealthy ship captain Robert Griswold. Not long after Florence was born, however, the family’s fortunes began to change, The start of…
November 5: Ella Grasso, America’s First Female Governor Elected In Her Own Right
Born to Italian immigrants in 1919, Ella Rosa Giovanna Oliva Tambussi grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood of first- and second-generation Americans in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Her parents, determined to invest in a better future for their daughter, saved up enough money to send Ella to the prestigious Chaffee School in Windsor. Afterward, she…
October 20: A Monument to the State’s Founding Minister
On October 20, 1950, a crowd of several hundred Connecticans gathered in front of the Old State House in Hartford to observe the unveiling of a new, eight-foot-tall statue of Thomas Hooker, the Puritan minister and “founding father” of Connecticut who founded the settlement of Hartford in 1636. Born in England in 1586, Thomas…