On July 13, 1918, the morning edition of the Hartford Courant featured a rousing account of rallies held throughout the state by women demanding action on the proposed nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the amendment that would guarantee women the right to vote. In Hartford, speeches were given at City Hall and…
Tag: july
July 12: Buckminster Fuller’s Car of the Future
R. Buckminster Fuller, the inventor, architect, author, and futurist best known for his popularization of the geodesic dome, was one of the most prolific public intellectuals of the early 20th century. In the early 1930s, Fuller coined the word “Dymaxion” — a portmanteau of the words “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “tension” — and applied it…
July 11: The Voyage of the Neptune
On this day in 1799, the merchant ship Neptune sailed into New Haven harbor after an absence of two years and eight months with the most lucrative haul of cargo Connecticut had ever seen. Captained by New Haven native Daniel Green, the Neptune set sail in late 1797 with a crew of 45 “young,…
July 8: Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
During the 1730s and 1740s, New England was in the midst of a sweeping religious revival now known to history as the Great Awakening. During this period, charismatic ministers like the internationally-famous George Whitfield traveled from town to town on a mission to invigorate congregations with a renewed sense of Christian piety and devotion,…
July 7: The Burning of Fairfield
Throughout the duration of the Revolutionary War, Connecticut citizens lived in fear of devastating British raids on shoreline communities. In the eyes of the British, Connecticut was a nest of rebel activity, home to a government that ardently supported the Patriot cause and scores of residents who smuggled, spied, and fought against the King’s…
July 6: The Hartford Circus Fire
What began as an innocent day at the circus ended in one of the worst fire disasters in U.S. history, on this day in 1944. In early July of that year, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had set up one of their largest “Big Top” tents in a field in Hartford’s…
July 5: New Haven’s “New” State House
From 1701 through 1878, the Colony (and later State) of Connecticut had not one, but two capital cities: Hartford and New Haven. During these 177 years of of shared governance, each co-capital built a series of State Houses to host the Connecticut General Assembly, which would meet in Hartford and New Haven on alternating…
July 4: Delegates Selected for Connecticut’s New State Constitution
Today in 1818, the voters in every Connecticut town gathered at 9:00 am to select their town’s delegates to a convention at Hartford that would produce – a few months later – the first state Constitution ratified by a vote of the people themselves. The constitutional convention was the result of a decades-long struggle…
July 3: Charlotte Perkins Gilman Born in Hartford
Author, feminist, and social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on this day in 1860. Since her father was absent for most of her childhood, Gilman often spent her time visiting her great aunts, the famous Beecher sisters: author Harriet Beecher Stowe, education reformer Catherine Beecher and suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker. Between her aunts’…