On April 9, 1910, Abraham Alexander Ribicoff was born in a New Britain tenement house to Ashkenazi Jewish parents who had immigrated to Connecticut from Poland. Over the course of his lifetime, he would spend nearly fifty years in public service, including overcoming entrenched anti-Semitism to become the state’s first governor of Jewish faith….
Tag: political history
April 7: Hartford Residents Gather to Show Support for WWI
On this day in 1917, citizens of Hartford gathered in the streets for a “mass patriotic meeting” to show their support for America’s formal entry into World War I. Even though the Great War had been raging in Europe for three years, the United States had been reluctant to officially join the fight against…
April 5: P.T. Barnum Elected Mayor of Bridgeport – Not His Greatest Show
Today in 1875, Phineas T. Barnum was elected Mayor of Bridgeport at the age of 64. Though internationally acclaimed as an entertainment impresario and well respected as a politician at the state level, Barnum’s short mayoral tenure was not the greatest showing for a man still remembered as one of America’s most successful entertainers, entrepreneurs,…
March 26: The First State in the US to Raise the Minimum Wage Above $10
On March 26, 2014, Connecticut became the first state in the country to pass legislation that set its minimum wage above $10 an hour. The new law mandated slight increases rolled out over three years, slowly building up the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by the start of 2017, and would affect…
March 19: A Fallen Star Rises Again
When 32-year-old Joseph Ganim became mayor of Bridgeport in 1991, he had the distinction of being the youngest mayor in the city’s history. At the time, there were few politicians who even wanted the job, as Connecticut’s largest city had just filed for bankruptcy and was the only municipality in the state to have…
March 18: A Rising Star Falls Twice
The day after St. Patrick’s Day was anything but a lucky one for John G. Rowland, who found himself on the wrong end of the law on March 18, 2005, and then again ten years later on March 18, 2015. Once considered one of Connecticut’s best and brightest politicians, Rowland first won elected office…
March 13: The New Haven Black Panther Trials
On this day in 1970, the stage was set for one of the most polarizing trials of the modern Civil Rights era as Bobby Seale, national chairman of the militant black power group Black Panthers, arrived in Connecticut to stand trial for ordering the murder of a New Haven man who had been killed…
March 10: Clare Boothe Luce, Connecticut’s Extraordinary First Congresswoman
Connecticut’s first congresswoman, Clare Boothe Luce, was one of the most professionally-accomplished women of her time. Born Ann Clare Boothe on March 10, 1903, her parents instilled in her a love of music and the performing arts. After acting in a few minor theater roles as a young adult, she married New York City…
March 5: Abraham Lincoln Speaks in Hartford
In early 1860, sectional tensions between the northern and southern regions of the United States were approaching the breaking point over the topic of slavery and its expansion into the western American territories. Even though it was a crucial presidential election year, the two major political parties had yet to select their running candidates,…
March 1: Samuel Huntington Becomes the United States’ First President
On this day in 1781, more than four years after they were first adopted by the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation became the supreme law of the United States after being formally ratified by all thirteen states. As a result, the previous sitting President of the Continental Congress — a Connecticut lawyer by…
February 27: Before Him, Some Cars Were Unsafe At Any Speed.
Today in 1934, consumer advocate, author, and political activist Ralph Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut. The son of Lebanese immigrants who operated a popular restaurant in the moderately-sized Connecticut factory town, Nader displayed an insatiable appetite for reading and an incredible ability to retain information at an early age — traits that helped…
February 23: Connecticut Openly Defies President Jefferson’s National Embargo
In the early 19th century, Thomas Jefferson, who was elected to two consecutive terms as President of the United States, proved to be a constant thorn in the side of Connecticut’s political leaders. Virtually all the members of Connecticut’s political “Standing Order” were staunch Federalists who vehemently disagreed with Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican political agenda and…