In 1926, a group of eastern Connecticut investors hoping to capitalize on the state’s new car culture, expanding highway system, and Roaring 20’s prosperity, purchased a large spring-fed wetland in Andover Connecticut. They cleared trees, cut roads, and built the 550 foot-long dam that created beautiful Andover Lake. When it was completed in 1928,…
Tag: social movements
July 26: Long Before The World Was “Woke,” These Lincoln Supporters Were “Wide Awakes”
The idea of being “woke” to the dimensions of racial injustice in America entered mainstream public awareness with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. But more than 150 years earlier, a group of young Abraham Lincoln supporters in Hartford declared themselves…
June 7: A Landmark Supreme Court Case Guarantees Your Right to Privacy —and Birth Control
The introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 launched a sexual revolution that posed a fundamental challenge to long-standing federal and state “morality laws.” These Victorian era laws had been enacted to stop the sale or distribution of materials intended for “immoral uses,” such as having sex merely for enjoyment, or limiting family…
March 13: A City, State, & Country Divided: The New Haven Black Panther Trials
Today in 1970, the stage was set for one of the most polarizing trials of the modern Civil Rights era. Bobby Seale, national chairman of the militant black power organization Black Panthers, arrived in Connecticut to stand trial for allegedly ordering the murder of a New Haven man killed 10 months earlier. The Black…
February 20: Patriotic Connecticut Women Organize For “God, Home, and Country”
Following the centennial of American Independence in 1876, numerous civic organizations and heritage societies sprang up across the United States in response to increased national interest in early American history. In many cases, however, civically inclined women met with frustration when they were barred from joining prominent clubs founded by men. In 1890, after…
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…
November 25: From News Seller to News Maker, “La Madrina” of Hartford
María Colón Sánchez arrived in Hartford at the age of 28 in 1954, one of thousands of Puerto Ricans who moved to Connecticut in search of better economic opportunity during the mid-20th century. Within a few years, she had saved up enough money to open a convenience store, Maria’s News Stand, on Albany Avenue,…
November 22: A Formidable Founding – The National Society of Colonial Dames of America in Connecticut
Among the many hereditary societies that formed in the later decades of the 19th century, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA), founded in 1892, distinguishes itself as one of the most active and successful groups to pursue a mission of historic preservation. This invitation-only, all-female Society, composed of descendants of…
November 13: One of the 20th Century’s Greatest Speeches – “Freedom or Death”
Invited by celebrated architect and socialite Theodate Pope, and introduced by the equally well-placed and notably outspoken Katherine Houghton Hepburn, a militant English suffragist took the stage at Hartford’s Parson Theatre today in 1913, and delivered what is now regarded as one of the greatest speeches of the twentieth-century. Emmeline Pankhurst, whose unwavering advocacy…
October 28: Activist Celebrities Help A Determined Family Found the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association
Today in 1869, at a meeting in Hartford featuring civil rights luminaries Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe and a celebrity cast of the nationally famous Beecher family, Isabella Beecher Hooker and her husband John formally established the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. Isabella was born into the famous…
October 5: An Angry Public Protests A Tax Betrayal
One of the largest protests in Connecticut history took place today in 1991, as tens of thousands of Connecticans gathered on the lawn of the State Capitol in Hartford to call for the repeal of the brand-new state income tax. 1991 was a tumultuous year in state politics; during the summer, legislators repeatedly clashed…
September 14: Connecticut Ratifies the 19th Amendment, One State Too Late. Or Was It?
Today in 1920, nearly 52 years after they first convened, members of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association watched as the Connecticut General Assembly finally ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving all American women the right to vote. For decades, Connecticut suffragists had picketed, petitioned, and frequently found themselves arrested as they…