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…
Tag: women’s suffrage
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…
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…
August 17: Catherine Flanagan’s Two (Very Different) Trips To Washington
Today in 1917, 28-year-old Connecticut activist and women’s suffrage advocate Catherine Flanagan was arrested for picketing in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. Flanagan and a small group of fellow suffragists had been picketing for 12 days in the same location, carrying a variety of banners bedecked in purple and gold (the…
August 16: The Bar Unbarred — Connecticut’s First Woman Lawyer
Today in 1843, Mary Hall was born in Marlborough, Connecticut. Growing up on a farm in antebellum America, when high Victorian culture placed an increasingly stringent emphasis on female domesticity, made her perhaps one of the most unlikely candidates to defy gender norms and become the first woman in Connecticut to be admitted to…
May 28: Preparing Connecticut Women to Assume Civic Power
On May 21, 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a constitutional amendment that would give American women the right to vote — legislation that would eventually become the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even though the legislation still had to be approved by the U.S. Senate and ratified…
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…
May 28: Preparing Connecticut Women to Exercise Their Rights as Citizens
On May 21, 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a constitutional amendment that would give American women the right to vote — legislation that would eventually become the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even though the legislation still had to be approved by the U.S. Senate and ratified…
November 13: Emmeline Pankhurst Delivers One of the 20th Century’s Greatest Speeches – “Freedom or Death”
Today in 1913, British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst delivered her famous “Freedom or Death” speech to a crowd of supporters at the Parsons Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. The famous activist, well known to Americans for the aggressive tactics she employed at suffragist rallies in England, was invited to speak by architect Theodate Pope of Farmington,…
October 28: The Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association Formed
On this day in 1869, at a meeting in Hartford attended by civil rights luminaries including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and William Lloyd Garrison, Isabella Beecher Hooker and her husband John formally established the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. Isabella was born into the famous Beecher clan of Litchfield in 1822. She and…
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 Women’s 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…
August 17: Catherine Flanagan’s Two Trips To Washington
Today in 1917, 28-year-old Connecticut activist and women’s suffrage advocate Catharine Flanagan was arrested for picketing in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. Flanagan and a small group of fellow suffragists had been picketing for twelve days in the same location, carrying a variety of banners bedecked in purple and gold (the…