A student and professor of medicine, Dr. Ethel Collins Dunham devoted her life to ensuring the care of children throughout the early and mid-20th century.
ReadThe first private gas light companies in Connecticut appeared just before 1850 in New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport.
ReadBlending her aviation and journalism careers, Wethersfield’s Mary Goodrich Jenson pushed the boundaries of both fields.
ReadThe Amos Bull House in Hartford and the Sterling Opera House in Derby are tied for Connecticut’s first listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
ReadHartford’s Holy Trinity Church became the first Roman Catholic church in Connecticut in 1829 and served the community for over 20 years.
ReadThe Armenian genocide during the early 20th century had a profound impact on Armenian communities and their descendants in Connecticut.
ReadOn March 31, 1923, a 56,000-gallon water tank dropped through 4 concrete floors of the Fuller Brush Company Tower.
ReadBest remembered for her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” this Hartford author’s larger legacy is a life dedicated to women’s issues and social reform.
ReadIn 1888, Hartford commuters and city-goers zipped down Wethersfield Avenue in a horseless trolley car for the first time.
ReadFrom Huguenots to French Canadian mill workers to modern immigration, Connecticut has always been a place shaped, in part, by a steady French influence.
ReadIn 1974, Connecticut finally admitted its first African American female lawyer, Bessye Bennett.
ReadGwen Reed was an actress and educational advocate who grew up in Hartford in the early 20th century.
ReadOn February 27, 1936, William Gillette made his last appearance on any Connecticut stage at the Bushnell Memorial auditorium in Hartford.
ReadThe Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building is a significant example of the modernist architectural style that was prevalent in urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 1960s.
ReadOn January 18, 1978, at about 4:20 in the morning, the Hartford Civic Center roof collapsed.
ReadIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, young boys who shined shoes (sometimes 70 hours per week) were the primary breadwinners for many struggling families.
ReadThe Fundamental Orders, inspired by Thomas Hooker’s sermon of May 31, 1638, provided the framework for the government of the Connecticut colony from 1639 to 1662.
ReadHailed as the “Century Celebration,” the evening of December 31, 1900, saw revelry and reflection as individuals throughout the state welcomed the New Year.
ReadA. Everett “Chick” Austin Jr. and his wife, Helen, designed one of the most unique homes of the 20th century in Hartford.
ReadOn December 15, 1814, delegates to the Hartford Convention met in secret at the Old State House in Hartford.
ReadIn the 18th and 19th centuries, the transit was an important opportunity for scientists to calculate the distance between the earth and the sun—the basis for the astronomical unit.
ReadFounded in 1842, this ever-evolving institution is the oldest, continuously operating public art museum in the United States.
ReadUnlike today, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Election Day met with great celebration.
ReadFrom winged death’s heads to weeping willows, gravestone carvings in Connecticut’s historic cemeteries reflect changing attitudes toward mourning and memorialization.
ReadOn October 29, 1764, New Haven printer Thomas Green established a weekly newspaper, the Connecticut Courant, in Hartford.
ReadCurtis Veeder patented a bicycle seat he sold to the Pope Company, and later invented a cyclometer for measuring distances traveled by bicycles.
ReadBorn in Hartford, Laura Wheeler Waring was an eminent portrait artist of prominent African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance.
ReadOpposition to the war in Vietnam manifested itself in Connecticut in many of the same ways it did across the country.
Read“Let monuments be raised in every town, let songs be sung and orations delivered,” urged this state politician and skilled speechmaker.
ReadHenry Deming served as mayor of Hartford and then as the provisional mayor of New Orleans during the Civil War before writing a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.
ReadHartford celebrated the 1908 opening of the Bulkeley Bridge, which connected Hartford and East Hartford, with a three-day extravaganza.
ReadIn the middle of the 1800s, the invention of the typewriter revolutionized the way Americans communicated, including in Connecticut.
ReadIn 1966, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford was featured on the popular TV show, I’ve Got a Secret.
ReadConnecticut’s 1991 “gay-rights law” was one of the state’s first LGBTQ+ civil rights laws and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, and credit.
ReadThis group’s bilingual name reflected its educational mission as well as its dedication to unified, multicultural cooperation for the common good.
ReadSince 1794, Hartford-based Smith-Worthington Saddlery has made tack for horses—along with the occasional ostrich harness and space suit prototype.
ReadOriginally from Hartford, Helen James Chisholm’s career took her all the way to the Pacific to teach and run an orphanage.
ReadThe first Chinese restaurant opened in Hartford in 1898 and evolved as immigrants from different parts of China introduced new tastes.
ReadConnecticut’s 84th governor, William Atchison O’Neill, was born in Hartford on August 11, 1930 but grew up in East Hampton.
ReadOn June 1, 1819, Governor Oliver Wolcott Jr. approved a legislative charter for the Society for Savings in Hartford—the first mutual savings bank in the state.
ReadElisha Root standardized production and made the Colt revolver the first handgun in the world with fully interchangeable parts.
ReadIn Connecticut, Frances Ellen Burr and Isabella Beecher Hooker took up the cause by forming the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) in 1869.
ReadWhile maps serve a utilitarian function at the time of their production, they become snapshots in time of the memories of those who designed them.
ReadD. W. Griffith’s silent movie, the racially charged “Birth of a Nation,” initially played to large audiences in Hartford before meeting with official resistance after World War I.
ReadLouis B. Haas was a Dutch immigrant who opened a retail cigar store, Essman & Haas, on Central Row in Hartford in the late 1840s.
ReadIn 1913, a famous British suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst, gave a powerful and memorable speech on the steps of the Parsons Theater in Hartford.
ReadThe Hartford Circus Fire on July 6, 1944, may be the worst human-caused disaster ever to have taken place in Connecticut.
ReadThe first Latina elected to the Connecticut General Assembly started as a grassroots activist for Hartford’s Puerto Rican community.
ReadCharter Oak Bridge. Charter Oak State College. Charter Oak Park. Why are so many places and things in Connecticut named after a tree?
ReadThe State Theater in Hartford brought residents of all different backgrounds together in the 1950s and ’60s through the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
ReadWDRC is the oldest continuously operated commercial radio station in Connecticut that uses both AM and FM transmissions.
ReadThe Elizabeth Park Rose Garden in Hartford is the oldest municipally operated rose garden in the country.
ReadThis small enclave in the capital city’s west end became home to many of the 19th century’s most celebrated and creative personalities.
ReadThe Kalos Society emerged in the late 1960s as the first gay activist organization in Connecticut
ReadAt the end of the First World War, Hartford found a variety of ways to honor the sacrifices of its servicemen and women.
ReadThe Black Panthers had a significant presence in Connecticut in the 1960s and ’70s, particularly through community programs aimed to serve minorities living in the state’s more urban areas.
ReadPope’s bicycles and automobiles not only gave 19th-century consumers greater personal mobility, they also helped propel social change.
ReadElbert Weinberg was a Hartford-born sculptor who earned international fame for his works, many of which were influenced by his Jewish faith.
ReadHartford’s own leading lady was a lively entertainer whose career spanned over five decades and whose generosity spilled over to various and numerous charities.
ReadA 28-year-old nurse from Hartford, Ruth Hovey served on the battlefields of World War I.
ReadCanon Clinton Jones was a central figure in Connecticut’s LGBTQ+ community and a pioneer for compassionate care, queer visibility, and gender affirmation.
ReadFrom the mid-1800s to the present, Jews have called Connecticut’s capital city home and enriched it with their cultural traditions and civic spirit.
ReadIn their respective tragic but inspiring final American acts, Yung and the Mission reflect the worst and best of the Chinese Exclusion Act era.
ReadHer statues honor the famous, from Thomas Hooker and Helen Keller to Alice Cogswell, the first pupil of what became The American School for the Deaf.
ReadMark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and used his “good-natured” and “devoted” servant, George Griffin, as a likely model for one of literature’s most memorable figures—Jim, the runaway enslaved man.
ReadThe Hartford City Parks Collection comprises a rich archive, documenting Hartford’s pioneering effort to establish and maintain a viable system of municipal parks and connecting parkways between them.
ReadSamuel Lovett Waldo was an early 19th-century portrait artist who worked among such famous colleagues as John Trumbull, Benjamin West, and John Singleton Copley.
ReadEmily Seymour Goodwin Holcombe was an activist and preservationist who took pride in the state’s history, particularly its colonial past.
ReadAetna started out as fire insurance company in Hartford in 1819, but spread into life insurance and is now a global leader in the health insurance industry.
ReadUnion organizer Rebecca Weiner was among the few who proposed to address the social and economic conditions that enabled the world’s oldest profession to thrive in the capital city during the 1800s.
ReadFor over two decades, The Reader’s Feast was the most progressive independent bookstore in the Hartford area and provided a space for literature, community, food, and affirmation.
ReadMore than just a wagon driver and Civil War veteran, Henry Copperthite built a pie empire that started in Connecticut.
ReadDespite both formal and informal attempts to regulate the observance of Daylight Savings Time in Connecticut, it still remains a controversial topic for many state residents.
ReadOn March 9, 1965, protesters held an all-night vigil in front of Governor John Dempsey’s residence in support of the voter registration marchers in Selma, Alabama.
ReadHannah Bunce Watson was one of the first female publishers in America and helped the Hartford Courant survive one of the most challenging times in its history.
ReadThis Hartford suffragist and reformer fought for women’s rights in the first half of the 20th century.
ReadMary Townsend Seymour was a leading organizer, civil rights activist, suffragist, and so much more in Hartford during the early 20th century.
ReadAn entrepreneur’s design for a lighter-than-air vehicle takes flight in the late 1800s and inspires a new state industry.
ReadMars’ landmark memoir of the mid-1800s reveals how enslaved men and women suffered—and resisted—the injustices of bondage.
ReadJames Benajmin Covey, a former slave, was only 14 years old when asked to serve in one of the most publicized trials in American history.
ReadHartford native Samuel Colt built a financial empire on his design and automated production of the revolver.
ReadHartford’s Marietta Canty House is primarily significant for its association with actress Marietta Canty, who received critical acclaim for her performances in theater, radio, motion pictures, and television as well as for her political and social activities.
ReadThe 1988 murder of Richard Reihl, a gay man from Wethersfield, galvanized and mobilized communities to organize and transform LGBTQ+ civil rights legislation in the state for decades to come.
ReadAddie Brown and Rebecca Primus were two free Black women whose lives intersected in Hartford, Connecticut in the 19th century. Letters written between them imply their relationship was more than friendship.
ReadFrom 1927 to 1948, the Metropolitan District Commission built the Saville Dam and flooded the valley to create the Barkhamsted Reservoir, displacing over a thousand people.
ReadThe simultaneous development of accepted mental health practices and LGBTQ+ visibility over the decades offers a chance to examine how psychological research contributed to the discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities.
ReadOn February 7, 1934, the Wadsworth Atheneum debuted the modernist opera Four Saints in Three Acts in its new Avery Memorial Theater.
ReadFounded by Gerson Fox in 1848, G. Fox & Co. went on to become the nation’s largest privately owned department store.
ReadThis 19th-century reformer sought to promote harmonious social and civic behavior by revamping the US school system.
ReadAfter growing up in Hartford, Charles Dillingham explored numerous career paths including newspaper publishing, politics, and—most famously—theatrical managing and producing.
ReadBy the 1850s, better-designed skates and interest in healthful outdoor activities made ice skating an increasingly popular leisure activity.
ReadArthur Everett “Chick” Austin Jr., director of the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1927 to 1944, put Hartford on the cultural map.
ReadThis Hartford dentist played key role in the development of anesthesia but competing claims to discovery obscured his accomplishment.
ReadLetters between a sister in Farmington and a brother in Hartford reveal details about daily life at a time when the distance between the two communities wasn’t so easily traveled.
ReadThe Connecticut gubernatorial election of 1817 transferred power from the Federalists to the Republican Party, ending the Congregational Church’s domination.
ReadEmile Gauvreau, former managing editor of the Hartford Courant, became a pioneer in the rise of tabloid journalism.
ReadWidely accepted as the first cookbook written by an American, Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery was published by Hudson & Goodwin of Hartford in 1796.
ReadAlfred Howe Terry’s greatest achievement in the Civil War was his capture of Fort Fisher in January, 1865.
ReadIn the 1960s, Estelle Griswold challenged Connecticut’s restrictive birth control law, making it all the way to the Supreme Court.
ReadThe Palmer Raids, launched in Connecticut in 1919, were part of the “Red Scare” paranoia that resulted in numerous civil rights violations committed by law enforcement officials.
ReadBenjamin Hutchins Coe helped teach Americans how to draw through the publication of numerous art manuals, many focused on Connecticut-inspired landscapes.
ReadA significant wave of immigration to the United States from the West Indies began in the 1940s, spurred by labor shortages during World War II.
ReadIn all, 120 Chinese students came to live and study in New England. When they returned home, they served as diplomats, engineers, naval officers, physicians, educators, administrators, and magistrates.
ReadThis video, taken in October of 1936, shows the Hindenburg sailing over Hartford, a short seven months before its destruction.
ReadOn October 10, 1973, Alexander Calder’s sculpture, Stegosaurus, was dedicated in Hartford.
ReadHome to companies such as Royal and Underwood, Connecticut became an important manufacturing center for typewriters in the early 20th century.
ReadOn October 4, 1916, the Ulysses Simpson Grant Memorial Tablet was officially unveiled in the north lobby of the Connecticut State Capitol building in Hartford.
Read“Industry,” also known as “The Craftsman,” by Evelyn Longman, resides in Hartford and is a celebration of the working class and their contribution to society.
ReadIn 1926, the Hartford Blues became the first and only NFL team to call Connecticut home. After a disappointing season, the NFL voted them out of the league.
ReadA powerful and popular preacher, Thomas Hooker led a group of Puritans out of Massachusetts in 1636 to settle new lands that eventually became the city of Hartford.
ReadThe Black Panther Party in Connecticut fought for an end to discriminatory legal and regulatory practices, often clashing with authorities to achieve their goals.
ReadIn 1886, the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch was dedicated to honor the 4,000 Hartford residents who served, and the nearly 400 who died, in the Civil War.
ReadSister to two of the most famous figures of the 19th century–Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher–Catharine Esther Beecher achieved fame in her own right as an educator, reformer, and writer.
ReadAbhorrent conditions characterized life in Hartford’s Seyms Street Jail for much of its century-long service to the county.
ReadNo matter his field of endeavor—from automotive design to wireless radio—this multitalented creator had a hand in key developments of the early 1900s.
ReadConnecticut Protestants wanted to cleanse the church of what they saw as corruption, and to return to the simplicity and purity of early Christian worship.
ReadThe earliest labor union for African American workers in Hartford appeared in 1902 with the birth of the Colored Waiters and Cooks Local 359.
ReadIn 1828, Jesse Olney published A Practical System of Modern Geography, which revolutionized the way the subject was taught in schools during the 19th century.
Read“There shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation.”
ReadOn August 22, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt rode through the streets of Hartford in an electric automobile.
ReadOn August 21, 1856, the Charter Oak, a noted landmark and symbol of Hartford and Connecticut, fell during a severe wind and rain storm.
ReadOn July 29, 1871, a ceremonial train ran along the new 44-mile track built by the Connecticut Valley Railroad.
ReadOn July 26, 1860, the Hartford Wide-Awakes welcomed the Newark, New Jersey, Wide-Awakes to a banquet and ratification meeting at Hartford’s City Hall.
ReadOn July 12, 1918, Connecticut suffragists rallied in Hartford and Simsbury to appeal to President Woodrow Wilson for help in getting women the right to vote.
ReadCalled the worst disaster in Hartford’s history, the fire killed 168 and injured 487, including many children.
ReadHartford native Dwight Tryon enjoyed a long, successful career as a landscape painter and teacher with studios in New York City and Massachusetts.
ReadOne of the great financiers of the late 19th and early 20th century, J. P. Morgan was born (and spent much of his youth) in Hartford, Connecticut.
ReadIn early June 1636, Puritan religious leader Reverend Thomas Hooker left the Boston area with one hundred men, women, and children and set out for the Connecticut valley.
ReadBoasting 15,000 bushes and about 800 varieties of roses, it is the oldest municipally operated rose garden in the country.
ReadOn May 26, 1647, Alse Young of Windsor was the first person on record to be executed for witchcraft in the 13 colonies.
ReadA creed as much as a style, Modernism rejected the forms of the past in favor of an architecture that reflected a new spirit of living.
ReadAuthor Charles Dudley Warner penned significant volumes of work, leaving an impact through his enduring social commentary in the second half of the 19th century.
ReadOn May 4, 1826, the great American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church was born to a wealthy Hartford family.
ReadThe Hartford Soldiers’ Aid Society was one of the most important relief organizations during the Civil War and provided new opportunities for women in the public sphere.
ReadJeremiah Wadsworth was a sea-going merchant, commissary general to the Continental army, and founder of the nation’s first banks.
ReadThomas Hopkins Gallaudet is acclaimed today for pioneering education for the deaf in the US and establishing the American School for the Deaf in Connecticut.
ReadFrederick Law Olmsted re-designed the grounds on the campus of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane to help induce healing and serenity.
ReadWhile Connecticut proved to be one of the more progressive states when it came to child labor laws, it still took federal legislation to protect children in the workplace.
ReadPopular poet, singer, and activist Carl Sandburg had numerous connections to Connecticut and promoted social reform in the early 20th century.
ReadMajor league hockey debuted in Hartford in 1975 and the Hartford Whalers remained a staple of the Connecticut landscape for twenty-three years.
ReadA tenacious and long-lasting boxer, Battalino went on to win the world professional featherweight championship.
ReadIn Connecticut, African Americans played organized baseball as early as 1868, some of the game’s biggest stars played for teams throughout the state.
ReadOn March 24, 1863, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, a 20-year-old Quaker and abolitionist from Pennsylvania, spoke at Hartford’s Touro Hall.
ReadJoseph “Mad Dog” Taborsky earned his nickname for the brutal methods he employed robbing and murdering his victims.
ReadIsabella Beecher was a suffragist and spiritualist who shunned traditional female roles while alienating large parts of her family during her brother’s adultery scandal.
ReadOn March 5, 1860, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Republicans of Hartford at City Hall.
ReadWilliam Gillette was an American actor, playwright, and stage director most famous for his stage portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and for the stone castle he built in East Haddam.
ReadFor approximately one hundred years, Connecticut’s “Black Governors” were used by white authorities to help maintain order among the black population.
ReadNancy Jackson sued for her freedom in 1837. Her victory helped further the abolitionist cause in a state slowly moving toward outlawing slavery.
ReadIn addition to helping found Nation of Islam Temple No. 14 in Hartford, Malcolm X spent considerable time in Connecticut rallying supporters to his cause.
ReadDuring the Great Migration of the early 1900s, African Americans from the rural South relocated to Hartford and other Northern cities in search of better prospects.
ReadRace riots in Hartford during the 1960s came about thanks to a century of frustration and political inaction surrounding disparate standards of living among different races and ethnicities,
ReadThough his work depicts people of different classes and cultures, ironically, no portraits of African Americans survive from his years in Hartford.
ReadOn January 29, 1917, watchmen discovered a fire on the ground floor of the G. Fox & Co. building complex located on Main Street in Hartford.
ReadErnest Borgnine, a native of Hamden who served ten years in navy, became one of the world’s most recognized and revered actors.
ReadThe Fundamental Orders represent what many consider to be the first written constitution in the Western world.
ReadThe funeral of America’s first great munitions maker was spectacular—certainly the most spectacular ever seen in the state’s capital city.
ReadJames Williams was an escaped slave who became a janitor at Trinity College from the institution’s founding in 1823 until his death in 1878.
ReadThis profitable exchange brought wealth and sought-after goods to the state but came at the price of supporting slavery in the bargain.
ReadConnecticut joined several other states and the District of Columbia mandating seat belt usage for children and adults in automobiles in 1985.
ReadOn December 25, 1890, The Hartford Courant reported that Christmas Eve had seen crowded stores and train delays of up to an hour due to heavy travel.
ReadWhile the Barkhamsted Reservoir project proved successful, it cost 1,000 displaced residents their homes and livelihoods.
ReadThe Wadsworth Atheneum contributed to home front morale and fundraisers during World War II.
ReadThe Heublein Restaurant served its thirsty customers pre-mixed cocktails that became so wildly popular they had to build a distillery just to meet demand.
ReadSamuel Clemens experienced America’s rapid change—from westward expansion to industrialization‚ the end of slavery‚ advancements in technology‚ and foreign wars.
ReadBeatrice Fox Auerbach was pioneering retail executive who ran the G. Fox & Co. department store and numerous philanthropic benefiting people in Hartford and around the world.
ReadMean-spirited, repressed souls or persecuted refugees and rugged egalitarians? Connecticut’s state historian sets the record straight.
ReadLack of refrigeration and higher bacteria counts in tidal waters once made summer months a dangerous time to eat oysters.
ReadWell before the Salem trials, Connecticut residents were executing “witches.” Connecticut is home to what was most likely the first execution of its kind in colonial America.
ReadOn October 27, 1841, the steamboat Greenfield traveled down the Connecticut River, transporting people to the Temperance Convention in Middletown.
ReadBefore the expense of having two capital cities became too great, both Hartford and New Haven served that function. Hartford became the sole capital in 1875.
ReadHartford’s Louis Peterson was a groundbreaking African American playwright in the 20th century.
ReadHartford’s Anna Sokolow became one of the most important figures in modern dance during the 20th century.
ReadIn the early 1900s, Italians made new lives for themselves in Hartford.
ReadOn October 5, 1826, Elizabeth Jarvis was born in Hartford.
ReadOn December 8, 1961, the casual disposal of a cigarette spread raging flames and deadly smoke through Hartford Hospital.
ReadIn 1971, to eliminate the state’s budget deficit, Connecticut legislators approved a tax on income. Just forty-two days later, they repealed it, instead voting to increase the state’s sales tax.
ReadSeptember 17, 1879 was a day of celebration in the City of Hartford when more than 100,000 people came to the city to celebrate Battle Flag Day.
ReadSol LeWitt, whose work includes drawings and sculptures, is identified with the late 20th century Minimalist and Conceptual art movements.
ReadLes Payne grew up in Hartford and became one of the best-known African-American journalists in the United States.
ReadFounded in 1823, Trinity College has evolved alongside the city of Hartford for nearly 200 years.
ReadOnce the proposed site of Albert Pope’s industrial village, Pope Park has served the recreation needs of the Hartford community for over one hundred years.
ReadOn August 2, 1955, the great American poet Wallace Stevens died at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.
ReadOn August 1, 1814, a young teacher named Lydia Huntley opened a school for young women in Hartford.
ReadEventually taking the name the “Hartford Wits,” influential figures of the 18th century got together to write poetry that documented the state of the times.
ReadAlbert Pope’s company not only played a prominent role in developing improved bicycle designs, it also developed the market for them.
ReadIn the summer of 1976, Colt Park offered rock and roll fans an escape from troubled times through a series of concerts by some legendary acts.
ReadInspired by his friendship with Mark Twain, Joseph Twichell took up such causes as labor rights, immigration, education, and interfaith advocacy.
ReadOrganized jai alai came to Connecticut in the 1970s, but charges of corruption soon brought the sport to an end in the Nutmeg State.
ReadIn the late 19th century, George Capewell formed the Capewell Horse Nail Company, which mass produced horseshoe nails.
ReadFor a variety of reasons, the Eastons were one of New England’s most notable 19th-century African American families.
ReadWriter and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, invented more than tall tales and novels.
ReadIn what would later be described as “the first flight of a man-carrying dirigible in America,” aeronaut Mark Quinlan piloted a machine designed and patented by Charles F. Ritchel.
ReadBased in Hartford, “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar” was one of America’s most popular radio shows during the 15 years it aired.
ReadAt the height of the Great Depression, unemployed men living around Hartford, became a cheap source of labor to help build Brainard airport.
ReadGovernment formed with the consent of the people was a radical idea in the age of nations ruled by monarchs, emperors, and tsars.
ReadBy linking disparate social and political movements of the early 20th century, activist Josephine Bennett was “intersectional” well before the term was invented.
ReadOn May 25, 1909, the cornerstone was laid for the new State Library and Supreme Court building in Hartford.
ReadSituated in Bushnell Park, the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch honors the more than 4,000 Hartford men who fought for the Union during the Civil War.
ReadHartford-based inventor Albert Pope saw his first bicycle at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and was so impressed that he went to Europe to study how bicycles were made.
ReadOne of the most popular actresses of the 20th century, Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford and lived much of her later life in Old Saybrook.
ReadIn the 1960s, Hartford high school students published a controversial newspaper that sparked debates about freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
ReadOn April 26, 1822, Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford and became the founder of landscape architecture in America,
ReadDespite the wealth found in some sections of the city, the economic volatility of the Gilded Age produced hard times for residents of Hartford.
ReadOn April 15, 1817, the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opened with seven pupils in Hartford.
ReadThe Northern Student Movement motivated college students to contribute their energies to important social causes such as literacy and civil rights.
ReadThe famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass had several connections to Connecticut, including run-ins with a number of the state’s vocal slavery proponents.
ReadAs cities switched from gas lamps to electric lighting, one observer noted that Hartford was “far in the lead of any other city in the world in the use of electricity for light and power per capita.”
ReadFounded in 1906 by Alfred C. Fuller, the Fuller Brush Company was one of Connecticut’s most notable corporations.
ReadWhile the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City is one of the most famous tragedies behind the organized labor movement, Connecticut had its share of equally dangerous work environments in the early 20th century.
ReadThis Hartford librarian played a leading role in national efforts to transform libraries into public centers that welcomed patrons from all walks of life.
ReadConnecticut’s Old State House is a memorial to many of the legislative advances made in Connecticut during the most formative years of the United States.
ReadWomen’s fight for the right to vote in the Constitution State may be dated to 1869, when the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) was organized.
ReadOn March 7, 1861 Gideon Welles was officially appointed into Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet as Secretary of the Navy.
ReadAt 2 pm on March 2, 1854, the power of steam incorrectly managed and harnessed wreaked havoc at the railroad-car factory Fales & Gray Car Works in Hartford.
ReadOn February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt received a patent for a “revolving gun” US patent number 138, later known as 9430X.
ReadHartford’s Union Station and Allyn Hall caught fire on two different days in February. Only one still stands today.
ReadIn the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 1889, the Park Central Hotel in Hartford was ripped apart by a steam boiler explosion.
ReadHartford’s first major redevelopment project, Constitution Plaza was built as part of the urban renewal initiatives in the 1950s and ’60s.
ReadThe building of I-84 and I-91 may have increased interstate transportation, but city planners and special interest groups continue to grapple with the legacy of these projects.
ReadOn February 4, 1864, most of Colt’s East Armory, located in Hartford, burned to the ground.
ReadPersistent segregation is the historic legacy of steering and blockbusting, two discriminatory tactics that played a role in shaping suburban neighborhoods.
ReadJames Mars became one of the most prominent African Americans in the region, and a leader of Hartford’s African American community.
Read1960’s photographs from The Hartford Times offer a look back at a decade of protest that focused local and national attention on the civil rights of African Americans, the war in Vietnam, and the inequalities facing women.
ReadChurch bells chimed and factory whistles blew and automobiles, trains, and trolleys throughout the state came to a standstill.
ReadIn the early morning of January 18, 1978, the roof of the sports coliseum collapsed onto 10,000 empty stadium seats.
ReadOn January 5, 1854, Hartford voters approved spending over $100,000 in public funds for land that would become a municipal park.
ReadJupiter Hammon, who endured life-long enslavement, became the first African American writer to be published in America when his 88-line poem, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries”, was published.
ReadCalled the “greatest mobilization of police in the city’s history,” the event that brought law enforcement out in force to Keney Park was not a riot, not a strike, but a concert by this singer-actor and activist.
ReadBorn in Hartford, Alfred Howe Terry studied law before heroically capturing Fort Fisher during the Civil War.
ReadThis Charles D. Brownell painting from the mid-1850s epitomizes the importance that the Charter Oak tree held in the hearts and minds of Connecticut citizens.
ReadAs a result of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944, Connecticut enacted new, strict fire safety regulations for public performances.
ReadOn July 3, 1860, Charlotte Anna Perkins (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
ReadSamuel Colt, the man who revolutionized firearms manufacturing in the United States, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 19, 1814.
ReadThis bucolic oasis on Hartford’s western edge became home to great literary talents, social reformers, politicians, and other nationally-regarded luminaries of the mid-to-late 1800s.
ReadOn June 8, 1906, French stage and film actress Sarah Bernhardt appeared at Foot Guard Hall in Hartford.
ReadConnecticut’s ancient system of town-based representation ensured the continuation of small town values and perspectives.
ReadIn 1698 the General Court reorganized itself to deal more effectively with Connecticut’s complex new problems.
ReadDuring the early 19th century, the General Assembly was slow to deal with rising crime, poverty and the other social costs of a rapidly changing society.
ReadIn the mid-19th century, Connecticut looked toward changing its electoral processes as well as its civil rights record.
ReadEarly 20th century life in Connecticut was marked by the election of 1912, US entry into World War I, and the Great Depression.
ReadThe late 1800s witnessed significant challenges to Connecticut’s voting and taxation laws.
ReadThe era of Wilbur Cross and the Great Depression transitioned into World War II and state control by Democrat mastermind John Bailey.
ReadConnecticut recast its constitution, reapportioned its House and Senate, and struggled with providing equal rights to all races and socio-economic classes in the state.
ReadThe state generated revenue for urban renewal and social programs through gaming and income tax initiatives.
ReadCommissioned by Samuel Colt’s wife, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and James G. Batterson designed the Colt memorial monument in Hartford’s Cedar Hill Cemetery.
ReadThe Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame pays tribute to philanthropist Dotha Bushnell Hillyer, patron of a living memorial to her father, the Reverend Horace Bushnell.
ReadThe Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame pays tribute to Hartford native Barbara McClintock, a famed geneticist and Nobel Prize winner.
ReadConnecticut Women’s Hall of Fame pays tribute to Hartford native Mary Townsend Seymour, a pioneering advocate for equal rights for African Americans and co-founder of Hartford’s chapter of the NAACP.
ReadThe Forlorn Soldier, a statue by James G. Batterson, survived years of neglect, punishing weather, and movements to tear it down, and yet still serves an important purpose in Civil War commemoration.
ReadThis landmark case not only drew attention to inequalities in area school systems, it focused efforts on reform.
ReadYour Town’s History in Video: Harriet Beecher Stowe House
ReadOn October 29, 1764, New Haven printer Thomas Green began publishing The Hartford Courant (then known as The Connecticut Courant) in Hartford, Connecticut.
ReadHarriet Beecher Stowe’s most famous book is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was published in 1852.
ReadErected in 1874, Hartford’s earliest baseball stadium was the Base Ball Grounds in Colt Park, on the corner of Wyllys Street and Hendricxsen Avenue.
ReadFather Leonard Tartaglia was sometimes called Hartford’s “Hoodlum Priest.” Like the 1961 film of the same name, Tartaglia ministered to the city’s poor and disenfranchised.
ReadThis story takes a look at the statue’s history, its care, conservation, and journey to the Connecticut State Capitol building where the Forlorn Soldier stands in all its glory.
ReadIn the 1800s, this Connecticut hospital stood at the forefront of medical practice in the US in its new approaches to the treatment of mental illness.
ReadHow does a colonial town become a modern city? A unique collection, with documents dating to the 1630s, helps provide answers.
ReadHistorical data reveals long-term patterns of inequality that can be traced back to now-illegal practices adopted by federal and private lenders in the 1930s.
ReadColt Firearms has been one of the most prominent industries in Hartford for over 150 years.
ReadBy the 1870s, the State’s practice of having dual capitols in Hartford and New Haven was considered awkward and ineffective.
ReadThis naturalization ceremony in Hartford demonstrates the importance of the immigrant community in Connecticut.
ReadArt and culture have always played an important role in Connecticut’s long and diverse history.
ReadThe Park Street Festival is an annual Puerto Rican celebration held in the heart of Hartford’s Puerto Rican community on Park Street.
ReadJames G. Batterson was an artist, inventor, and businessman. He helped commemorate the Civil War through his proficiency with stone.
ReadCensus data, from colonial times on up to the present, is a key resource for those who study the ways in which communities change with the passage of time.
ReadCapital Community College students explored important figures from Hartford’s history and their immigrant, migrant, or ethnic communities that culminated in semester-long research projects.
ReadConnecticut’s Cultural Treasures is a series of 50 five-minute film vignettes that profiles a variety of the state’s most notable cultural resources.
ReadAs one of the earliest voluntary busing programs in the US, Project Concern sought to address educational inequalities.
ReadConnecticut’s Cultural Treasures is a series of 50 five-minute film vignettes that profiles a variety of the state’s most notable cultural resources.
ReadConnecticut’s Cultural Treasures is a series of 50 five-minute film vignettes that profiles a variety of the state’s most notable cultural resources.
ReadYour Town’s History in Video: Old Hartford State House
ReadYour Town’s History in Video: Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch
ReadYour Town’s History in Video: Hartford’s Ancient Burial Ground
ReadYour Town’s History in Video: Connecticut Historical Society
ReadOn July 22, 1769, Eli Todd was born in New Haven and in 1824 became the first director of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane in Hartford.
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