Sarah Harris Fayerweather was a Black activist and abolitionist who fought for school integration in the early 19th century.
ReadSarah Harris Fayerweather was a Black activist and abolitionist who fought for school integration in the early 19th century.
ReadOn November 12, 2008, Connecticut issued its first marriage licenses for same-sex couples after Kerrigan et al. v. Commissioner of Public Health et al..
ReadPediatrician Benjamin Spock revolutionized childcare in the 20th century before becoming a leading figure in the anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s.
ReadDr. Alice Hamilton was a leading authority on industrial diseases and the first female faculty member at Harvard before she retired to Hadlyme, Connecticut.
ReadElihu Burritt, a blacksmith by trade, became an advocate for peace around the world throughout the 19th century.
ReadIn the summer of 1944, a young Martin Luther King Jr. worked at the Simsbury tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers, Inc.
ReadOpposition to the war in Vietnam manifested itself in Connecticut in many of the same ways it did across the country.
ReadYale University’s failed merger with Vassar College—a women’s college in Poughkeepsie, New York—in the late-1960s gave Yale the final push into coeducation.
Read“We are no longer the little old tribe that lives upon the hill. We are now the Nation that lives upon the hill.”
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.
ReadConnecticut was the first state to require a literacy test of would-be voters and, even as the practice came under fire as a tool of discrimination, the state held steady until 1970.
ReadEast Haddam’s Casey Miller and Kate Swift were both outspoken advocates for eradicating gender bias in the English language.
ReadIn Connecticut, Frances Ellen Burr and Isabella Beecher Hooker took up the cause by forming the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) in 1869.
ReadOn August 11, 1943, conscientious objectors and other prisoners staged a 135-day hunger strike to protest racial segregation in the Danbury prison’s dining hall.
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.
ReadIn 1913, a famous British suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst, gave a powerful and memorable speech on the steps of the Parsons Theater in Hartford.
ReadRosamond Danielson was a respected suffragist, World War I worker, and philanthropist from Putnam Heights.
ReadNew Haven lawyer Constance Baker Motley became famous for arguing some of the most important cases of the civil rights movement.
ReadThe first Latina elected to the Connecticut General Assembly started as a grassroots activist for Hartford’s Puerto Rican community.
ReadThe white supremacist organization, the KKK, first organized in Connecticut during the 1920s, promoting themselves as part of the nativist movement.
ReadThe State Theater in Hartford brought residents of all different backgrounds together in the 1950s and ’60s through the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
ReadFrom indigenous practices to Progressive-era projects, changing attitudes toward natural resources have shaped and reshaped the state’s landscape.
ReadOn June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Griswold v. Connecticut.
ReadThe Kalos Society emerged in the late 1960s as the first gay activist organization in Connecticut
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.
ReadCanon Clinton Jones was a central figure in Connecticut’s LGBTQ+ community and a pioneer for compassionate care, queer visibility, and gender affirmation.
ReadThe seemingly contradictory calls to use or preserve the state’s natural resources are, in fact, closely related efforts that increasingly work in tandem—but not without conflict.
ReadReformer Vivien Kellems fought her most famous battle against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as she sought tax reform for businesses and single people.
ReadMarian Anderson performed and traveled in segregated spaces and emerged as one of the great singers of the 20th century.
ReadMarian Anderson performed and traveled in segregated spaces and emerged as one of the great singers of the 20th century.
ReadThese women from all walks of life had one thing in common: they had been jailed for demonstrating in support of women’s right to vote.
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.
ReadConnecticut played host to new, vast populations of Italian, Polish, and French Canadian immigrants who helped reinvent the state’s cultural identity.
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.
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.
ReadThe voting booth and the shop floor were two important arenas in the fight for women’s equality.
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.
ReadBerlin-born Emma Hart Willard used her passion for learning to create new educational opportunities for women and foster the growth of the co-ed system.
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.
ReadEdward Alexander Bouchet was a physicist who was among Yale’s first African American students, and reportedly became the first African American in the United States to earn a PhD.
ReadIn 1969, the Black Panther Trials brought national attention to New Haven as prosecutors charged members of the radical movement with murdering one of their own.
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.
ReadAbigail and Julia Smith of Glastonbury (along with Isabella Beecher Hooker) fought for a woman’s right to speak at town meetings and have a say in government.
ReadIda Tarbell became one of the most famous “muckraking” journalists in 19th century America, thanks largely to her investigation of the Standard Oil Company.
ReadIda Tarbell became one of the most famous “muckraking” journalists in 19th century America, thanks largely to her investigation of the Standard Oil Company.
ReadOn December 8, 1810, Elihu Burritt was born in New Britain, Connecticut, to a farming family and became a leading pacifist of his time.
ReadIt is only in recent decades that the people of Wilton moved forward, albeit divisively, with plans to allow the sale of alcohol in their town.
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.
ReadDenied the right to free assembly in public spaces, Connecticut workers joined in a larger national movement of civil disobedience.
ReadSites along the Connecticut Freedom Trail mark key events in the quest to achieve freedom and social equality for African Americans in the state.
ReadOne of the more controversial cartoonists of the early 20th century, Art Young lived much of his life in Bethel. Residents later founded the Art Young Gallery in his memory.
ReadThe Black Panther Party in Connecticut fought for an end to discriminatory legal and regulatory practices, often clashing with authorities to achieve their goals.
ReadThe earliest labor union for African American workers in Hartford appeared in 1902 with the birth of the Colored Waiters and Cooks Local 359.
ReadAmos Beman spent much of his life a religious leader and social activist in New Haven, fighting the stereotypes and other obstacles he encountered because of his race.
ReadIn 1870, Connecticut ratified the 15th Amendment, but poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and other means of disenfranchising African Americans remained in place.
ReadSenator Frank Brandegee of New London vehemently opposed progressive legislation at the national level, particularly when it came to the issue of women’s suffrage.
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.
ReadIn 1850, this educator, prominent abolitionist, and outdoorsman founded The Gunnery, a school in Washington, Connecticut.
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.
ReadAttorney General John H. Light made his pro-suffrage stance public at a time when such advocacy could still lead to criticism
ReadThis skilled orator championed woman suffrage, temperance, and the cause of anti-slavery but scandal nearly derailed his career.
ReadThe internationally known author, political activist, and lecturer, Helen Keller, made her final home in Easton.
ReadOn May 9, 1800, the man who became a catalyst for the Civil War was born in an 18th-century saltbox house in West Torringford.
ReadAmos Bronson Alcott was an educator and reformer born in Wolcott, Connecticut and father to best-selling author, Louisa May Alcott.
ReadOn April 19, 1971, Vietnam veterans groups from Hartford, New Haven, and Stamford joined demonstrations in Washington, DC.
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.
ReadOn April 15, 1861, the women of Bridgeport created the nation’s first soldiers’ aid society during the American Civil War.
ReadDr. Emily Dunning Barringer was the first female ambulance surgeon in New York City and the first female physician to work as an intern in a New York City hospital.
ReadIn Connecticut, African Americans played organized baseball as early as 1868, some of the game’s biggest stars played for teams throughout the state.
ReadVera Wilhelmine Buch Weisbord was a labor activist who helped organize trade unions and strikes that shaped the labor movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
ReadOn March 24, 1863, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, a 20-year-old Quaker and abolitionist from Pennsylvania, spoke at Hartford’s Touro Hall.
ReadBy refusing to pay unfair taxes, these siblings became national symbols of discrimination suffered by women and of the struggle of the individual against government.
ReadOn March 6, 1879, Elihu Burritt “the learned blacksmith” died in New Britain.
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.
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.
ReadA runaway slave, evading the legal realities of the Fugitive Slave Law while working aboard the steamship Hero, jumped ship in East Haddam, narrowly avoiding the slave catchers that awaited him in Hartford.
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,
ReadThousands of Black Southern students, including a young Martin Luther King Jr., came north to work in Connecticut’s tobacco fields.
ReadPollution of Connecticut’s waters by industrial waste and sewage in the decades after the Civil War was arguably the state’s first modern environmental crisis.
ReadDespite the known dangers of prolonged exposure to mercury, the hat-making industry was slow to safeguard workers against its toxic effects.
ReadIn 1967, the United Illuminating Company proposed to build a nuclear power plant on Cockenoe Island off the coast of Westport, but grassroots activism ultimately scuttled that plan.
ReadOn October 27, 1841, the steamboat Greenfield traveled down the Connecticut River, transporting people to the Temperance Convention in Middletown.
ReadConnecticut’s struggles with the issue of capital punishment date back to its earliest days as a colony.
ReadIn the late 1800s, Wallingford was home to a small branch of the Oneida Community.
ReadLes Payne grew up in Hartford and became one of the best-known African-American journalists in the United States.
ReadWhile the peace movement in Litchfield was short-lived, it provides a reminder of the disparity in public opinion during the first few turbulent months of the Civil War.
ReadToiling in dangerous conditions beneath the Connecticut River’s surface for only $2.50 a day, African American workers dug the foundation for the Bulkeley Bridge.
ReadThe Colonization Society of Connecticut was part of a national movement that arose before the Civil War to promote emigration of free Black people to Africa.
ReadIn the wake of a 1912 trolley campaign, the woman’s suffrage movement rapidly gained ground across Connecticut.
ReadIn 1853, in cities and villages across Britain and Europe, throngs of admirers pushed to catch a glimpse of a barely 5-foot-tall writer from America whose best-selling novel had taken slavery to task.
ReadFor a variety of reasons, the Eastons were one of New England’s most notable 19th-century African American families.
ReadAt the height of the Great Depression, unemployed men living around Hartford, became a cheap source of labor to help build Brainard airport.
ReadOn June 1, 1968, American author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller died at the age of 87.
ReadWriter and suffragist Mary Hall studied law under John Hooker and became Connecticut’s first female attorney.
ReadBy linking disparate social and political movements of the early 20th century, activist Josephine Bennett was “intersectional” well before the term was invented.
ReadRuins are all that remain of the birthplace of this transformative figure in US history.
ReadAfter passage of the 19th Amendment, Elizabeth W. Coe of Waterbury argued that women should be granted the right to serve on jury panels.
ReadIn the 1960s, Hartford high school students published a controversial newspaper that sparked debates about freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
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.
ReadDespite the fact that the women in this well-known photograph are unidentified, Connecticut was home to many important figures in women’s struggle for equal rights.
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.
ReadIn the early 20th century, girls working at the Waterbury Clock Company faced death and disease from exposure to radium in the workplace.
ReadThis Hartford librarian played a leading role in national efforts to transform libraries into public centers that welcomed patrons from all walks of life.
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.
ReadWhile residents of Andover and other nearby towns enjoy the property’s 159 acres, Andover Lake played in challenging racial boundaries during the Civil Rights Era.
ReadHartford’s first major redevelopment project, Constitution Plaza was built as part of the urban renewal initiatives in the 1950s and ’60s.
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.
ReadConnecticut enacted gradual emancipation in 1784 but the abolition of slavery would not occur until 1848.
ReadConnecticut instituted a Poor Law in the 17th century to comply with a directive from the British government that the colony ensure for the care of the poor within its borders
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.
ReadAfter a decades-long struggle, women in Connecticut and across the US gained a say in government.
ReadThe early years of the 20th century were a time of vigorous political and social reform.
ReadIn the mid-19th century, Connecticut looked toward changing its electoral processes as well as its civil rights record.
ReadOrganized labor grew strong during wartime while discriminatory practices in housing and education persisted throughout the state.
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.
ReadConnecticut replaced town-based representation with legislative districts while the state struggled to supply equal opportunities across race and class lines.
ReadThe state generated revenue for urban renewal and social programs through gaming and income tax initiatives.
ReadIn the years following the Civil War, Connecticut’s transformation to an urban, industrial state intensified.
ReadOn March 18, 1965, about 90 Connecticut residents boarded a plane at Bradley Airport to participate in the Civil Rights protest marches over voter registration rights in Alabama.
ReadThe Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame pays tribute to Easton resident Helen Keller, an inspirational champion for the disabled.
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.
ReadThis landmark case not only drew attention to inequalities in area school systems, it focused efforts on reform.
ReadThe design of this state facility in Middletown reflects 19th-century beliefs about the environment’s ability to influence mental health.
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.
ReadIdeals advanced during the American Revolution inspired many of the state’s religious and political leaders to question and oppose slavery in the late 1700s.
ReadAs one of the earliest voluntary busing programs in the US, Project Concern sought to address educational inequalities.
ReadIn February of 1889, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill making the first Monday of each September a legal holiday.
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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