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Social Movements


Cabinet card portrait of a woman looking to the side

[Archived] Sarah Harris Fayerweather

Sarah Harris Fayerweather was a Black activist and abolitionist who fought for school integration in the early 19th century.

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Cabinet card portrait of a woman looking to the side

Sarah Harris Fayerweather

Sarah Harris Fayerweather was a Black activist and abolitionist who fought for school integration in the early 19th century.

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Newspaper clipping with a large photograph of two people getting married with the headline "More than Partners"

Connecticut Issues Same-Sex Marriage Licenses for the First Time – Today In History: November 12

On November 12, 2008, Connecticut issued its first marriage licenses for same-sex couples after Kerrigan et al. v. Commissioner of Public Health et al..

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Benjamin Spock: Raising the World’s Children

Pediatrician Benjamin Spock revolutionized childcare in the 20th century before becoming a leading figure in the anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s.

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Black and white profile portrait of a woman looking to the side.

Alice Hamilton: The Nation’s Leading Expert on Industrial Diseases

Dr. Alice Hamilton was a leading authority on industrial diseases and the first female faculty member at Harvard before she retired to Hadlyme, Connecticut.

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Apostle of Peace: Elihu Burritt’s Quest for Universal Brotherhood

Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith by trade, became an advocate for peace around the world throughout the 19th century.

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Martin Luther King

Dr. King’s Dream Had Roots in Connecticut

In the summer of 1944, a young Martin Luther King Jr. worked at the Simsbury tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers, Inc.

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Vietnam Protests in Connecticut

Opposition to the war in Vietnam manifested itself in Connecticut in many of the same ways it did across the country.

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Headline of the Yale Daily News newspaper

The Merger That Was Not Meant To Be: Yale University and Vassar College

Yale 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.

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Mohegan Federal Recognition

“We are no longer the little old tribe that lives upon the hill. We are now the Nation that lives upon the hill.”

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April 18, 1991 Headline after State Senate approved gay-rights bill - Hartford Courant

Eighteen Years in the Making: Connecticut’s 1991 Gay Rights Law

Connecticut’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.

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Education/Instrucción Combats Housing Discrimination

September 26, 2022 • Law, Social Movements, Hartford

This group’s bilingual name reflected its educational mission as well as its dedication to unified, multicultural cooperation for the common good.

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Picking Tobacco in the Connecticut River Valley

Literacy Tests and the Right To Vote

Connecticut 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.

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Two women sitting on the steps of a building

Rewriting the Norm: How Two East Haddam Women Revolutionized Nonsexist Language

East Haddam’s Casey Miller and Kate Swift were both outspoken advocates for eradicating gender bias in the English language.

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Suffragette Helena Hill Weed of Norwalk, serving a 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for picketing July 4, 1917

19th Amendment: The Fight Over Woman Suffrage in Connecticut

In Connecticut, Frances Ellen Burr and Isabella Beecher Hooker took up the cause by forming the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) in 1869.

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Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury

Danbury Prison Protest – Today in History: August 11

On 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.

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Birth of a Nation Advertisement

Hartford’s Challenge to “The Birth of a Nation”

D. 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.

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Black and white photograph of the profile of a woman wearing a hat and sheer veil over her face

Emmeline Pankhurst’s “Freedom or Death” Speech Energizes Connecticut Women in 1913

In 1913, a famous British suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst, gave a powerful and memorable speech on the steps of the Parsons Theater in Hartford.

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Rosamond Danielson: Windham County Suffragist and Community Leader

Rosamond Danielson was a respected suffragist, World War I worker, and philanthropist from Putnam Heights.

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Constance Baker Motley: A Warrior for Justice

New Haven lawyer Constance Baker Motley became famous for arguing some of the most important cases of the civil rights movement.

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Maria Sanchez and Alejandro La Luz, Puerto Rican spokesmen, Hartford

Maria Colón Sánchez, State Representative and Community Advocate

The first Latina elected to the Connecticut General Assembly started as a grassroots activist for Hartford’s Puerto Rican community.

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Cover of a book titled "The Ku Klux Klan of the Present Day".

The Ku Klux Klan in Connecticut

The white supremacist organization, the KKK, first organized in Connecticut during the 1920s, promoting themselves as part of the nativist movement.

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Rock and Roll vs. Racism

The State Theater in Hartford brought residents of all different backgrounds together in the 1950s and ’60s through the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.

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James Trenchard etching, View from the Green Woods towards Canaan and Salisbury, in Connecticut

Dynamic Tensions: Conservation and Development up to the 1920s

From indigenous practices to Progressive-era projects, changing attitudes toward natural resources have shaped and reshaped the state’s landscape.

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Dr. C. Lee Buxton and Mrs. Estelle Griswold

Griswold v. Connecticut – Today in History: June 7

On June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Griswold v. Connecticut.

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Black and white photo of a group of people. Two people are holding a large banner that says "Kalos Society"

Kalos Society: Connecticut’s First Modern LGBTQ+ Activist Organization

The Kalos Society emerged in the late 1960s as the first gay activist organization in Connecticut

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The Black Panther Party in Connecticut: Community Survival Programs

The 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.

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Portrait of an older man wearing a black suit and a white clerical collar. He is also wearing glasses and has a white handkerchief in his breast pocket

Canon Clinton Jones: A Revolutionary Figure in Connecticut’s LGBTQ+ History

Canon Clinton Jones was a central figure in Connecticut’s LGBTQ+ community and a pioneer for compassionate care, queer visibility, and gender affirmation.

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Bridge on the grounds of Gillette's Castle

A Public Responsibility: Conservation and Development in the 20th Century

The 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.

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Vivien Kellems Takes On the IRS

Reformer Vivien Kellems fought her most famous battle against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as she sought tax reform for businesses and single people.

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Marian Anderson with (on left) Governor Chester Bowles and W.C. Handy

[Archived] Marian Anderson’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement

Marian Anderson performed and traveled in segregated spaces and emerged as one of the great singers of the 20th century.

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Marian Anderson with (on left) Governor Chester Bowles and W.C. Handy

Marian Anderson’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement

Marian Anderson performed and traveled in segregated spaces and emerged as one of the great singers of the 20th century.

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Arrest of White House pickets Catherine Flanagan of Hartford, Connecticut, and Madeleine Watson of Chicago

Women of the Prison Brigade

March 31, 2022 • Social Movements, Women

These 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.

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Detail from a glass plate negative showing the rear of one of the tenements that lined the Park River

Hartford’s Sex Trade: Prostitutes and Politics

March 23, 2022 • Social Movements, Hartford, Women, Work

Union 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.

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Early 20th-Century Immigration in Connecticut

Connecticut played host to new, vast populations of Italian, Polish, and French Canadian immigrants who helped reinvent the state’s cultural identity.

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Shelves of books in the interior of a bookstore

The Reader’s Feast: A Bookstore Ahead of Its Time

For 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.

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Civil Rights picket, US Courthouse, Hartford

“U.S. Troops in Viet Nam, but none in Selma” – Today in History: March 9

On 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.

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Emily Pierson handing out leaflets in New York State Suffrage Campaign

A Feeling of Solidarity: Labor Unions and Suffragists Team Up

The voting booth and the shop floor were two important arenas in the fight for women’s equality.

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Katharine Houghton Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn, A Woman Before Her Time

March 1, 2022 • Social Movements, Hartford, Women

This Hartford suffragist and reformer fought for women’s rights in the first half of the 20th century.

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To show an image of Mary Townsend Seymour

Mary Townsend Seymour: Hartford’s Organizer, Activist, and Suffragist

Mary Townsend Seymour was a leading organizer, civil rights activist, suffragist, and so much more in Hartford during the early 20th century.

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Emma Hart Willard: Leader in Women’s Education

Berlin-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.

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To show the man, Richard Reihl, who was murdered in Wethersfield in a hate crime in 1988

Richard Reihl: The Hate Crime That Became a Turning Point for LGBTQ+ Civil Rights

The 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.

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Edward Alexander Bouchet: The First African American to Earn a PhD from an American University

Edward 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.

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“Free Bobby, Free Ericka”: The New Haven Black Panther Trials

In 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.

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Headline of An Act concerning Operations for the Prevention of Procreation

LGBTQ+ Mental Health Treatment in the 20th Century

The 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.

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The Smith Sisters and Their Cows Strike a Blow for Equal Rights – Today in History: January 8

Abigail 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.

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[Archived] Ida Tarbell: The Woman Who Took On Standard Oil

Ida Tarbell became one of the most famous “muckraking” journalists in 19th century America, thanks largely to her investigation of the Standard Oil Company.

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Ida Tarbell: The Woman Who Took On Standard Oil

Ida Tarbell became one of the most famous “muckraking” journalists in 19th century America, thanks largely to her investigation of the Standard Oil Company.

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Elihu Burritt

Elihu Burritt Born – Today in History: December 8

On December 8, 1810, Elihu Burritt was born in New Britain, Connecticut, to a farming family and became a leading pacifist of his time.

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Sign for the Temperance Hotel, ca. 1826-1842

The Slow Demise of Prohibition in Wilton

It 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.

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Newspaper headline with the text "Connecticut Fines Two in Birth Control Case"

Taking on the State: Griswold v. Connecticut

In the 1960s, Estelle Griswold challenged Connecticut’s restrictive birth control law, making it all the way to the Supreme Court.

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The “Red Scare” in Connecticut

The 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.

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Man wearing a hat with card stating "Bread or Revolution"

How the Wobblies Won Free Speech

Denied the right to free assembly in public spaces, Connecticut workers joined in a larger national movement of civil disobedience.

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Map of the Freedom Trail Sites

Site Lines: Connecticut’s Freedom Trail

Sites along the Connecticut Freedom Trail mark key events in the quest to achieve freedom and social equality for African Americans in the state.

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Art Young, Radical Cartoonist

September 19, 2021 • Bethel, Arts, Popular Culture, Social Movements

One 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.

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The Rise of the Black Panther Party in Connecticut

The Black Panther Party in Connecticut fought for an end to discriminatory legal and regulatory practices, often clashing with authorities to achieve their goals.

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Workingmen's Restaurant, 129 Market Street, Hartford.

Serving Up Justice: Hartford’s Black Workers Organize

The earliest labor union for African American workers in Hartford appeared in 1902 with the birth of the Colored Waiters and Cooks Local 359.

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Portrait of Amos Beman.

The Rev. Amos Beman’s Devotion to Education, Social Activism, and New Haven

Amos 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.

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“’No Taxation without Representation’: Black Voting in Connecticut

In 1870, Connecticut ratified the 15th Amendment, but poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and other means of disenfranchising African Americans remained in place.

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Senator Brandegee Stonewalls Women’s Suffrage

Senator Frank Brandegee of New London vehemently opposed progressive legislation at the national level, particularly when it came to the issue of women’s suffrage.

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Wide Awakes banner

Hartford Wide-Awakes – Today in History: July 26

On 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.

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Testing the camping equipment on The Gunnery’s campus in Washington

Reading, Writing, and the Great Outdoors: Frederick Gunn’s School Transforms Victorian-era Education

In 1850, this educator, prominent abolitionist, and outdoorsman founded The Gunnery, a school in Washington, Connecticut.

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Connecticut Votes for Women

Connecticut Suffragists Appeal to the President – Today in History: July 12

On 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.

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Connecticut Attorney General John H. Light and His Fight for Woman’s Suffrage

Attorney General John H. Light made his pro-suffrage stance public at a time when such advocacy could still lead to criticism

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Detail from an 1863 broadside

Henry Ward Beecher, a Preacher with Political Clout

This skilled orator championed woman suffrage, temperance, and the cause of anti-slavery but scandal nearly derailed his career.

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Helen Keller in front of her home at Arcan Ridge, Easton

Helen Keller in Connecticut: The Last Years of a Legendary Crusader

The internationally known author, political activist, and lecturer, Helen Keller, made her final home in Easton.

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John Brown

John Brown Born – Today in History: May 9

On May 9, 1800, the man who became a catalyst for the Civil War was born in an 18th-century saltbox house in West Torringford.

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Boyhood home of Amos Bronson Alcott, Wolcott

Amos Bronson Alcott Changes the Way Connecticut Children Learn

Amos Bronson Alcott was an educator and reformer born in Wolcott, Connecticut and father to best-selling author, Louisa May Alcott.

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Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Vietnam Veterans Against the War – Today in History: April 19

On April 19, 1971, Vietnam veterans groups from Hartford, New Haven, and Stamford joined demonstrations in Washington, DC.

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Child Labor in Connecticut

While 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.

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Carl Sandburg, Poet from the Grassroots, Reaches Connecticut Audiences

Popular poet, singer, and activist Carl Sandburg had numerous connections to Connecticut and promoted social reform in the early 20th century.

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The Influence of Woman, Harper's Weekly, 1862

Bridgeport Women Answer the Call – Today in History: April 15

On April 15, 1861, the women of Bridgeport created the nation’s first soldiers’ aid society during the American Civil War.

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The Girl in White, movie advertisement starring June Allyson as Emily Dunning Barringer

New Canaan’s Pioneering Female Physician

Dr. 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.

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African American baseball team, Danbury

Swinging for the Fences: Connecticut’s Black Baseball Greats

In Connecticut, African Americans played organized baseball as early as 1868, some of the game’s biggest stars played for teams throughout the state.

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Vera Buch Weisbord’s “Radical” Life

Vera Wilhelmine Buch Weisbord was a labor activist who helped organize trade unions and strikes that shaped the labor movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

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Anna E. Dickinson

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson at Touro Hall – Today in History: March 24

On March 24, 1863, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, a 20-year-old Quaker and abolitionist from Pennsylvania, spoke at Hartford’s Touro Hall.

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Kimberly Mansion, Glastonbury

The Smith Sisters, Their Cows, and Women’s Rights in Glastonbury

By refusing to pay unfair taxes, these siblings became national symbols of discrimination suffered by women and of the struggle of the individual against government.

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Elihu Burritt

Elihu Burritt Dies – Today in History: March 6

On March 6, 1879, Elihu Burritt “the learned blacksmith” died in New Britain.

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Looking Back: Tempest Tossed, the Story of Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Beecher was a suffragist and spiritualist who shunned traditional female roles while alienating large parts of her family during her brother’s adultery scandal.

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Malcolm X in Hartford: “Our Mission is Not Violence but Freedom”

In addition to helping found Nation of Islam Temple No. 14 in Hartford, Malcolm X spent considerable time in Connecticut rallying supporters to his cause.

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The Fugitive and the Hero

A 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.

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The Language of the Unheard: Racial Unrest in 20th-Century Hartford

Race 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,

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Laboring in the Shade

Thousands of Black Southern students, including a young Martin Luther King Jr., came north to work in Connecticut’s tobacco fields.

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Hat-factory With Hose-house On The Hill, Danbury

Rivers of Outrage

Pollution 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.

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Merritt Hat Factory, Danbury

Ending the Danbury Shakes: A Story of Workers’ Rights and Corporate Responsibility

Despite the known dangers of prolonged exposure to mercury, the hat-making industry was slow to safeguard workers against its toxic effects.

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Oyster grounds, Western Division; Town of Westport

The Battle for Cockenoe Island

In 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.

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Currier & Ives, The drunkards progress. From the first glass to the grave

The Temperance Movement in Connecticut – Today in History: October 27

On October 27, 1841, the steamboat Greenfield traveled down the Connecticut River, transporting people to the Temperance Convention in Middletown.

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Illustrations of schooner with men being thrown overboard and three men hanging. Includes text describing murders and executions.

Capital Punishment in Connecticut: Changing Views

Connecticut’s struggles with the issue of capital punishment date back to its earliest days as a colony.

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The Wallingford Oneida Community

In the late 1800s, Wallingford was home to a small branch of the Oneida Community.

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Hartford’s Les Payne, Trailblazing Journalist

September 2, 2020 • Literature, Social Movements, Hartford

Les Payne grew up in Hartford and became one of the best-known African-American journalists in the United States.

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The southeast block of West Street, Litchfield as it looked in the Civil War era, 1867

The Peace Movement in Litchfield

While 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.

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Work on foundation of the Bulkeley Bridge

The Sand Hogs Set the Foundation for the Bulkeley Bridge

August 15, 2020 • Social Movements, Transportation, Work

Toiling 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.

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Third Annual Report of the Managers of the Colonization Society of the State of Connecticut

Liberian Independence Day

The 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.

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Trolley Campaigners Storm Small Towns and Votes for Women is the Battle Cry

In the wake of a 1912 trolley campaign, the woman’s suffrage movement rapidly gained ground across Connecticut.

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Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Most Famous American in the World

In 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.

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Early Civil Rights and Cultural Pioneers: The Easton Family

June 21, 2020 • Arts, Belief, Social Movements, Hartford

For a variety of reasons, the Eastons were one of New England’s most notable 19th-century African American families.

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Mayor Insists Air Terminal to Aid Idle

“Something to Show for Our Work”: Building Brainard Airport

At the height of the Great Depression, unemployed men living around Hartford, became a cheap source of labor to help build Brainard airport.

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Helen Keller

Helen Keller Dies – Today in History: June 1

On June 1, 1968, American author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller died at the age of 87.

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Mary Hall: Connecticut’s First Female Attorney

Writer and suffragist Mary Hall studied law under John Hooker and became Connecticut’s first female attorney.

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Josephine Bennett: Hartford’s City Mother

By linking disparate social and political movements of the early 20th century, activist Josephine Bennett was “intersectional” well before the term was invented.

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Front view of John Browns birthplace, Torrington

Hidden Nearby: John Brown’s Torrington Birthplace

Ruins are all that remain of the birthplace of this transformative figure in US history.

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Elizabeth W. Coe Demands the Right of Jury Service

After passage of the 19th Amendment, Elizabeth W. Coe of Waterbury argued that women should be granted the right to serve on jury panels.

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A First Amendment Lesson: Weaver High Students Teach Their Elders

In the 1960s, Hartford high school students published a controversial newspaper that sparked debates about freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

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The Northern Student Movement

The Northern Student Movement motivated college students to contribute their energies to important social causes such as literacy and civil rights.

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Frederick Douglass

Speaking under the Open Sky: Frederick Douglass in Connecticut

The famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass had several connections to Connecticut, including run-ins with a number of the state’s vocal slavery proponents.

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Connecticut Suffragists, 1919

Connecticut Suffragists 1919

Despite 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.

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Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: Connecticut Lessons from a Tragedy

While 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.

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Waterbury’s Radium Girls

In the early 20th century, girls working at the Waterbury Clock Company faced death and disease from exposure to radium in the workplace.

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Are you a goop? by Caroline Hewins

The Public Library Movement: Caroline Hewins Makes Room for Young Readers

March 13, 2020 • Social Movements, Hartford, Women

This Hartford librarian played a leading role in national efforts to transform libraries into public centers that welcomed patrons from all walks of life.

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Detail from the front page of The Woman Voter's Bulletin, 1923

A Day for Women – Today in History: March 8

Women’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.

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Andover Lake: A Lesson in Social Change

While 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.

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Constitution Plaza Then and Now

Hartford’s first major redevelopment project, Constitution Plaza was built as part of the urban renewal initiatives in the 1950s and ’60s.

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Portrait of James Mars

1850s Equal Rights Activist James Mars

James Mars became one of the most prominent African Americans in the region, and a leader of Hartford’s African American community.

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Hartford Times – Voices of Change

1960’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.

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Manumission document for slave Bristow, from Thomas Hart Hooker, Hartford

Gradual Emancipation Reflected the Struggle of Some to Envision Black Freedom

Connecticut enacted gradual emancipation in 1784 but the abolition of slavery would not occur until 1848.

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Broadside announcing changes to Mansfield's Poor-House

Connecticut Poor Law Aimed to Care for the Needy

Connecticut 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

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Paul Robeson by Gordon Parks, 1942

“Negroes Who Stand Up and Fight Back” – Paul Robeson in Hartford

November 15, 2019 • Arts, Enfield, Social Movements, Hartford, Work

Called 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.

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Women Suffrage March

Women Win the Right to Vote

August 18, 2019 • Social Movements, Women

After a decades-long struggle, women in Connecticut and across the US gained a say in government.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: Business and Government, 1905-1929

The early years of the 20th century were a time of vigorous political and social reform.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: Making Self-Government Work, 1819-1865

In the mid-19th century, Connecticut looked toward changing its electoral processes as well as its civil rights record.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: Searching for the Common Good, 1929-1964

Organized labor grew strong during wartime while discriminatory practices in housing and education persisted throughout the state.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: Significant Events & Developments, 1965-Now

Connecticut recast its constitution, reapportioned its House and Senate, and struggled with providing equal rights to all races and socio-economic classes in the state.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: A Co-Equal Branch of Government, 1965-Now

Connecticut replaced town-based representation with legislative districts while the state struggled to supply equal opportunities across race and class lines.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: Searching for the Common Good, 1965-Now

The state generated revenue for urban renewal and social programs through gaming and income tax initiatives.

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An Orderly & Decent Government: The Rise of the Factory, 1866-1887

In the years following the Civil War, Connecticut’s transformation to an urban, industrial state intensified.

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Plane departing for Selma-Montgomery March, 1965

Civil Rights Demonstrations – Today in History: March 18

March 18, 2018 • Social Movements, Windsor Locks

On 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.

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Video – Helen Keller Tribute Film

The Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame pays tribute to Easton resident Helen Keller, an inspirational champion for the disabled.

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Video – Mary Townsend Seymour Tribute Film

Connecticut 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.

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Map of school busing and integration in the greater Hartford area, 1966

Sheff v. O’Neill Settlements Target Educational Segregation In Hartford

April 27, 2016 • Education, Law, Social Movements, Hartford

This landmark case not only drew attention to inequalities in area school systems, it focused efforts on reform.

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Designed to Heal: The Connecticut General Hospital for the Insane

The design of this state facility in Middletown reflects 19th-century beliefs about the environment’s ability to influence mental health.

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Selma, Not So Far Away

Father 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.

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Am I not a man and a brother?

Early Anti-slavery Advocates in 18th-century Connecticut

Ideals advanced during the American Revolution inspired many of the state’s religious and political leaders to question and oppose slavery in the late 1700s.

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PROJECT CONCERN youngsters, 20 of them from Hartford, arrive at Spaulding School, Suffield

Connecticut Takes the Wheel on Education Reform: Project Concern

April 10, 2013 • Education, Social Movements, Hartford

As one of the earliest voluntary busing programs in the US, Project Concern sought to address educational inequalities.

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Greased pole, Labor Day picnic, Colt Park, Hartford

Labor Day at the Turn of the 20th Century

In February of 1889, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill making the first Monday of each September a legal holiday.

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Dr. Eli Todd

Medical Pioneer Eli Todd born – Today in History: July 22

On 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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