Women welders

Women welders at the Landers, Frary, and Clark plant, New Britian,1943
– Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

From their unsung labors to society-changing accomplishments, Connecticut’s women have contributed to diversified fields of endeavor. During colonial times, they kept farms, homes, and businesses running—despite restrictions that then, and long after, barred them from the same rights as men. Among those pioneering national and local change in the 1800s are educator-abolitionist (and state heroine) Prudence Crandall and women’s suffrage advocate Isabella Beecher Hooker. Twentieth-century notables include Mary Townsend Seymour, champion of African Americans’ civil rights, and Ella Grasso, first woman to be elected a US governor in her own right. Today, the Connecticut Women’s Heritage Trail connects new generations to the histories of these and other women.

More on Women from the CT Digital Archive

Browse more interactive content on the CT Digital Archive website.

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Websites

“All in a Day’s Work: Photographs of Women in Connecticut Industry.” University of Connecticut, Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, 2012. Link.
Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. “Breaking New Ground: Connecticut Women’s Firsts & Significant Achievements,” 2012. Link.
“Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame,” 2017. Link.
Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. “Connecticut Women’s Heritage Trail,” 2012. Link.
Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. “Lesson Plans.” Accessed May 28, 2013. Link.
CRIS Radio. “Voices of Woman Suffrage,” n.d. Link.

Video

The Roots of Roe. DVD. Connecticut Issues Series. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Public Television, 1993.

Places

“Florence Griswold Museum,” 2017. Link.
“Harriet Beecher Stowe Center,” 2017. Link.
“Hill-Stead Museum,” 2017. Link.
Department of Economic & Community Development. “Prudence Crandall Museum,” 2016. Link.

Documents

Connecticut State Library. “Finding Aid to the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association Inventory of Records,” 2016. Link.
Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project. “Guide to Digitized Newspaper Content - Connecticut Women and World War I,” 2016. Link.
Western Connecticut State University. Archives and Special Collections Library. “Guide to the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Movement Collection 1876-1982: MS 003,” 2015. Link.
Connecticut State Library. “Research Guide to Women’s History Archival Resources,” 2012. Link.
Nichols, Carole, and Joyce S. Pendery. The Political Activities Of The First Generation Of Fully Enfranchised Connecticut Women, 1920-1945. University of Connecticut Center for Oral History Interviews Collection - Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. Accessed March 14, 2012. Link.

Books

Strane, Susan. A Whole-Souled Woman: Prudence Crandall and the Education of Black Women. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
McCain, Diana, and Connecticut Historical Society. Black Women of Connecticut: Achievements Against the Odds. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Society, 1984.
Fennelly, Catherine. Connecticut Women in the Revolutionary Era. Chester, CT: Pequot Press, 1975.
Riccio, Anthony V. Farms, Factories and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014.
Connecticut. Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. Great Women in Connecticut History. Hartford, CT: The Commission, 1986.
Johnson, John W. Griswold V. Connecticut: Birth Control and the Constitutional Right of Privacy. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005.
Petrash, Antonia. More Than Petticoats. Remarkable Connecticut Women. Guilford, CT: Twodot, 2004.
Holloway, Charlotte Molyneux. Report of the Bureau of Labor on the Conditions of Wage-Earning Women and Girls. Hartford, CT, 1914. Link.
Connecticut. Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. Selected Highlights of Women’s History: United States and Connecticut, 1773 to the Present. Hartford, CT: Connecticut General Assembly Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, 2004.
Boydston, Jeanne, Mary Kelley, and Anne Throne Margolis. The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women’s Rights and Woman’s Sphere. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
United States Employment Service, Dorothy Weir, and United States Department of Labor. Training Opportunities for Connecticut Women. Hartford, CT: Woman’s Division Connecticut State Council of Defense, 1918. Link.
Nichols, Carole. Votes and More for Women: Suffrage and After in Connecticut. New York: Institute for Research in History: Haworth Press, 1983.
Hewes, Amy, and Henriette Rose Walter. Women as Munition Makers, a Study of Conditions in Bridgeport, Connecticut. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1917. Link.