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Remarkable Women of Hartford
Connecticut's capital has served as home to some of the most influential women in the state's history, but few know the stories of their lives and accomplishments. Nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin" became a catalyst for the Civil War. Ella Grasso was the first woman elected governor in the United States. Hannah Bunce Watson, publisher of the "Hartford Courant," never skipped a single edition during the Revolutionary War. Through these and many more inspiring profiles, author and journalist Cynthia Wolfe Boynton chronicles the struggles and triumphs of some of Hartford's most remarkable women."
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 2014
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August 6, 2016
Excellent "Connecticut women" who lives connected with each other, as well as the story of the Hartford Courant newspaper.
(1) Hannah Bunce and Watson Hudson - Revolutionary Newspaper Publishers, 1749-1807. FYI-- The daily newspaper, The Hartford Courant, is still publishing as well as being the the country's oldest newspaper in continuous publication. It began as a weekly paper in 1764 by a printer named Thomas Green. Green helped to keep The Courant afloat at first by selling clothing, stationery, hardware and spices out of a store in front of the newspaper's office. He sold the newspaper to his assistant, Ebenezer Watson, who ran the business successfully until he died of smallpox in 1777. Then Watson's widow, Hannah, took over the paper and became one of the first women publishers in America.
During the Revolutionary War, The Courant had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the colonies and was an influential backer of the rebel cause. The Courant's existence was considered so important to the war effort that when its paper mill was burned down - probably by Tories - the Connecticut legislature authorized a lottery to raise money to build a new mill. In the meantime, The Courant printed a few issues on wrapping paper.
In the mid-1800's, when the country was dividing over the issue of slavery, The Courant was inspired by a visit Abraham Lincoln made to Hartford. The paper became a leading supporter of the new Republican Party and Lincoln's presidential campaign. When Lincoln won the 1860 election, The Courant's headline pronounced: "VICTORY, VICTORY, WE'VE GOT 'EM."
Although the daily edition of The Courant began in 1837, the weekly Courant continued until 1896. At that point, the weekly became a tri-weekly for "country readers" who did not wish to take the daily Courant. In 1913, the publication launched its Sunday paper and one year later the tri-weekly edition was discontinued.
Important women --
1. Hannah Bunce Watson, 1749--1807
Hannah B. Watson: A Pioneering Patriot: http://www.courant.com/courant-250/yo...
2. Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, 1791--1865
The "Sweet singer of Hartford," a mother of 5 children, she attended school at Wadsworth School for women. She married Hartford merchant-banker Charles Sigourney (1778-1854) on June 16, 1819, Lydia Sigourney closed her school, but throughout her life she continued to take an active interest in the education of the young. Mrs. Sigourney gave support and encouragement to several nineteenth century educators, including Henry Barnard, Emma Hart Willard and her sister Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, Catharine Beecher, Mary Lyon, and Elihu Burritt. Lydia Sigourney was an advocate for a host of nineteenth century causes. Among those which enlisted her support were the fair treatment of Native and African Americans, temperance, the peace initiatives of Elihu Burritt, foreign missions, and a number of causes sponsored by the Protestant Episcopal Church. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/writers...
3. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811--1896, born in Litchfield, CT and the seventh of thirteen childre she was an's an American abolitionist and author.an American abolitionist and author. She came from a famous religious family and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). It depicts the harsh life for African Americans under slavery. It reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain.
4. Elizabeth Colt, 1826--1905,born in Saybrook CT born in a religious family, Reverend William Jarvis, an Episcopal Minister and her father. She was the eldest of the family. Elizabeth met Samuel Colt in 1851 in Newport, Rhode Island, and the two were married in 1856. They resided in a home, Armswear. Elizabeth gave birth to 4 children, yet only one survived (unfortunately, Caldwell (her son) survived to adulthood, but drowned at sea at the age of 34. In 1861, Samuel Colt died from complications associated with gout and left Elizabeth a pregnant widow. Seven months after his death the baby was stillborn. Following her husband's death in 1862, she inherited a controlling interest in the manufacturing company. Elizabeth became the first President of the Hartford Soldiers Aid Society and in 1869 organized the first Suffragette convention in Connecticut. For these actions she was dubbed "The First Lady of Hartford". She died of paralysis in Newport, Rhode Island on August 23, 1905.
5.Virginia Thrall Smith born in 1894 in Bloomfield CT. Her goal was to "give every helpless child born within its border the best possible chance to grow into honesty and virtue.” Her firm commitment to helping every child was a theme that resurfaced throughout her life. She was a devoted advocate for children’s education and an expansion of support services for women and children. Virginia studied at the Suffield Institute, Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, and Mount Holyoke Seminary. At the age of 21, she married William B. Smith and the couple moved to Hartford with their 6 children, yet 3 children died from diphtheria in infancy. Smith was appointed administrator of the Hartford City Mission, a position she approached with pride and diligence. Smith and her volunteers pushed the Connecticut State Legislature to authorize kindergartens in public schools throughout the state. http://cwhf.org/inductees/reformers/v...
6. Dotha Bushnell Hillyer1843--1832. Hartford native Dotha Bushnell Hillyer set forth to commemorate her father, the Reverend Horace Bushnell, for his years of faithful service to the capital city, she also strengthened her own legacy of patronage and commitment to the public. While instituting and financing the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall, Hillyer declared the theater a “center for the benefit of the public,” a nod to her father’s core values. Through her generous gift of the theater, her most well-known public work, the philanthropist and reformer continued her own tradition of giving. Reverend Bushnell passed away in 1876. Shortly after, in 1879, Dotha Bushnell married Appleton Robbins Hillyer, a well-known philanthropist. With the help of her husband, Hillyer began to realize her dream of creating the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall, now commonly known as the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts or simply “The Bushnell.” Just as her father had built Bushnell Park around a dream of community unity, Hillyer sought to build a community venue where people could gather, celebrate, and feel inspired.
In 1919, she decided to invest $800,000 in the project and set the money aside in an investment account. Soon after, however, ill health forced a delay in the project. The economic boom of the 1920s caused the money to more than triple to $2.5 million by the time construction began in 1928. The account was liquidated to pay for the project—and just in time, as the stock market crash of 1929 would have wiped out the fund! On January 13, 1930, the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall opened its doors. The venue’s success was staggering, but Hillyer was unable to join in the festivities due to her poor health. In fact, the woman who had made it all possible would only see the final product once before her death in 1932. Since its grand opening, more than 25 million patrons have enjoyed Hartford’s beautiful and stately Bushnell Theater. Many talented performers have graced the Bushnell’s stage, including Katharine Hepburn, who performed Without Love in 1942. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/arts-hu...
7. Mary Townsend Seymour1873--1957. Seymour became the first African American woman to run for the Connecticut General Assembly (in 1920). She did not win, but was the first African American woman to run for this position.Seymour was an American politician, and the first African American woman in the United States to run for state office. She was born in Hartford, and her parents died while she was a teenager. Prior to her mother's death, she was adopted by the family of the American Civil War veteran and social activist Lloyd G. Seymour. In June 1888 she visited the City Hall to review her birth certificates and declared her official name as Mary Emma Townsend Seymour. In 1891, she married Frederick Seymour, a member of the Seymour family. Seymour and her husband, along with 20 other local residents, began organizing for civil rights. On October 9, 1917, the Hartford chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded, with Seymour serving as its spokesperson. In 1918, she helped form Hartford's equal rights advocacy chapter of the Circle for Negro War Relief, to help black soldiers' families during the war. Around the same time, she also joined the Colored Women’s League of Hartford. In 1919, when suffragists were working to have the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed prohibiting any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex, Seymour campaigned to ensure that black women's right to vote would also be protected. Died in Hartford in 1957, buried in Hartford's Old North Cemetery. Her grave is a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. link: http://www.hogriver.org/issues/v01n04...
8. Beatrice Fox Auerbach (1887--1968). Born in Connecticut, the leading department store in 1927, Auerbach became President of G. Fox. Auerbach expanded the business ten-fold, instituted innovative sales practices and established pioneering labor reforms, including a five-day, 40-hour work week, retirement plans and other significant improvements for the company’s 3,000 employees. In 1911, Beatrice Fox married George Auerbach, whose family owned a department store in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Auerbachs lived in Salt Lake City until 1917, when Moses Fox persuaded them to return to Connecticut after a devastating fire destroyed the G. Fox in Hartford. A new, greatly expanded store, designed by architect Cass Gilbert, was built downtown and opened in 1918. When George Auerbach died in 1927, Beatrice became increasingly involved in the business, taking over as president when her father died in 1938. She emphasized standards of excellence and quality customer service; toll-free telephone order department; committed to her employees; Fox produced fair labor standards that resulted in workplace reforms for her staff; In addition to the five-day, 40-hour work week, Auerbach introduced medical and non-profit lunch facilities and interest-free loans for employees in the event of a crisis; G. Fox was one of the first major retail stores in the country to hire black men and women for positions that gave them opportunities for advancement.http://cwhf.org/inductees/business-la...
9.Rachel Taylor Milton, 1901--1995. Rachel Taylor Milton was a distinguished educator and civil rights crusader who founded the Urban League of Hartford. She was committed to the ideals of human dignity for people of all races. She was born and raised in Hartford with her eight sisters and one brother. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from the Hartford Seminary School of Religious Education. Though she had intended to become a missionary, she turned to social work to deal with the pressing problems closer to home. Rachel Taylor married Charles H. Milton, assistant pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.Milton continued her education at the University of Pittsburgh, the New York School of Social Work, the University of Chicago, George Williams College and Swarthmore College where she attended the first institute on race relations. As a member of the Pocono Study Group, she spent the summer of 1933 researching adult education in the Scandinavian countries. From 1953 to 1955, she was Associate Dean of Women at Fisk University in Nashville. In 1959, Milton returned to Connecticut where she was employed by the state Bureau for Vocational Rehabilitation. Her deep involvement in the problems of the inner city led her to work toward the creation of the Urban League. It was a long struggle, but she and the other founders were finally able to raise $90,000 through foundation grants, outside gifts and individual donations of $5 each to bring their dream to fruition. Today the Urban League offers a variety of important services to the community including job location and retraining programs, family guidance and support for better housing and neighborhood improvement. In 1968, Milton was recognized for her continued efforts on behalf of the poor and dispossessed and awarded B’nai Brith’s Woman of the Year Award. She was an active member of the Union Baptist Church in Hartford and was instrumental in its designation as a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The church is now a stop on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/reforme...
10. Hilda Crosby Standish, (1902--2005) was a pioneer in the birth control movement in the state of Connecticut. In 1935, she became medical director of the Maternal Health Center in Hartford, the state's first birth control clinic. Dr. Standish was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. Hilda Crosby was born to Julia and Albert Hutchings Crosby of Hartford, Connecticut in 1902. After graduating from Hartford Public High School, she attended Wellesley College, where she received a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1924. Crosby earned her medical degree at Cornell Medical College in 1928, graduating third in her class. Dr. Standish interned at Philadelphia General Hospital and served a one-year residency at the St. Louis Maternity Hospital in Missouri. Upon completion of her residency, she accepted a five-year appointment in 1932 to teach obstetrics in the Women's Christian Medical College, and the Margaret Williamson Hospital of Shanghai, China. After two years, she had to return to the United States because of an illness in the family. The family member's health improved, but Crosby was unable to return to China because the Japanese military had invaded the country.
In 1935, Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (mother of actress Katharine Hepburn) recruited Standish to be medical director of the Maternal Health Center in Hartford, the state's first birth control clinic. Due to an 1879 statute, it was illegal to operate a birth control clinic or to disseminate information about birth control in Connecticut. On June 25, 1936, Hilda Crosby married dermatologist Erland Myles Standish of Wethersfield. The couple had five children, which made it difficult for Standish to maintain a full-time medical practice. Instead, Standish worked part-time and led sex education classes for adolescents, couples entering into marriage, and parents she met through her work at the Maternal Health Center. The Hartford clinic was forced to close in 1940, after police raided a similar clinic in Waterbury. She was trustee at the Hartford College for Women and Wellesley College. Standish continued to support Planned Parenthood's efforts to legalize birth control in the state. She testified before the state legislature in an effort to change the law that made the use of contraceptives illegal. She worked closely with Planned Parenthood of Connecticut Executive Director Estelle Griswold, one of the plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/science...
11. Ella Grasso 1919--1981, was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 83rd Governor of Connecticut from 1975 to 1980. She was the first woman elected to this office and the first woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state "in her own right", as all three female governors preceding Grasso had been married to men who were previously the governor of their states.
Ella Rose Tambussi was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to Italian immigrant parents Maria (née Oliva) and Giacomo Tambussi, a mill worker. After attending St. Mary's School, Windsor Locks, and the Chaffee School, Windsor, she attended Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in 1940, a majoring in economics and sociology. Two years later, she earned a Master’s degree, also from Mount Holyoke. She later added honorary degrees from Colgate University, University of Hartford, Trinity College and Smith College. In 1942, Ella Tambussi married a school principal, Thomas Grasso; they had two children. Grasso joined the League of Women Voters in 1942, and one year later began working for the Connecticut Democratic Party as a speechwriter. In 1952, she was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly and served there until 1957, becoming in 1955 the first woman elected Floor Leader. From 1958 to 1970 she served as Connecticut's Secretary of the State, turning the office into a “people’s lobby” where ordinary citizens could air grievances or seek advice. During this period, Grasso became the first woman to chair the Democratic State Platform Committee, served as a member of the Platform Drafting Committee for the 1960 Democratic National Convention and served as co-chair of the Resolutions Committees for the 1964 and 1968 Democratic National Conventions. In 1970, she was elected to her first of two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. While in Congress she served on the Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
n 1974, Grasso re-entered state politics and, after a hard-fought campaign, was elected governor, defeating Republican Congressman Robert Steele by a margin of more than 200,000 votes. She was re-elected in 1978. In her first inaugural address, she promised a government that would be more responsive to the people, but would keep within the fiscal limits demanded by the times. Looking for ways to economize, she began with herself, returning to the state treasury a $7,000 raise she could not legally refuse. Over the course of her tenure as governor, Grasso’s leadership was tested in the face of fiscal problems, state layoffs and budget shortfalls. She endeared herself to her constituents when, during the great Blizzard of 1978, she stayed at the State Armory around the clock, directing emergency operations and making frequent television appearances. Her bold move of closing all roads and businesses in the state by official proclamation allowed emergency workers to perform essential services without worrying about stranded motorists, automobile accidents and other issues and allowed the state to get back up and running again in a few days time. In 1980, Grasso was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Ill-health led to her resignation in December of that year. She died in Hartford on February 5, 1981.
Shortly after her death in 1981, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. To honor Governor Grasso's life, The Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame has created programs in her name to encourage civic engagement and public service in Connecticut students. From 2005 to 2009, the CWHF hosted the Ella Grasso Youth Action Conference and, in 2011, inaugurated the Ella T. Grasso Leadership in Action Grant Program. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/politic...
(1) Hannah Bunce and Watson Hudson - Revolutionary Newspaper Publishers, 1749-1807. FYI-- The daily newspaper, The Hartford Courant, is still publishing as well as being the the country's oldest newspaper in continuous publication. It began as a weekly paper in 1764 by a printer named Thomas Green. Green helped to keep The Courant afloat at first by selling clothing, stationery, hardware and spices out of a store in front of the newspaper's office. He sold the newspaper to his assistant, Ebenezer Watson, who ran the business successfully until he died of smallpox in 1777. Then Watson's widow, Hannah, took over the paper and became one of the first women publishers in America.
During the Revolutionary War, The Courant had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the colonies and was an influential backer of the rebel cause. The Courant's existence was considered so important to the war effort that when its paper mill was burned down - probably by Tories - the Connecticut legislature authorized a lottery to raise money to build a new mill. In the meantime, The Courant printed a few issues on wrapping paper.
In the mid-1800's, when the country was dividing over the issue of slavery, The Courant was inspired by a visit Abraham Lincoln made to Hartford. The paper became a leading supporter of the new Republican Party and Lincoln's presidential campaign. When Lincoln won the 1860 election, The Courant's headline pronounced: "VICTORY, VICTORY, WE'VE GOT 'EM."
Although the daily edition of The Courant began in 1837, the weekly Courant continued until 1896. At that point, the weekly became a tri-weekly for "country readers" who did not wish to take the daily Courant. In 1913, the publication launched its Sunday paper and one year later the tri-weekly edition was discontinued.
Important women --
1. Hannah Bunce Watson, 1749--1807
Hannah B. Watson: A Pioneering Patriot: http://www.courant.com/courant-250/yo...
2. Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, 1791--1865
The "Sweet singer of Hartford," a mother of 5 children, she attended school at Wadsworth School for women. She married Hartford merchant-banker Charles Sigourney (1778-1854) on June 16, 1819, Lydia Sigourney closed her school, but throughout her life she continued to take an active interest in the education of the young. Mrs. Sigourney gave support and encouragement to several nineteenth century educators, including Henry Barnard, Emma Hart Willard and her sister Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, Catharine Beecher, Mary Lyon, and Elihu Burritt. Lydia Sigourney was an advocate for a host of nineteenth century causes. Among those which enlisted her support were the fair treatment of Native and African Americans, temperance, the peace initiatives of Elihu Burritt, foreign missions, and a number of causes sponsored by the Protestant Episcopal Church. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/writers...
3. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811--1896, born in Litchfield, CT and the seventh of thirteen childre she was an's an American abolitionist and author.an American abolitionist and author. She came from a famous religious family and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). It depicts the harsh life for African Americans under slavery. It reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain.
4. Elizabeth Colt, 1826--1905,born in Saybrook CT born in a religious family, Reverend William Jarvis, an Episcopal Minister and her father. She was the eldest of the family. Elizabeth met Samuel Colt in 1851 in Newport, Rhode Island, and the two were married in 1856. They resided in a home, Armswear. Elizabeth gave birth to 4 children, yet only one survived (unfortunately, Caldwell (her son) survived to adulthood, but drowned at sea at the age of 34. In 1861, Samuel Colt died from complications associated with gout and left Elizabeth a pregnant widow. Seven months after his death the baby was stillborn. Following her husband's death in 1862, she inherited a controlling interest in the manufacturing company. Elizabeth became the first President of the Hartford Soldiers Aid Society and in 1869 organized the first Suffragette convention in Connecticut. For these actions she was dubbed "The First Lady of Hartford". She died of paralysis in Newport, Rhode Island on August 23, 1905.
5.Virginia Thrall Smith born in 1894 in Bloomfield CT. Her goal was to "give every helpless child born within its border the best possible chance to grow into honesty and virtue.” Her firm commitment to helping every child was a theme that resurfaced throughout her life. She was a devoted advocate for children’s education and an expansion of support services for women and children. Virginia studied at the Suffield Institute, Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, and Mount Holyoke Seminary. At the age of 21, she married William B. Smith and the couple moved to Hartford with their 6 children, yet 3 children died from diphtheria in infancy. Smith was appointed administrator of the Hartford City Mission, a position she approached with pride and diligence. Smith and her volunteers pushed the Connecticut State Legislature to authorize kindergartens in public schools throughout the state. http://cwhf.org/inductees/reformers/v...
6. Dotha Bushnell Hillyer1843--1832. Hartford native Dotha Bushnell Hillyer set forth to commemorate her father, the Reverend Horace Bushnell, for his years of faithful service to the capital city, she also strengthened her own legacy of patronage and commitment to the public. While instituting and financing the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall, Hillyer declared the theater a “center for the benefit of the public,” a nod to her father’s core values. Through her generous gift of the theater, her most well-known public work, the philanthropist and reformer continued her own tradition of giving. Reverend Bushnell passed away in 1876. Shortly after, in 1879, Dotha Bushnell married Appleton Robbins Hillyer, a well-known philanthropist. With the help of her husband, Hillyer began to realize her dream of creating the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall, now commonly known as the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts or simply “The Bushnell.” Just as her father had built Bushnell Park around a dream of community unity, Hillyer sought to build a community venue where people could gather, celebrate, and feel inspired.
In 1919, she decided to invest $800,000 in the project and set the money aside in an investment account. Soon after, however, ill health forced a delay in the project. The economic boom of the 1920s caused the money to more than triple to $2.5 million by the time construction began in 1928. The account was liquidated to pay for the project—and just in time, as the stock market crash of 1929 would have wiped out the fund! On January 13, 1930, the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall opened its doors. The venue’s success was staggering, but Hillyer was unable to join in the festivities due to her poor health. In fact, the woman who had made it all possible would only see the final product once before her death in 1932. Since its grand opening, more than 25 million patrons have enjoyed Hartford’s beautiful and stately Bushnell Theater. Many talented performers have graced the Bushnell’s stage, including Katharine Hepburn, who performed Without Love in 1942. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/arts-hu...
7. Mary Townsend Seymour1873--1957. Seymour became the first African American woman to run for the Connecticut General Assembly (in 1920). She did not win, but was the first African American woman to run for this position.Seymour was an American politician, and the first African American woman in the United States to run for state office. She was born in Hartford, and her parents died while she was a teenager. Prior to her mother's death, she was adopted by the family of the American Civil War veteran and social activist Lloyd G. Seymour. In June 1888 she visited the City Hall to review her birth certificates and declared her official name as Mary Emma Townsend Seymour. In 1891, she married Frederick Seymour, a member of the Seymour family. Seymour and her husband, along with 20 other local residents, began organizing for civil rights. On October 9, 1917, the Hartford chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded, with Seymour serving as its spokesperson. In 1918, she helped form Hartford's equal rights advocacy chapter of the Circle for Negro War Relief, to help black soldiers' families during the war. Around the same time, she also joined the Colored Women’s League of Hartford. In 1919, when suffragists were working to have the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed prohibiting any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex, Seymour campaigned to ensure that black women's right to vote would also be protected. Died in Hartford in 1957, buried in Hartford's Old North Cemetery. Her grave is a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. link: http://www.hogriver.org/issues/v01n04...
8. Beatrice Fox Auerbach (1887--1968). Born in Connecticut, the leading department store in 1927, Auerbach became President of G. Fox. Auerbach expanded the business ten-fold, instituted innovative sales practices and established pioneering labor reforms, including a five-day, 40-hour work week, retirement plans and other significant improvements for the company’s 3,000 employees. In 1911, Beatrice Fox married George Auerbach, whose family owned a department store in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Auerbachs lived in Salt Lake City until 1917, when Moses Fox persuaded them to return to Connecticut after a devastating fire destroyed the G. Fox in Hartford. A new, greatly expanded store, designed by architect Cass Gilbert, was built downtown and opened in 1918. When George Auerbach died in 1927, Beatrice became increasingly involved in the business, taking over as president when her father died in 1938. She emphasized standards of excellence and quality customer service; toll-free telephone order department; committed to her employees; Fox produced fair labor standards that resulted in workplace reforms for her staff; In addition to the five-day, 40-hour work week, Auerbach introduced medical and non-profit lunch facilities and interest-free loans for employees in the event of a crisis; G. Fox was one of the first major retail stores in the country to hire black men and women for positions that gave them opportunities for advancement.http://cwhf.org/inductees/business-la...
9.Rachel Taylor Milton, 1901--1995. Rachel Taylor Milton was a distinguished educator and civil rights crusader who founded the Urban League of Hartford. She was committed to the ideals of human dignity for people of all races. She was born and raised in Hartford with her eight sisters and one brother. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from the Hartford Seminary School of Religious Education. Though she had intended to become a missionary, she turned to social work to deal with the pressing problems closer to home. Rachel Taylor married Charles H. Milton, assistant pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.Milton continued her education at the University of Pittsburgh, the New York School of Social Work, the University of Chicago, George Williams College and Swarthmore College where she attended the first institute on race relations. As a member of the Pocono Study Group, she spent the summer of 1933 researching adult education in the Scandinavian countries. From 1953 to 1955, she was Associate Dean of Women at Fisk University in Nashville. In 1959, Milton returned to Connecticut where she was employed by the state Bureau for Vocational Rehabilitation. Her deep involvement in the problems of the inner city led her to work toward the creation of the Urban League. It was a long struggle, but she and the other founders were finally able to raise $90,000 through foundation grants, outside gifts and individual donations of $5 each to bring their dream to fruition. Today the Urban League offers a variety of important services to the community including job location and retraining programs, family guidance and support for better housing and neighborhood improvement. In 1968, Milton was recognized for her continued efforts on behalf of the poor and dispossessed and awarded B’nai Brith’s Woman of the Year Award. She was an active member of the Union Baptist Church in Hartford and was instrumental in its designation as a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The church is now a stop on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/reforme...
10. Hilda Crosby Standish, (1902--2005) was a pioneer in the birth control movement in the state of Connecticut. In 1935, she became medical director of the Maternal Health Center in Hartford, the state's first birth control clinic. Dr. Standish was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. Hilda Crosby was born to Julia and Albert Hutchings Crosby of Hartford, Connecticut in 1902. After graduating from Hartford Public High School, she attended Wellesley College, where she received a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1924. Crosby earned her medical degree at Cornell Medical College in 1928, graduating third in her class. Dr. Standish interned at Philadelphia General Hospital and served a one-year residency at the St. Louis Maternity Hospital in Missouri. Upon completion of her residency, she accepted a five-year appointment in 1932 to teach obstetrics in the Women's Christian Medical College, and the Margaret Williamson Hospital of Shanghai, China. After two years, she had to return to the United States because of an illness in the family. The family member's health improved, but Crosby was unable to return to China because the Japanese military had invaded the country.
In 1935, Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (mother of actress Katharine Hepburn) recruited Standish to be medical director of the Maternal Health Center in Hartford, the state's first birth control clinic. Due to an 1879 statute, it was illegal to operate a birth control clinic or to disseminate information about birth control in Connecticut. On June 25, 1936, Hilda Crosby married dermatologist Erland Myles Standish of Wethersfield. The couple had five children, which made it difficult for Standish to maintain a full-time medical practice. Instead, Standish worked part-time and led sex education classes for adolescents, couples entering into marriage, and parents she met through her work at the Maternal Health Center. The Hartford clinic was forced to close in 1940, after police raided a similar clinic in Waterbury. She was trustee at the Hartford College for Women and Wellesley College. Standish continued to support Planned Parenthood's efforts to legalize birth control in the state. She testified before the state legislature in an effort to change the law that made the use of contraceptives illegal. She worked closely with Planned Parenthood of Connecticut Executive Director Estelle Griswold, one of the plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/science...
11. Ella Grasso 1919--1981, was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 83rd Governor of Connecticut from 1975 to 1980. She was the first woman elected to this office and the first woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state "in her own right", as all three female governors preceding Grasso had been married to men who were previously the governor of their states.
Ella Rose Tambussi was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to Italian immigrant parents Maria (née Oliva) and Giacomo Tambussi, a mill worker. After attending St. Mary's School, Windsor Locks, and the Chaffee School, Windsor, she attended Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in 1940, a majoring in economics and sociology. Two years later, she earned a Master’s degree, also from Mount Holyoke. She later added honorary degrees from Colgate University, University of Hartford, Trinity College and Smith College. In 1942, Ella Tambussi married a school principal, Thomas Grasso; they had two children. Grasso joined the League of Women Voters in 1942, and one year later began working for the Connecticut Democratic Party as a speechwriter. In 1952, she was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly and served there until 1957, becoming in 1955 the first woman elected Floor Leader. From 1958 to 1970 she served as Connecticut's Secretary of the State, turning the office into a “people’s lobby” where ordinary citizens could air grievances or seek advice. During this period, Grasso became the first woman to chair the Democratic State Platform Committee, served as a member of the Platform Drafting Committee for the 1960 Democratic National Convention and served as co-chair of the Resolutions Committees for the 1964 and 1968 Democratic National Conventions. In 1970, she was elected to her first of two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. While in Congress she served on the Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
n 1974, Grasso re-entered state politics and, after a hard-fought campaign, was elected governor, defeating Republican Congressman Robert Steele by a margin of more than 200,000 votes. She was re-elected in 1978. In her first inaugural address, she promised a government that would be more responsive to the people, but would keep within the fiscal limits demanded by the times. Looking for ways to economize, she began with herself, returning to the state treasury a $7,000 raise she could not legally refuse. Over the course of her tenure as governor, Grasso’s leadership was tested in the face of fiscal problems, state layoffs and budget shortfalls. She endeared herself to her constituents when, during the great Blizzard of 1978, she stayed at the State Armory around the clock, directing emergency operations and making frequent television appearances. Her bold move of closing all roads and businesses in the state by official proclamation allowed emergency workers to perform essential services without worrying about stranded motorists, automobile accidents and other issues and allowed the state to get back up and running again in a few days time. In 1980, Grasso was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Ill-health led to her resignation in December of that year. She died in Hartford on February 5, 1981.
Shortly after her death in 1981, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. To honor Governor Grasso's life, The Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame has created programs in her name to encourage civic engagement and public service in Connecticut students. From 2005 to 2009, the CWHF hosted the Ella Grasso Youth Action Conference and, in 2011, inaugurated the Ella T. Grasso Leadership in Action Grant Program. http://www.cwhf.org/inductees/politic...
January 21, 2026
A decent overview of 12 of the history-making women of Hartford. If you are looking for something that is a comprehensive historical guide to women in Hartford, this is not it. Some of these women deserve to (and hopefully have!) entire books written about them. The 10 or so pages dedicated to them in this series of vignettes just scratches the surface. But truthfully, had I not read about them in this overview, I may not have sought out more information.
I’d love to see a supplement of how more modern women are making history in CT’s capital city.
I’d love to see a supplement of how more modern women are making history in CT’s capital city.
March 22, 2015
This book provides a fascinating look behind some of the women who shaped Hartford and whose names are familiar to me from being a life-long resident of the area. It was interesting to me to hear about their lives, often from the perspective of children or grandchildren and to see pictures from their lives. This book would be an interesting read for people who are interested in more about the women of Hartford.
December 11, 2025
I think the history was interesting but nonfiction isn’t my jam.
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