GREAT WOMEN IN CONNECTICUT HISTORY PERMANENT COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN 6 GRAND STREET HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT AUGUST 26, 1978 COMMISSIONERS OF THE PERMANENT COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN Sh irley R. Bysiewicz, Chairperson Lucy Johnson, Vice Chairperson Helen Z . Pearl, Treasurer Diane Alverio Dorothy Billington Thomas I. Emerson Mary Erlanger Mary F. Johnston Barbara Lifton, Esq . Minerva Neiditz Flora Parisky Chase Going Woodhouse LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION MEMBERS Betty Hudson, Senator Nancy Johnson, Senator Charles Matties, Representative Margaret Morton, Representative STAFF MEMBERS Susan Bucknell, Executive Director Fredrica Gray, Public Information Coordinator Linda Poltorak, Office Administrator Jeanne Hagstrom, Office Secretary Elba I. Cabrera, Receptionist/Typist " ... when you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row. " -Alice Paul CREDITS Project Coordinator: Fredrica Gray, Public Information Coordinator. Review and Comment: Susan Bucknell, Executive Director, PCSW and Lucy Johnson, Chair of the PCSW Public Information Committee Initial Research and First Draft: Shawn Lampron Follow-up Research and Second Draft: Erica Brown Wood Production Typist: Elba Cabrera Special Assistance for the Project was given by: Shirley Dobson, Coleen Foley, Lynne Forester, Sharice Fredericks, Lyn Griffen, Andrea Schenker, and Barbara Wilson Student Artists from Connecticut High Schools: Nancy Allen for her illustration of Alice Paul, Kathleen McGovern for her illustration of Josephine Griffing, Laura J. Reynolds for her illustration of Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding, and Priscilla Sinsigalli for her illustration of Prudence Crandall. SPECIAL THANKS TO: Governor Ella Grasso for granting an interview for the project State Senator Audrey Beck for information concerning Alice Hamilton Vincent Sirabella and the New Haven Central Labor Council for interview transcript on Beatrice Bonifacio, conducted by Susan Bucknell in connection with the History Project of the New Haven Central Labor Council Gladys Tantaquidgeon for information on her own life and on the life of her aunt, Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding. Chief Harold Tantaquidgeon for background on the Mohegan Indians in Connecticut Clara B. Weir for information on Katherine Houghton Hepburn, Prudence Crandall, Hannah Bunce Watson Hudson, and comments on Women in the colonial era. Marvis Welch for information on Prudence Crandall David 0 . White, Museum Director, Connecticut State Library, for information on Prudence Crandall Chase Going Woodhouse for information on her own life and on the life of Beatrice Fox Auerbach Members of the PCSW Public Information Committee 1976-1978 Lucy Johnson- Chair, Mary Erlanger, Minerva Neiditz, Helen Z. Pearl, and to Ruth Church, Elizabeth Rawles, Doris Roldan , Elizabeth Spaulding and Dr. Suzanne Taylor, who served on the Public Information Committee prior to 1978. This publication was made possible through a grant from the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission Table of Contents Page Preface I. THE COLONIAL ERA AND THE REVOLUTION . 1 Deborah Champion . 1 Sybil Ludington . 1 Hannah Watson . 1 Mary Dixon Kies . 2 II . WOMEN AND REFORM . 3 Prudence Crandall . 3 Josephine Griffing . 5 Maria Miller Stewart . 7 Katherine Houghton Hepburn . 7 Alice Paul ........ ...... .. ......... .. ......................... .. 8 Ill. INDUSTRIAL REFORM . 11 Al ice Hamilton . 11 Beatrice Bonifacio . 12 IV. THE ARTS AND LETTERS... .... ... .......... ... .. .. .... .. ....... 13 Lydia Huntley Sigourney . 13 Harriet Beecher Stowe . 13 Ann Petry. .......... .. ...................... ................... 14 Marian Anderson . 15 Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding . 15 Gladys Tantaquidgeon . 17 V. WOMEN AND EDUCATION . 18 Catherine Beecher . ... ................... .. ..... .......... ~ ..... 18 VI. WOMEN IN BUSINESS .. ....... .......... ...................... 19 Beatrice Fox Auerbach . 19 Vivien Kellems . 19 VII. WOMEN IN POLITICS.. ......................................... .. 21 Claire Booth Luce . 21 Corinne Alsop Cole . 21 Chase Going Woodhouse . 21 Ella Tambussi Grasso . 23 VIII. CONCLUSION ... ... ............................ ..... .. ......... 25 BIBLIOGRAPHY. ......... ......... ...... .. .. .. ...... ..... .. ... 26 INDEX . .................... ........................................... 29 Preface This small book is written for and about Connecticut women. It is not a history book in the traditional sense but rather an introduction to the individual and collective contributions that Connecticut women have made to the state's and the nation's social, economic, and political life. What follows is a close look at the lives and the work of several Connecticut women. A few are famous, all represent an opportunity for discovery. The Commission hopes that the book will serve as a touchstone to the readers' own research and exploration, turning the lives of these and other Connecticut women into living history. I I. THE COLONIAL ERA AND THE REVOLUTION The roles of colonial women were varied and demanding.' Agriculture provided the life-means of the colonies and it was women who took large responsibility for turning agricultural goods into usable products. Frequently the children joined their parents and were expected to do enough work to be self-supporting. To have a large family was a goal as child labor would enhance the productivity of the family unit and advance its economic status. • Child-bearing, therefore, was frequent - much more frequent than today­ and women, including the eldest female child or a grandparent, shared the major task of child care. In the European tradition, however, it was the men who acted as primary religious and academic teachers of the children. Work, for the colonial women, was from sun up to sun down. Along with child­ care responsibilities, colon ial women also took charge of food and clothing preparation. In the late Colonial and early Federal periods this was a particularly difficult task for a woman with a large family. Worn out, many colonial women died young, survived by their husbands who often remarried only to have their second or even th ird wives meet with a similar end. The summer months were reserved for work in the fields, and in winter the men were involved in hunting, trapping, and coopering, while the women turned to textile work in the home. These early days of "home manufacturing" did much to prepare Connecticut women for their later role in the Revolutionary War. Connecticut was the "provision state" of the Revolution, and the success of the Continental Army in keeping the men clothed and fed depended in large part on the efforts of Connecticut women who worked the looms. Collectively their courage and productivity was admired by all , including General Washington. Connecticut was not without its Revolutionary War heroines. Two "midnight rides" by young women are noteworthy. In 1775, young Deborah Champion of New London was asked by herfatherto leave her spinning in order to deliver a message to General Washington, then camped in Boston. At the age of twenty-two Deborah rode with their family slave as escort north up the Quinebaug Valley to Canterbury, then east to Pomfret and on to Boston. Disguised as an old woman and hiding her face in her calash, she managed to evade the British sentry. "When I arrived in Boston I was so very fortunate as to find friends who took me at once to General Washington .. (who) was pleased to compliment me most highly both as to what he was pleased to call the courage I had displayed and my patriotism," she wrote.2 Another young woman helped to save the burning town of Danbury, under British siege. At sixteen years of age Sybil Ludington3 rode over twenty miles from her New York home near the Connecticut border to round up the militia commanded by her father, Colonel Henry Ludington, who was forced to remain at home to prepare the men when they arrived. Sybil's midnight ride enabled Colonel Ludington to cross the New York border and unite with the Connecticut regiments at Danbury. The victory there is said to have directly contributed to the later defeat of the British at Saratoga. As the Revolution continued in the fall of 1777, Ebenezar Watson, then proprietor of The Courant, in Hartford, died of smallpox at the age of thirty-three. His widow, Hannah,' a woman of twenty-seven with five children, was left to publish the paper. Disaster came in January, 1778, when the paper mill, jointly owned by Hannah and another widow, Sara Ledyard, burned down. The two women appealed to the Connecticut Assembly for a loan without interest to get the presses running again. They proposed a lottery to be conducted through the paper to fund the project. Knowing the value of The Courant to the American cause, the general assembly acted without delay. Thanks to the efforts of Hannah Watson and Sara Ledyard, The Courant never missed an issue. The first patent ever granted to a woman in the United States was awarded to Mary Dixon Kies of South Killingly, Connecticut, in 1809. Mrs. Kies invented "a new and useful improvement in weaving straw with silk or thread."5 President James Madison signed the patent and it is believed that Dolly Madison wrote to Mrs. Kies offering her congratulations. The invention was a financial failure but there are examples of her weaving in the Bugbee Library in Danielson, Connecticut. 1 Information on the colonial era was taken from W. Elliot Brownlee and Mary M. Brownlee, Women in the American Economy: A Documentary History 1675-1929. New Haven : Yale