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 University Press. 1976, esp. pp. 1-20. and PCSW written communication with Claire Weir, June 23, 1977. ' Catherine Fennelly, Connecticut Women in the Revolutionary Era. Chester, CT: Pequot Press. 1975, p.53. ' James Moore. The Night of Fire. Yankee. 34 April, 1970. pp. 96, 180-184 • Clara B. Weir, A Woman Editor at the Courant- Hannah Watson (1777-1779) Unpublished manuscript. • Ellen Larned. History ol Windham County. CT. Vol II. Worcester· Charles Hamilton. 1880. p. 432

2 II. WOMEN AND REFORM The movement to abolish the brutal institution of slavery had gathered substantial momentum in America in 1831 . It was part of a broad wave of humanitarianism sweeping western Europe and the United States. Many militant anti-slavery activists were women sympathetic to the cause of Blacks who were caught in the vise of White supremacy. The dream of emancipation was one with which many of the women could identify, for the problem of the oppression of women was fast becoming a rallying point for the first American feminists. The end of the colonial era and the emergence of an industrialized economy had lessened the importance of women as producers. Instead, the role of women as consumers reached new heights. The egalitarianism approached so briefly during the colonial era was replaced hy the older concepts which applied to middle-class White women, deeming them frail and submissive creatures of the domicile. Black women, for the most part, were forced to lead difficult lives under the abusive system of slavery. Yet, there were among the population a number of women, Black and White, who were spurred by the goals of humanitarianism and the quest for freedom, and who were able to commit themselves to the emancipation and advancement of Blacks. Through abolitionist activities, many of the middle-class White women became highly organized and skilled in the politics of societal change. Later, nourished by the abolitionist experience, some of the same women turned their energies and expertise to the struggle for women's rights. PRUDENCE CRANDALL: 1803-18901 Prudence Crandall, a young Quaker teacher, became a symbol in the anti­ slavery movement when she sought to teach a young Black girl in her boarding school formerly attended only by White students. A graduate of the Providence Friend's School in 1828, she taught in a private school in Plainfield for four years, until the townspeople in Canterbury urged her to establish a school for their young daughters. With the help of her merchant father, she bought a very fine house in Canterbury. The school opened in 1831. The curriculum combined science, history, moral philosophy, mathematics and French. At this time there were many "free" Black families in Connecticut (perhaps as many as 3,000) and a number of Black men were highly skilled artisans, economically independent. The state was providing elementary education for both Whites and Blacks at this time. The Black cook, Mrs. Marcia Davis from Boston, introduced Prudence to the writings of William Lloyd Garrison in his anti-slavery publication, The Liberator. Sandra Harris, a young Mulatto girl who had attended district sct)ool with some of the boarding school girls, asked if she might come to some of Miss Prudence's classes. Prudence said "yes" especially because Sara had said she wanted to become a teacher of her own people. This led to an explosive reaction in the town. Eventually all Whites withdrew from Prudence's school, and Prudence established a school for young Black girls which only lasted for a stormy seventeen months. During that time, Prudence, her pupils, and her family suffered many deprivations and indignities. Their drinking water was polluted, sale of food and clothing cut off. They were jeered and stoned in public. The New England Anti-Slavery Society claimed Prudence Crandall as a symbol of resistance and she became an international figure. Under the provisions of the Black Law, written by the local state representative and enacted by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1833, Prudence was arrested and arraigned in June before the Justice of the Peace for the crime of teaching "young Black Ladies" without the permission of local authority. She refused to post bail and was jailed overnight until friends posted bail the following morning. Her trial resulted in a hung jury. 3 \

-1889

Prudence Crandall by Patricia Sinsigalli Subsequently she was re-arrested and found guilty. An appeal to the State's Supreme Court of Errors finally led to a dismissal on a technicality. Hooded townspeople took the law into their own hands, extensively vandalizing Crandall's school and frightening her pupils. Her new husband, the Reverend Calvin Philleo, taking matters into his own hands, sold the building. As a minister's wife with two young step-children, Prudence spent the next ten years of her life parenting, teaching, and working for the anti-slavery cause whenever she could. Eventually she moved with relatives to Illinois, where she again established a boarding school for young girls. She became a platform lecturer on anti-slavery, temperance, woman suffrage, and arbitration; a concept similar to our United Nations.

Her poetry and letters of opinion often appeared in the local press. In 1885, when William Lloyd Garrison's son wrote about her in the Century Illustrated, there was a revival of interest in her career. At the time, she was discovered living on a pittance in a three room house in Kansas. The Connecticut General Assembly granted her a $400 a year pension and apologized for the pre-Civil War treatment. At the age of 84, she gave a Fourth of July speech to a large Kansas audience. To a newspaper reporter in 1887, she said, "My life has been one of opposition. I never could find anyone near me to agree with me. Even my husband opposed me more than anyone. He would not let me read the books that he himself read, but I did read them. I read all sides and searched for the truth, whether it was in science, religion, or humanity."2 Prudence Crandall died January 28, 1890. Arguments from her 1883 and 1834 trials were used in the U.S. Supreme Court's school desegregation decision of 1954, Brown vs. the Board of Education. The stand she took was personal and individual, but the ripples have not ceased as Prudence Crandall still stands as a symbol of equal justice for all.

JOSEPHINE GRIFFING: 1814-1872 Many of the women concerned with the abolotionist cause found themselves focusing their attentions on their own "human rights" as well. Josephine Griffing spent a lifetime campaigning for the rights and dignity of Blacks, women, and the poor. She was born and brought up in Hebron, Connecticut. Josephine and her husband, Charles Griffing, were among the wave of pioneers who explored the New West for new land. The Griffings settled in 1842 in what we know today as Ohio. Mrs. Griffing opened her home and, in fact, the entire town of Litchfield, Ohio, as a station on the Underground Railroad. At the same time, she was beginning to explore the needs of women for freedom and equality. She became well known throughout the West and the Mid-west for her lectures on woman suffrage as well as abolition. Mrs. Griffing petitioned the Federal Government to establish the National Freedman's Relief Association of the District of Columbia. The Freedman's Bureau, which Mrs. Griffing organized and headed during the war, was officially established in 1865 to aid the over 30,000 Blacks who fled to the Capitol after the Emancipation. The war had been devastating. Most Blacks did not have the funds to begin their lives in freedom. The Freedman's Bureau provided emergency relief and medical care, as well as temporary work, and three industrial schools. When the bureau was made permanent Mrs. Griffing was replaced by a man. Josephine Griffing played a major role in organizing the Universal Franchise Association of the District of Columbia. She served as president of the Washington, D.C., Women's Suffrage Association. She initiated the first suffrage conference in the Capitol and in 1868 presided over its first meeting.

5 Josephine Griffing by Kathleen McGovern After a life of pioneering work in Ohio and in the Nation's capitol, Josephine Griffing returned to Connecticut in 1870. Her spirit enhanced by her many struggles, she saw all women as "endowed by the creator with the most loving and beneficent genius or nature capable of enduring the agonies of many deaths, to give life to many souls. In so much", said Mrs. Griffing, "she (woman) is entitled to command, not left to obey."3 Connecticut women continued to speak out. They were assertive and informed -and even more to their credit, they were courageous. For a woman to speak out on such volatile topics as abortion, suffrage, and birth-control during the early part of the nineteenth century was unheard of and fraught with personal risk. MARIA MILLER STEWART: 1803-1879 Maria Miller Stewart was the first American-born woman to speak in public at an organized and formal series of lectures. Maria was born a free Black in Hartford in 1803 but was orphaned at the age of five and bound out to a clergyman's family as a domestic. In spite of this, she was self-educated and became a lecturer, teacher, and writer. At the age of 27, she addressed a group in Boston, during the early 1830's on matters of equality for Blacks, at a time when abolition was deemed a topic reserved for the insane or for traitors. This is an extraordinary feat for a Black woman at a time in American history when it was illegal in many states for Blacks to learn to read and write. Clearly, Maria Stewart saw the issue of freedom closely connected with her duty as a Christian, and her first work, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, was published by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831. Many of Mrs. Stewart's ideas might seem radical even today. "What if I am a woman?" she once wrote in her own defense; "Is not the God of ancient times the God of these modern days? Did He not raise up Deborah to be a mother and a judge in Israel? ... and Mary Magdalene first declare the resurrection of Christ from the dead? If such women as are here described once existed, be no longer astonished then, my brethren and friends, that God at this eventful period should raise up your own females to strive by their example, both in public and private, to assist those who are endeavoring to stop the strong current of prejudice that flows against us so profusely at present."• More and more women joined the fight for civil, social, and individual liberties. However, their new role was condemned by the general public. In fact, public sentiment still deemed these women as dangerous political radicals and bearers of evil.

KATHERINE HOUGHTON HEPBURN: 1878-19515 Katherine Houghton Hepburn, the wife of a prominent Hartford physician and mother of six children, championed women's rights to vote and to plan parenthood. In 1913, with a few close friends, Mrs. Hepburn organized the Hartford Equal Franchise League- an organization which was to grow under her leadership to a membership of 20,000. Over a period of twelve years she worked with great intensity in the movement, debating the right to vote against Lucy Price in Carnegie Hall in 1916 and speaking before the State General Assembly on a number of occasions. Street rallies, parades, picketing the White House, and forays into the legislature, brought results with the ratification of the 19th (Suffrage) amendment in 1920. Mrs. Hepburn is reported to have said that the amendment had resulted in finally raising the legal status of women to that of "self-respecting adults, and out of the class of idiots, criminals, and the insane." In 1916, Katherine Hepburn joined the cause of her friend, the founder and leader of the American Birth Control League, Margaret Sanger. Sanger, in her memoirs, writes, "I was aroused by the voice of my friend Kate Hepburn," speaking of the hearings before the U.S. Senate.

7 The notorious anti-birth control law of Connecticut was dubbed by Mrs. Hepburn as "the police-under-the-bed law" and ridiculed by her as unenforceable. She said the law did not prevent the rich from getting contraceptive help, but it prevented the poor from receiving this aid. For many years Mrs. Hepburn served as legislative chair of the American Birth Control League, forerunner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Katherine Hepburn placed great value on the respect and dignity of all humans. She was a demanding woman, most demanding of herself. On her dressing-table was a quotation from George Bernard Shaw: "This is the true joy of life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature, instead of a selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." ALICE PAUL 1885-19776 Alice Paul, a national leader of the women's suffrage movement and author of the forerunner to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, was born in Moorestown, New Jersey, in 1885. She was the daughter of well-to-do Quaker parents and she attended Swarthmore College, going on to earn a master's degree and a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. To a formidable academic background, Dr. Paul added continued studies in England, where she joined the British suffragists, and where she began to participate in feminist activities. In Britain she was arrested seven times and jailed three times. During one period she refused to eat and was force-fed by a nasal tube twice a day for four weeks. When Dr. Paul returned to the United States, she brought the militant and colorful British tactics to the American Woman Suffrage movement. In the United States, Dr. Paul helped to found the National Women's Party in 1917- an organization initially established to secure suffrage amendments in each state. Under her direction, members of the National Women's Party became "silent sentinels" outside the White House, where they would stand wearing white dresses and carrying purple, white and gold banners that expressed such sentiments as "How much longer must women wait?" and "An autocrat at home is a poor champion of democracy abroad." Dr. Paul also organized marches and rallies, and managed to arrange a meeting with newly elected President Woodrow Wilson to urge him to support the right of women to vote. One year from the day of the first White House suffrage picket line, the House of Representatives passed the 19th amendment. The amendment was held up for a year and a half by one vote in the Senate but finally passed in 1919. Ratification was completed in 1920. In an interview several months before her death in 1977, Dr. Paul said that the adoption in 1920 of the 19th amendment was the high point of her life: "The thing I think was the most useful thing I ever did, was having a part in getting the vote for all the women,"7 she said. Almost immediately after the ratification of the 19th amendment, Dr. Paul turned to the Equal Rights Amendment, which she is credited with drafting, although in 1943 it was re-written by the Senate Judiciary Committee. While she worked in the political arena on the ERA, Dr. Paul also returned to academe, to earn three law degrees in the 1920's. Beginning in 1923, the ERA was proposed in Congress every year and voted, every year, by the Senate. It was not until the 1950's that both political parties mentioned equal rights in their platforms. Also at this time the ERA was opposed by Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, the League of Women Voters, and Women in the AFL and the CIO. These women were afraid that the passage of the ERA would result in the elimination of legislation designed specifically to protect women. It was not until 1972 that the United States Congress passed the ERA. Alice Paul, who spent over forty years of her life in Ridgefield, Connecticut, died at the age of 92, with three more states needed for the ratification of the amendment she had written over 50 years before. Her optimism had continued throughout her life: "From the start," she said, "we saw

8

=------~ Alice Paul by Nancy Allen this was going to take a lifetime- perhaps many generations . .. But when you put your hand to the.plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row."8

' Claire Weir edited the piece concerning the life of Prudence Crandall , in her written communication with PCSW of June 23, 1977 . Mavis Welch provided validation of the facts. ' George B. Thayer, Pedal And Path, Hartford, Conn. The Hartford Evening Post Association, 1887. p. 213. ' Elizabeth Stanton, Susan Anthony, and Matilda Gage (Eds.) History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. II. Rochester, New York: Charles Mann Printing Co., 1886, p. 874. • Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, Cambndge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1959, p. 45.

!I Clara 8 . Weir, "Katherine Houghton Hepburn. Crusader for Women's Franchise and Birth Control, Unpublished MS.

& Information for the section on Alice Paul was gathered chiefly from her July 10, 1977 ob1tuanes in the New York Times and the Hartford Courant.

1 Channel 30 interview with Alice Paul , on "Desertion wtth Honor". December 9, 1976. ' "Overdue Bills" Newsweek, 74, No. 12, 1970, p. 18

10 Ill. INDUSTRIAL REFORM

The Industrial Revolution brought rapid change to America. The factories were the center of the revolution and with new technologies and expanded trade came increased demands for production of goods and increased demands on the work force. With this intense production level came health hazards- many unanticipated and unchecked- and almost all derived from poor physical working conditions and the extraordinary long working hours demanded of the labor force. ALICE HAMIL TON 1859-19601 The work of a Connecticut woman, Dr. Alice Hamilton, initiated the sweeping reforms that this country would eventually take to correct hazardous working conditions. Alice Hamilton spent much of her life in Connecticut and, like Alice Paul, was exceptionally well-qualified and well-educated for her time. After studying at Miss Porter's school in Farmington, she attended the University of Michigan School of Medicine and graduated with her M.D. degree in 1893. Her work in occupational safety began when she was teaching at Northwestern University, Chicago. Dr. Hamilton was living at Hull House- a settlement house primarily for immigrant workers- where she started a child health care clinic. She observed that many of the parents, who worked in the factories, were incurably ill and correlated their illness with the inhalation of poisonous fumes in factories and mines. It was this vital connection between the factory fumes and disease that led Governor Deneen of Illinois in 1910 to ask Dr. Hamilton to act as special investigator for a new state commission on industrial disease. (At the time the commission was initiated, study was particularly difficult; there was a high turnover rate and often workers did not become ill or die on the job.)

Dr. Hamilton and the commission investigated all of the Illinois industries using lead and arsenic. Employers were remarkably ignorant of the poor working conditions they had imposed on their employees. In many cases the workers themselves accepted the dangers to which they were exposed as unavoidable.

The result of Dr. Hamilton's appointment to this special commission was a sweeping reform of working conditions and, in 1911, a state law providing compensation for disabilities caused by poisonous fumes, gases, and dusts. Illinois became a leader in this cause. Other states swiftly passed similar laws. Continuing her study, publishing and lecturing, Dr. Hamilton was asked by the U.S. Commission of Labor to undertake a study of industrial disease. In 1915 it was highly unusual for a woman to be given such work by the government. Her work continued during the First World War, when she investigated ammunition factories and analyzed how their workers were affected by poisons being used in the production of chemical warfare weapons. She was later to study industries in all forty-eight states. Because she was a woman, however. the Commission of Labor offered her no pay for her work beyond basic travel costs. After the war, Dr. Hamilton, without doubt the country's leading authority on occupational disease, was appointed assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School. She later was to retire to Hadlyme, Connecticut as professor emeritus of Harvard, and the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. Dr. Hamilton returned to her Alma Mater, the Porter School, at the age of 93, in 1951, and addressed the graduating class, advising them, "Be tolerant but do not tolerate conditions which can be changed'? America was beginning to make positive changes in its occupational health laws, but its efforts in labor legislation lagged. Women carried a severe burden of long hours and low pay. Many of the male-dominated skilled craft unions, although greatly aided by women in the beginnings of industrialization, now refused to admit women, the majority of whom were in low paid unskilled jobs.

11 If a woman was married and had a family, the situation became all the more difficult. More times than not she would care for her children during the day and work in the factories at night. The work day was at least twelve hours long, frequently longer. The work week included both Saturdays and Sundays. BEATRICE BONIFACIO (1913) Beatrice Bonifacio began working in the sewing industry in Connecticut at the age of fourteen. She was in many respects a typical young girl factory worker, but what she did about her plight by helping to organize a union, helped improve working conditions for many women. Beatrice's mother, four sisters, and brother-in-law all worked in the garment industry. In 1933, Beatrice and the other workers in the plant earned 25¢ for every two dresses they were able to sew. A fifty-five hour work week, including half-days on Saturdays and Sundays, yielded eight or nine dollars. Many workers earned even less. Beatrice's mother earned six dollars per week, and her sister earned three. Beatrice's mother worked at home, a practice which was commonly accepted until the emergence of the garment workers' union. Each evening a bundle of five or six dozen garments was delivered to the door. " . . . At night my sister used to get through working and if the bundle was not too big for her to carry, she would bring it and then we would sew all night ... my mother would stay up until late, until she finished, and then would pick it up in the morning, and bring it into work." The factory itself, as Beatrice describes it, was a quiet place except for the hum of the machines and the occasional sound of a worker clapping for more piece goods. Talking was absolutely prohibited: "You couldn't ask for work. You clapped and they would bring it to you. The boss would walk up and down the aisles, just up and down. If you ever turned your head , he would say, 'What do you want?' and be right there. You couldn't even stoop to pick up anything from the floor, and of course, you'd get this every day. After a while, you are fighting inside." Beatrice took her fight to the union, and helped to organize a strike of more than five thousand garment workers from some twenty-two factories in the area. Months of organizing the fearful employees culminated in a massive walk-out at 9:00A.M. on August 23 , 1933. After two weeks of picketing, disgruntled employers yielded to a contract with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union which guaranteed a 35 hour week at 63¢ an hour. The union improved working conditions dramatically. "It was like a dream," Beatrice recollected. Before the union was able to accomplish these goals Beatrice recalls that Saturday and Sunday hours presented a real problem of finding day-care for her infant daughter. On one specific occasion, she had to take her baby along. " I took my baby to work and put her in the box, and I worked with her in the box because I had to finish my work. You wouldn't dare say, 'I can't come in on Saturday', because you wouldn't have a job on Monday morning." Beatrice Bonifazio has been a leader of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union in Connecticut for more than forty years. Today she has recently retired from her position of secretary of her local. Summing up her union work, she stated, "I am doing it because I have seen how bad it was before, and I wouldn't want anybody to work the way I worked."

1 Informat ion on Alice Hamilto n was ad apted from Audrey Bec k, "AliCe Hamilton - Social Reformer.' Paper presen ted at the Bicentenntal Conference on U.S. Women an d Thetr History, Bndgeport. Connecticut, 1976. ' Ibid, p4 3 Adapted by Frednca Gray from an mterv1ew with Bea t nee Bontfacto, by Susan Bucknell. to r research project on htstory of women and New H aven Central Labor Council Ora l H 1s tory Project. April t976

12 IV. THE ARTS AND LETTERS

American women have been creators and supporters of the arts throughout the past century. The literary arts especially have provided American women with an acceptable outlet for their energies. To raise the occupation of writing from the level of dilettante to that of professional artist, however, has not been an easy task. Nevertheless, countless American women, whose art has been an undeniable presence to the ears, eyes, and minds of this country, have broken through gender and race barriers with their contributions. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY: 1791-1865' Lydia Huntley Sigourney, writer and teacher, was born in Norwich in 1791 . Lydia moved to Hartford in 1814, with an invitation from Daniel Wadsworth to open a school for the daughters of his friends. With her marriage to Charles Sigourney in 1819 came enough financial comfort to allow Lydia to give up teaching altogether and to devote herself full-time to writing. She published anonymously at first, and consigned the proceeds of her publications to the causes of temperance, peace, and the Greek War Relief. However, when her husband 's property lost much of its value, Lydia relinquished her anonymity, to her husband's great disapproval, and published in her own name. Regardless of Charles' embarassment, Lydia's work brought profit and some short-lived fame. She sold poems and sketches to magazines and published a number of books including Biography of Pious Persons (1832), Letters to Young Ladies (1833) and Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands (1842) . Compared to today's styles, critics might well consider her work "sugary", but readers in the 1830's and 40's loved her sentimental themes. Lydia enjoyed a number of years of wide popularity as the "sweet singer of Hartford," so much so that Sigourney Street was named in her honor. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE: 1811-18962 Harriet Beecher Stowe was a Connecticut woman whose major contributions to the literary arts, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly (1852) changed both lives and history. It was an enormous bestseller. Her friend and literary colleague, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, said it was the most successful book printed by a man or a woman. Harriet was born in Litchfield in 1811, the seventh child, and fourth daughter, of the Reverend Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote Beecher. Her mother died when Harriet was four. Harriet's home, as she later described it, was a "kind of moral heaven, replete with moral oxygen- full charged with intellectual electricity."3 Like the other members of her family, Harriet was vitally concerned with religious conversion - an experience valued by most middle class New Englanders at the time. Eventually her spiritual life would merge with her literary talents. When she married the widowed Calvin Ellis Stowe in 1836, her husband encouraged and supported her literary ambitions. "God has written it in His book that you must be a literary woman, and who are we that we should contend against God?"• he said. Uncle Tom 's Cabin began in a vision: as Harriet recalled it, the triumphant death of Tom flashed before her at a communion service. She wrote the novel as a parable to turn the nation away from sin: "A paradise of innocence ... the conflict with principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of this world ... and finally, paradise regained."5 Tom is a "moral miracle;" that the novel is structured by the mystery of conversion is especially representative of nineteenth century literature. The scene depicting the triumphant death of Uncle Tom had been written in February, 1851. In March, Mrs. Stowe started on a beginning which she expected to

13 finish in three or four installments. She accepted an offer of $300 for it from Gamaliel Bailey, publisher of the Washington, D.C. anti-slavery newspaper, National Era. The installments grew from three or four to forty. One year later (1852) they were issued in a book form by John P. Jewett, a small Boston publisher. Almost overnight, Uncle Tom 's Cabin made Mrs. Stowe famous, and for a time a rather wealthy woman. Within a year after its publication the novel had sold more than three hundred thousand copies. "How she is shaking the world with her Uncle Tom's Cabin," wrote the poet, Longfellow. "At one step she has reached the top of the staircase up which the rest of us climb on our knees year after year." Henry James later wrote that Uncle Tom 's Cabin was "less a book than a state of vision, of feeling, and of consciousness."6 However, in the South, bigots referred to her as a sexually driven "nigger lover," and within three years some thirty anti-Uncle Tom novels appeared. Mrs. Stowe responded to the protests with A Key to Uncle Tom 's Cabin in 1853; and 1856, her last anti-slavery novel, Ored, was published. This work attempted to show the demoralizing effect of slavery on Whites. The literary critics responded with coolness to Dred, but the public bought and read the book enthusiastically. After Dred, the best of her novels dramatized the individual's battle in a difficult world, including two works defending a woman's right to a career. As she continued to write, Harriet Beecher Stowe provided the main source of support for her family through money earned by her writing and her investments. She devoted much time and energy to her children. "To them and their needs," she wrote, " I must write chapters which would otherwise go into my novel." 7 Compelled by monetary concerns, she completed her autobiography in 1889. Later she wrote to Oliver Wendell Holmes of her own psychic weariness. "My brain is tired out. It was a woman's brain and not a man's and finally it gave out before the end was reached."8 Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 1, 1896, of what was then described as brain congestion with partial paralysis.

ANN PETRY: (1911 )9 Ann Petry, Black novelist, and winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, was born in Old Saybrook in 1911 , the daughter of Peter and Bertha Lane. Like her father, her aunt, and her uncle, Ann decided to study pharmacy, and in 1934 received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Connecticut College of Pharmacy. Her training completed , she worked as a registered pharmacist in the drug stores owned by her family in Old Saybrook and in Lyme. During these years, she also wrote several short stories, but had every intention of continuing her career as a pharmacist. Her marriage to George David Petry in 1938 changed the course of her life. They lived in New York City where Mrs. Petry began to work for the Harlem Amsterdam News in 1939. By 1941 she was covering general news stories and editing the women's pages of The People's Voice in Harlem. Her first published story appeared in the November, 1943 issue of The Crisis, a magazine published monthly by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The story was read by a Houghton Mifflin editor who wrote to Mrs. Petry to ask if she were at work on a novel. With this encouragement, she began to work on her first novel, The Street (1945). Having lived and worked in Harlem for six years, she sought to portray its inhabitants "as people with the same capacity for love and hate, for tears and laughter, and all the same instincts for survival possessed by all men."'0 Her attempt was highly successful and she received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship for 1945. Reviewers lauded the novel for its realism and smashing power. The New York World Telegram said, "The author packs a powerful pen .""

14 Mrs. Petry continued to publish successful novels. In 1947 she wrote The Country Place, and in 1953, The Narrows. Throughout her career she has been actively concerned with the quality of education and has authored several children's books, including Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad, in 1955 and Tituba of Salem Village in 1964. A book of short stories, Miss Muriel and Other Stories, was published in 1971. Mrs. Petry, who has returned to live in Old Saybrook, is also a former member of the American Negro Theater, a painter and a pianist. Because Connecticut is so close to the major cultural centers of the East many women artists, although not natives, have chosen the state as their permanent home. MARION ANDERSON: (1902)1 2 The impact made by singer Marion Anderson, for most of her life a resident of Danbury, is perhaps one of the most dramatic events in the country's history of the arts. As a Black woman, Miss Anderson encountered racism in the United States early in her life -frequently and painfully- when she gave concert tours during her high school years. European tours were a different story. There she was recognized as one of the world's great living contraltos, acclaimed by Toscanini and Sibelius; her career flourished. However, when she returned to America in the late thirties, she encountered racism once again. Prepared to deliver a concert in Washington's Constitution Hall, she was denied access to the building by the Daughters of the American Revolution who owned it. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R. in protest. An invitation was issued to Miss Anderson by then Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to sing in the open air at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939; she sang to an audience of 75,000. Only a few weeks later she was invited to entertain Great Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who were visiting President Franklin Roosevelt. The heart of all America, if not the world, was touched by Miss Anderson's courage and her voice that Easter Sunday. Miss Anderson has made contributions in other areas as well. In 1958 she was a U.S. delegate to the 13th General Assembly to the United Nations; and her autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning was published in 1956. In July, 1963, she received the Medal of Freedom, established by John F. Kennedy to those "who contribute significantly to the quality of American life." FIDELIA HOSCUTT FIELDING: (1827-1908)' 3 Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding an Indian woman, last speaker of the Mohegan-Pequot language, was born in Mohegan, Connecticut, in 1827. She lived with her grandmother Martha Uncas, and the two conversed in their native tongue. When Martha died in 1859, Fidelia had no one to speak to in her own language. Fidelia called herself "Dji ts Bud dnaca", meaning Flying Bird. She married William Fielding and continued to live in the traditional Mohegan lifestyle. In her later years, after her husband died, Mrs. Fielding lived alone except for the "little people- dwarfs, will-'o­ the-wisps, and ghosts. She tended a tiny garden and searched the woods for food and herbs. About 1900, Frank G. Speck, then a student of Professor J. Dyneley Prince, of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, met Fidelia. In spite of her reluctance to welcome non-Indians (and even some of her Mohegan kin) , Frank Speck was welcomed by Fidelia and that marked the beginning of his efforts to salvage what remained of a dying language. Some texts and a vocabulary were recorded by Professor Prince and Frank Speck and published in 1903-1904. It was not until after Mrs. Fielding's death in 1908 that four diaries were found by John Fielding, a common law adoptive son of Fidelia and William. Translations were made by Dr. Speck and the valuable material preserved in the archives of the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. In reading the daily entries made by Fidelia, there are frequent mentions of the Creator, Mandu, who sustained her

15 Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding by Laura J. Reynolds spiritually, and the search for daily food. Fidelia also wrote about the "little people" and the animals that lived in the forest: "April 23, 1903- The sun is good, rising clear. I cannot find anything. Already noon, I must eat my dinner. I must say "Thank you" [for] my food because Mandu gives me all things [I] have here on earth. I must be strong. I went to meeting to-day at Mohegan."14 On May 24, 1936, an estimated 1,000 persons gathered at the Ancient Burial Grounds of the Mohegan, Fort Shantok State Park, Montville, Connecticut to pay tribute to Fidelia Hoscutt Fielding . The program was sponsored by the Sebequonash Council, Degree of Pocahontas, who also furnished the memorial tablet which reads: In Memory of Fidelia A. A. Fielding 1827-1908 The Last Speaker of the Mohegan Language Erected by Sebequonash Council, No. 11 Degree of Pocahontas May 24, 1936 GLADYS TANTAQU/DGEON: ( 1899)' 5 When Fidelia Fielding's grand-niece, Gladys Tantaquidgeon was born in 1899, there were still a few older men and women who retained some knowledge of the ~j history and traditions of the once-powerful Mohegan Nation. Among others. Fidelia visited the Tantaquidgeon family and talked about the legendary characters of the Mohegan Nation. As was customary in many Indian tribes, the girls learned homemaking skills from their mothers and grandmothers while boys were trained by their male elders. Gladys at a very early age began to learn how to gather and prepare medicinal and edible food plants. This was the beginning of Gladys' keen interest in folk medicine. She later recorded material on the subject from a number of Indian groups in Eastern Canada and New England. Pursuing her interest in folk medicine, Gladys studied at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia where she also researched the decorative art of Oklahoma and Canadian Delawares and the Naticoke Community of Delaware. After completing a survey of New England Indians for the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Gladys left the Eastern Woodland Area in 1934 to spend two years with the Yankton Sioux in Greenwood, South Dakota. As a Community Worker, she later transferred to the Federal Arts and Crafts Board Field Service as a specialist for the Northern Plains area. After 15 years in the United States Indian Service, she returned to Mohegan . Connect icut and the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum. The museum was built in 1931 by Gladys' father the late John Tantaquidgeon and his son, Chief Harold Tantaquidgeon. It houses a collection of stone, wood and bone artifacts made by Mohegan and other New England craftspeople as well as the crafts of the Southeast, Southwest and Plains area Indians.

' Edward James. (Ed) Notable Amencan Women. 1607- 1950. VoL II Cambndge, Massachusetts. Harvard Unoversoty Press. 1971 . pp 28B-290. ' James. op. cit.. Vol Ill, pp. 393-402 ' Ibid, p. 393. • /b od, p. 395. ' lb1d. p. 397 ' lb1d, p 399. ' lb1d. p. 401 ' lb1d, p 402

' Some of the matenal on Ann Petry was obtamed from Anna Rothe (Ed). Current B1ography. 1946. New York The H W Wilson Co . 1947. pp. 476-477

10 Loc ctt

" Ibid. p. 4 77 u Manon Anderso n. My Lord. What a Mornmg. New York : The V1kmg Press. 1956

13 Information for the Fietdrng section was taken largely from in format ton supplied by Gladys Tantaquidgeon, the ntece of Fidelia Fteldmg , and Frank kSpeck. "Native Trrbes and Dialects of Connect1cut , a Mohegan Pequot 01ary" m The Forty­ Thlfd Annual Report of the Bureau of Amer~can Ethnology. 1925-1926. Wash tngton. D C. U S Government Pnntmg Olftce, 1928. pp 199-287. "Ibid, p 237

1 ~ Material on Gladys Tantaquldgeon was submitted 1n an autob1ograph1cal sketch to PCSW

17 V. WOMEN AND EDUCATION

By 1890, two-thirds of the nation's high school graduates were women. America needed teachers for its rapidly growing population; and what better resources could be tapped than the country's own pool of graduates? Certainly this new demand for the American woman presented a welcome new option to the work in the factories. The work was cleaner, safer, but only slightly better paying than the alternative factory work. CATHERINE BEECHER: (1800-1878)' Catherine Beecher, educator and writer, was born in East Hampton the daughter of Lyman and Roxanna Beecher, and the eldest of eight children. Perhaps because of her highly disciplined and demanding father, Catherine felt that God had elected her for a vocation beyond the ordinary lot of women. In 1823, moving from Litchfield to Hartford, Catherine and her sister Mary opened a girls' school. Four years later it was incorporated as the Hartford Female Seminary. Lyman Beecher admonished his daughter not to establish a commonplace middling sort of school. It was hardly a commonplace school. Miss Beecher instituted calisthenics, the "art of teaching," and the domestic science into her curriculum. Her educational reforms and later her numerous publications seemed to spring from her indignation at the disparity between women's potentials and actual conditions as exploited factory workers, or worn and unrewarded housewives. Inadequate air and exercise, " murderous fashions," and irrelevant studies, she believed, had ruined women's health and their sense of morality to such an extent that they "sinfully avoided maternity." Catherine Beecher was cool to the rising abolitionist tide. In her article, "An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the duty of American Females (1837)", she advised that any activity which throws women "into the attitude of combatant, either for herself or others," lay outside her "appropriate sphere."2 Nor was she sympathetic to the feminist and suffrage movements during the later part of the nineteenth century. The establishment of colleges like Smith and Vassar seemed to her a denial of woman's domestic obligation. Catherine Beecher died at the age of seventy-eight, in 1878. She was, at her death, the founder of two sem inaries for women, one in Hartford, the other in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, she lived by her pen , supporting her various causes in part through royalties. Catherine authored many books and articles, including A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) and its sequel, The Domestic Receipt Book (1846) . She collaborated with her sister Harriet in the authorship of The American Woman 's Home (1869) . Today, approximately 70 per cent of Connecticut's public school teachers are women. Women are leaders in many of Connecticut's private schools as well as some of the most prestigious colleges and universities. Among them, Sheila Tobias, who served as Associate Provost of Wesleyan University; Hanna Gray, who was Provost and in 1977 acting president of Yale University; and Joan Davis, President of Hartford College for Women.

' James. op c1 t. Vol 1. pp 121- 124 ' /b 1d . p 122

18 VI. WOMEN IN BUSINESS

BEATRICE FOX AUERBACH (1887-1968) Beatrice Fox Auerbach was well known as a business leader in Connecticut. She became president of Hartford's G. Fox & Company in 1938, after the death of her father, Moses Fox, who had run the store since 1880. Mrs. Auerbach initiated a series of progressive innovations that resulted in a ten-fold increase in sales volume during her tenure. Her company has been noted as more than just a store, but also as an institution in Connecticut. In all of her actions, Mrs. Auerbach emphasized a standard of excellence in service to the customer as a part of her belief that G. Fox & Company should respond to the community as a servant of the community. She demonstrated great concern for the more than 3,000 G. Fox & Company employees and their families. At a time when employment practices were generally far less reasonable than they are today, her employees received sick-pay and retirement pay. As G. Fox & Company president, she instituted a five-day, forty-hour week and fair employment practices at the store- so that in 1942 G. Fox & Company became the first major retail store to hire Blacks in meaningful jobs. A multimillion dollar expansion launched by Mrs. Auerbach in the 1950's incorporated the latest innovations in retailing personally researched by Mrs. Auerbach in her various travels. Mrs. Auerbach was also a noted philanthropist. Her gifts to the community resulted in the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Hall and the Auerbach Lecture Hall at the University of Hartford, the G. Fox & Company Professor of Economics Chair at Trinity College and an Auerbach Major in Economics at Connecticut College. Every year, for a number of years, Mrs. Auerbach contributed scholarships to the University of Connecticut. Other gifts to the University of Connecticut included the gift of her outstanding prize dairy herd which had been developed on her model farm. The Auerbach Service Bureau, an adult educational organization, has involved itself in numerous projects in the community throughout the years. At its inception, the service bureau provided women's groups with organizational and educational assistance. It's present priority is in juvenile education for adults who work with juvenile offenders. "She was a remarkable woman," says her good friend and director of the service bureau, Chase Going Woodhouse. "She knew literally everything that happened in the G. Fox store. She was amazingly generous, but in a very quiet way. She was a quiet philanthropist."

Connecticut gratefully recognized her efforts. She was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Hartford, St. Joseph's College, Trinity College, and Wesleyan University. Among the many awards she received, Mrs. Auerbach reportedly most valued the Tobe award, for the most outstanding retailer, awarded to her in 1947 by her fellow retailers. In 1962, when the Connecticut Bar Association cited her for public service, it noted, "Like a genuine philanthropist, you have given more than your money -you have given your thoughts, your consideration, and your heart." 3 Mrs. Auerbach remained active in the community until her death, at 81 , in 1968.

VIVIEN KELLEMS: (1896-1975) Vivien Kellems is perhaps best known throughout Connecticut and the country for her ceaseless and animated campaign for tax reform. What is less known about Miss Kellems is that she was one of Connecticut's most astute and successful businesswomen. With a graduate degree in economics from the University of Oregon, Vivien Kellems in 1927 began manufacturi ng cable grips, used for pulling electrical cable

19 cars through underground conduits. The Kellems Company was established in Westport, Connecticut, with $2,000 and one employee. She wrote her own advertising, served as travelling sales representative, and invented new uses for the cable grip, including a device for holding a broom on the kitchen closet and the super grip, which could lift 2,700 pound ammunition shells coated with grease without slipping. Within the first year, the Kellems Company grossed $40,000. During World War II the cable grip was adopted for government use to lift shells and other munitions. The war effort enabled Miss Kellems' company to expand to 180 employees. Government contracts also gave Miss Kellems a first-hand look at the inefficiency in the Federal Government. Anger at the growing size of what she considered to be wasteful bureaucracy, as well as objections to the Social Security and the income taxes crystallized in a determination and zeal for a career of tax reforming efforts. In 1948 Miss Kellems refused to take the withholding tax out of her employees' paychecks, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and confiscatory. At the same time she called on other business leaders to refuse payment. During the 1950's, Miss Kellems created the Liberty Belles, and its auxiliary, the Liberty Boys, dedicated to the " eradication of all socialism, Communism, and corruption in our American life, the revision and reduction of all taxes and of all government spending, and the return to Congress of the right to declare war." Miss Kellems' reforming spirit had a strong influence in Connecticut as well. After studying the status of women in the state of Connecticut for then Governor Baldwin, she led a successful effort to repeal a law prohibiting women from working after ten p.m. She was later to change the wording of the statutes, substituting 'women' for 'females' and eliminating wording that equated women with minors. She also appeared before state hearings to support an Equal Rights Amendment, in 1964, she conducted a one-woman sit-in in a state polling booth to protest party levers. Miss Kellems' private life was very different from her public life. The atmosphere of her home was a peaceful one in which she enjoyed entertaining guests. Her quiet generosity was also extended to assist young women attending colleges in Oregon where she had spent much of her youth.

At the time of Miss Kellems' death in January, 1975, she was still in court fighting government claims for back taxes she withheld because she felt they were unconstitutional. Although her estate finally did make payment both to the federal and to the state governments, it was in 1975 that the Federal Government reduced the tax-rate for single persons- with much of the credit due to the dynamic effort of Miss Kellems.

20 VII. WOMEN IN POLITICS

Women's expectations were high in 1920, the battle for the vote had been won, and with the vote, many women anticipated full entrance into the country's political arena. These expectations were unrealized, however, because of harsh reality: women were simply not accepted in politics. Not only were there strict social sanctions against aspiring female candidates, but economic limitations, and ostracization from constituency- building political clubs were common. With time, increased economic independence, relaxation of sex-based stereotyping and increased credentials, women have slowly begun to climb the ladder to political office. Connecticut women have emerged among the country's leaders in this slow victory with their initiative and success. Their service has stimulated and encouraged other women in America to run for office.

Claire Booth Luce (1903), who gained literary fame as playwright, The Women 1937), (Kiss the Boys Goodbye 1938) and novelist (Stuffed Shirts 1933) was the first U.S. Congresswoman from Connecticut, and served the state as a Republican member of the 78th and 79th Congresses, (1942-1946) from the Fourth Congressional District, at that time all of Fairfield county. Later she served as U.S. Ambassador to Italy. Corinne Alsop Cole (1886-1971), founded the successful Connecticut Federation of Republican Women. She was among the early women elected to Connecticut's legislature, serving three terms in the 1920's.' In 1936, Mrs. Cole was state delegate to the Republican National Convention where she delivered the seconding speech for Alf Landon (the opponent, incidentally, of Corinne's cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt) . CHASE GOING WOODHOUSE (1890) Chase Going Woodhouse is one of the state's best known and most respected political and civic leaders. She was the first Democratic woman Secretary of the State and the second woman member of Congress from Connecticut, representing the Second District in 1944 and 1948. She is an economist and former faculty member of the woman's section of the University of North Carolina, Smith and Connecticut Colleges. Soon after her 1934 arrival in Connecticut, Mrs. Woodhouse took an active role in campaigning against unemployment. She traveled to many areas of the state, speaking out against the problems of unemployment and assisted in work to facilitate WPA projects. Six years later she was elected Secretary of the State.

On her election to Congress she was appointed to the Banking and Currency Committee- a strong demonstration of the esteem of her colleagues. These were the war and post-war years and Mrs. Woodhouse fought with great energy the threats of post-war inflation and unemployment. In 1947, Mrs. Woodhouse organized the Woman's Division of the United States military government in Germany. She spoke to women in Germany, stressing the need in a democracy for women to participate in a nation's civic and economic life. Mrs. Woodhouse also was appointed to the office of Price Stabilization where she contributed both her economic and humanistic sensitivities to aid the American consumer.

Chase Going Woodhouse, also the mother of two children and the wife of the late Edward James Woodhouse, successfully integrated a full family life with an energetic and intense career. "This is not an easy task, but not filled with as many obstacles as one might think," Mrs. Woodhouse says. " It's very much a matter of attitude. I have tried to approach whatever obstacles I have encountered as part of my daily life. If a problem is set as ide as something to be worried about, rather than as something to be dealt with, then the worry itself becomes an obstacle." 2 Mrs. Woodhouse is highly regarded for her thorough approach to all her professional

21 Ella Tambussi Grasso Governor of Connecticut commitments. "She is consistently and totally prepared" say her colleagues. "This is a matter of hard work and some amount of patience," she responds. She firmly advises women to work for the degrees and other qualifications necessary to achieve their goals. "Those pieces of paper are important for the appointment even though you may regard them as ineffective," she adds. Mrs. Woodhouse is director of the Auerbach Service Bureau for Connecticut Organizations. Currently, under grants from the Connecticut Commission on Justice, she has issued three reports on laws related to juvenile offenders in Connecticut. These reports are being widely used by police departments and officials of the juvenile courts throughout the state. She has also served on over two dozen state committees, councils, and commissions, and currently serves as a charter commissioner of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. At 88, Mrs. Woodhouse still commutes from her home in Baltic to her Hartford office daily. ELLA TAMBUSSI GRASSO (1919) Certainly no other Connecticut woman has exemplified the qualities of initiative, conviction, and political acumen more than Ella Grasso. She is the first woman in the nation to be elected governor totally in her own right. Her interest and sense of commitment to the State of Connecticut began over thirty years ago during World War II when she worked for the very active Connecticut Manpower Commission. A political career takes a great deal of experience and training and Mrs. Grasso considers her work with the Connecticut League of Women Voters "the best political internship possible for an aspiring politician." She says her experience in the League, "was the most detailed and intimate exposure to the workings of local government." Mrs. Grasso's own family life was just beginning when she entered the political arena for the first time. She was born the daughter of James and Maria Tambussi and a member of a close, extended, family. Married to Tom Grasso in 1942, her first child was born in 1948. Looking back at the first days of her career, Governor Grasso says she had "all the advantages and none of the disadvantages." Her extended family provided her with built-in child care, a critical assist, as well as support in her career as pi rations. Mrs. Grasso served as representative in the General Assembly in 1953 and again in 1955. She brought to the General Assembly a great deal of what she had gleaned from the League of Women Voters - experience that was soon to develop into a personal political stand for open government, abolition of Connecticut's county government, and reform of the court systems. In the fifties, says the Governor, came a new and important concept - that the citizen counts - and the then freshman representative began to emerge as the conscience of her party. In 1956, she headed the Democratic State Platform Committee and was later appointed to the Democratic National Committee. Two years later, she was elected Connecticut Secretary of the State, a position she was to hold for twelve years and one that brought her great popularity and support. Reflecting on that period of her life she remembers those years as rigorous. The hours of the· office of Secretary of the State were somewhat flexible which made it possible for her to attend to household chores, to be supportive of her husband and his career, while caring for two growing children. "It's not that way today," she says, "but I was extremely grateful for that flexibility. In those days I was working full time, and was a mother and a w1fe. I would rush home to prepare dinner for the family, arriving sometimes no more than five minutes before (husband) Tom would walk in the door. I think husband-wife roles have relaxed a good deal today and I think that's great."3 Governor Grasso always has been and continues to be appreciative of her husband's support of her career and his willingness to share the varied responsibilities of family and household management. In 1971 , when her children had all grown, and since she had a strong constituency, she "left the nest" as she 23 describes it, to serve two terms in the United States Congress, representing the sixth Congressional District of Northwest Connecticut. "Those were good years," she says in retrospect. Family demands had greatly diminished and she adds that by now years of experience in the political arena were beginning to reward her with increased professional ease and expertise. The gubernatorial campaign was not an easy one, she says. This was not the first time Mrs. Grasso had faced difficulties in her career. Like Chase Going Woodhouse, Governor Grasso has approached potential obstacles with determined resolve, hard work, and discipline. "When someone suggested I run for Lieutenant Governor, I knew then more than ever that I wanted the Governor's seat."4

1 The ftrst ftve women elected to the Connecttcut Legtslature were all elected 1n 1921 Servtng as State Representatives were Em1ly Sophie Brown (A) . Naugatuck: Grace Eduardo (I) , New Hartford, Lillian S Fnnk (A). Canterbury, Mary M Hooker (A). Hartford, Helen A Jewett (0), Tolland. ' PCSW interv1ew w1th Chase Go•ng Woodhouse. Apnl, 1977. ' PCSW 1nterv1ew w1th Governor Grasso. Apnl 1977

"Lac. Cit

24 VIII. CONCLUSION

Women have made substantial contributions to every aspect of American life, having played important roles in education, in business, in politics, in the arts, in labor organization, in science and other areas. from Colonial times to the present. The list of women's contributions is a long one, as yet incomplete, in the texts which document the growth and development of the nation. The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, recognizing the need to acknowledge and to present some examples of the work of Connecticut women, has documented a small sample here. Women from a variety of backgrounds, races and religions have, each in a special way, made important inroads. Not all have been feminists in the modern sense, yet, such women are a source of inspiration and the story of their accomplishments deserves to be told. Certainly, to their credit, women have often been at the forefront of the continuing struggle toward full equality, waging well fought battles for abolition, women's suffrage and in the same tradition, working today, toward passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Much of women's history must be rediscovered and written. The Commission hopes that others will continue this work so that women's history can be given an appropriate place in the history of the nation.

25 Bibliography

Anderson- Anderson,M. My Lord, What a Morning. New York: Viking Press, 1956. Schaffer, G. State of Connecticut Register and Manual. Hartford, 1973. Auerbach- Obituary of Beatrice Fox Auerbach. The Hartford Times. December 1, 1968. Obituary of Beatrice Fox Auerbach The New York Times. December 1, 1968. Beatrice Fox Auerbach. Who's Who of American Women, 1966-67. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1967. Cole- Obituary of Corinne Alsop Cole. The Hartford Times. June 24, 1971 . Brown, E. A tribute to ten women pioneers. The Hartford Times, July 4, 1976. Conrad, B. The AI sops of Avon. The Hartford Times Magazine, July 1, 1973. PCSW interview with John Alsop, April, 1976. Crandall- Belknap, L. Scrapbooks of Newspaper Clippings Dealing Mostly with Hartford, Vol. 18 (Women). Hartford: Connecticut State Library, 1943. Fuller, E. Prudence Crandall: An Incident of Racism in Nineteenth Century Connecticut. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1971 . PCSW written communication with Claire Weir, June 23, 1977. Small, E. and M. Prudence Crandall: Champion of Negro education. New England Quarterly: 1944, 17, pp. 506-524. Steiner, B. History of Slavery in Connecticut. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1893.

Fielding- Speck, F. Native tribes and dialects of Connecticut, A Mohegan-Pequot diary. In The Forty- Third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1925-1926, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928. Unveiling tablet in memory of Fidelia H. Fielding. The New London Day, May 25, 1936.

Grasso- Big winner who changed her mind. New York Times, November 6, 1974. In power and down and out. New York Times Magazine, July 27, 1975. Cottell, J. Ella Grasso. In Who's Who in American Politics, 1975-1976. New York: L. L. Bowker Co., 1976. Treaster, J. Ella Grasso of Connecticut: Running and winning.Ms., 1974.3:4, pp. 80- 82, 122. Greenhouse, L. A low-key candidate, New York Times, July 22, 1974. Lamson, P. Two from Connecticut. In Few Are Chosen: American Women in Political Life Today. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968. Jarin, K. and Burkhardt, J. Ella Grasso Citizens Look at Congress: Ralph Nader Congress Project. Washington, D.C. Grossman Publishers, 1972.

Griffing - Johnson, A. and Malone, D. (Eds.) Josephine Griffing. In Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. IV, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. Sibun, J. Our Town's Heritage: 1708-1958, Hebron, Connecticut. Connecticut: Racine Printing, 1975. Stanton, E., Anthony, S. , and Gage, M. (Eds.) History of Woman Suffrage. Rochester, N.Y. : Charles Mann Printing Co., 1886. 26 Hamilton- Beck, A. "Alice Hamilton- Social Reformer". Paper presented at the Bicentennial Conference on U.S. Women and Their History. Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1976. Hamilton, A. Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D., Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1943. Johnson, J. (Ed.) Alice Hamilton. In Selected Articles on the Employment of Women. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co. , 1920.

Hepburn- Weir, C. "Katherine Houghton Hepburn - Crusader for Women's Franchise and Birth Control," unpublished; MS

Kellems- Brown, E. A tribute to ten women pioneers. The Hartford Times, July 4, 1976. Kellems, V. Toil, Taxes, and Trouble. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc. 1952.

Kies- Kane, J. Famous First Facts. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1964. Larned, E. History of Windham County, Connecticut, Vol. 2. Chester, Connecticut: The Pequot Press, 1976.

Luce- Claire Booth Luce: In Who 's Who of American Women, 1977-1978. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1978. Candee, M. Claire Booth Luce. In Current Biography: 1953. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1954.

Ludington- Morre, J. The night of fire. Yankee, April 1970, 34, pp. 96, 180-184.

Paul- American women in the long fight for the vote. Literary Digest, 1920, 66: 10, p. 52. Channel 30 interview with Alice Paul, on Desertion with Honor, December 9, 1976. Flexner, E. Century of Struggle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Obituary of Alice Paul. New York Times, July 10, 1977. Obituary of Alice Pau . Hartford Courant, July 10, 1977. Overdue bills. Newsweek, 1970, 74: 12, p. 18. Paul, Alice. Who 's Who in America, 1940-1941. Chicago: A. N. Marquis Co., 1941 . The sisters of Abigail Adams. Time, 1950, 55:6, pp. 12-13.

Petry- Harte, B. and Riley, C. (Eds.) Ann Petry, In Contemporary Authors, Vol. 5-B. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1969. Rothe, A. (Ed .) Ann Petry. Current Biography, 1946. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1946.

Sigourney- Belknap, L. Scrapbooks of Newspaper Clippings Dealing Mostly with Hartford, Vol. 18 (Women) Hartford: Connecticut State Library, 1943. James, E. (Ed.) Lydia H. Sigourney. In Notable American Women, 1606- 1950, Vol. Ill. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971.

Stewart- Flexner, E. Century of Struggle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Lerner, G. Black Women in White America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.

27 Stowe- James, E. (Ed .) Harriet Beecher Stowe. In Notable American Women, 1607- 1950. Vol. II. Cambridge University Press, 1971 . Watson- PCSW interview of and written communication of June 23, 1977 with Claire Weir.

Weir- Clara B. Weir written communication to PCSW on June 23, 1977.

Woodhouse - PCSW interview with Chase Going Woodhouse. Chamberlin, H. A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.

28 Index

Abolition, 3-7, 13-14, 18 American Birth Control League, 8 AFL, CIO, 8 American Negro Theater, 15 American Women Suffrage Movement, 8 American Woman's Home, 18 Amsterdam News, 14 Anderson, Marion, 15 Auerbach, Beatrice, 19 Auerbach Service Bureau, 19, 23 Bailey, Gamaliel , 14 Baldwin, Governor of Connecticut, 20 Baltic, CT, 23 Beecher, Catherine, 18 Beecher, Mary, 18 Beecher, Reverend Lyman, 13, 18 Beecher, Roxanna Foote, 13, 18 Biography of Pious Persons, 13 Black Law, 3 Bonifacio, Beatrice, 3-5 Boston, MA, 1, 3, 7, 14 British, 1 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 13 Brown vs . Board of Education, 5 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 17 Business, Women in , 19-20 Cable Grips, 20 Campion, Deborah, 1 Canterbury, CT, 1, 3 Century Illustrated, 5 Cincinnati, OH, 18 Cole, Corinne Alsop, 21 Colonial era, 1-2 Columbia University, 15 Commission on Justice, Connecticut, 23 Commission of Labor, United States, 11 Connecticut Bar Association, 19 Connecticut College, 19, 21 Connecticut Federation of Republican Women, 21 Congress, United States, 8, 21 , 24 Constitution Hall, Washington D.C. , 15 The Country Place, 15 The Courant, 1 Crandall, Prudence, 3-5 The Crisis, 14 Danbury, CT. 1, 15 Daughters of the American Revolution, 15 Davis, Joan, 18 Davis, Marcia, 3 Delaware Indians, 17 Democratic Party, 21 , 23 Deneen, Governor of Illinois, 11 The Domestic Receipt Book, 18 Dred, 14 East Hampton, CT, 18 Education, women in , 18

29 Elizabeth, Queen, 15 Equal Rights Amendment, 8, 20 Farmington, CT, 11 Federal Arts and Crafts Board, 17 Fielding, Fidelia Hoscutt, 15-17 Fielding, John, 15 Fielding, William, 15 Fort Santok State Park, 17 Fox, G. & Company, 19 Fox, Moses, 19 Freedman's Bureau, 5 Garment industry, 12 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3, 7 General Assembly, Connecticut, 1, 3, 5, 7, 23 George VI, King, 15 Grasso, Ella Tambussi, 22-24 Grasso, Thomas, 23 Gray, Hanna, 18 Greenwood, S. D. , 17 Griffing, Charles, 5 Griffing, Josephine, 5-7 Hadlyme, CT, 11 Hamilton, Alice, 11-12 Harlem, NY, 14 Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad, 15 Harris, Sara, 3 Hartford, CT, 7, 13, 18 Hartford College for Women, 18 Hartford Equal Franchise League, 7 Hartford Female Seminary, 18 Harvard Medical School, 11 Hebron, CT, 5 Hepburn, Katherine Houghton, 7 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 14 Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, 14 House of Representatives, United States, 8 Hull House, 11 Ickes, Harold, 15 Income Tax, 20 Industrial Reform, 11-12 International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 12 James, Henry, 14 Jewett, John P., 14 Kellems, Vivien, 19-20 Kennedy, John F. , 15 A Key to Uncle Tom 's Cabin, 14 Kies, Mary Dixon, 2 Kiss The Boys Goodbye, 21 Labor Unions, 12 Landon, Alf, 21 Lane, Peter and Bertha, 14 League of Women Voters, 8, 23 Ledyard, Sara, 1 Letters to Young Ladies, 13 Liberator, 3 Liberty Belles, 20 Liberty Boys, 20 Life Among the Lowly, 13

30 Lincoln Memorial, 15 Litchfield, CT, 13, 18 Litchfield, OH, 5 Longfellow, 14 Luce, Claire Booth, 21 Ludington, Henry, 1 Ludington, Sybil, 1 Lyme, CT, 14 Madison, Dolly, 2 Madison, James, 2 Manpower Commission, Connecticut, 23 Medal of Freedom, 15 Medicine, folk, 17 Medicine, industrial, 11-12 Miss Muriel and Other Stories, 15 Miss Porter's School, 11 , 12 Mohegan, CT, 15 Mohegan-Pequot language, 15 Montville, CT, 17 Moorestown, NJ, 21 Museum of the American Indian, 15 My Lord, What a Morning, 15 The Narrows, 15 Naticoke Community of Delaware Indians, 17 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 14 National Era, 14 National Freedman's Relief Association, 5 National Women's Party, 8 New England Anti-Slavery Society, 3 New London, CT, 1 New York, NY, 13 Nineteenth (suffrage) Amendment, 7 Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 11 Norwich, CT, 13 Old Saybrook, CT, 14, 15 Paul, Alice, 8-10 People's Voice, 14 Perkins, Frances, 8 Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, 23 Petry, Ann, 14-15 Petry, George D., 14 Philleo, Calvin, 5 Plainfield Academy, 3 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 8 Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, 13 Politics, women in, 21-24 Pomfret, CT, 1 Price, Lucy, 7, 8 Prince, J. Dyneley, 15 Providence Friend's School, 3 Quaker, 3, 8 Quinnebaug Valley, 1 Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, 7 Republican party, 21 Revolutionary War, 1 Ridgefield, CT, 8 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 8, 15 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 15, 21 St. Joseph's College, 19

31 Sanger, Margaret, 7 Saratoga, NY, 1 Sebequonash Council, Degree of Pocahontas, 17 Secretary of the State of Connecticut, 21 , 23 Senate, United States, 7, 8 Shaw, George B. , 8 Sibelius, 15 Sigourney, Charles, 13 Sigourney, Lydia Huntley, 13 Smith College, 21 South Killingly, CT, 1 Speck, Frank, 15 Stewart, Maria Miller, 7 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 13-14, 18 TheStreet, 14 Stuffed Shirts, 21 Suffrage, women, 5, 7, 8, 18 Supreme Court, United States, 5 Supreme Court of Errors, Connecticut, 5 Swarthmore College, 8 Tambussi, James, 23 Tambussi, Maria, 23 Tantaquidgeon, Gladys, 17 Tantaquidgeon, Harold, 17 Tantaquidgeon, John, 17 Toscanini, 15 Tituba of Salem Village, 15 Tobe award, 19 Tobias, Sheila, 18 A Treatise on Domestic Economy, 18 Trinity College, 19 Uncas, Martha, 15 Uncle Tom's Cabin, 13, 14 Underground Railroad, 5 United Nations, 15 Universal Franchise Association, 5 University of Connecticut College of Pharmacy, 14 University of Hartford, 19 University of Michigan School of Medicine, 11 University of Oregon, 19 University of Pennsylvania, 8, 17 Wadsworth, Daniel, 13 Washington, D.C., 14 Washington, George, 1 Watson, Ebenezar, 1 Watson, Hannah, 1 Wesleyan University, 18, 19 Westport, CT, 19 Wilson, Woodrow, 8 Women, The, 21 Woodhouse, Chase Going, 19, 21 , 23 Woodhouse, Edward James, 21 Workman's Compensation, 11 World Telegram, 14 World War II , 20, 23 Yale University, 18 Yankton Sioux Indians, 17

32