She was a Mohegan Pequot who was devoted to preservation of the tribe’s historical records and oral traditions. She revived the Mohegan green corn festival, The Wigwam, to unify her people before the reservation was disbanded in 1860. She made it part of the Mohegan Church Sewing Circle’s events to promote its continuation.  She was elected by the tribe to represent a group in Hartford on issues concerning land disputes and Indian burial desecration. 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/emma-fielding-baker  

Mohegan Tribe. Medicine Women of the 20^th century. https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/about/our-tribal-history/ceremonial-leaders/medicine-women-of-the-20th-century

Mohegan Tribe Wigwam Festival, https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/explore/heritage/wigwam-festival

She's honored as the last speaker and the preserver of the Mohegan Pequot language. She spoke the language with her grandmother, Mary Uncas.  The diaries she left behind have been preserved and are helping in the reconstruction of the language. 

Mohegan Tribe, Fidelia Fielding,  https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/explore/heritage/our-history/fidelia-fielding

Wikipedia, Fidelia Fielding, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelia_Fielding

Wikipedia, Mohegan-Pequot Language, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohegan-Pequot_language

Futurity. 'Lost' Indian Manuscript Discovered.  12/30/14 posted by Time Krattenmaker, Yale.  https://www.futurity.org/1776-manuscript-mohegan-american-history-828302/

    Atlanta Constitution 12/10/1916         Speaking at a woman's suffrage demonstration

Her father, whose grandfather was Lyman Beecher, abandoned the family and she grew up in poverty as her mother moved the family from relative to relative.  She attended the Rhode Island School of Design for two years and earned a living designing greeting cards.  She married an artist, Walter Stetson, but they divorced in 1894.  She moved with her daughter to California and wrote plays. poetry, fiction and non-fiction for a living.  She became active in reform issues – focusing on feminism, women’s issues, and working conditions. She sent her daughter to live with her father and his new wife, having progressive beliefs about paternal rights.  Her great aunts were Catherine and Isabella Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In 1900 she married her cousin George Houghton Gilman, continued to write more than a dozen books and published a magazine The Forerunner.   She was considered a utopian feminist.  Interest in her writings waned but with the women’s movement of the 1960s there was a resurgence in her popularity. In a 1993 poll, Gilman was named the 6th most influential women in the 20th century. 
 
Connecticut History.org  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, https://connecticuthistory.org/charlotte-perkins-gilman/ 

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman 

 Born in Buffalo NY, she and her sisters were able to follow her mother’s wishes and attended Bryn Mawr in spite of her uncle’s objections.  She graduated in 1899 and continued on to obtain a master’s degree and then traveled and taught for several years.  She met a medical student, Tom Hepburn who was in his last year of medical school. They married in 1904 and moved to Hartford. The couples’ freethinking and social practices caused them to be ostracized by many. Katherine fought for woman’s suffrage and joined the fight against prostitution.  She also championed birth control for women, job opportunities for women, and social welfare issues She served as president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. In 1917 she joined the more radical Woman’s Party led by Alice Paul. A newspaper clipping with her family picture (Mrs. Thomas Hepburn)  shows how suffragists worked to overcome the idea that voting would destroy families.  In the 1920’s she devoted much of her time to the issue of birth control. In 1929 she accepted Margaret Sanger’s invitation to become the legislative chairwoman of the new National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in Washington, D. C. 

ConnecticutHistory.org ,  Katherine Houghton Hepburn, A Woman Before Her Time, March 18, 2015, https://connecticuthistory.org/katharine-houghton-hepburn-a-woman-before-her-time/ 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/katharine-houghton-hepburn

WIkipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Martha_Houghton_Hepburn

Lisa's History Room. Katherine Hepburn and Good Old Dad.  https://lisawallerrogers.com/2014/09/20/katharine-hepburn-and-good-old-dad/

FInd a Greave. Katherine Houghton Hepburn   https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7871150/katharine-martha-hepburn

Vanguard Hollywood. Katherine Hepburn A Fierce Hollywood Original. https://vanguardofhollywood.com/katharine-hepburn-a-fierce-hollywood-original/

Connecticut Explored, Barbara Sicherman, Connecticut Women Fight for Reproductive Rights, https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-women-fight-for-reproductive-rights/

 Helen was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia Alabama, and at 19 months old became deaf and blind due to an unknown illness. Alexander Graham Bell examined her when she was six and recommended Anne Sullivan to teach her.  She had  become wild and unruly until Anne Sullivan arrived to teach and establish discipline. Ann had attended Perkins School for the Blind in Boston and used the educational techniques developed by Samuel Gridley Howe along with patience and firmness to win Helen over.  Ann brought her to the Perkins School to continue her education. They left Perkins in 1892 after a misunderstanding over a story Helen had written.  She eventually forgave the school and donated many Braille books to it.  In 1890 she wanted to learn to speak so Ann took her to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She had 11 lessons with Sarah Fuller and then Anne taught her with Fuller's  techniques.

She wanted to go to college and entered Cambridge School for Young Ladies to prepare for Radcliffe College. In 1904 she graduated cum laude, the first deafblind person to do so.  Ann stayed with Helen until her own death in 1936. Polly Thompson, Helen’s secretary since 1914, took over for Anne. Helen published her autobiography while at Radcliffe and continued to write throughout her life. She was a pacifist, protesting U.S. involvement in WWI. She was a socialist, advocating for worker’s rights, a committed suffragist and an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Her lifelong work for the American Foundation for the Blind which started in 1924, gave her a global platform to advocate for people who had lost their vision.  She made 7 trips from 1946 to 1957, visiting 35 countries and in 1948 was asked to be America’s First Goodwill Ambassador by Gen. McArthur and sent to Japan. The visit drew attention to the blind and disabled there.  In 1955 at the age of 75 she went on a 40,000 mile, five month long tour of Asia which resulted in many efforts to improve the conditions for the blind and those with vision loss.  She had a stoke in 1960 and from 1961 on she lived at Arcan Ridge, her home in Westport.

American Foundation for the Blind, Helen Keller Biographyhttps://www.afb.org/about-afb/history/helen-keller/biography-and-chronology/biography?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI59XJoZ-j9QIV-PbjBx2PMQkCEAAYAiAAEgIV6PD_BwE

Perkins School for the Blind,  https://www.perkins.org/helen-keller/

THoughtCo.  Helen Keller, Deaf and Blind Spokesperson and Activist.  https://www.thoughtco.com/helen-keller-1779811

Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Helen-Keller

Motley with M. L. King and Wm. Kunstler         Motley with James Meredith              Motley being sworn in as a judge in the Southern Dist. of NY

(see links below for photo attributions)

Growing up in New Haven she decided she wanted to be a lawyer and went to work after high school to earn money for college.  While giving a speech at a local community center, she impressed Clarence Blakeslee, a wealthy white contractor in New Haven. He offered to pay for college.  She attended Fisk University in Tennessee and then NYU.  She was the first black woman accepted into Columbia Law School. She met Thurgood Marshall there and she worked at the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Getting her degree in 1946, she became one of their principal trial lawyers, wrote briefs filed in Brown v. Board of Education. She was lead council in the fight to get James Meredith admitted to the University of Mississippi.  She fought other cases to get schools desegregated and defended protestors being arrested during the Freedom Rides of the 1960s.In 12964 she entered politics. She was the first woman elected to the New York Senate and the first woman to be Manhattan Borough President. President Johnson appointed her to the U.S. District court in 1966, the first black woman to serve as a federal judge.   

Connecticut History.org, Constance Baker Motley: a warrior for justice, https://connecticuthistory.org/constance-baker-motley-a-warrior-for-justice/

BHA Constance Baker Motley, http://www.myblackhistory.net/Constance_Motley.htm 

Black Past,  https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/motley-constance-baker-1921-2005/ 

UNted States Courts, https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2020/02/20/constance-baker-motley-judiciarys-unsung-rights-hero

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Lawyer, Advocate, Judge Elected Official, https://www.naacpldf.org/naacp-publications/ldf-blog/cbm-100/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItP2quYaj9QIVmaXICh1RCQJqEAAYASAAEgLaNPD_BwE

After earning her law degree at Yale Law School in 1948, the only woman in the class, she took over the family law practice in Canaan, Connecticut. She represented Estelle Griswold in Griswold v. Connecticut which challenged Connecticut’s birth control statute. She successfully argued that the Connecticut ban violated marital privacy rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.    She successfully tried several other high profile cases, including the New Haven Black Panther murder trial in 1971.  

Connecticut History.org, https://connecticuthistory.org/people/catherine-roraback/ 

Hartford Courant, July 11, 2014, Roraback’s Legacy Returns with Research Center Opening, https://www.courant.com/courant-250/explore-44/hc-250-haar-catherine-roraback-story.html 

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Roraback

American Bar Association, Women Trailblazers in the Law, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/senior_lawyers/women_trailblazers_project_listing/catherine_g_roraback

Hartford Courant. Roraback's Legacy 7/11/2014  www.courant.com/courant-250/explore-44/hc-250-haar-catherine-roraback-story.html

HIlda attended public schools in Hartford, then went on to Wellesley College, graduating in 1924.  She earned her medical degree from the Cornell School of Medicine.  After working in hospitals in Philadelphia and St. Louis, she accepted a position at a hospital in Shanghai. Returning home for a family issue, she was unable to go back because the Japanese had captured Shanghai. She was recruited by Katherine H. Hepburn to become medical director of the Hartford Maternal Health Center, whose financing came from private donors.  An 1879 Connecticut law made use of prescription contraceptives illegal.  In spite of this, the clinic provided this help.  The clinic was forced to close in 1940.  She continued the fight to legalize birth control and in 1964 Connecticut passed the law making use of prescription birth control legal.  

Connecticut History.org, Hilda Crosby Standish: Early proponent of women’s reproductive health, March 10, 2021 https://connecticuthistory.org/hilda-crosby-standish-early-proponent-of-womens-reproductive-health/ 

Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/hilda-crosby-standish

Connecticut Explored, Barbara Sicherman, Connecticut Women Fight for Reproductive Rights, https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-women-fight-for-reproductive-rights/

Hilda Crosby Standish. Obtuary 6/4/2005  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/hartfordcourant/name/hilda-standish-obituary?id=26700938

                                                                          Picture of Beecher family by Matthew Brady. Harriet is second from left in front row.

Harriet was born in 1811, the sixth of eleven children.  The Beechers expected their children to make a difference in the world. Seven sons became ministers, her sister Catherine was a pioneer in education for women and her sister Isabella was very active in the woman suffrage movement.    Harriet was a student and later a teacher at her sister Catherine’s Academy in Hartford. She moved with her family to Cincinnati in 1832 where she married a theology professor, Calvin Stowe.  In 1849 her 18-month-old son died. Stowe credit’s the pain of this death as one of the inspirations for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written and published in as a serial in 1851 – 1852, a common practice at that time. It was published as a book in 1852 and immediately sold over 300,000 copies. She became an active proponent of abolition, touring and writing to promote the cause. The family moved several times as Calvin taught at Bowdoin College and then Andover Theological Seminary.  On his retirement they moved Hartford, building a home at Nook Farm. This proved too expensive to maintain and they settled in a brick Victorian Gothic cottage on Forest Street around the corner from Mark Twain’s home.  Stowe’s bother Charles opened a school in Florida to teach emancipated people and urged the Stowe’s to join him.  They purchased a house and property in Mandarin Florida and spent the winters there. 

WIkipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center,  https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/harriet-beecher-stowe/harriet-beecher-stowe-life/  

National Women’s History Museum,  https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-beecher-stowe