Katherine carrying the Connecticut ratification document to the State Dept.

Katherine was hired as office manager for K H. Hepburn’s Connecticut Woman Suffrage Assoc. She was the only working-class woman to be employed by the organization and then by the more militant National Woman’s Party. She went to Washington, D. C., joining Alice Paul’s group picketing the White House where she was arrested and sent to the notorious Occoquan Workhouse.  She wrote the story of her arrest and treatment at the workhouse and the story was picked up by newspapers across the country. This greatly helped the cause.   She worked on the woman's suffrage campaign, traveling up and down the east coast. When Connecticut ratified the amendment, she was picked to take the document to Washington to the Secretary of State.  After the ratification she went on to play and important role in the campaign to get the United States to recognize the new Irish Republic.  In 1921 she married and moved to Utah, dying six years later. 

Turning Point Suffragist Memorial, Catherine Flanagan, https://suffragistmemorial.org/catherine-flanagan/ 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame,  https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/catherine-flanagan 

The Arts 

A community activist and writer, Sarah was the first black schoolteacher in the Brooklyn district schools. In 1902 she married Richard Stedman Fleming, an immigrant from St. Kitts.  In 1910 the Flemings and their 2 children moved to New Haven and became active in the prominent black circles in the city. Richard became the first black dentist in Connecticut, and she joined the Twentieth Century Club which had been founded in 1901 and was New Haven’s oldest black women’s club. She was active in promoting the woman’s suffrage cause and she came to the attention of black suffragists Mary McCleod Bethune and Mary Church Terrell. After passage of the 19th amendment, she became active in the League of Women Voters. She encouraged interracial membership in the 19th ward, holding League meetings at her home on Dwight Street. 

Sarah Lee brown Fleming, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lee_Brown_Fleming
Chalkboard Champions, https://chalkboardchampions.org/sarah-lee-brown-fleming-teacher-activist/

Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/sarah-lee-brown-fleming 

                                                                                     Hill speaking at a street meeting in St. Paul MN in 1916.

One of the three daughters of a U. S. Congressman, she and her sisters became suffragists after graduating from Vassar.  Elsie studied in Paris before going to Vassar College. She graduated in 1906, went to study in Europe for a year, and then settled in Washington D. C. where she taught high school French. She organized the Congressional Club and was elected president of the local Equal Suffrage League. In 1912 she helped Alice Paul organize a large suffrage parade before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. There was violence during the parade which attracted a lot of publicity. In 1916 she left teaching to work full time for the suffrage movement, traveling to over 40 states.  She was among those arrested for picketing the White House in 1917 and 1918. After the amendment passed, Hill succeeded Paul at chair of the National Woman’s Party and continued to be active politically, running for public offices three times in Connecticut. She worked for the Equal Rights Amendment and renewed her friendship with Alice Paul after Paul’s move to Ridgefield CT. 

WCSU. Elsie Hill interview.  https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/1553

Wikipedia. Elsie Hill  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Hill

Alexander Street. Biographical Sketch of Elsie Mary Hill.  https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1006939755

Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.  The Hill Sisters: Clara, Elsie and Helena.  https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/the-hill-sisters

Library of Congress. Elsie Hill speaking [at street meeting in St. Paul, Minn., during Prohibition Party convention that endorsed a plank advocating a suffrage amendment, July 1916] https://www.loc.gov/resource/mnwp.160063/

Library of Congress photo of Elsie Hill https://www.loc.gov/resource/ggbain.33898/

                                                                            Isabella and Thomas at their home in Harford.

  Isabella attended the Hartford Female Seminary, founded by her sisters, Catherine and Mary.  She married the lawyer Thomas Hooker at the age of 19.  Their family eventually moved to a home near Nook Farm, the literary colony in Hartford. She founded the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.  In 1871 she organized a suffrage convention in Washington D. C. to bring the issue to the attention of Congress. She drafted a bill which was introduced in the State Legislature, giving women the right to own property.  She proposed two bills giving women the right to vote on education and prohibition issues. She continued to promote women’s rights and suffrage until her death in 1907. 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/isabella-beecher-hooker 

Connecticut History.org, https://connecticuthistory.org/people/isabella-beecher-hooker/ 

WCSU Archives Isabella Beecher Hooker  https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/studentOmeka/exhibits/show/women-s-suffrage/suffrage/isabella-beecher-hooker

Born to a Quaker family in New Jersey that believed in gender equality, education for woman and the need to work to improve society. Her mother was a suffragist and took her daughter to suffragist meetings.  Paul graduated from Swarthmore which had been cofounded by her grandfather. She went on to attend the New York School of Philanthropy (now part of Columbia), studied in England and on returning earned a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1910.  While in England she met the Pankhursts and participated in their radical militant protests for woman’s suffrage. In America, she joined the National American Woman Suffrage Assoc., leading the Washington D.C. chapter. She and Alice Burns organized the famous 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D. C.  She and others split from the Association which was concentrating on a state-by-state campaign.  They formed the National Woman’s Party and used the British suffragettes more radical tactics to work for a Federal amendment. Starting in January of 1917 they spent 18 months picketing the White House.  She and other protesters were arrested and sent to the Occoquan Workhouse. She endured force feedings during her hunger strike. Here sufferings gained public support for suffrage. Once the amendment was passed, she devoted her energy to the Equal Rights Amendment and other social issues. She supported the ERA amendment in opposition to the League of Women Voters (the successor to the National American Woman Suffrage Association).  

Harvard Radcliffe Institute, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/alice-paul

Debra Michals, National Women’s History Museum, 2015, https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul

Born in Cromwell, Connecticut she graduated from Vassar in 1907 and  went on to obtain a master’s degree from Columbia in 1908 and then  began a career as a high teacher in Bristol.   In 1909 she heard a speech by the British suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst.  This inspired her to join the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association where she worked with its leaders in promoting the suffrage cause.  She also joined Katherine H. Hepburn in forming the Hartford Political Equality League whose aims were the promotion of woman’s suffrage and moral reform.   Pierson gave speeches and organized events.  Her most notable event was the “Trolley Campaign” in 1912.  She handed out leaflets and tracts to trolley riders in major Connecticut cities.  She gave a speech in Harford to Underwood Typewriter factory employees on the benefits of organized labor.   In 1914 she helped organize the Hartford branch of the nationwide suffrage parade, attracting over 1,000 participants. She even has a young woman on a white horse at the head of the parade, emulating Inez Holland in the 1913 Washington D. C. suffrage parade.  With the passage of the 19th amendment, she helped revive the National Woman’s Party in Connecticut in 1922, earned a medical degree from Yale in 1924 and worked as a school doctor and town Health Director for Cromwell. She traveled internationally to promote women’s and children’s health issues in Russia and China and became interested in socialism. 

Exner, Georgia. Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920. Biography of Emily Pierson, 1881 – 1971. https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1009656426 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/emily-pierson