Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame
The Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame recognizes women natives or residents of the U.S. state of Connecticut for their significant achievements or statewide contributions.
The CWHF had its beginnings in 1993 when a group of volunteers partnered with Hartford College for Women to establish an organization to honor distinguished contributions by female role models associated with Connecticut. The first list of inductees contained forty-one women notable to Connecticut's history and culture, many of whom broke down barriers by becoming the first women to establish themselves in fields that had been previously denied to their gender. Alice Paul, who had a role in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and later wrote the first version of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, was on the 1994 list of women. Also on that first list were actress Katharine Hepburn and her mother Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn, who was a pioneer in women's rights and planned parenthood issues. Three of the Beecher clan are on that first list, Hartford Female Seminary founder Catharine Beecher, suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker, and abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Governor Ella T. Grasso was honored in 1994, as was Estelle Griswold, whose landmark Griswold v. Connecticut before the United States Supreme Court resulted in Connecticut's anti-birth control statute being declared unconstitutional.
In the ensuing two decades, the list has more than doubled. Artist Laura Wheeler Waring, who found fame by creating portraits of prominent African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, was added in 1997. Abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler became part of the list in 2005. African American opera divas are on the list, Marian Anderson in 1994 and Rosa Ponselle in 1998. Ambassador, politician and playwright Clare Boothe Luce's 1994 appearance on the list was later joined by 19th century free black woman journalist Maria W. Stewart in 2001 and by war correspondent and human rights activist Jane Hamilton-Merritt in 1999. In 2008, the list gained Nobel Prize in Medicine winner, geneticist Barbara McClintock. The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winner Annie Dillard was added to the list in 1997.
The CWHF provides educational resources through two traveling exhibits, the Inductee Portrait Exhibit, and its We Fight For Roses, Too, a set of twenty-two standing panels displaying the stories of the inductees. The CWHF also provides speakers upon request.
Inductees
Name | Image | Birth–Death | Year | Area of achievement | |
2019 | Professor of industrial environmental management at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies | ||||
2019 | Founder of Newman's Own Organics pet food | ||||
2019 | With her sister Elizabeth Plouffe, the two last remaining Pequots to live on the Pequot Reservation | ||||
2019 | With her sister Martha Langevin, the two last remaining Pequots to live on the Pequot Reservation | ||||
2018 | Co-founder of American Ballet Theatre | ||||
2018 | Musician, author, founding member of Talking Heads | ||||
2017 | Along with Shaye Haver, one of the first two women to graduate from U.S. Army Ranger School. | ||||
2017 | First black female Air Force colonel | ||||
2017 | Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. | ||||
2016 | American television basketball analyst and former women's basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association | ||||
2016 | American television anchor and journalist | ||||
2016 | First African American woman physician in Fairfield County | ||||
2015 | American photographer and documentary photographer | ||||
2015 | CEO and president of Save the Children | ||||
2015 | CEO of PepsiCo | ||||
2014 | Landscape architect | ||||
2014 | 3D printing pioneer | ||||
2014 | Public relations person | ||||
2013 | U.S. Representative for Connecticut's 3rd District | ||||
2013 | President and CEO of Barbara Franklin Enterprises, 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce | ||||
2013 | Vice President of Yale University | ||||
2013 | Union organizer, journalist and promoter of the suffrage movement | ||||
2012 | Foreign correspondent for National Public Radio | ||||
2012 | Portrait photographer | ||||
2012 | Connecticut public radio talk show host | ||||
2011 | Director Food Stamp Program and principal author of the program | ||||
2011 | First woman elected state treasurer in Connecticut history, first African American woman elected state treasurer in the nation, and first African American woman elected to statewide office in Connecticut | ||||
2011 | Jurist, Chair of the Open Society Institute's Criminal Justice Initiative, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice, first woman to sit on the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, subsequently serving as its Chief Judge | ||||
2010 | Former CEO of Xerox Corporation | ||||
2010 | Executive secretary of Landers, Frary and Clark Co. | ||||
2010 | Chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications | ||||
2009 | Role model for black nurses | ||||
2009 | Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at Yale School of Medicine; created Women's Health Research at Yale | ||||
2009 | Advocate for quality healthcare | ||||
2008 | Educator, cancer researcher | ||||
2008 | Yale University School of Medicine, pioneer in working memory research | ||||
2008 | Geneticist and first woman who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine unshared | ||||
2008 | Yale University professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemestry | ||||
2007 | Olympic gold medalist skater | ||||
2007 | Multi-sports athlete | ||||
2007 | Champion golfer | ||||
2006 | Educator, author | ||||
2006 | First African American woman to run for state office | ||||
2006 | Founder of Love Makes a Family, advocate LGBT community | ||||
2005 | First female president Directors Guild of America | ||||
2005 | Abstract expressionist artist | ||||
2005 | Actress | ||||
2003 | Built Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts as a memorial to her father | ||||
2003 | Founder of The Artists Collective, a training center for the performing arts | ||||
2002 | Patron of American Impressionism art, Florence Griswold Museum, the Old Lyme Art Colony was headquartered in her home | ||||
2002 | Business executive | ||||
2002 | Roman Catholic nun, music composer, author | ||||
2001 | Singer, songwriter | ||||
2001 | Civil liberties attorney | ||||
2001 | Free black woman journalist, abolitionist, women's rights advocate | ||||
2000 | First female ambulance surgeon and first woman medical resident at New York City's Gouverneur Hospital | ||||
2000 | News anchor | ||||
2000 | Aviation pioneer, newspaper reporter | ||||
1999 | Photo journalist, war correspondent, human rights advocate, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize | ||||
1999 | Vaudeville singer and actress | ||||
1999 | Elected mayor of Hartford in 1967, first female mayor in both the city and the state | ||||
1999 | Pioneered hospice care, National Women's Hall of Fame, Dean of Yale School of Nursing, American Academy of Nursing's Living Legend Award | ||||
1998 | Astronomer who discovered more than 1,000 variable stars, author, Bright Star Catalogue, The General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes | ||||
1998 | African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, New York State Senator | ||||
1998 | Opera singer, honored on a U.S. postage stamp | ||||
1998 | Founded the Lillian Vernon Company | ||||
1998 | Founder and first president of Connecticut Audubon Society; established first bird sanctuary in U.S. in Fairfield, CT | ||||
1997 | Widow of Samuel Colt, donated her entire art and firearms collection to Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, and provided funding to erect a Colt Memorial wing of the museum | ||||
1997 | Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | ||||
1997 | American Puppet Theater | ||||
1997 | Educator and artist who created portraits of prominent African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance | ||||
1996 | Superintendent of schools Hartford, director Hartford National Corp. | ||||
1996 | Newbery Award for children's literature | ||||
1996 | Educator, philosopher | ||||
1995 | Roman Catholic Chancellor of the Archdiocese | ||||
1995 | Children's library services | ||||
1995 | Athlete, gender equality in sports advocate | ||||
1995 | First Hispanic woman elected to the Connecticut General Assembly | ||||
1994 | Explorer | ||||
1994 | Textile artist | ||||
1994 | Opera singer who broke ground for African Americans | ||||
1994 | Philanthropist, president and director of G. Fox & Co., from 1938 to 1959 she made her store available to Connecticut College for Women as a training program for retail education. | ||||
1994 | Mohegan medicine woman, tribal historian and documentarian | ||||
1994 | Sculptor | ||||
1994 | Proponent of education for women, founded Hartford Female Seminary | ||||
1994 | Rabbi | ||||
1994 | Abolitionist who accepted black students into her female academy in Canterbury, Connecticut | ||||
1994 | Preservationist who rescued historic homes | ||||
1994 | Last native speaker of the Mohegan Pequot language | ||||
1994 | Sociologist and author | ||||
1994 | Five-term Democratic state representative | ||||
1994 | Governor of Connecticut | ||||
1994 | Griswold v. Connecticut, United States Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut's anti-birth control statute was unconstitutional | ||||
1994 | After passing the Connecticut Superior Court exam, won an 1882 ruling from Chief Justice John Park of the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors that women were entitle to equal protection under Connecticut statutes and entitled to practice law in the state. | ||||
1994 | First woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University | ||||
1994 | Actress | ||||
1994 | Women's rights and Planned Parenthood | ||||
1994 | Founder of the Connecticut Women's Suffrage Association | ||||
1994 | Dentist, considered by some to be the first woman dentist in America | ||||
1994 | United States House of Representatives | ||||
1994 | United States Ambassador to Brazil, United States Ambassador to Italy, United States House of Representatives, Presidential Medal of Freedom, playwright, novelist | ||||
1994 | Co-founder of the Urban League of Greater Harford | ||||
1994 | Suffragist, founder National Woman's Party | ||||
1994 | First woman Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court | ||||
1994 | Author | ||||
1994 | Founder Miss Porter's School, private college prep school for girls | ||||
1994 | Architect | ||||
1994 | Educator | ||||
1994 | Founder of Pepperidge Farm | ||||
1994 | Actress, philanthropist | ||||
1994 | Poet | ||||
1994 | Women's and children's rights advocate | ||||
1994 | Sisters Hannah, Hancy, Cynrinthia, Laurilla, Julia and Abby. Family of early suffragists. Their home Kimberly Mansion is listed on the NRHP for Glastonbury. | ||||
1994 | Connecticut's first birth control clinic | ||||
1994 | Abolitionist, author | ||||
1994 | Mohegan anthropologist, author, council member, and elder | ||||
1994 | First female president of a state AFL-CIO | ||||
1994 | Newspaper publisher whose printed output supported the American Revolutionary War | ||||
1994 | First female Connecticut Secretary of State, United States House of Representatives |