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

NameImageBirth–DeathYearArea of achievement
2019Professor of industrial environmental management at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
2019Founder of Newman's Own Organics pet food
2019With her sister Elizabeth Plouffe, the two last remaining Pequots to live on the Pequot Reservation
2019With her sister Martha Langevin, the two last remaining Pequots to live on the Pequot Reservation
2018Co-founder of American Ballet Theatre
2018Musician, author, founding member of Talking Heads
2017Along with Shaye Haver, one of the first two women to graduate from U.S. Army Ranger School.
2017First black female Air Force colonel
2017Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
2016American television basketball analyst and former women's basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association
2016American television anchor and journalist
2016First African American woman physician in Fairfield County
2015American photographer and documentary photographer
2015CEO and president of Save the Children
2015CEO of PepsiCo
2014Landscape architect
20143D printing pioneer
2014Public relations person
2013U.S. Representative for Connecticut's 3rd District
2013President and CEO of Barbara Franklin Enterprises, 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce
2013Vice President of Yale University
2013Union organizer, journalist and promoter of the suffrage movement
2012Foreign correspondent for National Public Radio
2012Portrait photographer
2012Connecticut public radio talk show host
2011Director Food Stamp Program and principal author of the program
2011First 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
2011Jurist, 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
2010Former CEO of Xerox Corporation
2010Executive secretary of Landers, Frary and Clark Co.
2010Chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications
2009Role model for black nurses
2009Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at Yale School of Medicine; created Women's Health Research at Yale
2009Advocate for quality healthcare
2008Educator, cancer researcher
2008Yale University School of Medicine, pioneer in working memory research
2008Geneticist and first woman who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine unshared
2008Yale University professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemestry
2007Olympic gold medalist skater
2007Multi-sports athlete
2007Champion golfer
2006Educator, author
2006First African American woman to run for state office
2006Founder of Love Makes a Family, advocate LGBT community
2005First female president Directors Guild of America
2005Abstract expressionist artist
2005Actress
2003Built Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts as a memorial to her father
2003Founder of The Artists Collective, a training center for the performing arts
2002Patron of American Impressionism art, Florence Griswold Museum, the Old Lyme Art Colony was headquartered in her home
2002Business executive
2002Roman Catholic nun, music composer, author
2001Singer, songwriter
2001Civil liberties attorney
2001Free black woman journalist, abolitionist, women's rights advocate
2000First female ambulance surgeon and first woman medical resident at New York City's Gouverneur Hospital
2000News anchor
2000Aviation pioneer, newspaper reporter
1999Photo journalist, war correspondent, human rights advocate, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
1999Vaudeville singer and actress
1999Elected mayor of Hartford in 1967, first female mayor in both the city and the state
1999Pioneered hospice care, National Women's Hall of Fame, Dean of Yale School of Nursing, American Academy of Nursing's Living Legend Award
1998Astronomer who discovered more than 1,000 variable stars, author, Bright Star Catalogue, The General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes
1998African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, New York State Senator
1998Opera singer, honored on a U.S. postage stamp
1998Founded the Lillian Vernon Company
1998Founder and first president of Connecticut Audubon Society; established first bird sanctuary in U.S. in Fairfield, CT
1997Widow 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
1997Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
1997American Puppet Theater
1997Educator and artist who created portraits of prominent African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance
1996Superintendent of schools Hartford, director Hartford National Corp.
1996Newbery Award for children's literature
1996Educator, philosopher
1995Roman Catholic Chancellor of the Archdiocese
1995Children's library services
1995Athlete, gender equality in sports advocate
1995First Hispanic woman elected to the Connecticut General Assembly
1994Explorer
1994Textile artist
1994Opera singer who broke ground for African Americans
1994Philanthropist, 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.
1994Mohegan medicine woman, tribal historian and documentarian
1994Sculptor
1994Proponent of education for women, founded Hartford Female Seminary
1994Rabbi
1994Abolitionist who accepted black students into her female academy in Canterbury, Connecticut
1994Preservationist who rescued historic homes
1994Last native speaker of the Mohegan Pequot language
1994Sociologist and author
1994Five-term Democratic state representative
1994Governor of Connecticut
1994Griswold v. Connecticut, United States Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut's anti-birth control statute was unconstitutional
1994After 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.
1994First woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University
1994Actress
1994Women's rights and Planned Parenthood
1994Founder of the Connecticut Women's Suffrage Association
1994Dentist, considered by some to be the first woman dentist in America
1994United States House of Representatives
1994United States Ambassador to Brazil, United States Ambassador to Italy, United States House of Representatives, Presidential Medal of Freedom, playwright, novelist
1994Co-founder of the Urban League of Greater Harford
1994Suffragist, founder National Woman's Party
1994First woman Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court
1994Author
1994Founder Miss Porter's School, private college prep school for girls
1994Architect
1994Educator
1994Founder of Pepperidge Farm
1994Actress, philanthropist
1994Poet
1994Women's and children's rights advocate
1994Sisters Hannah, Hancy, Cynrinthia, Laurilla, Julia and Abby. Family of early suffragists. Their home Kimberly Mansion is listed on the NRHP for Glastonbury.
1994Connecticut's first birth control clinic
1994Abolitionist, author
1994Mohegan anthropologist, author, council member, and elder
1994First female president of a state AFL-CIO
1994Newspaper publisher whose printed output supported the American Revolutionary War
1994First female Connecticut Secretary of State, United States House of Representatives

Footnotes