Inspiration
Honoring Strong Women
In Connecticut, it's not hard to explore the stories of women from history who were first (Ella Grasso was the nation's first female governor elected in her own right), best (Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars for Best Actress) or extraordinarily influential (Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin fired up public sentiment for a war over slavery). Today, some of Connecticut's best-known travel destinations have a woman's story at their center. You can find these and more by visiting the Connecticut Women's Heritage Trail.
The Writer
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism features Stowe's life story and her literary works, and it colorfully illuminates her 19th-century world in Hartford. The Stowe Center is part of the Nook Farm complex, home to Stowe and her influential family, including many strong, successful women (not to mention neighbor Mark Twain). The Center is home to regular programs that connect issues of the past to modern day problems of gender equality.
The Architect
The Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington is located in a house designed for her parents by architect Theodate Pope Riddle, one of the first female architects in the country. Riddle and her parents toured Europe together, where they picked up the impressive collection of Impressionist art that is now displayed throughout the museum. The Hill-Stead also boasts a restored sunken garden.
The Teacher
The Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury celebrates the life and work of this educator of young women, who in 1832 admitted Sarah Harris, an African American girl, into her academy. She faced down the objections of townspeople and a Connecticut law that made her school illegal, and fought her arrest and conviction until she was acquitted. The museum's exhibits and period rooms allow visitors to explore Crandall's work to educate young women of color. The Prudence Crandall Museum is currently closed for renovations. Be on the lookout for its reopening.
The Patron
Florence Griswold helped cultivate American Impressionism by hosting painters in her home in Old Lyme, turning the little town into a thriving artists' colony in the late19th century. Today, the Florence Griswold Museum, housed in Griswold's former home, presents an outstanding collection of American Impressionist Art and preserves Griswold's legacy as a patron of the arts.
Two Women
Similarly, in the 1890s, Josephine Holley and her daughter Constant ran a boarding house for writers and Impressionist artists and fostered an artist colony in the village of Cos Cob. John Twachtman and Theodore Robinson were among the painters attracted to the site, now known as the Bush-Holley House. However, Holley was not the first remarkable woman to occupy the home. During the Revolutionary War, while her husband was imprisoned, Sarah Bush defended her house and family against attack. Both women's stories are interpreted here.
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