Keynote: “Let's Do It!”—Women Making History in the Land of Steady Habits

This year's Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH) Conference on Women in Connecticut, held on November 12, 2011, elicited an impressive range of topics that should help women take their place in the state's history. Just as Connecticut history has not fully incorporated women, so the state has yet to find its place in the national narrative. This is probably the typical fate of a small state. But for Connecticut, located as it is between two giants with acknowledged places in the national psyche and claims on our livelihoods and allegiances—think of the divided loyalties in baseball's fiercest rivalry—the situation is highly fraught.I hope to contribute to this reassessment by reflecting on Connecticut women's efforts to claim a place in the world by insisting on rights and freedoms, beginning with the right to speak in public and to vote and moving on to reproductive freedoms, notably access to birth control and abortion. Two main considerations influenced this choice.First: intense gratitude that I live in a “blue state.” The feeling came over me shortly after the transgender civil rights bill became law in June 2011, an outcome so at odds with the stalemates and roll-backs on the national scene. Connecticut's early endorsement of marriage equality for gays and lesbians is another indicator of the state's progressive social values. There are liberal gender policies as well. In the matter of abortion, for example, Connecticut is one of only twelve states that had not imposed restrictions by the fall of 2011.1 The state's current position in the forefront of extending rights and freedoms, it should be noted, stands in sharp contrast to its conservative past: Connecticut was once known for blueness of a different sort.The second reason for my choice of subject is a longstanding concern that many women today, young women especially, take for granted the changes in women's lives over the past four decades: some assume that current gender arrangements, whether expanded opportunities for employment, participation in sports, or access to abortion, just happened. They didn't. Social change doesn't just happen. The reforms women sought—the right of taxpayers to political representation or the right to decide when or whether to bear a child—were strenuously resisted. Some women, including some who were exceedingly privileged, spent decades fighting for social change. Though often reviled, they worked fearlessly to overcome obstacles to creating a more equitable society.This is something we all need to be reminded of, particularly now when many of the changes our foremothers worked for are endangered. Until the Occupy movement burst on the scene in the fall of 2011, the liveliest political movement around, the Tea Party, was dedicated to dismantling the very changes women reformers had brought about. These included not only access to birth control and abortion, but to the social welfare safety net that women helped write into state and federal law during the New Deal.I will focus on the goals of women's movements at three moments in time. First, the beginnings of organized suffrage activities in the late 1860s, led in the state by Isabella Beecher Hooker, when eliminating legal disabilities and gaining the vote were primary objectives. Second, the suffrage movement at its peak in the 1910s, when it drew on the talents of a younger generation. Katharine Houghton Hepburn was the charismatic leader who attracted new members and funds to a moribund state organization and connected it to the national campaign that secured passage of a federal suffrage amendment. And third, women's efforts to gain control of reproduction, a struggle that lasted half a century. Hepburn and her cohort were unable to sustain a network of birth control clinics in the 1930s, but under the leadership of Estelle Griswold in the 1960s, the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut succeeded in overturning a repressive nineteenth-century statute that made even the use of contraceptives illegal. She was aided by Catherine Roraback, the chief Connecticut litigator for a series of cases that culminated in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to “marital privacy” outside the reach of the state.Historians have sometimes stressed the limitations of the suffrage movement, including its elitism and racism, as well as the often bitter divisions among activists. It has been assumed, for example, that after passage of the nineteenth amendment, older suffragists remained fixated on the political and economic reforms of the Progressive era, while younger women were mainly interested in sexual freedom and control over reproduction. Without denying the very real exclusions and differences among activists, the Connecticut example demonstrates unusual cooperation among organizations as well as considerable continuity in goals.2Isabella Beecher Hooker, founder and leader of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association from 1869 until the turn of the century, may seem far removed from the women who advocated birth control clinics and legalized abortion in the twentieth century. To begin with, her solution to controlling fertility was “voluntary motherhood”—then defined as a woman's right to refuse to have sex with her husband. This may seem fatuous today, but it was a radical idea at a time when a wife's “marital obligation” had legal standing. Hooker was also a staunch believer in a woman's right to speak for herself. “I came to the determination,” she declared, “never to allow any man however excellent to interpret any woman for me.”3 Her insistence on supporting the controversial suffrage leader Victoria Woodhull, including her right to bring adultery charges against Isabella's brother Henry Ward Beecher, alienated Hooker from her family and showed how far she was willing to go on this score.Hooker, who did not have much of a movement behind her, made a point of working with both rival national suffrage organizations. Like others of her generation, she was primarily concerned with eliminating legal inequities and gaining the vote. She hoped to establish a central bureau to inform women of their legal disabilities, for “there is nothing like that to arouse indignation and stir to action—(I am so thankful Conn. law is so bad, we could not illustrate tendencies by a revised Code half so well).”4 The two major legislative achievements of the era were a married women's property act in 1877, drafted by Isabella's feminist husband, John Hooker, which gave wives full control over their property and earnings, and a 1901 law granting fathers and mothers equal rights of guardianship over their children. Isabella's membership in one of the state's leading families opened doors for her, including an invitation to speak before the state legislature, where she took great pride in standing “Face to face & eye to eye with every man of them.”5 The Hookers worked assiduously to secure suffrage amendments at both the state and national levels. But suffrage, even municipal suffrage, repeatedly failed in one or both houses. Connecticut women finally obtained full suffrage in school board elections in 1893, but for technical reasons the law had little traction. They also gained the right to serve as school trustees, public librarians, and police matrons.Resistance to granting women the vote, even in local elections, was nowhere better illustrated than in the inspiring story of Abby and Julia Smith of Glastonbury who claimed an American right known to every school child: the right of taxpayers to representation. The Smith sisters, who had grown up in an abolitionist family and attended state and national suffrage meetings, were property owners who desired to have a say about tax levies in their town meeting. In 1873, after the town refused to add them to the voters’ list, they withheld their taxes. The following New Year's Day, the tax collector seized seven of the eight Smith cows, and, in a dramatic scene, the sisters followed their beloved cows through the streets of Glastonbury. The cows were eventually bought by the Smiths’ tenant and returned to the owners. The next year, the town sold off some of their land, for which the sisters took them to court. The Connecticut Supreme Court later found for the Smiths, but on technical grounds. Their central claim—the presumably inviolable connection between taxation and representation—was not even considered. The case attracted national attention and, as Linda Kerber concludes in No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies, demonstrated that the right to representation depended less on agreed constitutional principle than on the power of the state, a point taken up by reformers.6A new generation took over leadership of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) in the second decade of the twentieth century, just as the national movement was gaining momentum through its drive for a federal amendment and “Votes for Women” became the new rallying cry. The decade witnessed new forms of publicity, among them automobile tours, open air rallies, and spectacular parades (including one that drew away the crowds expected to welcome Woodrow Wilson when he arrived in Washington for his inauguration). Success came with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.As they were elsewhere, Connecticut suffrage leaders were white and wellborn. But they took their case to African American churches and union halls, the Chamber of Commerce and Jewish organizations, in the process enlisting a wide range of including and the vote both for its and in to bring women's into the public they the full range of Progressive social welfare including for women an to and public for new suffrage leaders were young and many of them There were a and a with a were of the League included a and who suffrage in the public eye through her In she was to the of also a at the organized the automobile and became a for the movement who on gaining union women, Katharine Houghton Hepburn She was the of the founder of the an by the early of both and guardianship by an who she both and from She to in with her a his at the of an she was well connected and both in her and to act on These with her and made her an of women's in and state for more than three as of the and of the Connecticut of the women gained the vote, she was a in the state and national birth control movements and in the on of the to on of suffrage in following a by leader of the suffrage movement, Hepburn to the by the of in the next she and of the and as well as the leadership of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Hepburn became up her feminist as the that have the power to their lives economic and power This is she for women political power for This is after the vote was she on to the birth control She the that a woman could not be to she had real power over her to have both a family and a as a She could so she had a and Her were like women, she had to her she became of in she had two young and She gave up the after a not her position on the she was the birth of two more she the in the of she was the for both the suffrage and birth control a of and children. The their to parades and meetings, where the the Katharine sometimes of was of white known as in This was a the the which and by the of women state for was by her husband, an who many with and was a leader in state and national organizations dedicated to the of that Katharine Houghton Hepburn was a woman's wives and at the families of the as well as the a point she made with a of in of a by women to inform the public about the of the and to a political to They and held meetings, including one in that national and attracted an of The were a from the the on the funds to the organization also the of members who refused to act on the that the But the vote, they could not the or a a woman of her Hepburn was of the of the as an of she that of the of the under which any is to that She that while all women the to their with and it more they had to their in the of public and better was was an who every to and from the was a in up between and from an with three suffrage to new suffrage with a membership of and a of when Hepburn over a suffrage that drew an to the over and suffrage membership was at Hepburn was also a at the who how to a to the desired one she for local to at a so that members of the new a for the and did not to the or her social Her controversial as well as women of her who when she at She on the of a second time in not her she that the national organization did not for the women who were and following their at the Hepburn the Connecticut of the Party, the that and was by many the bitter between the two national organizations, members of both state organizations often on were some of them The Hepburn and another young married woman with in the of at the and that it be to they were In the women made it a point to their in the to of this In the 1930s, on birth control were of the claimed that the Hepburn family was to her she an the with an on the suffrage the had that we were for a great and nothing could Her drive and were with a suffrage and birth control and to the sometimes efforts of the suffrage their to for suffrage, Hepburn and her were more in the state than Isabella Beecher Hooker had Connecticut was not among the states that women equal rights before the Nineteenth Their was not for of suffrage at every legislative but as the and of The History of Woman Suffrage noted, was of the Nineteenth leaders hoped that Connecticut the state to the one the amendment over the It was not to refused to a of the legislature, was just a women it The to where a young to his the story in suffrage Connecticut were not in the forefront of the suffrage in the matter of birth control they were fighting a against a repressive that the state into the national and in a Supreme Court case that a constitutional right to and the for v. The case was a New birth control opened in by the Planned Parenthood League of The was not the state's was it the to be in had the in In his of the of the right to so far as to his of v. In the which made it a federal to contraceptives or any about them through the their the and of In state and federal often by use for The was a of birth control beginning with one in by were more than clinics in states and by an the was on in of birth only Connecticut and the In both states the was and to birth the of Connecticut's the made their use a by or It was also a to in or was another often contraceptives for their but for many the was women worked to the state law for four by to or by In two after the American suffrage including Katharine Houghton organized a state the Connecticut by that the women in of a bill that allow and to or about of the of to to the on birth control also failed to it through in the early 1930s, when Hepburn as legislative of on for But a v. in which an a of the right to contraceptives for to and up change in Connecticut where was in of the In after another to the state law the Connecticut League now by a and of opened a birth control on in Two two a The later claimed that she they were illegal. But the policies of the like its the the with which the The publicity, by of It only married women who had birth to at one and had been by a or social later as I of it was just to have been so the its which at women during the it was a for the were mainly and many of them had four or children. intense to birth control by the that half the were some by its in in the next three the Connecticut League opened seven birth control clinics the state in it opened a in the to under the until it at a public the following and a by the Association of birth control was at in the churches the following the was and after the and a were The legal were but the Connecticut Supreme Court had the in when it the on the that the law amendments had a to the state's on the use of The took the and the Hepburn was among who and she not have had to “I she was the that to the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut Estelle Griswold to be its it another who had attended with her that the organization was to off and it and better place to that could could she had her she like was in some an for the by she to be a and had in She nothing about she she and her had but had not been to have She in at the of and later in New for and had been by the of in with birth that the struggle to contraceptives a like that and suffrage, she made the her She hoped to into the organization and it to the less who could not to and Griswold by up local the state, some in her in the legislative she was not to law is It of the right to their fate in a of was to a in that and to a birth control in New Planned Parenthood later made to as found to a to the state's control of of and was a staunch who held the law for the of two a of constitutional law at was chief legal he was not to in the state, brought in progressive Catherine Roraback, a with a law and a civil including the of with under the Smith of the in and for the next seven Planned Parenthood on of married for a or economic the every in Connecticut In June the Supreme Court to the of one of v. on the that was of Court be to the of the for a of a Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut into by a birth control in New on November with Griswold as and as the this one In it only who were women could by a of the Griswold the two who the following a by the of a a of the and a on how to use the the made has been as They from the they Griswold and to turn in than and Planned and not the the was for the four later by a of constitutional law at with at his a vote, in Griswold v. Connecticut the Supreme Court the statute on the that it a constitutional right to and married of and of process under the It took another seven for the in v. to a right of to who were the of Connecticut's birth control the case that it gained national after the right to became a for the in v. the Supreme Court case that a law in The by was not between and but between a woman and her in a decision about and public considerations were also in the or of abortion in many states in the late and early But as Linda and in their new of v. another to abortion was one that women at the of the and freedom and Connecticut women were leaders in this of and a new of abortion as well. of young women from New influenced by the and of women's a in the early to a state law that abortion only in to the of the to bring the subject into the open and women of in a about an that is the that all and be as Women Connecticut, the a that eventually woman of who did not to bear a at the time could The legal included and both of had been in a case in New that had when the New the state's The Connecticut in that the law the rights to and to and of women of and also women equal of the was that women's need for reproductive control was central to every of their as well as and that this control was to the right to freedom These much than v. New at the they became a rallying for a vote, a state the abortion law in only one the to women to which many had the a new law that restrictions on and the In a decision that may be as a on the of and in women's freedom and equality in the the the new law as well. known as v. were in in v. hope this at Connecticut women's efforts to equality will that movements begin with small taken by who to change the in which they They also is rights once are not in Isabella Beecher Hooker that after suffrage, will as her rights need to be and, In the case of abortion, access has been away by and have imposed and the use of public funds and the of at which the be and women to of the the fall of 2011, states had three or more of them by the Supreme The Court also a on when the is at The has as well. which once access to birth have of by and are to in the is often to by in American even where may not to took a new turn when to a as a legal a that abortion as well as some forms of birth control illegal. The as it is a in November 2011, when in by a considerable a constitutional amendment that defined as from the of or the There were or to abortion was in the were so many restrictions on the that only one the amendment divided some of its on fertility like and on the of had been in in states hoped to place on the was even a to one in the which gave a in the the abortion over into on Planned amendment that have all federal to the organization was in the but the major in to Planned Parenthood There has also been a to the main of federal for family of which about to Planned In the of federal states of their In after the state its for women's by more than a family clinics including some that were not by Planned of the clinics The access to by women, many of all their from Planned not just birth control but and as well. to Planned is to have not only for access to abortion, but to a range of women's and to public of of to policies established in law in the and Supreme Court in the abortion the of women's to control their is more than at in cases abortion restrictions is a woman's over her to their full is connected to to control their reproductive legal to restrictions on abortion not to some of they on a woman's to her and to equal Connecticut who did so much to women's equality have In their and the of of their Isabella Beecher Hooker, Katharine Houghton and Estelle Griswold worked to secure rights that are now endangered.