Connecticut

The Connecticut legislature was one of the few that never passed a bill to grant women any voting rights, and it failed to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enfranchised all women until the point was moot.  Its voters, however, elected five women to its legislature at their first opportunity.

M. Jody Rell State of Connecticut.

Denise Nappier State of Connecticut.

Emily Sophie Brown (1882-1985)

    A Connecticut native, Emily Sophie Brown was born in 1882 and served in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1921 to 1923.  A Republican, she was a long-time community leader in Naugatuck, and after her legislative service, was elected as a New Haven County commissioner.  She also served as a member of the first board of directors of the Naugatuck Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Naugatuck Board of Education.  She lived an extraordinarily long life, dying in 1985 at 103.

Grace I. Edwards

    Along with four other women, Grace I. Edwards was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1921.  Edwards ran as an Independent from Stamford in Fairfield County.

Lillian M.S. Frink

    Lillian M. S. Frink of Canterbury in Windham County was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly as a Republican in 1921.

Mary M. Hooker

    Mary M. Hooker was a Republican legislator who was elected to the Connecticut State General Assembly in 1921 from Hartford.

Helen A. Jewett

    Helen A. Jewett, a Democrat from Tolland won her bid for a seat in the Connecticut State General Assembly in 1921, and was featured in the nationally popular Woman’s Home Companion as “the state housekeeper.”  She was much more than a housekeeper, however, having school in Tolland since 1908.  Even though Elizabeth Green, also of Tolland, replaced her in the 1923 legislature, Jewett went on to a long life of public service.   She served on the local school board from 1920 to 1927 and again from 1931 to 1945, a total of twenty years.  Her 1945 retirement also was the last year of World War II, and according to Horizon’s Magazine, Jewett “ran the rationing board from her home on Tolland Green.”  She died at 80.

M. Jody Rell (1946-)
Nominated by NFWL

    Born on June 16, 1946, M. Jody Rell became the ninth female governor in the United States on July 1, 2004, after Governor John Rowland was forced to step down due to corruption charges. She is Connecticut’s second female governor and is also the first female Republican Governor of Connecticut.

    Prior to her Governorship, Rell had 20 years of experience in public service. She grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, and later attended Dominion University for two years before dropping out in 1967 to marry Navy Pilot Lou Rell. They had two children and, after living in Parsippany, New Jersey, eventually settled in Brookfield, Connecticut. Although Rell was a homemaker, she was active in several local civic associations such as Meals on Wheels and the Brookfield Republican Women’s Club.

    Rell’s work in civic associations led her to run for Connecticut’s State Legislature in 1984. She won the seat as Connecticut’s State Representative for the 107th District, and was re-elected four times before becoming Rowland’s lieutenant governor in 1994. Following her ascension to the governorship in 2004, she made ethics in politics a priority. She signed legislation which created a new Ethics Commission and reformed campaign finance in the state.  She is credited with “stabilizing the state,” after the turmoil of Rowland’s corrupt administration, which won her the admiration and trust of Connecticut voters. As a result of her efforts, she was awarded the Clean Elections M.V.P. Award by Common Cause, Public Campaign, and Democracy Matters.

    Rell has become known for her pragmatic leadership and fiscally conservative approach to government. She has pushed to make Connecticut more attractive to businesses, and has invested in childcare and transportation. In 2007, she enacted the Charter Oak Health Plan intended to bring affordable healthcare to uninsured adults aged 19 to 64.  She also passed legislation that allowed same sex couples to enter into civil unions. Concerns for the environment and dependence on foreign oil have led her to sponsor the One Thing program to promote energy conservation.

    In 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing a mastectomy, she became an advocate for fighting the disease. As a result, she received the Mary Waterman Award for her “outstanding individual achievement in the search for a cure for breast cancer,” as well as the 2005 CURE Award for Excellence “for significant contribution or achievement in Connecticut bioscience.”

    In 2006, Rell was successfully re-elected for a second term as Connecticut’s governor. In 2008 she received the Dr. Nathan Douglas award from the American Medical Association and is noted for her commitment to promoting stem-cell research. As of 2008, Rell was still in office.

Denise Nappier
Nominated by NFWL

    Denise Nappier’s tenure as Connecticut’s State Treasurer has been full of firsts. She is the first African American woman in the United States to become a State Treasurer, as well as “the first African American woman elected to statewide office in Connecticut” and “the only woman to be elected Treasurer in Connecticut history.” A Democrat, she has been in office for three terms, beginning in January of 1999, with subsequent re-elections in 2002 and 2006. She received her undergraduate degree at Virginia State University, and her master’s in community planning from the University of Cincinnati.

    Known for instilling integrity into the office of Treasurer, Nappier has worked on many issues. Her interests include increasing affordable housing for working families in Connecticut and advocating financial literacy. She has focused on improving educational opportunities in Connecticut by working to make higher education affordable. In 2007, she helped create what has been called “the nation’s most accessible and affordable college saving’s program” by introducing “a tax deduction for Connecticut families who contribute to…college savings accounts.”

    Nappier is also a leading proponent of examining climate change. In 2003 and 2005, she was instrumental in instigating the United Nations’ Institutional Investor Summit on Climate risk, and also served as a co-chair. She worked in Connecticut with insurance companies and major local industries to investigate “the financial risks and opportunities of climate change for business leaders.” This was the first time such a session occurred publically in the United States. The Summit resulted in Wall Street fund management firms analyzing the climate change risk inherent in the portfolios of its companies and industries.

    She has won a variety of awards for her work promoting integrity and ethics in government, and has been recognized as one of the 50 Most Powerful Black Women in Business by Black Enterprise. She has truly been a trailblazer for social change and for women and African Americans everywhere. As of 2008, Nappier was still in office.