Known as the "land of steady habits" for its political, social and religious conservatism, the colony prospered from the trade and farming of its ethnic English, Protestant population. The Congregational and Unitarian churches became prominent here.

Connecticut played an active role in the American Revolution, and became a bastion of the conservative, business-oriented, Constitutionalism Federalist Party. The word "Connecticut" is a French corruption of the Native American word quinetucket , which means "beside the long, tidal river". Reverend Thomas Hooker and the Rev. Samuel Stone led a group of about who, in , founded the settlement of Hartford, named for Stone's place of birth: Called today "the Father of Connecticut," Thomas Hooker was a towering figure in the early development of colonial New England.

He was one of the great preachers of his time, an erudite writer on Christian subjects, the first minister of Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the first settlers and founders of both the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut, and cited by many as the inspiration for the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," cited by some as the world's first written democratic constitution that established a representative government.

The state took a leading role in the industrial revolution of the United States, with its many factories establishing a worldwide reputation for advanced machinery. The educational and intellectual establishment was strongly led by Yale College , by scholars such as Noah Webster and by writers such as Mark Twain , who lived in Connecticut after establishing his association with the Mississippi River.

Many Yankees left the farms to migrate west to New York and the Midwest in the early nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the heavy demand for labor in the nineteenth century attracted Irish, English and Italian immigrants, among many others, to the medium and small industrial cities. In the early 20th century, immigrants came from eastern and southern Europe. While the state produced few nationally prominent political leaders, Connecticut has usually been a swing state closely balanced between the parties.

In the 21st century, the state is known for production of jet engines, nuclear submarines, and advanced pharmaceuticals. Various Algonquian tribes long inhabited the area prior to European settlement.

The Dutch were the first Europeans in Connecticut.

Connecticut Colony - Wikipedia

In Adriaen Block explored the coast of Long Island Sound , and sailed up the Connecticut River at least as far as the confluence of the Park River , site of modern Hartford. By , the new Dutch West India Company regularly traded for furs there and ten years later they fortified it for protection from the Pequot Indians , as well as from the expanding English colonies.

The site was named "House of Hope" also identified as " Fort Hoop ", "Good Hope" and "Hope" , but encroaching English colonists made them agree to withdraw in the Treaty of Hartford. By they were gone, before the English took over New Netherland in The first English colonists came from the Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Original Connecticut Colony settlements were at Windsor in ; at Wethersfield in ; and in , at Hartford and Springfield , the latter was administered by Connecticut until defecting in In , the Earl of Warwick granted a patent to a company of investors headed by William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele , and Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke.

They funded the establishment of the Saybrook Colony named for the two lords at the mouth of the Connecticut River, where Fort Saybrook , was erected in Another Puritan group left Massachusetts and started the New Haven Colony farther west on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in The Massachusetts colonies did not seek to govern their progeny in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Communication and travel were too difficult, and it was also convenient to have a place for nonconformists to go.

The English settlement and trading post at Windsor especially threatened the Dutch trade, since it was upriver and more accessible to Native people from the interior. That fall and winter the Dutch sent a party upriver as far as modern Springfield, Massachusetts spreading gifts to convince the indigenous inhabitants in the area to bring their trade to the Dutch post at Hartford. Unfortunately, they also spread smallpox and, by the end of the —34 winter, the Native population of the entire valley was reduced from over 8, to less than 2, Europeans took advantage of this decimation by further settling the fertile valley.

The Pequot War was the first serious armed conflict between the indigenous peoples and the European settlers in New England. The ravages of disease, coupled with trade pressures, invited the Pequots to tighten their hold on the river tribes. Additional incidents began to involve the colonists in the area in , and next spring their raid on Wethersfield prompted the three towns to meet. Following the raid on Wethersfield, the war climaxed when Pequot men, women, and children were burned out of their village, in Mystic.

On May 1, , leaders of Connecticut Colony's river towns each sent delegates to the first General Court held at the meeting house in Hartford. This was the start of self-government in Connecticut. They pooled their militia under the command of John Mason of Windsor, and declared war on the Pequots. When the war was over, the Pequots had been destroyed as a tribe.

In the Treaty of Hartford in , the various New England colonies and their Native allies divided the lands of the Pequots amongst themselves. In a group of London merchants and their families, disgusted with the high Church Anglicanism around them, moved to Boston with the intention of creating a new settlement. They understood theology, business and trade, but had no farming experience. The good port locations in Massachusetts had been taken, but with the removal of the Pequot Indians, there were good harbors available on Long Island Sound.

Eaton found a good location in spring which he named New Haven. The site seemed ideal for trade, with a good port lying between Boston and the Dutch city of New Amsterdam New York City , and good access to the furs of the Connecticut River valley settlements of Hartford and Springfield.

The settlers had no official charter or permissions, and did not purchase any land rights from the local Indians. Legally, they were squatters. The leaders attempted numerous merchandising enterprises, but they all failed. The history of the New Haven colony was a series of disappointments and failures. The most serious problem was that it never had a legal title to exist, that is a charter. The larger, stronger colony of Connecticut to the north did obtain Royal charter in , and it was aggressive in using its military superiority to force a takeover.

New Haven had other weaknesses as well. The leaders were businessmen and traders, but they were never able to build up a large or profitable trade, because their agricultural base was poor, and the location was isolated.

Farming on the poor soil of the colony was a formula for poverty and discouragement. New Haven's political system was confined to church members only, and the refusal to widen it alienated many people.

More and more it was realized that the New Haven colony was a hopeless endeavor. Oliver Cromwell recommended that they all migrate to Ireland, or to Spanish territories that he planned to conquer.

After Cromwell died three regicides who with Cromwell had voted to execute King Charles I escaped from England and hid in New Haven. The colony had a very negative standing in London, and plans were afoot to merge it with New York. But the Puritans of New Haven were too conservative, and too wedded to their new land to leave or join the Anglicans in New York. One by one in the towns joined Connecticut until only three were left and they too submitted to the Connecticut Colony in They gave up their theocracy but became well integrated, with numerous important leaders and after Yale opened in , influential academics.

The three River Towns, Wethersfield, Windsor and Hartford, had created a general government when faced with the demands of a war. On January 14, , freemen from these three settlements ratified the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut" in what John Fiske called "the first written constitution known to history that created a government. It marked the beginnings of American democracy, of which Thomas Hooker deserves more than any other man to be called the father.

The government of the United States today is in lineal descent more nearly related to that of Connecticut than to that of any of the other thirteen colonies. On April 22, , the Connecticut Colony succeeded in gaining a Royal Charter that embodied and confirmed the self-government that they had created with the Fundamental Orders.

The only significant change was that it called for a single Connecticut government with a southern limit at the Long Island Sound , including today Suffolk County on Long Island, and a western limit of the Pacific Ocean, which meant that this charter was still in conflict with the New Netherland colony. Indian pressures were relieved for some time by success in the ferocious Pequot War.

King Philip's War — spilled over from Massachusetts; Connecticut provided men and supplies. Victory removed any remaining warlike Native American influences in Connecticut. The colonists had seen some Indians as a potential deadly threat, and mobilized during both the Pequot war and King Philip's War to eliminate them.

More than three-fourths of all adult men provided some form of military service. In , Sir Edmund Andros was commissioned as the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England. Andros maintained that his commission superseded Connecticut's charter.

At first, Connecticut ignored this situation. But in late October , Andros arrived with troops and naval support. Governor Robert Treat had no choice but to convene the assembly.

Andros met with the governor and General Court on the evening of October 31, Governor Andros praised their industry and government, but after he read them his commission, he demanded their charter. As they placed it on the table, people blew out all the candles. When the light was restored, the charter was missing.

Connecticut Colony ***

According to legend, it was hidden in the Charter Oak. Sir Edmund named four members to his Council for the Government of New England and proceeded to his capital at Boston.

Since Andros viewed New York and Massachusetts as the important parts of his Dominion, he mostly ignored Connecticut. Aside from some taxes demanded and sent to Boston, Connecticut also mostly ignored the new government.

When word arrived that the Glorious Revolution had placed William and Mary on the throne, the citizens of Boston arrested Andros and sent him back to England in chains. The Connecticut court met and voted on May 9, to restore the old charter. They also reelected Robert Treat as governor each year until Needless to say, this brought it into territorial conflict with those states which then lay between Connecticut and the Pacific.

This agreement was never really accepted, however, and boundary disputes continued. The Governor of New York issued arrest warrants for residents of Greenwich, Rye , and Stamford, and founded a settlement north of Tarrytown in what Connecticut considered part of its territory in May In recognition of the wishes of the residents, the 61, acres In exchange, Rye was granted to New York, along with a 1.

In the s, the western frontier remained on the other side of New York. In the Susquehannah Company of Windham, Connecticut obtained from a group of Native Americans a deed to a tract of land along the Susquehanna River which covered about one-third of present-day Pennsylvania. This venture met with the disapproval of not only Pennsylvania, but also of many in Connecticut including the Deputy Governor, who opposed Governor Jonathan Trumbull 's support for the company, fearing that pressing these claims would endanger the charter of the colony.

In , Wilkes-Barre was founded by John Durkee and a group of Connecticut settlers. The British government finally ruled "that no Connecticut settlements could be made until the royal pleasure was known". In the issue was settled in favor of Connecticut and Westmoreland, Connecticut was established as a town and later a county.

Pennsylvania did not accede to the ruling, however, and open warfare broke out between them and Connecticut, ending with an attack in July , which killed approximately of the settlers and forced thousands to flee.

While they periodically attempted to regain their land, they were continuously repulsed, until, in December , a commission ruled in favor of Pennsylvania. After complex litigation, in , Connecticut dropped its claims by a deed of cession to Congress, in exchange for freedom for war debt and confirmation of the rights to land further west in present-day Ohio , which became known as the Western Reserve.

Pennsylvania granted the individual settlers from Connecticut the titles to their land claims. Although the region had been called Westmoreland County, Connecticut, it has no relationship with the current Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. In , the first settlers, led by Moses Cleaveland , began a community which was to become Cleveland, Ohio ; in a short time, the area became known as "New Connecticut".

By this time, however, most of those granted the relief by the state were either dead or too old to actually move there. The Firelands now constitutes Erie and Huron Counties, as well as part of Ashland County, Ohio.

Connecticut was the land of steady habits, with a conservative elite that dominated colonial affairs. Yale College was founded in to educate ministers and civil leaders. After moving about it settled in New Haven. Just as Yale College dominated Connecticut's intellectual life, the Congregational church dominated religion in the colony.

It was officially established until , and the residents of each town were all required to attend Sunday services and to pay taxes to support it or else prove they supported a Baptist or some other Protestant church. Centralizing forces made the Congregational church even more powerful and more conservative.

The Saybrook Platform was a new constitution for the Congregational church in Religious and civic leaders in Connecticut around were distressed by the colony-wide decline in personal religious piety and in church discipline.

The colonial legislature sponsored a meeting in Saybrook comprising eight Yale trustees and other colonial worthies. It drafted articles which rejected extreme localism or Congregationalism that had been inherited from England, and replaced it with a system similar to what the Presbyterians had. The Congregational church was now to be led by local ministerial associations and consociations comprising ministers and lay leaders from a specific geographical area. Instead of the congregation from each local church selecting its minister, the associations now had the responsibility to examine candidates for the ministry, and to oversee a behavior of the ministers.

The consociations where laymen were powerless could impose discipline on specific churches and judge disputes that arose. The result was a centralization of power that bothered many local church activists.

However, the official associations responded by disfellowshipping churches that refuse to comply. The system survived to the mid-nineteenth century, well after Congregationalism was officially this disestablished in the state of Connecticut. The Platform marked a conservative counter-revolution against a non-conformist tide which had begun with the Halfway Covenant and would later culminate in the Great Awakening in the s. The Great Awakening bitterly divided Congregationalists between the "New Lights" or "Arminians" who welcomed the revivals, and the "Old Lights" or "Calvinists" who used governmental authority to suppress revivals.

Theologically, the Arminians believed that every person could be saved by experiencing a religious conversion and one of the revivals; the Calvinists held that everyone's fate was a matter of predestination, and revivals were a false religion. The legislature, controlled by the Old Lights, in passed an "Act for regulating abuses and correcting disorder in ecclesiastical affairs" that sharply restricted ministers from leading revivals. Another law was passed to prevent the opening of a New Light seminary.

Numerous New Light evangelicals were imprisoned or fined. The New Lights responded by their own political organization, fighting it out town by town. Although the religious issues decline somewhat after , the New Light versus Old Light factionalism spilled into other issues, such as disputes over currency, and Imperial issues. However, the divisions involved did not play a role in the coming of the American Revolution, which both sides supported.

The career of a soldier was not held in high prestige in Connecticut. However, London demanded some assistance in its numerous wars against France, so the colony sent soldiers into Canada, , during Queen Anne's War. Silesky argues that Connecticut followed the same procedure for the rest of the century.

Elites in control of the government used cash bounties to encourage poor men to volunteer to serve temporarily. Governor Jonathan Trumbull was elected every year from to Connecticut's political system was practically unaffected by the Revolution.

The conservative elite strongly supported the American revolution, and the forces of Loyalism were weak. Connecticut designated four delegates to the Second Continental Congress who would sign the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Huntington , Roger Sherman , William Williams , and Oliver Wolcott.

In , in the wake of the clashes between British regulars and Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord, Connecticut's legislature authorized the outfitting of six new regiments, with some 1, Connecticut troops on hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June Getting word in of Continental Army supplies in Danbury , the British landed an expeditionary force of some 2, troops in Westport , who marched to Danbury and destroyed much of the depot along with homes in Danbury.

On the return march, Continental Army troops and militia led by General David Wooster and General Benedict Arnold engaged the British at Ridgefield in , which would deter future strategic landing attempts by the British for the remainder of the war. For the winter of , General George Washington decided to split the Continental Army into three divisions encircling New York City , where British General Sir Henry Clinton had taken up winter quarters.

The Redding encampment allowed Putnam's soldiers to guard the replenished supply depot in Danbury and support any operations along Long Island Sound and the Hudson River Valley. Soldiers at the Redding camp endured supply shortages, cold temperatures and significant snow, with some historians dubbing the encampment "Connecticut's Valley Forge. The state was also the launching site for a number of raids against Long Island orchestrated by Samuel Holden Parsons and Benjamin Tallmadge , and provided men and material for the war effort, especially to Washington's army outside New York City.

General William Tryon raided the Connecticut coast in July , focusing on New Haven, Norwalk, and Fairfield. The French General the Comte de Rochambeau celebrated the first Catholic Mass in Connecticut at Lebanon in summer while marching through the state from Rhode Island to rendezvous with General George Washington in Dobbs Ferry, New York.

New London and Groton Heights were raided in September by Connecticut native and turncoat Benedict Arnold. New England was the stronghold of the Federalist party. One historian explains how well organized it was in Connecticut:.

Given the power of the Federalists, the Republicans had to work harder to win. In , the state leadership sent town leaders instructions for the forthcoming elections. Every town manager was told by state leaders "to appoint a district manager in each district or section of his town, obtaining from each an assurance that he will faithfully do his duty.

These highly detailed returns were to be sent to the county manager. They, in turn, were to compile county-wide statistics and send it on to the state manager. Using the newly compiled lists of potential voters, the managers were told to get all the eligibles to the town meetings, and help the young men qualify to vote.

At the annual official town meeting, the managers were told to, "notice what republicans are present, and see that each stays and votes till the whole business is ended.

And each District-Manager shall report to the Town-Manager the names of all republicans absent, and the cause of absence, if known to him. The state manager was responsible for supplying party newspapers to each town for distribution by town and district managers.

Connecticut prospered during the era, as the seaports were busy and the first textile factories were built. The American Embargo and the British blockade during the War of severely hurt the export business, and bolstered the Federalists who strongly opposed the Embargo and the War of Eli Whitney of New Haven was a leader of the engineers and inventors who made the state a world leader in machine tools and industrial technology generally.

The state was known for its political conservatism, typified by its Federalist party and the Yale College of Timothy Dwight. The foremost intellectuals were Dwight and Noah Webster , who compiled his great dictionary in New Haven. Religious tensions polarized the state, as the established Congregational Church, in alliance with the Federalists, tried to maintain its grip on power. The failure of the Hartford Convention in wounded the Federalists, who were finally upended by the Republicans in Up until this time, Connecticut had adhered to the Charter, and with the independence of the American colonies over forty years prior, much of what the Charter stood for was no longer relevant.

In , a new constitution was adopted that was the first piece of written legislation to separate church and state in Connecticut, and give equality all religions. Gubernatorial powers were also expanded as well as increased independence for courts by allowing their judges to serve life terms. Connecticut started off with the raw materials of abundant running water and navigable waterways, and using the Yankee work ethic quickly became an industrial leader.

Between the birth of the U. Connecticut's first recorded invention was a lapidary machine, by Abel Buell of Killingworth , in Starting in the s, and accelerating when Connecticut abolished slavery entirely in , African Americans from in- and out-of-state began relocating to urban centers for employment and opportunity, forming new neighborhoods such as Bridgeport's Little Liberia.

In , Quaker schoolteacher Prudence Crandall created the first integrated schoolhouse in the United States by admitting Sarah Harris , the daughter of a free African American farmer in the local community, to her boarding school in Canterbury.

Many prominent townspeople objected and pressured to have Harris dismissed from the school, but Crandall refused. Families of the current students removed their daughters.

Consequently, Crandall ceased teaching white girls altogether and opened up her school strictly to African American girls.

Connecticut manufacturers played a leading role in supplying the Union forces with rifles, cannon, ammunition, and military materiel during the Civil War. The state furnished 55, men. They were formed into thirty full regiments of infantry, including two in the U.

Colored Troops made up of black men and white officers. Two regiments of heavy artillery served as infantry toward the end of the war. Connecticut also supplied three batteries of light artillery and one regiment of cavalry.

The Navy attracted officers and men. A number of Connecticut men became Union generals; Gideon Welles was a moderate whom Lincoln made Secretary of the Navy. Politics became red hot during the war. A surge of national unity in brought thousands flocking to the colors from every town and city.

However, as the war became a crusade to end slavery, many Democrats especially Irish Catholics pulled back. The Democrats took a peace position and included many Copperheads willing to let the South secede. The intensely fought election for governor was narrowly won by the Republicans.

Connecticut's extensive industry, its dense population, its flat terrain, its proximity to metropolitan centers, and the wealth of its residents made it favorable grounds for railroad building, starting in By , miles of line were in operation, growing to in and in The main development after the Civil War was the consolidation of many small local lines into the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad — popularly called "the Consolidated.

It was a highly profitable enterprise, until it was bought out in and suffered serious mismanagement. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly called the New Haven , dominated Connecticut travel after New York's leading banker, J. Morgan , had grown up in Hartford and had a strong interest in the New England economy. Starting in the s Morgan began financing the major New England railroads, and dividing territory so they would not compete.

In he brought in Charles Mellen as president The goal, richly supported by Morgan's financing, was to purchase and consolidate the main railway lines of New England, merge their operations, lower their costs, electrify the heavily used routes, and modernize the system. With less competition and lower costs, there supposedly would be higher profits. The New Haven purchased 50 smaller companies, including steamship lines, and built a network of light rails electrified trolleys that provided inter-urban transportation for all of southern New England.

By , the New Haven operated over miles of track, and , employees. It practically monopolized traffic in a wide swath from Boston to New York City. Morgan's quest for monopoly angered reformers during the Progressive Era , most notably Boston lawyer Louis Brandeis , who fought the New Haven for years.

Mellen's abrasive tactics alienated public opinion, led to high prices for acquisitions and to costly construction. The accident rate rose when efforts were made to save on maintenance costs. Also in it was hit by an anti-trust lawsuit by the federal government and was forced to give up its trolley systems. The line went bankrupt in , was reorganized and reduced in scope, went bankrupt again in , and in was merged into the Penn Central system, which itself went bankrupt.

The remnants of the system are now part of Conrail. The automotive revolution came much faster than anyone expected, especially the railroads.

In Connecticut had 40, automobiles; five years later it had , There was even faster growth in trucks from 7, to 24, Local government started upgrading the roads, while entrepreneurs opened dealerships, gasoline stations, repair shops and motels. The Republicans dominated state politics after , and had a lock on the legislature where the one-town, one representative rule guaranteed that small rural towns could easily outvote the growing cities. While the Republicans developed factions over personalities, they drew together for elections.

The Democrats had more internal dissension over issues, particularly the liberalism of William Jennings Bryan , and they were weakened in general elections. The rural Yankee Democrats battled the urban Irish for control of the state party. In , the Democrats elected their gubernatorial candidate Simeon Baldwin , a prominent professor at the Yale Law School.

As the Republicans split between President William Taft and ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, the Democrats flourished in , carrying the state for president, reelecting Baldwin, sweeping all five congressional districts with ethnic Irish candidates, and taking the state Senate.

Only the malapportioned House remained in Republican hands and dominated by rural areas. The state did not participate much in the "progressive era," and the Democrats passed only one piece of liberal legislation; it set up a system of workman's compensation. In , the Republicans pulled themselves together and resumed their control of state politics.

Henry Roraback was the Republican state leader from to his death in His machine, says Lockard, was "efficient, conservative, penurious, and in absolute control. When World War I broke out in , Connecticut's large machine industry received major contracts from British, Canadian, and French interests, as well as the U. The largest munitions firms were Remington in Bridgeport, Winchester in New Haven, and Colt in Hartford, as well as the large federal arsenal in Bridgeport.

The state enthusiastically supported the American war effort in , with large purchases of war bonds and a further expansion of war industry, and emphasis on increasing food production in the farms. Thousands of state, local and volunteer groups mobilized for the war effort, and were coordinated by the Connecticut State Council of Defense. As the war ended the worldwide epidemic of "Spanish Flu" hit the state.

Connecticut - Wikipedia

Fatalities were high because the state was a travel hub, was heavily urbanized so germs spread faster, and had many recent immigrants in densely settled areas. An estimated people died, about one percent of the population, and about one-quarter contracted the disease.

Connecticut factories in Bridgeport , New Haven , Waterbury and Hartford were magnets for European immigrants. The largest groups were Italian , and Polish and other Eastern Europeans. They brought Catholic unskilled labor to a historically Protestant state. A significant number of Jewish immigrants also arrived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

These ethnic groups supported the World War the small numbers of German Americans tried to keep a low profile, encountering hostility and suspicion after the US entered the war. Ethnic organizations supported an Americanization program for the many recent immigrants.

Recently arrived Italians, Poles and others had to cancel plans to return to their home villages. They moved up as higher-paying jobs opened in the munitions industry. They deepened their roots in American society, and became permanent residents.

Instead of identifying with their former ancestral villages, the Italians developed a new pride in being both Americans and Italians. Their children, born in the U. They were motivated in part by the government's commitment to a process to support an independent Poland, which was achieved after the end of the war. Nativists in the s opposed the new immigrants as a threat to the state's traditional social and political values.

The Ku Klux Klan had a small anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant following in Connecticut in the s, reaching about 15, members before its collapse nationwide in following scandals involving top leaders.

With rising unemployment in urban and rural areas producing disaffection with Republican leaders, Connecticut Democrats saw a chance to return to power. The hero of the movement was Yale English professor Governor Wilbur Lucius Cross — , who emulated much of Franklin D.

Roosevelt 's New Deal policies by creating new public services, contributing to infrastructure projects, and instituting a minimum wage. The Merritt Parkway was constructed in this period as part of the investment in infrastructure.

In , the state Democratic Party was wracked by controversy, and the Republicans elected Governor Raymond E. Connecticut became a highly competitive, two-party state. On September 21, , the most destructive storm in New England history struck eastern Connecticut, killing hundreds of people. The hurricane caused extensive damage to infrastructure, homes and businesses. In New London, a foot sailing ship was driven into a warehouse complex, causing a major fire.

Heavy rainfall caused the Connecticut River to flood downtown Hartford and East Hartford. An estimated 50, trees fell onto roadways. The lingering Depression soon gave way to an economic buildup as the United States invested in its defense industry before and during World War II — Roosevelt's call for America to be the Arsenal of Democracy led to remarkable growth in munition-related industries, such as airplane engines, radio, radar, proximity fuzes, rifles, and a thousand other products.

Pratt and Whitney made airplane engines, Cheney sewed silk parachutes, and Electric Boat built submarines. This was coupled with traditional manufacturing including guns, ships, uniforms, munitions, and artillery. Although most munitions production ended in , new industries had resulted from the war, and manufacturing of high tech electronics and airplane parts continued.

Connecticut's suburbs thrived as people moved to newer housing via subsidized highways, while its cities peaked in the s and then began a slow downhill slide as population spread into widely dispersed regions.

At the beginning of the s, the increased job market gave the state the highest per capita income in the nation. The increased standard of living could be seen in the various suburban neighborhoods that began to develop outside major cities. Construction of major highways such as the Connecticut Turnpike , subsidized by federal investment, resulted in former small towns becoming sites for large-scale residential and retail development, a trend that continues to this day, with offices also moving to new locations.

Fairfield County , Connecticut's Gold Coast, was a favorite residence of many executives who worked in New York City. It attracted scores of corporate headquarters from New York, especially in the s, when Connecticut had no state income tax. Connecticut offered ample inexpensive office space, high quality of life to people who did not want to live in New York City, and excellent public schools.

The state did not offer any tax incentives for corporations to move their headquarters. Labor unions were very powerful after the war, peaking in clout in the early s. Since then the private sector labor unions have dramatically declined in size and influence with the decline in industry as factories closed and jobs were moved out of state and offshore. The public-sector unions, covering teachers, police, and city and state employees, have become more powerful, with influence in the Democratic Party.

Deindustrialization left many industrial centers with empty factories and mills and high unemployment. As wealthier whites moved to suburbs, African American and Latino made up a higher proportion of urban populations, reflecting their later arrival in the Great Migration and immigration, and relative inability to find and move to other jobs. They had gained middle-class status through good-paying industrial jobs and became stranded.

History - Connecticut

African Americans and Latinos inherited againg urban spaces that were no longer a high priority for the state or private industry. By the s crime and urban blight were major issues.

The poor conditions were catalysts for militant movements pushing to gentrify ghettos and desegregate the urban school systems, which were surrounded by majority-white suburbs. In , Hartford became the first United States city to elect an African-American woman as mayor, Carrie Saxon Perry. Connecticut had very strong state parties, with the GOP led by leaders, such as A. John Bailey was the state chairman of the Democrats from to his death in ; he was also the party's national chairman, until With the ethnics loyal to the Democratic Party, and labor unions at their peak, the Democratic Party strongly endorsed the New Deal coalition and its liberalism.

The Republican Party was mildly liberal, typified by Senator Prescott Bush , a wealthy Yankee whose son and grandson were later each elected as president from their new conservative base in Texas. Connecticut had some difficulty in projecting its identity, with no big-league sports teams and its media markets dominated by outside television stations in New York, Providence, Rhode Island and Springfield, Massachusetts.

Bailey's contact with the liberal element that dominated the Democratic Party was Ella Grasso. He promoted her from the legislature, to Secretary of State, to Congress, and finally to the governorship. Bailey's usual success in dictating the state ticket was upset in , when the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Thomas Meskill , defeated a lackluster Democrat.

More complex was the situation of Senator Thomas Dodd , a Democrat who had been censured by the Senate for his misuse of campaign funds. Dodd lost the Democratic primary, but ran as an independent and split the vote. Bailey had an easier time in gaining re-election of Senator Abe Ribicoff. In Ribicoff was elected as the first Jewish and non-WASP governor in the state's history. Weicker was repeatedly reelected until being narrowly defeated in He was elected governor in as an independent.

In Democrats elected as governor Ella T. Grasso , the daughter of Italian immigrants. She was the first woman of any state to be elected governor in her own right. She was reelected in She "Closed the State" by proclamation, and forbade all use of public roads by businesses and citizens, closing all businesses.

Effectively residents were restricted to their homes. This relieved the rescue and cleanup authorities from the need to help the mounting number of stuck cars, and allowed clean-up and emergency services for shut-ins to proceed. The crisis ended on the third day, and Grasso won accolades from all state sectors for her leadership and strength.

Connecticut's dependence on the defense industry posed an economic challenge at the end of the Cold War. The resulting budget crisis helped elect Lowell Weicker as Governor on a third party ticket in Despite campaigning against a state income tax, Weicker's remedy to the budget crisis, a state income tax, proved effective in balancing the budget but was politically unpopular.

Weicker retired after a single term. Until the late nineteenth century Connecticut agriculture included tobacco farms. Intensive family Burger who in immigrants from the West Indies, Puerto Rico, and the black South. In the off-season they turn to the cities for temporary apartments, schooling and services, but with the decline of tobacco they moved there permanently. With newly "reconquered" land, the Pequots initiated plans for the construction of a multimillion-dollar casino complex to be built on reservation land.

The Foxwoods Casino was completed in and the enormous revenue it received made the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation one of the wealthiest in the country. With the newfound money, great educational and cultural initiatives were carried out, including the construction of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.

The Mohegan Reservation gained political recognition shortly thereafter and, in , opened another successful casino Mohegan Sun near the town of Uncasville. The economic recession that began in took a heavy toll of receipts, and by both the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods were deeply in debt. Casinos provide an example of the shift in the economy away from manufacturing to entertainment, such as ESPN , financial services, including hedge funds and pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer.

In the terrorist attacks of September 11, , 65 state residents were killed. The vast majority were Fairfield County residents who were working in the World Trade Center. Greenwich lost 12 residents, Stamford and Norwalk each lost nine and Darien lost six.

The New York City skyline can be seen from the park. A number of political scandals rocked Connecticut in the early 21st century. These included the removal from office of the mayors of Bridgeport , Joseph P. Ganim on 16 corruption charges, [66] as well as Waterbury mayor Philip A.

Giordano , who was charged with 18 counts of sexual abuse of two girls. In , Governor John G. Rowland resigned during a corruption investigation.

Rowland later plead guilty to federal charges, and his successor M. Jodi Rell , focused her administration on reforms in the wake of the Rowland scandal. In April , Connecticut passed a law which grants all rights of marriage to same-sex couples. However, the law required that such unions be called " civil unions ", and that the title of marriage be limited to those unions whose parties are of the opposite sex.

The state was the first to pass a law permitting civil unions without a prior court proceeding. In October , the Supreme Court of Connecticut ordered same-sex marriage legalized. In July , the Connecticut legislature overrode a veto by Governor M. Jodi Rell to pass SustiNet , the first significant public-option health care reform legislation in the nation.

The state's criminal justice system also dealt with the first execution in the state since , the execution of serial killer Michael Ross and was rocked by the July home invasion murders in Cheshire. As the accused perpetrators of the Petit murders were out on parole , Governor M. Jodi Rell promised a full investigation into the state's criminal justice policies.

On April 11, the State House of Representatives voted to end the state's rarely enforced death penalty ; the State Senate having previously passed the measure on April 5. Governor Dannel Malloy announced that "when it gets to my desk I will sign it". Eleven inmates were on death row at that time, including the two men convicted of the July Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders. In and , Connecticut was hit by three major storms in the space of just over 14 months, with all three causing extensive property damage and electric outages.

Hurricane Irene struck Connecticut August 28 with the storm blamed for the deaths of three residents. On December 14, , Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people , including 20 children and 6 staff, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Connecticut , and then killed himself.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. New Netherland , Saybrook Colony , New Haven Colony , and Connecticut Colony. Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and Connecticut Colony. Border Disputes Between New York and Connecticut. History of Connecticut industry. Connecticut in the American Civil War. Historical outline of Connecticut. Retrieved November 25, Archived from the original on September 21, Retrieved September 21, Katz, "The Pequot War Reconsidered. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History: Beginnings of New England, or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relation to Civil and Religious Liberty.

Houghton Mifflin Company, the Riverside Press. Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-twentieth Century.

U of North Carolina Press. From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, The Connecticut State Constitution. Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America. Logistics of a Revolutionary War Winter Encampment," Northeast Historical Archaeology Volume 5 Issue 1, Archived from the original on July 13, Retrieved May 17, The Hudson River Valley in the American Revolution. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition: The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power: Gordinier, The Rockets' Red Glare: Retrieved August 2, The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of Comprising a Detailed Account of the Various Regiments and Batteries, Through March, Encampment, Bivouac, and Battle; Also Instances of Distinguished Personal Gallantry, and Biographical Sketches of Many Heroic Soldiers: Together with a Record of the Patriotic Action of Citizens at Home, and of the Liberal Support Furnished by the State in Its Executive and Legislative Departments.

Cowden, "The Politics of Dissent: Civil War Democrats in Connecticut," New England Quarterly 56 4 pp. Private International Bankers, Weller, The New Haven Railroad: Breen, "Mobilization and Cooperative Federalism: Arcafri and Hudson Birden, "The Influenza Epidemic in Connecticut," Connecticut History 38 1 pp Jews who may desire to unite and form religious societies shall have the same rights, powers and privileges which are given to Christians of every denomination.

The Americanization of Italians in Waterbury, Connecticut from the Turn of the Century to the Fall of Mussolini," Connecticut History 47 1 pp Sterba, "'More than Ever, We Feel Proud to Be Italians': World War I and the New Haven Colonia, ," Journal of American Ethnic History Urbanski, "Money, War, and Recruiting an Army: The Activities of Connecticut Polonia During World War I," Connecticut History 46 1 pp DiGiovanni, The Catholic Church in Fairfield County: The New Catholic Immigrants, —; subchapter: White, Protestant, Non-Alcoholic," pp.

Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, The History of the Ku Klux Klan , p. The New York Times. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis Harvard Business School p. Peirce, The New England States: Lieberman, The Power Broker: A Biography of John M. Bailey, Modern Political Boss The Almanac of American Politics: Connecticut Politics, Retrieved February 6, Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom, The Book of America: House Votes To Repeal Death Penalty". Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

Archived from the original on January 18, Retrieved January 15, History of the United States by polity. Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming.

American Samoa Guam Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico U. Baker Island Howland Island Jarvis Island Johnston Atoll Kingman Reef Midway Atoll Navassa Island Palmyra Atoll Wake Island. Index Constitution Delegations Elections Geography Government History Images People Tourist Attractions. Culture Crime Demographics Economy Education Party strength. Connecticut panhandle Coastal Connecticut Gold Coast Greater Bridgeport Greater Danbury Greater Hartford Greater New Haven Litchfield Hills Lower Connecticut River Valley Central Naugatuck Valley Naugatuck River Valley Quiet Corner Southeastern Connecticut.

Fairfield Hartford Litchfield Middlesex New Haven New London Tolland Windham. Ansonia Bridgeport Bristol Danbury Derby Groton Hartford Meriden Middletown Milford New Britain New Haven New London Norwalk Norwich Shelton Stamford Torrington Waterbury West Haven. Andover Ansonia Ashford Avon Barkhamsted Beacon Falls Berlin Bethany Bethel Bethlehem Bloomfield Bolton Bozrah Branford Bridgeport Bridgewater Bristol Brookfield Brooklyn Burlington Canaan Canterbury Canton Chaplin Cheshire Chester Clinton Colchester Colebrook Columbia Cornwall Coventry Cromwell Danbury Darien Deep River Derby Durham East Granby East Haddam East Hampton East Hartford East Haven East Lyme East Windsor Eastford Easton Ellington Enfield Essex Fairfield Farmington Franklin Glastonbury Goshen Granby Greenwich Griswold Groton Guilford Haddam Hamden Hampton Hartford Hartland Harwinton Hebron Hartford Kent Killingly Killingworth Lebanon Ledyard Lisbon Litchfield Lyme Madison Manchester Mansfield Marlborough Meriden Middlebury Middlefield Middletown Milford Monroe Montville Morris Naugatuck New Britain New Canaan New Fairfield New Hartford New Haven New London New Milford Newington Newtown Norfolk North Branford North Canaan North Haven North Stonington Norwalk Norwich Old Lyme Old Saybrook Orange Oxford Plainfield Plainville Plymouth Pomfret Portland Preston Prospect Putnam Redding Ridgefield Rocky Hill Roxbury Salem Salisbury Scotland Seymour Sharon Shelton Sherman Simsbury Somers South Windsor Southbury Southington Sprague Stafford Stamford Sterling Stonington Stratford Suffield Thomaston Thompson Tolland Torrington Trumbull Union Vernon Voluntown Wallingford Warren Washington Waterbury Waterford Watertown West Hartford West Haven Westbrook Weston Westport Wethersfield Willington Wilton Winchester Windham Windsor Windsor Locks Wolcott Woodbridge Woodbury Woodstock.

Boroughs Villages Historic Places Geography. Retrieved from " https: History of Connecticut History of the United States by state. Webarchive template wayback links Use mdy dates from May All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from April Articles with permanently dead external links.

Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in. Views Read Edit View history. Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikipedia store. Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page. Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Wikidata item Cite this page. In other projects Wikimedia Commons.

This page was last edited on 13 June , at Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Developers Cookie statement Mobile view.