Community Corner

Hidden Gems Of Hartford And Tolland Counties

This week's Hidden Gem is a monument to a monumental moment in history.

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A suffragist sculpture has been created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment.
A suffragist sculpture has been created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment. (Hartford Library Archives )

HARTFORD, CT — This week's Hidden Gem takes us to the heart of Hartford and a monument to a monumental moment in history unveiled just a few days ago.

On Tuesday at the Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library, a reception took place to mark the completion of a suffragist sculpture created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment.

The work by Connecticut artist Marilyn Parkinson Thrall was funded by a $20,000 "Creation of New Work" award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Her creation is a three-dimensional dress depicting the popular design of early 19th-century suffragists. The base of the dress is encircled with period hats symbolic of women who ran for office in 1920 and the skirt is made of fabric and features reproductions of voter registration cards of the first women to register to vote in Hartford.

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The Hartford History Center's award-winning "October 1920" exhibit examining the women’s suffrage movement in Hartford is also be on display. Central to the exhibit are scanned and digitized voter registration cards from that year that are among the Hartford History Center's collection. The cards provide a trove of demographic and biographic information about who came to the polls that year. The exhibit also includes photographs, advertisements, newspaper articles and other historic documents.

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The Hidden Gems series features out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants, small specialty stores you may have never heard of, little-known historical markers or beautiful nature spots that may be a bit off the beaten path, all located within Hartford and Tolland counties. Do you have a favorite "hidden gem" in the area that you wish to see featured in this column? Email your ideas to tim.jensen@patch.com.Other Gems in this series:

2022

2021 and earlier:

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