Since the Code of 1650, which required children be taught English, catechism, and knowledge of the law, Connecticut has sought to educate residents and so equip them for productive citizenship. Higher education began early, with Yale’s founding in 1701. Public education evolved from the independent one-room schoolhouses that predominated through the late 1800s to the consolidated school districts and grade-specific classrooms familiar today. Throughout state history, champions have arisen to expand access to education. These include Prudence Crandall, who, in 1833, established the first academy in New England for African American women, and the American School for the Deaf, which has served the hard of hearing and deaf since 1817.
From farming and war work to physics and sports, the University of Connecticut has diversified over the years and become New England’s leading public university. …[more]
“Nathan Hale Schoolhouse - New London.” The Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revoultion, 2016. Link
“Noah Webster House.” West Hartford Historical Society, 2016. Link
“Prudence Crandall Museum.” State of Connecticut: Department of Economic & Community Development, 2017. Link
“The Reeve House and Litchfield Law School.” The Litchfield Historical Society, 2017. Link
Wooster, Abigail Ursula. Abigail Ursula Wooster’s Sampler
. 1824. Needlework. Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut History Illustrated. Link
Judson, Andrew. “Broadside: Barbarism: Who Are Now the Savages?,” 1833. Connecticut History Illustrated, Connecticut Historical Society. Link
“Map of Greater Hartford Area Towns with Status of Participation in School Busing Indicated.” Hartford Times, ca 1966. Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library and Connecticut History Illustrated. Link
Robinson, Miranda. Miranda Robinson’s Sampler
. 1839. Needlework. Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut History Illustrated. Link
Webster, Noah. The Elementary Spelling Book: Being an Improvement on “The American Spelling-Book.”
New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company, 1857. Link
Gay, Ann Spaulding, and Abigail Watson. Watson-Gay Sampler
. 1811. Needlework. Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut History Illustrated. Link
Strane, Susan. A Whole-Souled Woman: Prudence Crandall and the Education of Black Women. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
Stemmons, Walter, and André Schenker. Connecticut Agricultural College, a History. Storrs, CT: Connecticut Agricultural College, 1931.
Collier, Christopher. Connecticut’s Public Schools: A History, 1650-2000. Orange, CT: Clearwater Press, 2009.
Andrew, John. Educating the Heathen: The Foreign Mission School Controversy and American Ideals. Cornwall, CT: Cornwall Historical Society, 1988.
Stave, Bruce M. Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits: Creating the University of Connecticut, 1881-2006. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut, 2006.
Teachers’ Association of the State of Connecticut, and Board of Commissioners of Common Schools. The Connecticut Common School Journal and Annals of Education
. 1. Hartford, CT: Case, Tiffany and Company, 1854. Link
Griffin, Orwin Bradford. The Evolution of the Connecticut State School System, with Special Reference to the Emergence of the High School. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1928.
Cornwall Historical Society, and Paul Chamberlain. The Foreign Mission School. Cornwall, CT: Cornwall Historical Society Inc., 1968.
Demos, John. The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.
Steiner, Bernard C. The History of Education in Connecticut
. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893. Link
May, Samuel J., and Andrew T. Judson. The Right of Colored People to Education, Vindicated: Letters to Andrew T. Judson, Esq. and Others in Canterbury, Remonstrating with Them on Their Unjust and Unjustifiable Procedure Relative to Miss Crandall and Her School for Colored Females
. Brooklyn, CT: Advertiser Press, 1833. Link