Connecticut
women who revolutionized American cooking, defied a government that taxed them
but denied them the vote, and shattered a political glass ceiling will be highlighted
in the presentation “From the Kitchen to the Capitol: Four Feisty Connecticut
Women” by author Diana Ross McCain on Saturday, March 24, at 2 p.m. at the
Milford Public Library.
McCain will draw on her book It Happened in Connecticut for inspiring stories about remarkable
women from three centuries of the state’s past. In the late 1700s one wrote a cookbook that for the first time included
recipes for foods indigenous to America, such as turkey and cranberries, that
have become standards of the nation’s dinner tables. In the 1800s two elderly
sisters became unlikely international champions of the fight for women’s
suffrage. In the twentieth century a daughter of immigrants became the first
female to fill a governor’s chair in her own right. All of these varied accomplishments required
extraordinary vision and determination.
Diana Ross McCain is an independent historian who has
been researching, writing, and speaking about Connecticut history for more than
35 years. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history, and was on the
staff of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford for 25 years. She is
the author of five non-fiction books on Connecticut history.
Following the talk, copies of It Happened in Connecticut, as well as several of McCain’s other
books, will be available for purchase and autographing.
