Ella Tambussi Grasso (May 10, 1919 – February 5, 1981) was a Democratic Party American politician. She was the first female governor of the state of Connecticut . Grasso was in office from 1975 to 1980. She was elected governor in November 1974. She was the first female governor elected in her own right. From 1971 to 1975, she was a member of the United States House of Representatives . Grasso was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut .
Grasso died on February 5, 1981 in Hartford, Connecticut of a heart attack and multiple organ failure caused by ovarian cancer , aged 61.[1]
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom .
Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame
1990s
1994
Mary Jobe Akeley
Anni Albers
Marian Anderson
Beatrice Fox Auerbach
Emma Fielding Baker
Evelyn Longman Batchelder
Catharine Beecher
Jody Cohen
Prudence Crandall
Katharine Seymour Day
Fidelia Fielding
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Dorothy Goodwin
Ella Grasso
Estelle Griswold
Mary Hall
Alice Hamilton
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Emeline Roberts Jones
Barbara B. Kennelly
Clare Boothe Luce
Rachel Taylor Milton
Alice Paul
Ellen Ash Peters
Ann Petry
Sarah Porter
Theodate Pope Riddle
Edna Negron Rosario
Margaret Rudkin
Susan Saint James
Lydia Sigourney
Virginia Thrall Smith
Smiths of Glastonbury
Hilda Crosby Standish
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Gladys Tantaquidgeon
Betty Tianti
Hannah Bunce Watson
Chase G. Woodhouse
1995
Helen M. Feeney
Caroline Hewins
Donna Lopiano
María Colón Sánchez
1996 1997
Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt
Annie Dillard
Margo Rose
Laura Wheeler Waring
1998 1999
Jane Hamilton-Merritt
Sophie Tucker
Ann Uccello
Florence Wald
2000s
2000
Emily Barringer
Adrianne Baughns-Wallace
Mary Goodrich Jenson
2001
Laura Nyro
Catherine Roraback
Maria Miller Stewart
2002
Florence Griswold
Eileen Kraus
Miriam Therese Winter
2003
Dotha Bushnell Hillyer
Clarice McLean
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Martha Minerva Franklin
Carolyn M. Mazure
Helen L. Smits
2010s
2010
Anne M. Mulcahy
Martha Parsons
Maggie Wilderotter
2011 2012
Anne Garrels
Annie Leibovitz
Faith Middleton
2013 2014
Beatrix Farrand
Jennifer Lawton
Marian Salzman
2015
Margaret Bourke-White
Carolyn Miles
Indra Nooyi
2016 2017
Kristen Griest
Ruth A. Lucas
Regina Rush-Kittle
2018 2019
Marian Chertow
Nell Newman
Martha Langevin
Elizabeth George Plouffe
2020s
2020
Josephine Bennett
Frances Ellen Burr
Catharine Flanagan
Sarah Lee Brown Fleming
Clara Hill (suffragist)
Elsie Hill
Helena Hill
Emily Pierson
2021
Enola G. Aird
Patricia Baker
Donna Berman
Khalilah L. Brown-Dean
Glynda C. Carr
Callie Gale Heilmann
Jerimarie Liesegang
Kica Matos
Marilyn Ondrasik
Pamela Selders
Teresa C. Younger