Ella T. Grasso, 1919-1981
She was a tough, deal-cutting, back-slapping politician, and at the same time a warm, disarmingly rumpled matron. During her 28 years in public life, Connecticut's Ella Grasso never lost an election. In an era when feminism was just beginning to dawn in the male preserve of politics, she became the first U.S. woman Governor ever elected in her own right (a few others followed their husbands). Admirers talked about Grasso as a future Vice President or Cabinet member, but she preferred Hartford to Washington. She kept a sign in her living room: BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED.
Just about...