Browse the Connecticut Women of the United Church of Christ records

The Council of Congregational Women of Connecticut was organized on October 2, 1928, in a meeting at Center Church in Hartford, Connecticut. On December 31, 1926, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Women’s Board of Missions had merged. Congregational women across the country were reorganizing themselves as a result of this merger, and in Connecticut this reorganization took the form of the Council of Congregational Women of Connecticut. The Council itself represented a merger of four former organizations: the Women’s Congregational Home Missionary Union of Connecticut, and three branches of the Women’s Board of Missions in New Haven, Hartford, and Eastern Connecticut.

The women’s organization has changed names numerous times over the course of its history. On April 22, 1936, the organization became the Council of Congregational-Christian Women of Connecticut. On April 23, 1947, it became the Fellowship of Congregational-Christian Women of Connecticut. The organization changed names again on April 19, 1950, becoming the Connecticut Fellowship of Congregational-Christian Women. When in 1964 the Connecticut State Conference changed its name to the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, the women’s organization followed suit and revised its name once again, becoming on October 6, 1964, the Women’s Fellowship of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. On May 13, 1997, the organization adopted a name that would better reflect the combination of lay and clergy women in the organization: the Connecticut Women of the United Church of Christ. Finally, on January 1, 2020, when the Connecticut Conference joined the Southern New England Conference United Church of Christ, the women’s organization adopted the name that it uses today, Southern New England United Church of Christ Women’s Connection.

From the time of the organization’s founding in 1928, it divided itself into districts representing four geographical regions in Connecticut: the Eastern district, the Hartford district, the Litchfield district, and a fourth district called the New Haven district until 1973 when its name was changed to the Southwestern district. A set of elected officers have led the organization, and it has also executed its administrative and programming functions by means of a variety of sub-committees. To communicate with and guide its members, the group has maintained an active program of writing, editing, and publishing a range of publications: reading lists; various guidebooks for program planning, worship, study, service, and leadership; several newsletters; and booklets to facilitate and document annual meetings.

The group has held regular state-wide and district meetings for administrative and organizational purposes. It has also planned a range of programs providing opportunities for its members to worship, study, and participate in service together. These include leadership training conferences, quiet days, retreats, workshops, trips, and service programs. In the organization’s early decades, it maintained a lending library for its members. In 1955, the organization supported efforts to assist churches in the Housatonic Valley flooded by Hurricane Diane. In 1987, it joined the United Church of Christ boycott of California table grapes.

The organization’s records document the changing roles of women in the church and society and their efforts to recognize women as equal church members and leaders. The records of the Task Force on the Status of Women in Church and Society, the Advisory Commission on Women, the Committee on Women’s Concerns, and the Coordinating Center for Women in Church and Society document the organization’s efforts to redefine women's roles in the church in the wake of women's changing roles in society in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. The organization's Honored Laywomen Award, starting in the 1990s, recognized lay women leaders, and the Pioneer Women Clergy event of 2016 recognized early women clergy members. In 2012, the group drafted the Resolution on Women as Equal Partners in Church and Society, a document affirming their support of women as equals.

The organization continues today to provide opportunities for regional women to join together in worship, study, and service.