Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 census. Hartford is the most populous city in the Capitol Planning Region and the core city of the Greater Hartford metropolitan area.[9]
"Hartford" redirects here. For other uses, see Hartford (disambiguation).
Hartford
United States
October 15, 1635
February 21, 1637[2]
May 29, 1784[3]
April 1, 1896[4]
Hertford, Hertfordshire
Mayor-council
18.05 sq mi (46.76 km2)
17.38 sq mi (45.01 km2)
0.68 sq mi (1.75 km2)
535.93 sq mi (1,388.0 km2)
30 ft (9 m)
121,054
6,965.1/sq mi (2,689.5/km2)
977,158 (US: 47th)
1,823.3/sq mi (704.0/km2)
1,214,295 (US: 48th)
1,489,361 (US: 41st)
Hartfordite
$114.887 billion (2022)
UTC−05:00 (EST)
UTC−04:00 (EDT)
09-37000
2378277[8]
Founded in 1635, Hartford is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (the Hartford Courant), and the second-oldest secondary school (Hartford Public High School). It was home to the oldest "asylum for the deaf and dumb" the (American School for the Deaf), founded by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet in 1817. It holds the Mark Twain House, in which the author wrote his most famous works and raised his family. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, "Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief."[10]
Hartford has been the sole capital of Connecticut since 1875.[11] (Before then, New Haven and Hartford alternated as dual capitals, as part of the agreement by which the Colony of New Haven was absorbed into the Colony of Connecticut in 1664.)[12]
Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades following the American Civil War.[13] Since 2015, it has been one of the poorest cities in the country, with three out of ten families living below the poverty threshold. In sharp contrast, the Greater Hartford metropolitan statistical area was ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production and 8th out of 280 metropolitan statistical areas in per capita income in 2015.[14]
Nicknamed the "Insurance Capital of the World" and "America's filing cabinet",[15][16] the city holds high sufficiency as a global city, as home to the headquarters of many insurance companies, the region's major industry.[17] Other prominent industries include the services, education and healthcare industries. Hartford coordinates certain Hartford–Springfield regional development matters through the Knowledge Corridor Economic Partnership.[18]
Arts and culture[edit]
Cuisine[edit]
The first American cookbook was American Cookery, The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables by Amelia Simmons, published in Hartford by Hudson & Goodwin in 1796. It was also the first cookbook to include recipes for squash and cornmeal, and it contained the first published recipe for pumpkin pie. It influenced a generation of American baking with a recipe for leavening bread with pearl ash.[111] The full text of the book is available online.[112]
Hartford's cuisine was shaped by its early settlers, who brought Dutch and English influence which combined with that of the Saukiog Native Americans in the area.[112] The first half of the 20th century brought significant Polish immigration and a number of Polish restaurants, some of which still operate today.[113] Italian food wasn't always accepted; a long-time Hartford restaurant owner recollected that, "in 1938, you wouldn't put an Italian name on a restaurant sign because everyone would think you were associated with the Mafia."[114] The New York Times remarked on the diversity of food available in Hartford in 1979, noting that "Hartford has undergone a culinary revolution in recent years."[115]
Hartford earned praise from Food and Wine as "a foodie destination".[116][117] Food trucks are restricted to designated areas in the city, mostly along Bushnell Park in Downtown Hartford and at farmers' markets.[118] Food can today be found throughout the city from a very wide variety of ethnic influence.[119]
Hartford hosts a number of seasonal farmers' markets.[120][121] The Hartford Regional Market is the largest market between New York City and Boston.[122] In 2018, the Connecticut State Assembly voted to transfer ownership of the Regional Market to the Capital Region Development Authority, leaving its future somewhat uncertain.[123]
The seashore is less than 35 miles (56 km) away and has played a large role in Hartford's food habits.[124] Recently there has been an aquaculture boom in Long Island Sound,[125] and as a result local kelp has started to appear on plates.[126] The Connecticut River Valley is the most agriculturally productive region in New England[127] and neighboring Wethersfield is renowned for its red onions, whose smell was said to waft into Hartford when production was at its historical height in the early 1800s.[128]
Hartford and the surrounding area have a vibrant craft beer, cider, and spirit industry,[129][130] and there were more than two dozen breweries and distilleries in the Hartford area in 2017.[131] The Connecticut Spirits Trail has a number of stops in Hartford and surrounding towns.[132][133] These businesses all feed the city's collection of bars and nightclubs.[134]
Hartford has been home to many historically significant people, such as dictionary author Noah Webster (1758–1843), American Sign Language creator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787–1851), .45 Colt inventor Sam Colt (1814–1862), Gallaudet University founder Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837–1917), and American financier and industrialist J.P. Morgan (1837–1913).[251][252][253]
Some of the most famous U.S. authors have lived in Hartford, including Mark Twain (1835–1910), who moved to the city in 1874. Twain's next-door neighbor at Nook Farm was Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896). Poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) was an insurance executive in the city, and World War II correspondent Lyn Crost (1915–1997) lived there.[254][255][256][257] More recently, Dominick Dunne (1925–2009), John Gregory Dunne (1932–2003), and Suzanne Collins (born 1962) have resided in Hartford.[258][259][260]
Actors and others in the entertainment business from Hartford include Katharine Hepburn, Thomas Ian Griffith, Gary Merrill, Linda Evans, Eriq La Salle, Diane Venora, William Gillette, Grace Carney,[261] and Charles Nelson Reilly, and TV producer and writer Norman Lear. Marvel Comics artist George Tuska grew up in Hartford.[262] Additionally, the fictional characters of Richard and Emily Gilmore were said to reside in Hartford on the Gilmore Girls.
Barbara McClintock (1902–1992), pioneering cytogeneticist was born in Hartford. She was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the breakthrough discovery of genetic transposition. She is the only woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in the Medicine category.
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, mother of president Theodore Roosevelt and paternal grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt, was born in Hartford on July 8, 1835.
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), considered the father of the profession of Landscape architecture, was born in Hartford. Among his designs are New York's Central Park, 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and Asheville's Biltmore Estate. Other projects that Olmsted was involved in include the country's first and oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York; the country's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York; one of the first planned communities in the United States, Riverside, Illinois; Mount Royal Park in Montreal; the Emerald Necklace in Boston; Highland Park in Rochester, New York; Belle Isle Park in Detroit; the Grand Necklace of Parks in Milwaukee; and Cherokee Park and entire parks and parkway system in Louisville, Kentucky. Olmsted's nephew, Frederick E. Olmsted (1872–1925) was a pioneering forester who is credited helping to establish the National Forest system in the United States.
In the field of music, natives include singer Sophie Tucker (1884–1966), "last of the red-hot mamas." Others include:
Former Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini is from Hartford. Former NHL player Craig Janney and current player Nick Bonino were born in Hartford. Other sports stars include NBA players Marcus Camby, Rick Mahorn, Johnny Egan, and Michael Adams, as well as NFL kicker John Carney, Dwight Freeney, Tebucky Jones, and Eugene Robinson.[264]
Hartford's sister cities are:[271]
