Although Connecticut cannot claim any US president or vice president as a native son, John Moran Bailey (1904–75), chairman of the state Democratic Party (1946–75) and of the national party (1961–68), played a key role in presidential politics as a supporter of John F. Kennedy's successful 1960 campaign.
Two Connecticut natives have served as chief justice of the US: Oliver Ellsworth (1745–1807) and Morrison R. Waite (1816–88). Associate justices include Henry Baldwin (1780–1844), William Strong (1808–95), and Stephen J. Field (1816–99). Other prominent federal officeholders were Oliver Wolcott (1760–1833), secretary of the treasury; Gideon Welles (1802–78), secretary of the navy; Dean Acheson (1893–1971), secretary of state; and Abraham A. Ribicoff (1910–98), secretary of health, education, and welfare. An influential US senator was Orville H. Platt (1827–1905), known for his authorship of the Platt Amendment (1901), making Cuba a virtual protectorate of the United States. Also well known are Connecticut senator Ribicoff (served 1963–81) and former governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (b.France, 1931 and served 1991–95), the latter first brought to national attention while a US Senator by his work during the Watergate hearings in 1973.
Notable colonial and state governors include John Winthrop, Jr. (b.England, 1606–76), Jonathan Trumbull (1710–85), William A. Buckingham (1804–75), Simeon Eben Baldwin (1840–1927), Marcus Holcomb (1844–1932), Wilbur L. Cross (1862–1948), Chester Bowles (1901–86), Ribicoff, and Ella Tambussi Grasso (1919–81), elected in 1974 and reelected in 1978 but forced to resign for health reasons at the end of 1980 (Grasso was the first woman governor in the US who did not succeed her husband in the post).
In addition to Winthrop, the founding fathers of Connecticut were Thomas Hooker (b.England, 1586–1647), who was deeply involved in establishing and developing Connecticut Colony, and Theophilus Eaton (b.England, 1590–1658) and John Davenport (b.England, 1597–1670), cofounders and leaders of the strict Puritan colony of New Haven. Other famous historical figures are Israel Putnam (b.Massachusetts, 1718–90), Continental Army major general at the Battle of Bunker Hill, who supposedly admonished his troops not to fire "until you see the whites of their eyes"; diplomat Silas Deane (1737–89); and Benedict Arnold (1741–1801), known for his treasonous activity in the Revolutionary War but also remembered for his courage and skill at Ft. Ticonderoga and Saratoga. Roger Sherman (b.Massachusetts, 1721–93), a signatory to the Articles of Association, Declaration of Independence (1776), Articles of Confederation (1777), Peace of Paris (1783), and the US Constitution (1787), was the only person to sign all these documents; at the Constitutional Convention, he proposed the "Connecticut Compromise," calling for a dual system of congressional representation. Connecticut's most revered Revolutionary War figure was Nathan Hale (1755–76), the Yale graduate who was executed for spying behind British lines. Radical abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859) was born in Torrington.
Connecticuters prominent in US cultural development include painter John Trumbull (1756–1843), son of Governor Trumbull, known for his canvases commemorating the American Revolution. Joel Barlow (1754–1812) was a poet and diplomat in the early national period. Lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843) compiled the American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), the first American landscape architect, planned New York City's Central Park. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) wrote one of the most widely read books in history, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens, b.Missouri, 1835–1910) was living in Hartford when he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Charles Ives (1874–1954), one of the nation's most distinguished composers, used his successful insurance business to finance his musical career and to help other musicians. Eugene O'Neill (b.New York, 1888–1953), the playwright who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936, spent summers in New London during his early years. A seminal voice in modern poetry, Wallace Stevens (b.Pennsylvania, 1879–1955), wrote the great body of his work while employed as a Hartford insurance executive. James Merrill (b.New York, 1926–95), a poet whose works have won the National Book Award (1967), Bollingen Prize (1973), and numerous other honors, lived in Stonington.
Native Connecticuters important in the field of education include Eleazar Wheelock (1711–79), William Samuel Johnson (1727–1819), Emma Willard (1787–1870), and Henry Barnard (1811–1900). Shapers of US history include Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), a Congregationalist minister who sparked the 18th-century religious revival known as the Great Awakening; Samuel Seabury (1729–96), the first Episcopal bishop in the US; Horace Bushnell (1802–76), said to be the father of the Sunday school; Lyman Beecher (1775–1863), a controversial figure in 19th-century American Protestantism who condemned slavery, intemperance, Roman Catholicism, and religious intolerance with equal fervor; and his son Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87), also a religious leader and abolitionist.
Among the premier inventors born in Connecticut were Abel Buel (1742–1824), who designed the first American submarine; Eli Whitney (1765–1825), inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in manufacturing; Charles Goodyear (1800–60), who devised a process for the vulcanization of rubber; Samuel Colt (1814–62), inventor of the six-shooter; Frank Sprague (1857–1934), who designed the first major electric trolley system in the US; and Edwin H. Land (1909–91), inventor of the Polaroid Land Camera. The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won by three Connecticuters: Edward Kendall (1886–1972) in 1949, John Enders (1897–1985) in 1954, and Barbara McClintock (1902–92) in 1983.
Other prominent Americans born in Connecticut include clock manufacturer Seth Thomas (1785–1859), circus impresario Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum (1810–91), jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812–1902), financier John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), pediatrician Benjamin Spock (1903–98), cartoonist Al Capp (1909–79), soprano Eileen Farrell (b.1920), and consumer advocate Ralph Nader (b.1934). Leading actors and actresses are Ed Begley (1901–70), Katherine Hepburn (1909–2003), Rosalind Russell (1911–76), and Robert Mitchum (1917–97).
Walter Camp (1859–1925), athletic director of Yale University who helped formulate the rules of US football, was a native of Connecticut.