By MAYA MOORE August 22, 2019 Special to The Chronicle STORRS — Many of the most notable events of the Civil Rights movement were still a decade in the future. Jim Crow laws reigned in the South and, in Connecticut and at its flagship university, racism and discrimination wasn’t as overt. But it was still prevalent in the…
By GABRIELLA DEBENEDICTIS August 20, 2019 Special to the Chronicle STORRS — Edwina Whitney focused on the future in her professional life as a librarian at what would become the University of Connecticut. But she was also nostalgic for the past. A lifelong Mansfield resident who, for decades, worked for the university her family helped establish, she…
By GINO DE ANGELIS July 21, 2019 Special to the Chronicle STORRS — Paul R. Zilsel faced a tumultuous spring of 1953. That March, he received a subpoena to appear in Washington, D.C., before the Velde Committee investigating suspected communists in American colleges. He, along with three other University of Connecticut professors, were accused of being communist…
By SARAH AL-ARSHANI July 16, 2019 Special to the Chronicle STORRS — Mildred French was a pioneer for females at the University of Connecticut in the era between the two world wars. An independent woman who studied at five different institutions of higher education, she earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees at a time when few women…