Grasso Wins: First Elected Female US Governor

Ella Grasso took office as governor of Connecticut on January 8, 1975, becoming the first woman in American history elected governor in her own right, without succeeding a husband in office. Born Ella Rosa Giovanna Oliva Tambussi on May 10, 1919, in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to Italian immigrant parents, she earned a degree from Mount Holyoke College and a master's from the same institution before entering Connecticut politics. She served in the state legislature for 14 years, then as Connecticut's secretary of state for 12 years, building a political base through constituent service and a reputation for fiscal discipline. Her gubernatorial campaign in 1974 emphasized competence over identity. She won by 200,000 votes. In office, Grasso governed as a moderate Democrat with a strong independent streak. She vetoed bills from her own party, balanced the budget without an income tax, and earned a reputation for decisive crisis management during the catastrophic February 1978 blizzard, when she personally coordinated emergency response from the governor's mansion, fielding calls and dispatching resources. The blizzard response made her one of the most popular governors in the country. She won re-election in 1978 by an even larger margin. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1980 and resigned the governorship on December 31 of that year, becoming one of the few governors to resign voluntarily for health reasons. She died on February 5, 1981, at age 61. The barrier she broke was not merely symbolic. No woman in any American state had won a governorship on her own political record, without a husband's name, for nearly two centuries of the republic's existence. She proved it could be done by doing it without making it the point.