Connecticut in 1780's?

Question

Could someone breifly explain the society of Connecticut in the 1780's ?

Thanx.

Answer 1

At the close of the American Revolution, in 1783, there was confusion among the states about matters such as trade, currency, and taxes. Connecticut enjoyed success as a manufacturing state and "Yankee peddlers" carried and sold Connecticut manufactured goods and imports in the other states. Connecticut itself had a decentralized government, with most political power resting in small communities. Only rich, landed men could vote. When the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia to determine the future of the United States, Connecticut resisted the creation of a strong central government, but it was outvoted. The convention stalled on the type of legislature the new American government should have; one based on population would favor the states with bigger populations. Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman presented the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed dividing the legislature into two parts: one elected by population, the other elected on the basis of two senators from each state regardless of population, thus ensuring a degree of security for small states. This approach having been adopted, Connecticut in 1788 became the fifth state to ratify the new Constitution.

In 1818, Connecticut overhauled its Fundamental Orders, expanding the right to vote beyond landed men and providing a stronger central state government. This constitution would govern Connecticut until 1965. The 1818 constitution gave the state's cities, towns, and villages one or two representatives each to the state's assembly, regardless of population. The state capitol moved between New Haven and Hartford for nearly sixty years. In 1964, the United States Supreme Court ruled Connecticut's constitution unconstitutional, and at a state constitutional convention, legislators created a constitution providing for one man-one vote representation.

During the 1840s, Connecticut received a large number of Irish immigrants who were integrated into the state's manufacturing economy. By the beginning of the Civil War, Connecticut was a major arms manufacturing center that contributed many weapons to the Union army. The state had been a hotbed of antislavery sentiment in the antebellum years, and during the war, it contributed more troops, mostly volunteers, to the Union cause than any state except Massachusetts. In 1875, Hartford was chosen as the permanent home of state government and the capitol building there was finished in 1880. Influxes of immigrants arrived from eastern Europe and Italy, with Italian Americans becoming the largest ethnic group in the state.

The era from 1880 to the Great Depression was one of expansion and social change. In 1865, the were 500,000 people living in Connecticut; by 1900, there were 1,000,000. In 1870, the gross state product was $160,000,000; in 1900, the gross state product was $300,000,000. Immigrants from Europe were drawn to Connecticut because of jobs in mills and the small arms industry. In 1917, a submarine base was established in Groton, and the manufacturing of submarines became one of the state's biggest employers. Nuclear submarines were still made there at the turn of the twenty-first century.

While this growth was underway, Connecticut farms were failing, with farm families abandoning their homes for jobs in the city. The western countryside of Connecticut looked desolate, with old roads passing by empty homes and overgrown farmland. Yet, in about 1900, Connecticut began to attract artists who enjoyed the privacy of Connecticut country life and wealthy New Yorkers and Bostonians who could pick up large swaths of land cheaply and turn them into estates. With the advent of the automobile, much of rural Connecticut became bedroom communities for people who worked in New York or Massachusetts and then commuted in their cars to homes away from the noise of the city.

Answer 2

I know that Benedict Arnold who was native to the area around New London burned down the town because it was a port for American privaters. This left many, many, people homeless. And worse yet, it did nothing to help the British war effort and it was all in vain.

Answer 3

www.city-data.com
/states/Connecticut
-History.html

Try this site.