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8 Celebrating 140 Years • The Hartford Club 2000 A Brief Timeline of The Hartford Club >>> 1983 Margaret W. Lawson becomes first woman president of The Hartford Club. 1998 Club celebrate 125th anniversary with more than 1300 members. 1999 Richard Weaver-Bey becomes the first African- American president of The Hartford Club. 2011 Bobby Valentine's tumultuous one-year coaching stint with the Boston Red Sox began with team officials interviewing him at the club. 2013 The Hartford Club celebrates its 140th anniversary with more than 200 members present. 2004 Severe winter weather damage closes the club for several months. The possible sale of the Clubhouse to the Wadsworth Atheneum is voted down by the members and the newly decorated and refurbished Hartford Club opens. 1970 1972 Laura A. Johnson becomes first full- fledged woman Member. U.S. Senator and chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, served as governor during most of World War II and beyond. e Baldwin Bridge that allows I-95 to span the Connecticut River is named in his honor. He was introduced to e Hartford Club — and the power structure of Hartford — by his predecessor, Gov. Cross. As it was when Gov. Baldwin succeeded Gov. Cross in 1939, inaugural luncheons for the incoming and outgoing governors and their staffs were regularly conducted at e Hartford Club. Gov. Baldwin so enjoyed e Hartford Club, he said that, "ere was no other place like it, in Hartford or in all of New England, where a governor could host an important meeting without being bothered by the press." As Gov. Cross told Gov. Baldwin when introducing him to e Hartford Club, "it's a gentlemen's club," which means membership was exclusively male. e wives of club members had their own entrance and their own room, the Ladies Dining Room that is now called e Fair Play Room, in the front le of the first floor. But except for events like the "e Holly Ball" when young debutantes were introduced to society, membership was decidedly male. is changed in 1973 when Laura A. Johnson, then president of the Hartford College for Women, became the first woman to be accepted as a full member. And of course Ella T. Grasso — the first woman to be elected governor of a state — received an honorary membership in 1976. Since then the club has had one woman president, Margaret W. Lawson, who was elected in 1983, while the first African-American president was the late Richard Weaver-Bey, who served from 1999 to 2001. e Hartford Club has been in existence for 140 years. It has had its ups and its downs, but it is still the place where Hartford's movers and shakers come to meet, greet, socialize and have an impact on the City of Hartford and the State of Connecticut. ❏ H Special events at The Hartford Club include cooking classes that take place inside the facility's kitchen. istory Hartford Club members may use reciprocating clubs across CT, the U.S. and Internationally. From Miami to Mumbai members are welcome at some of the finest clubs in the world. The club is also a member of the ClubCorp network of clubs, which adds access to several hundred additional City and Country Clubs along with premium resort access. Locations Include Atlanta, Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington D.C., Orlando, Honolulu, and more! For more details and a complete list, visit www.HartfordClub.com Did you know? Timeline Photo Credits: 1. Image/© Ingrid Hoffmann | Dreamstime.com 2. Photos/H. Robert Thiesfield. 3. Photos from "The Club on Prospect Street: A History of The Hartford Club, 1873-2008" by Ellsworth S. Grant. 4. Photo/National Archives. 5. Photo/Hartford Business Journal Archives. 3 3 5