Dollie McLean: From the West Indies to the Capital City

Ms 84342 Dollie McLean. This is a photographic reproduction by Robert J. Bitondi, and was included in the research collection, Black Women of Connecticut, for the CHS exhibition “Achievements against the Odds”.

Born (Dollie) Clarice Helene Simmons in Antigua, West Indies, Dollie McLean was raised in Manhattan, later lived in the Bronx, and graduated from both the University of Hartford and FIT. Mrs. McLean has been an avid participant in the arts throughout her life, having performed off-Broadway as an actress and dancer with various organizations like the Negro Ensemble Company.

Connecticut Globeskirters: Gertrude Barnum’s Travel Diary

“With the first day of my journey, I commence this first page of my diary; hoping that the whole jaunt will be as favorable to my compositive powers as this beginning:”

So begins the travel diary of sixteen-year-old Gertrude Barnum, who left Danbury, Connecticut for a trip across the Atlantic to Paris and London with her mother, Sarah, on June 11, 1850. Her diary, along with her mother’s passport (Gertrude did not have her own passport, but traveled on her mother’s), are in the CHS manuscript collection and demonstrate the participation of Connecticut women in travel and tourism—a trend that would only grow as the century progressed.