Prominent champion of women's rights and planned parenthood.

Katharine Houghton was educated at Bryn Mawr College and received an M.A. in art history from Radcliffe. She moved to Hartford in 1904 with her husband, Tom Hepburn who was beginning his medical career as an intern at Hartford Hospital.

In 1907, after attending a lecture given by the British suffragist, Emeline Pankhurst, Katharine decided to become an active champion of women's rights to vote. A demanding woman, Katharine Hepburn placed great value on the respect and dignity of all humans. With a few close friends, in 1913 she organized the Hartford Equal Franchise League, which grew to a membership of 20,000. Her efforts brought results with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

She is best known, however, for her involvement in the fight for birth control. In 1916 she joined the cause of her friend, Margaret Sanger, founder and leader of the American Birth Control League and for many years served as its legislative chair, speaking at rallies and before the U.S. Senate. This organization was the forerunner of today's Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The notorious anti-birth control law of Connecticut was ridiculed by Mrs. Hepburn as the "police-under-the-bed law." She argued that it prevented only the poor and not the rich from receiving information about contraception.

Mrs. Hepburn died in 1951 after a life dedicated to the raising of five children and political activism.