Antonina Uccello
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| Hartford native, first woman mayor of a Connecticut municipality, one of the highest ranking women in the Nixon administration.
Antonina Uccello was raised in Hartford, the second of five daughters in a close-knit Italian family. She graduated with honors from Weaver High School and St. Joseph College, and did graduate work in American government at Trinity College and at the University of Connecticut Law School. After a year as a high school history teacher, Ann served in a variety of management positions at G. Fox & Company before being tapped to run for mayor in 1967. An active member of the Republican Party since her schooldays, Uccello had served two terms on the City Council, where she chaired several key committees.
As Hartford's first Republican mayor in 20 years, Uccello scored an upset victory over the incumbent, George Kinsella. Uccello's inaugural address promised a liberal social agenda combined with fiscal conservatism. Among the many policies she proposed were ones protecting children from lead poisoning, creating low and moderate income housing both in and outside the city, and establishing an Info-Mobile to travel the city with news of jobs and services. Uccello both presided over the building of the Civic Center and helped quell demonstrations following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As the only woman mayor of a large US city in these turbulent years, Uccello received national attention for her leadership. In a poll done in 1970, 81 percent of the Greater Hartford public approved of her job performance and she was voted Connecticut's second most favorite political personality after Senator Abraham Ribicoff. Following her loss in a close election for the first Congressional District against Democrat William Cotter, Uccello went to Washington as the Department of Transportation's Director of the newly created Office of Consumer Affairs. In 1975 she was selected to deliver the keynote address at the First International Conference on Public Transport and the People in Paris, France. Ann Uccello returned home in 1979 to tend to family matters and work in the family insurance business. She has remained active locally as a trustee of numerous organizations--Hartford Hospital, Boys' Clubs of Hartford, the American Association of University Women, and the Hartford Public Library Board, which she served as President. She holds an honorary doctorate from St. Joseph College, the Amita Award in Government, and the Salvation Army Leadership Award. | |||||||||
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