Betty Tianti

Betty L. Mathieu Tianti (August 17, 1929 – May 16, 1994) was an American trade union leader. She was elected president of the AFL–CIO union federation in Connecticut in 1985, and was the first woman in the United States to head a state labor federation. She was also the first woman to serve as state labor commissioner of Connecticut.

Early life and education Tianti was a native of Killingly, Connecticut, the daughter of Theodell Mathieu and Evelyn St. John Mathieu. Both of her parents were textile mill workers; they divorced in the 1930s, and Evelyn Mathieu raised their four children. She graduated from Plainfield High School in 1946,

Career Tianti started her career at the American Thread Company factory in Willimantic, Connecticut in 1956. She later became president of her local union, and from 1962 to 1970 was a union organizer in New England and in the Southern United States. "When you go into trade unionism, you don't go into it halfway," she told The New York Times in 1987. Tianti died of emphysema in 1994 at the age of 64, in Alexandria, Virginia. Tianti was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame three days after she died.