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You may have heard the phrase “it’s not zoned for that” as in “Can I build a factory next to my house?” or “Can I put a trailer park in my north forty?”  But we may not understand the difference between the town’s master plan, land use requirements and zoning regulations. So let’s break that down. The State of Connecticut mandates that every ten years each community adopt its master plan as a blueprint for aspirations for growth, preservation, and sustainability. The master plan details in broad terms how land can be used-land use-for housing, retail, transportation, education and recreation. It also identifies environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands that should not be built on as well as historically significant areas like historic districts whose architectural character should be safeguarded. But it’s the town’s zoning regulations that pinpoint exacting what can be constructed and where.

But zoning also has a dark side. What is “exclusionary zoning”?

In this episode, Dr. Jack Dougherty, Professor and Director of the Educational Studies Program at Trinity College, is going to uncover the story of how Connecticut passed legislation that allowed zoning in the 1920’s and how West Hartford became the first town to adopt zoning regulations. He and his students use tools from digital history, data visualization, and web writing to explore the relationship between cities, suburbs, and schools in metropolitan Hartford, Connecticut. Read more about this in his feature article in the Spring 2023 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine https://www.ctexplored.org/game-changer-the-rise-of-exclusionary-zoning-in-connecticut/

And read his feature article about redlining in this Connecticut Explored article here https://www.ctexplored.org/the-federal-government-and-redlining-in-connecticut/

Listen to his Grating the Nutmeg episode on redlining here https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/43-the-challenge-of-fair-housing-in-cts-suburbs

Dougherty is a Connecticut Explored 20 x 20 Innovation in Connecticut History Honoree for his work in On The Line: How Schooling, Housing, and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and its Suburbs a digital-first, open-access book-in-progress. It is available online at  https://ontheline.trincoll.edu/

The book combines historical narrative, interactive maps, and video interviews to tell the story of schooling and housing boundaries that shaped American metropolitan life during the past century, along with the civil rights struggles of families and activists to cross over, redraw, or erase these powerful lines.

Connecticut Explored, the nonprofit organization that publishes Connecticut Explored magazine, announced its “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History,” series highlighting 20 “Game Changers” whose work is advancing the study, interpretation, and dissemination of Connecticut history. The initiative, funded by Connecticut Humanities and sponsored by Trinity College, is the centerpiece of Connecticut Explored’s year-long celebration of its 20th anniversary. Subscribe at ctexplored.org

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. You can help us continue to produce the podcast by donating directly to Grating the Nutmeg on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg donation link at the bottom. Donations in any amount are greatly appreciated-we thank you!

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com

Donohue may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net

Connecticut and Puerto Rico have strong ties. The guest for this episode is Pablo Delano, a visual artist, photographer, and educator recognized for his use of Connecticut and Puerto Rican history in his work, including his 2020 book of photography Hartford Seen published by Wesleyan University Press, a Connecticut Book Award 2021 “Spirit of Connecticut” finalist. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Fine Arts at Trinity College in Hartford. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Over the course of 20 years Delano amassed a substantial archive of artifacts related to a century of Puerto Rican history. Using this material, including three-dimensional objects, newspaper clippings, and photographs, he created The Museum of the Old Colony, a dynamic, site-specific art installation that examines the complex and fraught history of U.S. colonialism, paternalism, and exploitation in Puerto Rico. The title is a play on words, referencing both the island’s political status and Old Colony, a popular local soft drink. The work is also deeply personal, a means for Delano to better understand and come to terms with the troubling history of Puerto Rico. Pablo was chosen by Connecticut Explored as a Connecticut History Game Changer Honoree in celebration of the magazine’s 20^th anniversary in 2022-23. Professor Delano has been featured on Grating the Nutmeg in episode 123 discussing his book of photographs Hartford Seen and in episode 152 Hartford and Puerto Rico: A Conversation between Delano and Puerto Rican historian Elena Rosario. He has an article in the Spring 2023 issue of Connecticut Explored - read here: www.ctexplored.org/game-changer-topsy-in-the-tropics/

While we might not be able to travel to see the exhibition in person, the University of Virginia Press has published a beautiful full-color catalog that includes a collection of very insightful essays edited by Laura Katzman as well as photos of the exhibition. It’s available for purchase on Amazon-The Museum of the Old Colony, An Art Installation by Pablo Delano, 2023.

For more about Delano’s work, go to his website at  http://museumoftheoldcolony.org/about/curatorial/

To see his photo essay on Hartford’s Puerto Rican streetscapes- https://www.ctexplored.org/visually-breathtaking-hartford-explored/

Listen to his Grating the Nutmeg episodes here:

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/152-hartford-and-puerto-rico-a-conversation-with-elena-rosario-and-pablo-delano-cte-game-changer-series

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/123-connecticut-seen-the-photography-of-pablo-delano-and-jack-delano

Connecticut Explored, the nonprofit organization that publishes Connecticut Explored magazine, announced its “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History,” series highlighting 20 “Game Changers” whose work is advancing the study, interpretation, and dissemination of Connecticut history. The initiative, funded by Connecticut Humanities and sponsored by Trinity College, is the centerpiece of Connecticut Explored’s year-long celebration of its 20th anniversary. Subscribe at ctexplored.org

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. You can help us continue to produce the podcast by donating directly to Grating the Nutmeg on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg donation link at the bottom. Donations in any amount are greatly appreciated-we thank you!

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net

In this episode of GTN, Natalie Belanger and Elena Peters of the Connecticut Historical Society take a look at the beginnings of our national obsession with soft drinks. Here in Connecticut, people have been drinking carbonated drinks for a long time, maybe longer than you’d expect. Today, the soda industry is dominated by just a couple of corporations, but a hundred years ago, Connecticut was home to an astonishing number of soda bottlers. Listen to their conversation to learn about the origins of the soda craze, its relation to Prohibition, and the stories of the oldest surviving Connecticut bottlers. You’ll also hear about some really weird flavor combinations you could once order at Connecticut’s soda fountains, such as the Hot Beef Egg, which is exactly what it sounds like. This episode is best enjoyed with the soda of your choice! 

Image caption:  

Soda jerk at Monroe Pharmacy, New Britain. CHS collection, 2003.110.1.39 

Read more about Connecticut’s soda companies here:

https://hosmersoda.com/

https://www.foxonpark.com/

http://averysoda.com/

Want to have a soda at one of Connecticut’s vintage food shacks? Read more here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/shack-attack/

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. You can help us continue to produce the podcast by donating directly to Grating the Nutmeg on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg donation link at the bottom. Donations in any amount are greatly appreciated-we thank you!

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com

 Belanger may be reached at may be reached at Natalie_Belanger@chs.org

As a preservationist, I have always believed that if you knew about the history of a place, it would make you care more about it. And if you uncovered the history, you’d feel inspired by the stories of the people who came before you. This episode reveals the importance of “citizen historians” - people who are dedicated to saving a historic place’s story as well as preserving the site for future generations.

Masses of Eastern European Jews began immigrating to the United States in the 1880s. Between 1881 and 1924, more than two and a half million Jews arrived in America. Many settled in large cities such as New York. But some were aided in becoming farmers and land- owners by the philanthropy of the Baron de Hirsch, a wealthy German Jew who amassed a fortune in building railroads. Funded by de Hirsch, the American Jewish Agricultural Society helped Jews to buy farmland, provided money for synagogues, published a Yiddish farm magazine and had Jewish farm agents. In Connecticut, an early Jewish farm community was established in Chesterfield in the town of Montville northwest of New London. In this episode, we hear more about how this early Jewish community’s history was saved by a group of descendants and how the site of the group’s first synagogue and creamery was preserved as an archeological site.    

Author and historian Mary Donohue interviews Nancy Savin, the 2022 winner of Preservation Connecticut’s Harlan H. Griswold Award presented by Preservation Connecticut and the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office. Harlan Griswold once said, “To me, preservation is more about my grandchildren than about my grandparents.” Her award citation reads “Through her selfless preservation efforts, both small and large, Nancy Savin is helping to build a better future for our children and grandchildren.”

A college graduate in voice and music history, Nancy spent 17 years at Connecticut Public as award-wining producer/host of arts and culture programming. But she is also the great-great granddaughter of Hirsch Kaplan, an Eastern European immigrant who arrived in New York City in 1887. So how did he end up in tiny Chesterfield as a Jewish farmer? And what was the New England Hebrew Farmers of the Emanuel Society?  We’ll find in this episode.

Visit the website of the New England Hebrew Farmers of the Emanual Society here: https://www.newenglandhebrewfarmers.org/

Read more about the New England Hebrew Farmers in Nancy’s article in Connecticut Explored’s Winter 2022 issue here: https://www.ctexplored.org/the-new-england-hebrew-farmers-of-the-emanuel-society/

And Jewish farmers here- https://www.ctexplored.org/hebrew-tillers-of-the-soil/

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-connecticut-catskills/

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-new-england-hebrew-farmers-of-the-emanuel-society/

Listen to our Grating the Nutmeg podcast on Jewish farmers here: https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/94-connecticuts-jewish-farmers

You can buy the book A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers by Mary M. Donohue and Briann G. Greenfield from the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford here: https://jhsgh.org/product/a-life-of-the-land-connecticuts-jewish-farmers/

Order Micki Savin’s book, I Remember Chesterfield on Amazon in hardcover, softcover or Kindle versions.

Read the minutes book of the NEHFES at the Yiddish Book Center here: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yiddish-books/spb-nybc217886/leberstein-miriam-the-minutes-and-ledger-book-1892-1933-of-the-new-england-hebrew

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. You can help us continue to produce the podcast by donating directly to Grating the Nutmeg on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg donation link at the bottom. Donations in any amount are greatly appreciated-we thank you!

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com. Donohue may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net

Why did the State of Connecticut feel entitled to part of Ohio?  Where was Connecticut’s Western Reserve and how was it settled? The Litchfield Historical Society is opening a new exhibition on Connecticut’s Western Reserve on April 22,  2023 entitled “Come to a Land of Milk and Honey”.

Here’s what they say about the exhibit:

“The story of the Western Reserve can be told through any number of historical lenses, but it is primarily a story of people: the people who felt compelled to leave Connecticut and New England for a new life in the west, and the people who chose to stay behind; the Native peoples who were forced from their lands by the arrival of migrants; the enslaved men, women, and children who were brought to the Reserve against their will, and the Black migrants who chose to make their homes in Ohio despite continued discrimination.”

In this episode, author and historian Mary Donohue interviews Alex Dubois and Linda Hocking from the Litchfield Historical Society about what they’ve found out about the peoples of the  Western Reserve.

Alex Dubois is the Curator of Collections. At the Society, Alex oversees the development and care of the institution’s collection of material culture and art, and serves as project lead for the Society’s exhibitions.

Linda Hocking has served as the Curator of Library & Archives since 2002 where she oversees all aspects of acquisitions, description, and access to the Society’s library and archives.

Read more from Connecticut Explored here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/west-of-eden-ohio-land-speculation-benefits-connecticut-public-schools/

https://www.ctexplored.org/whats-connecticuts-role-in-westward-expansion-2/

Visit the Litchfield Historical Society website for more information on the exhibition and programs:

https://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. We’ve just launched our Facebook and Instagram pages-look for the Grating the Nutmeg Podcast. Please follow us on social media to get the scoop on new episodes, behind the scenes photos and information on upcoming programs.

Our new Connecticut Explored Spring 2023 issue is almost out! Don’t forget to subscribe to get yours at ctexplored.org

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net

The book Dead Wake, The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by New York Times best-selling author Erik Larson is a gripping account of the sinking of the British transatlantic luxury liner the Lusitania during World War 1.  Theodate Pope, the architect and owner of what is now the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, who was a passenger on the Lusitania. Why did she sail on a British ship when Britain was at war? The ship was hit by a German submarine torpedo and sank within an hour. Why wasn’t Pope in a lifeboat? Why did she jump from the ship into the water? And how did Pope survive and what were the after effects?

In this episode, author and historian Mary Donohue interviews Melanie Bourbeau, Senior Curator at the Hill-Stead Museum. Bourbeau shares Pope’s first-hand accounts of the sinking and its aftermath from Pope’s letters, telegrams, diaries, and newspaper accounts, many of which are in the museum’s archives.

After the war, it was revealed that the passenger ship was carrying 4 million rounds of machine-gun ammunition and other war time battlefront materials.

Was the ship a legitimate target during wartime? This is an argument that continues today.  It certainly encouraged the United States to enter World War 1 though not immediately.

Read more about Theodate Pope Riddle in Bourbeau’s article published in Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/communicating-with-the-spirits/

And listen to the accompanying Grating the Nutmeg podcast at

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/109-communicating-with-the-spirits-theodate-pope-riddle

Visit Hill-Stead Museum: www.hillstead.org

And read more about her family and home, now the Hill-Stead Museum from Connecticut Explored at:

https://www.ctexplored.org/alfred-atmore-popes-art-collection-at-hill-stead-museum/

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-modernism-of-hill-steads-theodate-pope/

https://www.ctexplored.org/hill-stead-a-colonial-revival-performance/

https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-golf-at-hill-stead/

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. We’ve just launched our Facebook and Instagram pages-please follow us on social media to get the scoop on new episodes, behind the scenes photos and information on upcoming programs.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by  Mary Donohue. She may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net

Engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

Please join us in two weeks for a new episode on Grating the Nutmeg.                                                                                                                    

Journeys 旅途: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission is on view at the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) through July 2023. This exhibition honors the 150th anniversary of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM), a cultural and educational exchange program from 1872 – 1881. Headquartered in Hartford, the CEM enabled 120 Chinese boys, most of whom were barely teenagers, to study in New England with the goal of modernizing China by educating its future leaders abroad. It is a story of hopes, dreams, sacrifice, and the life-changing experience of international exchange.

In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Museum Educator Natalie Belanger talks to Karen Li Miller and Henry Qu about their work on Journeys. The CEM collection at the CHS was a well-known resource, but contained Chinese-language materials that had never been translated....until Henry Qu, himself an international student, made an unexpected stop at CHS on his way from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Three years later, Henry's detour resulted in a fresh telling of the Mission's story, using the boys' newly-translated first-person accounts of their experience in Connecticut. What was it like to be uprooted as a teenager to live in a place that your language didn't even have a word for? What did these teens in the 1870s have in common with teenagers today? And what motivated Henry Qu to make that serendipitous stop at CHS? Listen to find out!

The Exhibition Journeys: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission will be on view at the Connecticut Historical Society through July, or you can take a 3D tour online at chs.org.  Keep an eye on upcoming programming related to this topic at the CHS in spring of 2023!

Read more about the CEM in Connecticut Explored magazine here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/chinese-exchange-students-in-1880s-connecticut/

https://www.ctexplored.org/wong-kai-kah-comes-of-age-in-connecticut/

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. We’ve just launched our Facebook and Instagram pages-please follow us on social media to get the scoop on new episodes, behind the scenes photos and information on upcoming programs. https://www.facebook.com/GratingTheNutmegPod 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger, Museum Educator at the Connecticut Historical Society and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

Please join us in two weeks for a new episode on Grating the Nutmeg.

Wall-to-wall posters, sticky floors, a small stage and the stale-beer smell give Toad’s Place its enduring character as a live-music shrine. Authenticity can’t be faked. Opened as a restaurant in 1975, Toad’s has welcomed hundreds of musical acts from the pioneers of the Blues like B.B. King, to today’s megastars Drake and Cardi B. But what does it take to run a nightclub? And have it be successful for almost half a century?

Author and historian Mary Donohue interviews Randall Beach, co-author with Toad’s Place owner Brian Phelps, of the new book The Legendary Toad’s Place, Stories from New Haven’s Famed Music Venue, published in 2021 by Globe Pequot Press. Beach was the rock music critic for the New Haven Register from 1978 to 1984, covering many shows at Toad’s Place. He later wrote about rock music for the New Haven Advocate, the Hartford Courant, and Billboard magazine. He currently writes a column for Connecticut magazine. 

Read more about Toad’s Place in the photo essay published in Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/what-these-walls-have-heard-a-photo-essay-on-new-havens-legendary-toads-place/

Fresh episodes of Grating the Nutmeg are brought to you every two weeks with support from our listeners. We’ve just launched our Facebook and Instagram pages-please follow us on social media to get the scoop on new episodes, behind the scenes photos and information on upcoming programs: https://www.facebook.com/GratingTheNutmegPod 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by award-winning author and historian Mary Donohue. She may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net 

Engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   

Connecticut Explored magazine is celebrating its 20^th anniversary and our Grating the Nutmeg podcast it’s 7^th anniversary. Neither of these milestones could have been reached without your support! Please make a gift to our new Fund for Excellence in Publishing at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/friends-of-connecticut-explored/

We need to ask our listeners for your help! This podcast is part of our “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History” series, and we’d like your feedback. Take our 5-minute survey and get a free copy of Connecticut Explored magazine. You’ll find the survey link in the Shownotes for this episode below. Thank you!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HARTEA12

When was the color line broken in the Hartford Fire Department? And how did a high school dropout and a Vietnam vet both become distinguished firefighters in the Hartford Fire Department? Hear their inspiring first-hand stories of growing up in Hartford’s African American community in the North End in and dive into the detective work done to uncover the story of William Henry Jacklyn, Hartford’s first Black firefighter.

Our 2022 Winter issue of Connecticut Explored magazine celebrates citizen historians who come to their subjects because of a deep need to understand or uncover some person or event or answer a question they could not brush aside. Many become public advocates for their historical findings and projects. Both of the guests in this episode, Chief Charles Teale, Sr. and Captain Steven Harris were honored as Connecticut History Game Changers by Connecticut Explored magazine and both are passionate avocational historians.

Chief Teale served as a member of the Hartford Fire Dept. from 1982-2010, retiring as chief. Always interested in Hartford’s history even as a teenager, Chief Teale researched and documented the many outstanding accomplishments of the Hartford Fire Dept to the fire service profession throughout its 221-year history. This included uncovering the William Henry Jacklyn story.

Captain Steven Harris began his career as a fire fighter in 1970, retiring in 1997 as a captain in the department and was voted Firefighter of the Year in Connecticut. In 2021, the Hartford Public Library partnered with Captain Harris to create a mural honoring Jacklyn on the Phoenix Society building at 729 Windsor St. in Hartford. The mural was painted by artists Lindaluz Carrillo and Kayla Farrell with an intergenerational group of community members.

The Phoenix Society is a black fraternal organization of firefighters the was formed in 1965 in Hartford. John B. Stewart, Jr, Hartford’s first African American fire chief, was the first president. The Society works to help its members toward promotional goals and to foster a closer relationship with the community. Learn more about the Phoenix Society at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Society_(firefighters)

Read more about our 20 for 20 Connecticut History Game Changers here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/special-section-20-for-20-innovation-in-connecticut-history/

And read more about Hartford history from Chief Teale here;

https://www.ctexplored.org/shoebox-archives-my-summers-at-camp-courant/

https://www.ctexplored.org/i-called-him-mr-hurley/

Join Connecticut Explored’s 20^th anniversary celebration by subscribing at ctexplored.org

New subscribers can get 6 issues for the price of 4 with our Holiday sale before 12/31/2022.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Connecticut Explored magazine is celebrating its 20^th anniversary and our Grating the Nutmeg podcast it’s 7^thanniversary. Neither of these milestones could have been reached without your support! Please make a gift to our new Fund for Excellence in Publishing at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/friends-of-connecticut-explored/

For over a century, almost 1700 people buried in the cemetery at the Connecticut Valley Hospital were identified with gravestones bearing only a number instead of a name.  In the 1990s, names of the deceased were restored to the site. In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society (https://chs.org/) is taking a look at a digital history project that will help expand our understanding of the lives of the people buried in that cemetery and of mental health care in Connecticut's past. Kaitlyn Oberndorfer, CREC history teacher and graduate student, has undertaken a project that will link genealogical and demographic information to the names in the cemetery, restoring some of the residents' lost humanity. 

 Look for Kaitlyn's finished project to go live online sometime in 2023. For a detailed history of the Connecticut Valley Hospital Cemetery, you can read the photos.pdf">application that placed the site on the National Register of Historic Places. 

You can click here to learn about the “Uncovering Their History” project that inspired “Numbers to Names” 

Read more here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/unburying-hartfords-native-and-african-family-histories/

And listen to our podcast episode here:

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/78-uncovering-african-and-native-american-lives-in-17th-18th-century-hartford

For more about the treatment of Civil War soldiers at the Connecticut Valley Hospital, read more here:https://www.ctexplored.org/civil-war-soldiers-heart/

And for more about the treatment of mental illness in Connecticut, read more here: https://www.ctexplored.org/treating-the-mind-in-times-past/

Join Connecticut Explored’s 20^th anniversary celebration by subscribing at ctexplored.org

New subscribers can get 6 issues for the price of 4 with our Holiday sale before 12/31/2022.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger, Adult Programs Manager at the Connecticut Historical Society and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

How did 15 Connecticut high school students find themselves in French World War 1 trenches and what were they doing there? Find out in today’s episode!

This podcast is part of our “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History” series, and we’d like your feedback. Take our 5-minute survey and get a free copy of Connecticut Explored magazine. You’ll find the survey link below. Thank you!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CTWW1

My guests for this episode are Christine Pittsley, Special Projects Director for the Connecticut State Library and Katy Hitson, a Connecticut student who participated in the trench restoration in France when she was in high school. Pittsley has directed several award-winning World War 1 programs, including the Digging Into History trench restoration project and the Remembering World War One Digitization program, and has been recognized as a leader in the nation's WW1 commemorative efforts.

When the United States entered Europe’s Great War, World War 1, in 1917, Connecticut manufacturers provided the military with munitions, clothing, and other goods.  In addition to the men and women who worked on the home front, roughly 63,000 state residents served in the US or Allied forces.  For those at the front lines in France, life was rough. As the war stalled at the battlefront, men dug huge earthen defensive trenches that became their battlefield homes. They experienced gas attacks, heard nonstop artillery barrages and watched the daily aerial battles. Connecticut men also sheltered in limestone caves thirty feet below the ground level and encompassing over 100 acres with rooms and tunnels.  

For more information about the CT State Library’s project, go to https://ctinworldwar1.org/

To read more about Connecticut in WW1, go to these Connecticut Explored issues and stories:

https://www.ctexplored.org/spring-2017/

https://www.ctexplored.org/parallel-lives-segregated-connecticut-in-world-war-i/

https://www.ctexplored.org/world-war-i-the-cave-dwellers-life/

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Join Connecticut Explored’s 20^th anniversary celebration by subscribing  at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media. www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

In this episode, recorded at the Park Street Library@the Lyric on Sept. 21, 2022 to a full house, two of our Connecticut History Game Changer Honorees discuss their work. The conversation was hosted by Jasmin Agosto, Community Outreach Coordinator for the Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library.

Before we go to our new episode, I need to ask our listeners for your help! We need your thoughts and ideas about the podcasts that highlight our 20 Connecticut History Game Changers in the field of Connecticut history. This 5-minute survey will help us plan episodes that you want to hear! As a thank you, we will send you a free, introductory copy of our print magazine or if you are already a subscriber, we will add a free issue to your existing subscription. I hope you will share your thoughts on the podcast by going to the Shownotes for this episode and clicking the link here  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DELROS to take the survey. Thank you!

What can we learn about Hartford’s Puerto Rican community today through art and history?

Photographer and Trinity College Fine Arts professor Pablo Delano and emerging scholar and public historian PhD candidate Elena Rosario explore their work in the context of Hartford's Puerto Rican history and the broader United States-Puerto Rico relationship.

Thank you to our guests Pablo Delano, Elena Rosario and Jasmin Agosto.

For more about Pablo Delano’s work, go to his website at  http://museumoftheoldcolony.org/about/curatorial/

And for more about the Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library, visit

https://hplct.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/history/

Connecticut Explored, the nonprofit organization that publishes Connecticut Explored magazine, announced its “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History,” series highlighting 20 “Game Changers” whose work is advancing the study, interpretation, and dissemination of Connecticut history. The initiative, funded by Connecticut Humanities and sponsored by Trinity College, is the centerpiece of Connecticut Explored’s year-long celebration of its 20th anniversary. Subscribe at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

The episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media  www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Connecticut Explored is celebrating its 20th anniversary with “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History,” a series of articles, podcasts, and public programs that highlight 20 "Game Changers" in the field of Connecticut history. The insights and ideas we gather through this five-minute survey will help individuals and organizations who are committed to keeping Connecticut history vibrant and relevant. Thank you for your time!

 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/OCT1FREEMAN

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To mark Connecticut Explored’s 20^th anniversary, we launched an initiative to find 20 people and projects that are taking us into the future of the study of Connecticut history. We received over 120 nominations from the public and then chose 20 that are Connecticut history game changers. This our third podcast where we interview one of our CT History Game Changer Honorees-talking to the people making change happen.

Today’s episode is about Game Changer Honoree the Mary & Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community. The Center is restoring and preserving the historic Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses in Bridgeport’s Little Liberia community, built about 1822 and some of the oldest houses built by African Americans in Connecticut. Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher Emeritus, interviews guests Maisa Tisdale, President and CEO of the Center and Dr. Sarah Sportman, CT State Archeologist at the University of Connecticut.

To learn more about the Freeman Center, visit their website at https://freemancenterbpt.org/

And to learn more about the Office of the Connecticut State Archeologist, visit the website at https://osa.uconn.edu/

 Order your copy of the Gamechanger issue of Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/fall-2022-the-future-of-connecticut-history/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue for Connecticut Explored and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

Photo credit: Mary & Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community, Bridgeport, CT.

Connecticut Explored is celebrating its 20th anniversary with “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History,” a series of articles, podcasts, and public programs that highlight 20 "Game Changers" in the field of Connecticut history. The insights and ideas we gather through this five-minute survey will help individuals and organizations who are committed to keeping Connecticut history vibrant and relevant. Thank you for your time!   Visit: www.surveymonkey.com/r/PODCAST1

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The Speedwell arrived in New London on July 17, 1761, after a journey of several months from Western Africa to the Americas. The boat departed with 95 enslaved persons. Only 74 survived the journey.

The captain of the Speedwell, Timothy Miller, sailed up the Connecticut River to Middletown after a few days in New London. Although the ship’s records don’t show where the Africans aboard the Speedwell ended up, the probate record of Normand Morison, a Hartford physician who owned 7/16th of the Speedwell, shows 21 enslaved West Africans were placed on his farm in Bolton, CT.  Morison died in 1761 and the fate of the people on the Bolton farm is not yet known. 

In this episode, Kathy Hermes, Lonnie Braxton, and Tom Schuch discuss Morison and the Speedwell, the Black Heritage Trail and its significance, and the impact of the slave trade on Connecticut and its trading networks.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Dr. Kathy Hermes and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media  www.highwattagemedia.com/

Photo credit: Tom Schuch 

The discovery of four 18th century male skeletons thought to be possible soldiers in the April 27, 1777 Battle of Ridgefield, prompted the most in-depth research into that crucial Revolutionary War conflict ever undertaken. In this presentation to the town sponsored by the Ridgefield Historical Society earlier this year,  state historian Walt Woodward, historian Keith Jones, state archaeologist emeritus Nick Bellantoni, state archaeologist Sarah Sportman, archeologist Kevin McBride, and Historian David Naumec report on their discoveries to date. 

The airship Hindenburg passed over Connecticut 21 times during its 17-month service between 1936-37. In the 1930s, air travel across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America was in its infancy. The vast airships of the German Zeppelin Company, zeppelins or dirigibles, took an early lead, competing not with airplanes but luxury ocean liners. In this episode, Asst. Publisher Mary Donohue, talks to historian Alexander Rose, author of Empires of the Sky, Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men’s Epic Duel to Rule the World (Random House, 2020). And you’ll hear from Bridgeport historian Carolyn Ivanoff, author of the article “The Hindenburg Flies over Bridgeport” in the Summer 2022 issue of Connecticut Explored. Find out more about why the Nazi swastika is visible in many of the photos taken over Connecticut.

Thank you to our guests  Alexander Rose and Carolyn Ivanoff. Rose has a new book coming out in December, 2022-The Lion and the Fox-and listeners can subscribe to his weekly Substack newsletter “Secret Worlds” which explores historical espionage (and occasionally aviation) at https://alexanderrose.substack.com/

Find out more about his other books at http://www.alexrose.com/about

The episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media  www.highwattagemedia.com/

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Photo credit: Hindenburg over The Travelers Tower, Hartford, 1936 - Jeffrey Hollis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MinmbjRta3w

The video, taken in October of 1936, shows the Hindenburg sailing over Hartford, Connecticut, seven months before its destruction.

For this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society talked to Joanie DiMartino, Connecticut state Coordinator for the National Votes for Women Trail.  They discussed the origin of the marker program, and the criteria that went into choosing the Connecticut  people and places honored with a marker. In addition, Joanie shares her thoughts on why the markers matter, and what the story of the suffrage movement can teach us about social justice movements today. To learn more, visit the National Votes for Women Trail. The site contains an interactive map of trail sites throughout the United States. 

The National Votes for Women Trail marker program is made possible through the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. The Connecticut Historical Society has partnered with the Pomeroy foundation to feature Connecticut cultural heritage on roadside markers at sites across the state. Learn more 

Thanks to Joanie DiMartino for participating!

This episode was produced by Natatlie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media, highwattagemedia.com

Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, released every two weeks.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org

Painting by Everett Raymond Kinstler, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery 

 Join Walt Woodward on a visit to the Katharine Hepburn Museum at "the Kate" in Old Saybrook. His interview with Executive Director Brett Eliott and Director of Community Relations Robin Andreoli about this gem of a museum for America's most Oscar-winning actor (and long-time Saybrook resident) should  convince you to put both the Katharine Hepburn Museum and "the Kate" on your must-see-this-summer list. It's a must hear podcast about a must see museum. 

In this episode, CTExplored publisher Elizabeth Normen talks with Connecticut River Museum curator Amy Trout about the museum’s summer exhibition Speed: Hydroplane Racing on the Connecticut River, 1900 – 1940. Trout tells us what a hydroplane is and why racing them became popular in the midst of the Great Depression. As opposed to yachting, she explains, hydroplane racing was an everyman’s sport that people flocked to the riverfront to watch. She talks boat design, which outboard engines were popular, and who the stand-out racers of the 20s and 30s—a number of whom were young women—were. Speed is on view through October 9, 2022.  

Read more!

Pleasure Boating on the Connecticut River, Summer 2018

https://www.ctexplored.org/cover-story-pleasure-boating-on-the-connecticut-river/

Full Steam Ahead: Steamboat Travel in Connecticut, Spring 2009

https://www.ctexplored.org/full-steam-ahead-steamboat-travel-in-connecticut/

Most people in the tri-state area have driven the Merritt Parkway with its extraordinary bridges and landscaped vistas.  But can a roadway built in the 1930s during the Great Depression survive today in the 21^st century without losing its charm?

In celebration of Historic Preservation Month, we will learn how the Merritt Parkway, the state’s most heavily visited National Register historic district, was saved from modernization and restored to its original design.

In this episode, Asst. Publisher Mary Donohue learns more about the history and preservation of the parkway from her guests Christopher Wigren deputy director of Preservation Connecticut and author of Connecticut Architecture: Stories of 100 Places. He co-wrote the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Merritt Parkway and serves on the Department of Transportation's Merritt Parkway Advisory Committee. And her second guest, Wes Haynes, the Executive Director of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, a non-profit organization committed to the preservation, revitalization and stewardship of the Parkway.   

Thanks to Chris for being our guest. You can order his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Architecture-Stories-Places-Garnet/dp/0819578134/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1072LVNSI3O9I&keywords=wigren&qid=1651172449&s=books&sprefix=%2Cstripbooks%2C58&sr=1-1

And thanks to Wes for being our guest. Find out more about the Merritt Parkway Conservancy here: https://www.merrittparkway.org/

For more Connecticut Explored stories about the Merritt Parkway,

https://www.ctexplored.org/soapbox-preserving-the-meritt-parkway/

https://www.ctexplored.org/national-historic-preservation-act-40-and-fabulous/

https://www.ctexplored.org/meet-preservation-connecticut/

Photos used with permission from the Merritt Parkway Conservancy.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan, High Wattage Media, LLC at highwattagemedia.com

Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years She may be reached at marydonohue@comcast.net.

In this episode, architectural historian Mary Donohue and podcast engineer Patrick O’Sullivan explore the Hartford work of early twentieth century architect Donn Barber especially his magnificent Connecticut State Library building and two of the city’s early skyscrapers. Her guest, retired Connecticut State Librarian Ken Wiggin, explains how Barber got the plum commission to design the Connecticut State Library.

Donn Barber, born in 1871, a New York City architect, could be called the “Father of Hartford Skyscrapers.” He designed Hartford’s first skyscraper, the Hartford National Bank in 1911, and another, the Travelers Tower in 1919, that reigned as the tallest in New England for decades. The first—the Hartford National Bank Building—was demolished in 1990, while the other—Travelers Tower—is still an icon of the Hartford skyline, one whose owner restored it in 2013. Barber and these two buildings not only dramatically changed Hartford’s skyline, they also played a role in advancing the city’s burgeoning white-collar banking and insurance industries in the early 20th century.

By 1906, architect Donn Barber had received his first commission from the Travelers Insurance Company to design the first section of the Travelers building on Main Street. But was the magnificent Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building in 1910 that cemented his reputation in Hartford for designing grand show stopping buildings.

Barber’s Hartford work included several landmark buildings. He designed the Connecticut State Library in 1910, the unrealized Charter Oak Bank Building in 1914, the Travelers Tower in three stages between 1906 and 1919; the Hartford Times Building in 1920, and the Travelers Insurance Co. building at Grove and Prospect streets in 1921.

Washington, D.C.-born Donn Barber received the best architectural training available and worked in some of New York City’s toniest architectural design firms. He was educated at Yale and Columbia universities and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. The Ecole fostered a generation of American architects who designed in what became known in architecture and city-planning circles as the Beaux Arts style. This Classically-based style reshaped American taste, and its cities, at the beginning of the 20th century. Barber worked for Carrere & Hastings, Cass Gilbert (architect of Waterbury City Hall and New Haven’s Union Station and former owner/resident of Ridgefield’s Keeler Tavern Museum), and Lord & Howlett before opening his own office in 1900.

Learn more about his Hartford work here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-state-library-george-godard-gets-his-building/

https://www.ctexplored.org/saving-face-the-hartford-times-building/

and in the Spring 2022 issue of Connecticut Explored.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan, High Wattage Media, LLC.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

This topic was inspired by “Albert’s Odd Jobs,” an exhibition on view at the CT Historical Society through April 16, 2022. It covers the life of Glastonbury’s Albert Walker, a farmer, skilled artisan, amateur magician, and, of course, a Wide Awake. You can take a virtual 3D tour of “Albert’s Odd Jobs” on the museum’s website, chs.org. 

Special thanks to guest Jon Grinspan, the Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Grinspan studies the deep history of American democracy, especially the wild partisan campaigns of the 1800s. He frequently contributes to the New York Times, and his work has been featured in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. His most recent book is The Age of Acrimony: How American Fought to Fix Their Democracy 1865-1915.  

Learn more about Connecticut and the Civil War here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-in-the-civil-war-2/

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/shop/

Image credit: Wide Awake Flag, 1889. This flag was reportedly carried by the Wide Awakes during an excursion to Washington, D.C. for the Presidential inauguration parade of Benjamin Harrison on 4 March 1889. CHS Collection, 1950.530.0 

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March is Women’s History Month and in this episode publisher Elizabeth Normen talks with author Eve Kahn about her 2019 book, Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Wiliams,1857 - 1907 (Wesleyan University Press, 2019). It’s a rare insider view of the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. Kahn drew from a collection of Williams’s gossipy letters home in which she describes her desperation to escape her teaching job at Smith College to paint and travel abroad. Hear how Williams talked her way into artist James McNeil Whistler’s London home, and about drawing from a cadaver at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. 

Find out more about the book at https://www.evekahn.com and read her story in the Winter 2021-2022 issue of CTExplored at https://www.ctexplored.org/mary-rogers-williams-we-shall-want-to-do-a-lot-of-rambling/.

Forty years ago, a freshman legislator in the Connecticut General Assembly wrote and engineered passage of one of the most important pieces of consumer protection legislation in history – The Lemon Law (actually two laws passed in 1982 and 1984) that required automobile manufacturers to repair defective vehicles in a timely manner, replace the vehicle with a new one, or refund the customer's purchase price. Today Lemon Laws are in place in every state of the union and countries around the world. John J Woodcock, father of the Lemon Law, tells the story of the Lemon Law's creation, passage, and the years long battle with car manufacturers to preserve its integrity. Produced by Walter Woodward. 

As we all ease into 2022, we want to thank our listeners for supporting Grating the Nutmeg! We’ve just had our 6th birthday and hit over 100,000 downloads! We couldn’t have done it without you. Be sure to let us know if there are topics you think we should investigate.

If you could manufacture something out of stone or metal and make a buck, chances are it was produced in Connecticut. Asst. Publisher Mary Donohue explores the history of an unusual and unique--in the truest sense of the word--Connecticut company that made grave markers out of zinc. Affectionately known as “Zinkies” by cemetery buffs, these bluish-grey metal gravestones were made in Bridgeport and shipped across the country. The company’s slogan was “As enduring as the pyramids” but was that true or just boosterism? We’ll find out with author and Bridgeport historian Carolyn Ivanoff whose feature article on the Monumental Bronze Company comes out in Connecticut Explored’s upcoming Spring 2022 issue.    

Her book, "We Fought at Gettysburg," scheduled for publication in late spring 2022, features first-hand accounts by the survivors of the 17th Connecticut Infantry and their experiences on the greatest battlefield of the American Civil War.

Thanks to Carolyn Ivanoff for being our guest. You can find her Bridgeport history blog at https://bportlibrary.org/hc/business-and-commerce/monuments-everlasting-bridgeports-monumental-bronze-company/#more-14000

Don’t forget to get your copy of Connecticut Explored’s Spring 2022 issue to read more about the “Zinkies.” And to see dozens of Zinkies from across the country, follow the “gardenofwhitebronze” on Instagram. The digitized catalog at the Smithsonian Institution can be seen here https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/whitebronzemonu00monu

Episode photo shows the Beech Family monument, Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport. The front panel shows the iconic harvested wheat and scythe bas-relief. The “golden sheaf” on the front panel symbolized that the deceased had had a long and abundant life. Photo by Carolyn Ivanoff. 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Did you know that you can get our new e-newsletter, CTExplored/Inbox by signing up at our website ctexplored.org? You’ll receive your bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from around the state to see or watch this month and more! 

In this episode, Connecticut Historical Society’s Natalie Belanger, frequent contributor to Grating the Nutmeg, talks with Antoinette Brim-Bell, Professor of English at Capital Community College, about Ann Plato, one of the first Black women to publish a book in the United States. Ann Plato is part of Capitol Community College’s NEH-funded Hartford Heritage Project which highlights the history of the Talcott Street Church, the first Black congregation in Hartford and where Plato was a teacher. 

Many thanks to Antoinette Brim-Bell! If you want to learn more about the Hartford Heritage Project, visit their website. Ann Plato’s book, Essay: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, has been digitized by the New York Public Library and is available to read online. 

Want to know more about Connecticut’s landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox- https://www.ctexplored.org/

And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward at https://todayincthistory.com/

This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg!

Is there a sucker born every minute? I don’t have the answer to that but it is attributed to one of Connecticut’s most famous residents, circus showman P. T. Barnum. Did he really say it-no one knows for sure but we do know that he made and lost several fortunes, helped to create the American circus, exhibited a phony mermaid cobbled together from a monkey and a fish and that he loved Bridgeport!

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, finds out more about the Barnum’s over the top life and his lasting mark on Bridgeport, Connecticut with her guest Bruce Hawley, author of “P. T. Barnum Builds a City” in the Winter 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored. Mr. Hawley is a board member the Barnum Museum Foundation, the Circus Historical Society, and the Circus Fans Association of America.  He is a distant cousin of P.T. Barnum. 

The Barnum Museum, originally called The Barnum Institute of Science and History, was just designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Dept of the Interior. Plan your visit at museum.org/">https://barnum-museum.org/

Here’s more about Barnum in these Connecticut Explored stories and Grating the Nutmeg episodes-enjoy!

https://www.ctexplored.org/building-art-of-clay/

https://www.ctexplored.org/tom-thumb-and-the-age-of-celebrity/

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/gtn-30-p-t-barnum-and-the-art-of-money-getting

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/gtn60-special-cptv-audio-documentary-barnums-connecticut-0

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/30-part-2-the-1st-ten-rules-for-making-money-by-p-t-barnum-0

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/30-part-3-p-t-barnums-the-art-of-money-getting

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg received support from the State Historic Preservation Office of the Dept of Economic and Community Development with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

In the spirit of the season, we’re pleased to present a Victorian era Christmas story, written by the celebrated 19th century author from Guilford, Reverend William Henry Harrison Murray. Better known as “Adirondack” Murray, because his books almost single-handedly transformed that region from a New York wilderness to one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, Murray was one of the first mass audience authors to promote recreational camping as a leisure time activity, and coined  the term “vacation.” He is recognized as a father of the American Outdoor movement. His belief that the north woods were health giving and spiritually beneficial, and that the rustic nobility of Adirondack woodsmen was produced by their wilderness life, drew Americans by the millions to the woods, and to his books and tales. In “John Norton’s Vagabond,” fro Murray’s 1897 book “Holiday Tales: Christmas in the Adirondacks,” we meet one of those noble rustic woodsmen, the trapper John Norton, who decides, in counsel with his dogs Rover and Sport, to hold a Christmas dinner, to which he will invite even vagabonds. It might be helpful to know that in John Norton’s trapper’s world the word vagabond meant more than just a person who wanders about–it meant a person who stole other men’s traps and poached their furs, in short, the worst of the worst. So with that as background, get a cup of cocoa, grab an easy chair, and have a listen to Rev, William Henry Harrison “Adirondack Murray’s” Christmas story, “John Norton’s Vagabond.

Special thanks to the Free Music Archive, Creative Commons, and these amazingly talented artists for the use of this wonderful music: Borrtex, “Christmas Memory,” “Christmas Tree,” Poddington Bear, “Angels We Have Heard on High” Rue Royale, “Snow on Snow”

Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society is joined by historian Barbara Sicherman, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita at Trinity College, to discuss the landmark reproductive rights case, Griswold v. Connecticut. Professor Sicherman talks about the origins of the lawsuit, what it meant for women in our state, and its long-term influence on civil rights rulings. 

If you want to learn more, you can read Barbara Sicherman’s article, "Connecticut Women Fight for Reproductive Rights", in the Fall 2017 issue of Connecticut Explored, or see her pieces about Estelle Griswold and Catharine Roraback in the Summer 2011 article, "Women Who Changed the World." 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

Recently, Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward announced he will be retiring next July 1st. To find out what "historical"  retirement is like, Woodward sat down with Nick Bellantoni, who retired as state archaeologist in 2014, and is now Connecticut's state archaeologist emeritus. The resulting conversation was a fascinating discussion of archaeological sites in Connecticut, Nick's successor state archaeologists, and Nick's own career of amazing discoveries. 

What more do we need to know about Sam Colt? In Hartford we have the iconic blue-domed Colt Armory, Colt Park, the Colt addition to the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Church of the Good Shepard and Colt’s home Armsmear. But it turns out that we may not have known much about Colt’s life before he became fabulously wealthy—he traveled with a novelty act, womanized, drank, smuggled guns to Russia, bribed politicians, and blew up ships in New York Harbor with electricity.

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, digs into some of these stories with Jim Rasenberger, author of Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-shooter that Changed America.

He is the author of three other books—The Brilliant Disaster; America, 1908; and High Steel—and has contributed to the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and other publications. A native of Washington, DC, he lives in New York City. Find out more at https://www.jimrasenberger.com/

Coltsville, Sam’s industrial village including the Colt Armory, workers housing, and his estate, have been listed as a National Historic Landmark and authorized as a National Historical Park under the guidance of the National Park Service. For more history and self-guided tours, go to their website at nps.gov/colt.

Find out more about Sam Colt in these Connecticut Explored stories:

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-suspicious-colt-armory-fire/

https://www.ctexplored.org/sam-colt-mines-the-arizona-territory-2/

https://www.ctexplored.org/making-a-success-of-coltsville/

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg received support from the State Historic Preservation Office of the Dept of Economic and Community Development with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

A Connecticut Historian Makes History:  Recovering Phyllis Wheatley’s Lost Years

UCONN legal historian Cornelia Hughes Dayton was searching through Massachusetts Court cases from the 1700s, working on a project involving mental disabilities in early America, when she came upon a find that was itself history-making:  a cache of court cases that illuminate the formerly “missing years” in the life of America’s first published African American author and the mother of the African-American literary tradition Phyllis Wheatley Peters.  Dayton discusses her discovery of the court cases and their many revelations, as recounted in her just published and prize-winning article Lost Years Recovered: John Peters and Phillis Wheatley Peters in Middleton,” New England Quarterly 94 (September 2021): 309-351.  

Watch for the release of primary source documents from the "Middleton dossier" on the  the Wheatley Peters Project website (forthcoming). Track its progress at the Twitter account  #Wheatley_Peters.

Are you your family’s historian? The one that listens to all the elders' stories or digs into that big box of old family photographs? Ever wonder how many of your dad’s stories are really true? Or if you have a big family secret that hasn’t been revealed for generations? If so, this episode is for you! In celebration of National Archives Month, we’re talking to two accomplished family historians.

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the state’s history magazine, interviews author Jill Marie Snyder. Snyder has a B.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. in Communication from Fairfield University. Retired from a corporate career in the insurance industry, she's completed Boston University’s Principles of Genealogy course. Her book Dear Mary, Dear Luther, based on letters written between her parents, won the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Award for Nonfiction Romance/history in 2020. Jill will be teaching a workshop on “Telling Your Family Story, Putting it all together” on Oct 20, 2021 for the Ancient Burying Ground Association and Hartford Public Library. Register for the workshop on the Ancient Burying Ground Association’s Facebook page under events.

Our second guest is well-known Hartford Jazz musician and recording artist Orice Jenkins. He studied music at the Hartt School and has released four solo albums including the fantastic Centennial Cole: the Music of Nate King Cole in 2019. He teaches in his hometown of Hartford and tours nationally with the Afro-Semitic Experience. His website features his family history blog Chesta’s Children: a Collection of Stories, People, History, Records and Research.

Find out more about our guests at their websites, https://www.jillmariesnyder.com/  https://oricejenkins.com/

Order Snyder’s book at https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Mary-Luther-Courtship-Letters-ebook/dp/B0793Q7LTM/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jill+marie+snyder&qid=1633030224&sr=8-1

For more about family histories, read the stories in Connecticut Explored’s Family History issue here https://www.ctexplored.org/fall-2019-family-history-separating-fact-from-fiction/

For more on Connecticut’s African American history, visit our Topics page at https://www.ctexplored.org/african-american-history-in-connecticut-2/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Donohue as documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

History has often been described as the present having a conversation with the past. Meet Kevin Johnson, who makes those conversations both real and personal: as a Technical Assistant in the History and Genealogy unit of the Connecticut State Library in Hartford; as William Webb, a Civil War volunteer in the 29th Connecticut Colored Volunteer infiantry; and as Jordan Freeman, the African American who died a heroes death at the Revolutionary War Massacre at Fort Griswold. It's 250 years of history, all through one person: "The Three Lives of Kevin Johnson."

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, for a discussion with Dr. Helen Sheumaker about Victorian jewelry and wreaths made from human hair. Dr. Sheumaker is the author of Love Entwined: The Curious History of Human Hair Work.  She teaches history and American Studies at Miami University of Ohio.

Find out more about this now unfashionable way to remember your loved ones!

Read Dr. Sheumaker’s feature story in the Fall 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored-order your copy at ctexplored.org

And see more about her book here: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Entwined-Curious-History-Hairwork/dp/0812240146/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Love+Entwined&qid=1630356702&sr=8-2

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Donohue has documented Connecticut’s built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net 

And our thanks to the Lane Public Library in Oxford, Ohio for providing Dr. Sheumaker with a recording space.

Want to know more about Connecticut’s landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Connecticut State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com

What do the nineteenth century author Lydia Sigourney, the 18th century hero-turned-traitor Benedict Arnold, and the Revolutionary War battle of Bunker Hill have in common? They all come together in the story you are about to hear from Sigourney’s 1824 book SKETCH OF CONNECTICUT FORTY YEARS SINCE. Sigourney’s book, written early in her career, is a rare historical treat: a tale by a future-famous writer, written in 1824, reminiscing about life forty years earlier in 1784. The past remembering the past, in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, for a discussion with Pablo Delano, visual artist, photographer and professor of fine arts at Trinity College - and the artist behind the new book Hartford Seen, published in 2020 by Wesleyan University Press. His work is featured in the photo essay “Visually Breathtaking Hartford Explored” in the Summer 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine. Professor Delano’s father, Jack Delano, was a renown American New Deal-era photographer for the Farm Security Administration who photographed Connecticut in 1940.  

To see more of Pablo Delano’s work, visit www.pablodelano.com and look for his new book Hartford Seen wherever you get your books or order here https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/hartford-seen-delano/

For more information on “The Museum of the Old Colony” exhibition, see the exhibit website and exhibition information below:

Official website: www.museumoftheoldcolony.org

Web page from the last iteration of the project at Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture:

https://cadvc.umbc.edu/pablo-delano-the-museum-of-the-old-colony/

Web page from Photoville Festival

https://photoville.nyc/the-museum-of-the-old-colony/

Exhibition catalog from CADVC

of-The-Old-Colony-2.pdf"> https://cadvc.umbc.edu/files/2020/02/Museum-of-The-Old-Colony-2.pdf

Exhibition catalog from Hampshire College

https://sites.hampshire.edu/gallery/files/2018/10/MoOC_catalogue_spreads.pdf

To see more of Jack Delano’s work as a photographer for the Federal Security Administration, go to the Library of Congress website at LOC.gov

Jack Delano Photographs, Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/photos/?fa=subject:color%7Ccontributor:delano,+jack

Jack Delano Papers, 1927-1995, Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/item/mm98084274/

To read more about Jack Delano’s photographs taken of Connecticut’s Jewish farmers, get the book A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers available from the Greater Hartford Jewish Historical Society on their website at https://jhsgh.org/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Contact Donohue at marydonohue@comcast.net

Want to know more about Connecticut’s landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Connecticut State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com

In this special summer episode we visit Frank and Lisa Catalano, who in their 18th-century home garden in Lebanon, are using some very inventive approaches to bring back an old Connecticut tradition – self-sufficient food production. It's a history show for garden geeks . . . or maybe a garden show for history geeks. 

In this episode, Dr. Leah Glaser and students from her 2021 Public History class at Central Connecticut State University present stories about the state’s witness trees — a project that evolved out of a semester-long class on local and community history. Trees are central characters in the state’s history, myths and legends. They witnessed the changing environmental, political, social, economic, and cultural landscape for decades and even centuries. What’s a witness tree, you ask? Find out in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

Find Dr. Glaser’s article about witness and memorial trees in the Spring 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored online at www.ctexplored.org/trees-as-memorials-and-witnesses-to-history/

Dr. Leah Glaser is a professor at Central Connecticut State University and Coordinator of the Public History Program. Her 2021 class researched tree stories and each student presented one story on the podcast. Contact her at glaserles@ccsu.edu

1. Andy King-The Mashantucket Pequots and the rhododendron
2. David Prochorena-Pinchot Oak, Simsbury
3. Helena Torres Diaz-The Witch Tree and the Hartford Witch Trials, Hartford
4. Despina Merriman-Nathan Hale Pear Tree, Coventry
5. Gregory Franklin-Puritans to Patriots (Ye Olde Oak), Easton
6. Cameron Clarke-John Brown’s Tree, Torrington
7. Grayson Belisle- Teddy Roosevelt and the McKinley Tree, Farmington
8. Emma Koss-Land Stewardship and the Dewey Oak, Granby
9. Valerie Chase-WWII Patriotism and Arbor Day, Windham
10. Benjamin Johnson-The Old Oak Tree and the Coltsville labor strike, Hartford
11. Kaitlyn Oberndorfer- Blue Cedars and the Rural Cemetery Movement, Hartford
12. Patricia Wallace– The Cypress Tree Mystery at an Olmsted Park, New Haven
13. Garrett Saranich-The Chestnut Oak, Shipbuilding on the Connecticut shoreline, Clinton
14. Ben Haberman- The Black Cherry Tree oversees Seaport to Coastal Gateway, Madison
15. Tom Ieronimo- Of Hickory and Baseball, Hartford

For more information on Hartford’s historic trees, go to the Hartford Preservation Alliance website at https://hartfordpreservation.org/ccsu-tree-history/

Find the Connecticut Notable Tree Project at http://oak.conncoll.edu:8080/notabletrees/

Read More!

Connecticut Explored  ctexplored.org

https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-connecticut-state-parks-at-100/

https://www.ctexplored.org/cherry-trees-for-wooster-square/

https://www.ctexplored.org/wickham-park-in-manchester/

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-historic-rose-gardens/

Listen

Grating the Nutmeg Podcast

https://www.ctexplored.org/grating-the-nutmeg-115-americas-first-public-rose-garden-elizabeth-park/

Subscribe to our free newsletter at https://www.ctexplored.org/

Want to know more about Connecticut’s landmarks, museums, art and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored magazine — in print to your mailbox or digitally to your e-mail inbox. Visit ctexplored.org to subscribe. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Office of the State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com. 

This episode was produced by Leah Glaser and Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg!

State Historian Walt Woodward talks with award-winning author and materials scientists Ainissa Ramirez about her award-winning and highly acclaimed book The Alcehmy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another.  On virtually every national Top Science Book of the Year List for 2020, The Alchemy of Us is a wonderfully readable, lively, smart and witty account of the development of eight inventions that have not only transformed the way we live, but have transformed us, too. Not surprisingly, half of those inventions have important Connecticut connections.

Ramirez and Woodward discuss the roles Samuel F Morse, Edwin Land, Ansonia’s William Wallace and New Haven’s George Coy played in creating inventions that have helped the world Convey, See, Capture and Think in new and different ways. It’s a fascinating and surprising story fest with one of the science world's best story tellers.

 Lives of the state’s LGBTQ citizens have moved from being hidden and solitary to claiming visible, powerful, valuable, and contributing places in society. In this episode, Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, interviews CCSU Assistant Professor of History William J. Mann about when and how the LGBTQ movement started in Connecticut, what legislative goals and strategies drove the movement, and what the current goals are for the LGBTQ movement. Mann discusses the impact of AIDS and the ways that the LGBTQ community supported its members. He describes how his students helped to research and uncover the people and events highlighted in the online exhibition, “Historic Timeline of Connecticut’s LGBTQ  Community.” Mann wrote CT Explored’s “A Brief History of Connecticut’s Gay Media,” available at www.ctexplored.org/a-brief-history-of-connecticut-gay-media/.

Mann teaches LGBTQ history, film history, and the history of AIDS. He is the director of CCSU's LGBTQ Center. From 1989-1995, he was the editor and later publisher of Metroline, the state’s LGBTQ newsmagazine, and coordinator of Your Turf, the first LGBTQ youth group in the state. In 1989, along with Terri Reid, William founded the long-running queer film festival known today as Out Film CT. He is author of 12 books, many on American film history. 

Find the LGBTQ Timeline at https://chs.org/lgbtq/. It is a partnership between Central Connecticut State University and the Connecticut Historical Society, and is based on the work of Richard Nelson, CCSU 403 students in 2019, and will continue to grow. 

Read more!

Sign up for our free newsletter at www.ctexplored.org/

LGBTQ Icons

Ann Stanback- https://www.ctexplored.org/women-who-changed-the-world/

https://www.ctexplored.org/an-early-advocate-for-connecticuts-gay-community/

https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-a-love-story-at-the-palmer-warner-house/

https://www.ctexplored.org/philip-johnsons-50-year-experiment-in-architecture-and-landscape/

https://www.ctexplored.org/stonington-poet-james-merrills-house/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history and mixed by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Mary Donohue has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

     In this episode, Josh Shanley – firefighter, paramedic, and Emergency Management Director for Northampton, Massachusetts, talks about the Great Connecticut RIver Flood of 1936, its devastating effects, long-term consequences, and the message it has for a world in climate change. Based on his new book, Connecticut River Valley Flood of 1936 from the History Press. 

Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger talks with labor historian Steve Thornton of The Shoeleather History Project about Black baseball in Connecticut. Thornton is the author of Connecticut Explored's "African American Greats in Connecticut Baseball," Summer 2018.

Read or Watch More!To learn more about the Negro Leagues, check out this recent talk at the CT Historical Society by Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

"African American Greats in Connecticut Baseball," Summer 2018

Shoeleather History Project at https://shoeleatherhistoryproject.com/

Follow the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League here. 

This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

Photo Credit: Johnny "Schoolboy" Taylor and Savitt Gems business manager Bernie Ellovich, 1930s-40s. Connecticut Historical Society 1990.51.988

No one knows more about transportation in Connecticut than historian, civil engineer, and highway and transportation planner Richard DeLuca. In this recent virtual lecture for Cheshire Public Library, promoting his new, second volume on Connecticut transportation history Paved Roads and Public Money  (Wesleyan University Press), DeLuca underscores the inseparable relationships among population, technology, and the environment. 

Visitors have been enchanted by the thousands of soft and fragrant rose petals in Elizabeth Park’s Rose Garden since it opened in 1904. Climbing roses intertwined in overhead garlands, hybrid tea roses and heritage roses in every color symbolize romance, friendship, and passion.

Elizabeth Park on the Hartford-West Hartford border is home to the country’s oldest public rose garden. Visitors by the thousands come to stroll in the rose garden and sit in the vine-covered gazebo. Generations of prom goers as well as wedding parties have had their photos taken there.

But how did Elizabeth Park become the public park it is today? Find out how Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture, a contested will and  a beloved wife are all part of the story.

Mary Donohue interviews Elizabeth Park’s Rosarian Stephen Scanniello about all things roses.  

Read more!

Sign up for our free newsletter ctexplored.substack.com

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-historic-rose-gardens/

https://www.ctexplored.org/off-the-streets-into-the-parks/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Donohue has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Visit www.elizabethparkct.org

Sometimes tombs become crime scenes. State Archaeologist Emeritus Nick Bellantoni talks with Walt Woodward about two such cases in which he was called in to do forensic archaeology, and the process of doing historic detective work in pursuit of justice. He also provides the latest developments concerning the discovery of revolutionary war skeletons in a basement in Ridgefield in December 2019. 

In 1969, women were allowed entry to undergraduate study at Yale for the first time. Their experience was not the same as their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the school’s privileges, the young women nonetheless met the challenge of being first and changed Yale in ways it had never anticipated.

Mary Donohue interviews historian and Yale alumna Anne Gardiner Perkins, author of Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant and New Haven leader Constance Royster, one of Yale’s first women undergrads. Anne Gardiner Perkins is an award-winning historian and higher education expert, and the author of Yale Needs Women, which won the 2020 Connecticut Book Award. Ms. Royster holds a J.D. from Rutgers University Law School – Newark, and a B.A. cum laude from Yale University.

Read more!“UConn Law: The Trailblazing Bessye Bennett,” Spring 2014 “Yale’s Grace Murray Hopper College,” Fall 2017

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Ms. Donohue has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

What secrets about the past can an ancient tomb reveal? The answers, as State Archaeologist emeritus Nick Bellantoni explains, are many, surprising, and incredibly interesting.  

In this conversation about Nick's new book, And So the Tomb Remained: Exploring Archaeology and Forensic Science in Connecticut's Historical Family Mausolea, State Historian Walt Woodward and Bellantoni, who in his 30 plus years as state archaeologist entered more tombs that any other archeologist, talk about Nick's experiences doing restoration, recovery work, and crimonal investigations  in the tombs of some of Connecticut's oldest and most powerful families.

Fifty years ago, Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers were on trial for their lives in New Haven. In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society takes a look back at the New Haven Black Panther trials, using some of the many primary sources available. 

To learn more about the New Haven Black Panther Trials:

To see Robert Templeton’s courtroom sketches of the Black Panther Trials, go here.

The trial transcripts are available digitally through Yale Law School’s Lillian Goldman Law Library.

The online exhibit, “Bulldog and Panther: The 1970 May Day Rally and Yale,” at Yale University Library, covers the events leading up to the May Rally, and its aftermath.

The recording of Alex Rackely’s interrogation can be heard via Youtube through this link to the New Haven Independent’s reporting of its discovery. Editor Paul Bass co-wrote, with Douglas W. Rae, Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale, and the Redemption of a Killer.

Yohuru Williams’s essay, “The New Haven Black Panther Trials,” appears in African American Connecticut Explored, published through a collaboration between Connecticut Explored and the Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Williams is also the author of Black Politics, White Power: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven. And in these two Connecticut Explored articles online below:

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-hartford-chapter-of-the-black-panthers-an-interview-with-butch-lewis/

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-new-haven-black-panther-trials/

You can learn more about this topic by tuning in to a virtual talk by Dr. Yohuru Williams, historian and founder of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, on February 24, 2021. "No Haven: Civil Rights, Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven," hosted by the Connecticut Historical Society, will be streamed live on Crowdcast and available after for re-watch. Click here to register. 

Natalie Belanger is the Adult Programs Manager at the Connecticut Historical Society. You can contact her at natalie_belanger@chs.org.

Produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

Photo Credit: Black Panther Community News Service, CHS Collection, 2018.22.2

This lecture was presented by Dr. Leon Chameides for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, Voices of Hope, and The Emanuel Synagogue.  Learn more about Polish-Jewish history and how our guest Dr. Leon Chameides  survived the Nazi occupation of Poland as a Jewish child. Despite the fact that many American Jews trace their family to Poland, there are many misconceptions about Polish history and the history of Polish-Jewish relations. Dr. Leon Chameides was born in Poland in 1935 and spent the war  years hidden in a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic monastery. He went to England in 1946 and came to the United States in 1949. He was Director of Pediatrics at Hartford Hospital for 10 years. 

To read more about Dr. Chameide’s life and family, look for his book Strangers in Many Lands, available on Amazon books. For more information about Hartford’s Jewish history, go to the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford at https://jhsgh.org/ and for more about Connecticut’s connection to the Holocaust, go to the website of Voices of Hope at http://ctvoicesofhope.org/

For more about Connecticut’s military history, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-at-war/ and to read Dr. Chameides story in the Fall issue of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/a-jewish-childs-experience-of-war/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at https://www.granthousect.com/

In 1938 pioneering female architect and founder of the Hill-Stead Museum, Theodate Pope Riddle of Farmington enjoyed an excursion through Europe. While in London she participated in three sittings with trance mediums, continuing an avocational interest in spiritualism that lasted 34 years.  Hear more about Riddle’s efforts to scientifically prove the ability to communicate with the deceased in this episode hosted by Mary Donohue, Asst Publisher of Connecticut Explored and Melanie Bourbeau, Curator and Director of Interpretation and Programs at the Hill-Stead Museum. 

 If you’d like to learn more about the Theodate Pope Riddle and Spiritualism, visit the museum’s website at https://www.hillstead.org/ and read Bourbeau’s article in the Winter 2020-21 issue of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut History. 

Theodate Pope Riddle was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame-read more here: https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/theodate-pope-riddle

For more on Spiritualism in Connecticut, go to the website of Connecticut Explored for these articles at:

https://www.ctexplored.org/isabella-beecher-hooker-and-the-spirit-of-reform/

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-pine-grove-spiritualist-camp/

Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years.

This episode was produced by Mary M. Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

Want a daily dose of Connecticut history?  Subscribe to TODAYINCTHISTORY.com  and follow Connecticut Explored on Facebook and Instagram. 

         Mohegan Medicine Woman, Tribal Historian, and award-winning playwright and screenwriter Meissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel does a virtual sit-down with state historian Walt Woodward to talk about the radio drama Up and Down the River she and her equally accomplished daughter Madeline Sayet recently wrote, produced, and directed for Hartford's Heartbeat Ensemble. 

       The five short plays provide a unique and important window into key moments in Mohegan history and culture. Zobel provides both a writer's and a people's perspective on the stories, and tells how everyone can - for a limited time -  hear the radio drama for free on the Heartbeat Ensemble website

In this episode, Mary Donohue talks to Curator Amy Kurtz Lansing about one of the most beautiful places to visit in Connecticut - the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. Did Old Lyme become the home to an art colony because of the good food at Miss Florence’s  boardinghouse or because of the soft, lovely light on the salt marshes along the Lieutenant River? The episode uncovers the roots of the Old Lyme Art Colony and also new exhibitions up now including Celebrating 20 Years of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection, an exhibit that marks the arrival of 190 works of art in 2001, a gift that transformed the Griswold Museum, and a second exhibition, the Centennial of the Lyme Art Association Gallery , the museum’s neighbor, that partially recreates their 1921 inaugural exhibition in their shingle style building designed by society architect Charles A. Platt, designer of the Freer Art Gallery in Washington, DC and the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London, Connecticut. Florence Griswold was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/florence-griswold

For more information and photos go to the website of Connecticut Explored at:

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-spirit-of-miss-florence-restored/

https://www.ctexplored.org/painting-with-needle-thread/

https://www.ctexplored.org/only-waiting-to-be-painted-the-inspirational-landscape-of-old-lyme/

To learn more about the Florence Griswold Museum and the current exhibitions, go to https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/

Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and pop culture for over 30 years.

This episode was produced by Mary M. Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

You can help us continue to produce Grating the Nutmeg. Please make a gift to Friends of Connecticut Explored and use coupon code Gratingthenutmeg to have your gift support the podcast. All gifts with this coupon code will be shared with the Office of the State Historian to support its outreach efforts. Go to ctexplored.org to make your donation.

In the summer of 1991, reporter and environmentalist Steve Grant traveled the entire 410 miles of the Connecticut River from its source near the Canadian border in New Hampshire to the Long Island Sound by self-addled canoe. Throughout the 33 day journey, Grant reported on his voyage in stories for the Hartford Courant. His every-other-day tales made Grant a celebrity and his journey a legend. Twenty-nine years after that life-changing trip,State Historian Walt Woodward  met Grant on the banks of the Connecticut River in Hartford, to talk about the journey, the man, and the river in another time. 

It's a fascinating two-part interview that covers everything from early 90's internet technology, to environmental restoration, to moose-induced traffic jams in the Great North Woods. 

"The Connecticut River: First National Blueway Runs Through Connecticut," Spring 2014 "Connecticut River Legends," Spring 2019 "Pleasure Boating on the Connecticut River," Summer 2018 Read all of our stories about Connecticut's landscape and environment on our TOPICS page.

In part two oof Steve Grant's Legendary 1991 Source-to-Sea journey on the Connecticut River, we'll talk about Some of the Connecticut RIver's endangered species, the issues that affected the river's health then and now, the celebrations at the end of the voyage, and what the journey means to Grant some thirty years one. 

"The Connecticut River: First National Blueway Runs Through Connecticut," Spring 2014 "Connecticut River Legends," Spring 2019 "Pleasure Boating on the Connecticut River," Summer 2018 Read all of our stories about Connecticut's landscape and environment on our TOPICS page.

To read Steve's work and see more of his nature photography visit thestevegrantebsite.com 

The song 'Great River" by Walt Woodward, was peformed by Walt and The Band of Steady Habits –– Rachel Smith, Teagan Smith, Jeremy Teitelbaum, Duke York, & Walt Woodward 

(Image - Brookfield Registrars, chistinascucina.com) 

With elections leaving so many people with a bitter taste in their mouths, we're celebrating one of Connecticut's oldest – and for centuries best known – traditions; the Connecticut Election cake. In this conversation with Allie Kyff of the Connecticut Democracy Center at Connecticut's Old State House,state Historian Walt Woodward discusses the fascinating history of this delicious tradition.

BAKE YOUR WAY TO GLORY!                                                          Join in a statewide election cake decorating contest held by Connecticut's Old State House.  

Celebrate a 200-year old Connecticut Election Day tradition by entering our Election Day Cake Virtual Contest. Inspire everyone to vote by baking a cake, decorating it, and entering to win!

Bake your cake using the original Election Day Cake recipe or follow a recipe of your own choosing! Since our judges won't be able to taste your delicious creations, we are going to judge on decoration alone. Make a cake that you would love to eat on election day-- one that looks as good as it tastes, celebrates elections, and inspires voting!

Watch our Facebook Live interview with State Historian Dr. Walt Woodward from September 23rd, Hartford's Election Day Cake: A Yummy Civic Tradition, to learn more about this great tradition.

Make sure that your are following Connecticut's Old State House on Facebook, Instagram (@CTOldStateHouse) and Twitter (@CTOldStateHouse) or opt into our email list for October updates and the winning announcement on Monday, November 2, 20202!

Rules: 1. Bake a cake and decorate it in a way that celebrates voting and inspires people to vote on November 3rd.  2. The cake MUST be non-partisan. 3. Cakes that promote an issue, party, or person will be disqualified. 4. Submit no more than three pictures of your cake. One photo must be of the entire cake either from above or at an angle. 5. Send your submission to ctdemocracycenter@gmail.com by 5pm on Monday, October 26, 2020.  6. Only one submission per person is permitted.  7. This contest is open to all ages. 

Winners and prizes will be announced on Monday, November 2, 2020.  ------------------------------------------------- Please note that this is a virtual event. There is no in-person component.

Owned by the same family for its first 200 years then purchased by star architect Cass Gilbert in 1907 for his summer home, the Keeler Tavern was there when the American Revolution’s Battle of Ridgefield happened and it has a cannonball embedded in the façade to prove it. New York City architect Cass Gilbert, designer of early skyscrapers like the Woolworth Building in New York City, kept all of the home’s Colonial charm and added to it! Cass Gilbert had  a big impact on Connecticut’s architecture in Hartford, Waterbury, Waterford and New Haven.

But there’s more to the Keeler Tavern than a pretty place! New research is enhancing the museum’s ability to tell women’s  and African American history in programming for adults and children. The pandemic pushed many museums to reach out to their audience using new technologies. Hear more about how the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center’s dynamic staff is telling their story and finding new audiences in 2020 with architectural historian Mary Donohue. 

 Thank our guests Hildi Grob, Executive Director, Catherine Prescott, Chief Curator, and Melissa Houston, Educational Director from the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center.  See more at https://keelertavernmuseum.org/

Find a photo album for this episode at   https://www.ctexplored.org/

Read more online at ctexplored.org in the article https://www.ctexplored.org/benedict-arnold-and-the-battle-of-ridgefield/

And read about architect Cass Gilbert in our online articles including https://www.ctexplored.org/glamour-and-purpose-in-new-havens-union-station/

https://www.ctexplored.org/longer-lasting-than-brass-waterburys-city-hall-restored/

https://www.ctexplored.org/seaside/

Our mid-reel sponsor is the Wilton Historical Society at http://wiltonhistorical.org/

Mentioned in the episode: Historical Interpreter-Cheyney McKnight at NotYourMommasHistory http://www.notyourmommashistory.com/

Playwrights: Joanne Hudson, Redding, CT and Royal Shiree, Lynchburg, VA

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

Music by Hyde.

In this podcast from the memoir of Ellsworth S Grant, one of the state's great historians, Walt Woodward tells us about the invention of the world's best fastening device. It's a story that begins with Archimedes, and that came to fruition because of silk worms, Cornelius Vanderbilt, an entrepreneur named Dimoch, and an Irish inventor who gave this unique tool its name. It's a story for anyone who ever put together a piece of Ikea furniture - the story of the recessed hexagonal screw and the Allen wrench

Sophie Tucker was one of the 20th century's most successful and highest paid performers. A singer and humorist, she transitioned successfully through vaudeville, recordings, Broadway, radio, movies, nightclubs and finally television. Born into a Jewish family that immigrated from Eastern Europe, her parents ran a kosher restaurant in Hartford’s Front Street district. Many of the threads that run through her life resonant with women now including body positivity, female agency, an artist’s control of their own work and career as well as a rags to riches immigrant success story. This episode includes snippets from three of her most famous songs-“One of These Days” by African American composer Sheldon Brooks; “I’m the Last of the Red Hot Mama’s” by Milton Agar and Jack Yellen, and “My Yiddishe Momme” by Jack Yellen. Tucker never forgot Hartford and contributed to numerous local charities. She left almost 400 scrapbooks documenting her full career to the New York Public Library. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999.

https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/sophie-tucker

For more information and photos go to the website of Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/sophie-tucker-last-of-the-red-hot-mamas/

Tor read more about her mother and the “Handkerchief Brigade” go to https://www.ctexplored.org/the-handkerchief-brigade/

Look for a new online exhibition in late Sept, 2020 on the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford at https://jhsgh.org/

Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history.  She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and pop culture for over 30 years.

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org

For our 100th episode, a revealing new look at Connecticut's oldest and most iconic legend - the Charter Oak. State historian Walt Woodward dug deep into this time-honored tale, and offers a new, true, and sometimes amusing look into the history behind this foundational legend.   

In this episode  of Grading the Nutmeg, Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, reveals Connecticut’s connection to Gutzon Borglum, the  sculptor of Mount Rushmore, and the run up to his most contentious project, the Mount Rushmore National Monument in South Dakota. 

Perhaps the largest outdoor sculpture in the country, Mount Rushmore has been controversial since it was proposed. Where it’s located,  who it commemorates, and its sculptor are all part of the national conversation now. Built on Native American land, it features the faces of four American presidents--two of whom were slaveholders (Washington and Jefferson) and two of whom were involved in efforts to uproot Western Native American tribes (Lincoln and Roosevelt). And the sculptor behind the design, Connecticut resident Gutzon Borglum? He was someone who, according to the New York Times article “How Mount Rushmore became Mount Rushmore” published July 1, 2020, formed great bonds with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and participated in their meetings to secure funding for the Stone Mountain project in Georgia. Borglum also espoused white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideas.

To read the full article, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-mount-rushmore-connection/

To read more about his career, go to http://www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m582.htm

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on itunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Sound Cloud or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at https://www.ctexplored.org/

In "Two From World War II." state historian Walt Woodward presents two stories he wrote for this Fall's special "Remembering World War II" edition of Connecticut Explored Magazine. The first tells how Pratt & Whitney Aircraft prepared for the coming crisis. The second tells the story of Gordon H. Stirling, Connecticut's 1st World War II hero. 

In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut  Historical Society talks to historians Brittney Yancy and Karen Li Miller about their ongoing project to uncover the suffrage work of women of color in Connecticut. African American women rallied for the woman’s suffrage cause, determined to ensure black women’s inclusion and electoral self-representation.

if you’d like to learn more about this topic,  visit the CHS’s website at CHS.org/wocvotes. For a broader look at the woman’s suffrage movement in CT, you can see the exhibit “A Vote of Her Own: The Long Fight for Woman Suffrage” on view at the CHS in fall 2020.  And don’t forget to order your copy of the Summer issue of CT Explored at ctexplored.org with the article “Uncovering African American Women’s Fight for Suffrage” by Karen Li Miller, available at ctexplored.org/shop

Read more about Mary Townsend Seymour at https://www.ctexplored.org/audacious-alliance-mary-townsend-seymour/

Thank you to our guests. This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Photo credit: Mary A. Johnson (center) with Elizabeth R. Morris (left) and Rosa J. Fisher (right) representing Hartford’s Colored Women’s Liberty Loan Committee, 1918. Photographer Edward M. Crocker, The Hartford Courant, State Archives, Connecticut State Library.

State historian Walt Woodward takes a new look at the actions surrounding the Revolutionary War execution of state hero Nathan Hale,  and finds there are still some burning questions left to be answered about this hasty and irregular event. It’s a story from Walt's new book Creating Connecticut: Critical Moments That Shaped a Great State, just out from Globe Pequot Press. As you’ll soon hear, when looking for answers about the Rough Justice handed out to Nathan Hale by the British in New York in 1776, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. 

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored and co-author of  the book A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers  explores the story of Connecticut’s Jewish farmers in the last century. Surprised that there were Jewish farmers? Many people are but scores of newly arrived Jewish immigrants were assisted in making their lives in poultry and dairy farming throughout the state. Some farms developed into resorts catering to vacationing urbanites seeking a bigotry free relaxing vacation in the countryside.

To read more about Connecticut’s Jewish farmers, go to the Connecticut Explored website to read “Hebrew Tillers of the Soil” from the Spring 2006 issue and “The Connecticut Catskills” in our Summer  2018-both articles are on online. To order Ms. Donohue’s book, A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish farmers,  go to the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford at jhsgh.org/store/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. It features the voices of Moira O’Sullivan and Patrick O’Sullivan. Music by New Town Klezmer.

  Subscribe to Connecticut Explored, buy back issues and collections—including a make-your-own collection at a special price-- at ctexplored.org.

State historian Walt Woodward used his recent shelter-in-place time to create a podcast about the deadliest disease to ever hit Connecticut. The influenza pandemic of 1918, like C0VID-19, stopped life as people-knew-it in its tracks.

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He asked the questions we’re asking about today’s pandemic to pandemic of a century ago.

Where did it come from? How did it spread? Who did it affect the most? How did the medical community respond to it? How did state and local governments respond? What social distancing measures were taken? And how did its impact change Connecticut and its people?

 Walt found history, as always, to be an important reference point. We think you will, too. If you like what you hear, please share it with your friends.

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Architectural historian Mary Donohue digs deep to uncover which local libraries in Connecticut were funded by robber baron, steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie at the beginning of the 20th century. Why did the City of New Haven turn down a generous gift of $300,000 from Carnegie in 1903 meant to build a large public library? How did communities apply for library construction grants from Carnegie and what were the requirements? What were the strings attached to accepting the money? 

And, what has become of these well-built landmarks in Connecticut? Find out from guest Robert Kinney, Outreach Services Librarian at the Connecticut State Library and Pastor of Mount Hope Temple Church in New Haven what it takes to adaptively reuse an almost 100-year-old library building for a new purpose.

We wish to thank our guest Robert Kinney. Read more in online at ctexplored.org in the Fall 2015 article “Connecticut’s Carnegie Libraries”

 This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

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Twice a year, restoration carpenter Tom Linsky and his wife Sally Irons host a heart-cooked colonial feast in their historic 18th century Portland home, as a benefit for their favorite charities. For those events Chef Tom Linskey spends an entire week prepping, preparing, and cooking a totally hearth-cooked panoply of colonial dishes to serve for the benefits' guests. Last month (February 2020), State Historian Walt Woodward stopped in to see Tom throughout the week to learn about hearth-cooking and feasting in the colonial era. The result was a delicious and wonderfully informative encounter with hearth-cooking and colonial foodways. 

You can view photos of the hearth cooking experience and some of the items in the Linskeey's colonial tavern room on the Connecticut State Historian's Facebook page. 

1. Bob Steele, the Voice of Connecticut Radio

For more than sixty years, Bob Steele was the voice of Southern New England, entertaining listeners of WTIC AM with his wit and humor. Connecticut author Paul Hensler has written the first-ever biography of Steele, chronicling his hardscrabble beginnings in the Midwest, his early career as a boxer, and his almost accidental hiring as an announcer at WTIC in the midst of the Great Depression. In this episode, recorded at the CT Historical Society with Natalie Belanger, Hensler provides a look into Steele's life and work. 

Paul Hensler's book, Bob Steele on the Radio: The Life of Connecticut's Beloved Broadcaster, is published by McFarland. We wish to thank Natalie Belanger and author Paul Hensler. This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Be sure to join us for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

           Anna Mae Duane has written an amazing new book about James McCune Smith and Henry Garnet, two African American boys who met as young students at the New York African Free School on Mulberry street.  

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Their intertwined, but very different lives of antebellum antislavery activism helped define the possibilities for blacks in American Society.  State historian Walt Woodward interviews UCONN English professor Duane, who talks about Educated for Freedom, and the inspiring and informative example Smith and Garnet provided for their generation, and ours. 

Episode recorded by Walt Woodward. Edited, mixed, and assembled by Matt Berky at Massive Productions

In the Winter 2019 issue of Connecticut Explored, Museum of Connecticut History curator Dave Corrigan tackles the obsolescence of everyday objects such as typewriters that were replaced by personal computers. With the advent of digital recording, CDs, and streaming music services, perhaps no industry has experienced more rapid change in the last 20 years than the music industry. But as historians, we know that some people value doing things in the traditional way.

In today’s episode, Assistant Publisher Mary Donohue and podcast engineer Patrick O’Sullivan visit Connecticut’s legendary Dirt Floor Recording and Production Studios to talk to musician and Dirt Floor producer Eric Lichter. Connecticut Public Radio’s John Dankosky calls Dirt Floor “the Music Sanctuary of Connecticut”. Hear more about how Lichter uses old fashioned, hands-on musical  instruments and recording methods to produce some of Connecticut’s most popular new musicians.

We wish to thank our guests Eric Michael Lichter and musician Angela Luna. To learn more about Dirt Floor Recording and Production Studios, go to dirtfloorrecordingstudio.com and for more about Angela Luna, go to her Facebook page at Luna & the Lost Souls. Our thanks to Luna & the Lost Souls for the music in the episode.

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

In our first episode for 2020, state historian Walt Woodward interviews author and historian Tom Shachtman talks about his just released book, The Founding Fortunes: How America's Wealthy Paid for and Profited From America's Revolution. In this fascinating economic history covering the years from the Birth of the Republic to the end of the War of 1812, Shachtman asks an important question most historians don't consider: Who paid  for the war for independence?

The answers come with some profound insights that still resonate in the present. Shachtman also helps us understand the national significance of a number of famous Revolutionary Connecticans, including Jeremiah Wadsworth, SIlas Deane, Eli Whitney, John Fitch, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr.  

       For your holiday enjoyment, State Historian Walt Woodward has gathered together three historic Connecticut Christmas stories, and a Christmas Song: Francis S. Parsons "The Christmas Party" (1923), Louise Chandler Moulton's "What Came to Olive Haygarth" (1867), Abby Allin's "Old Santa Claus (1850), and Walt Woodward's own "A Children's Christmas." 

Happy Holidays From All the Grating the Nutmeg Team. 

Maps tell stories. In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger and Ben Gammell of the CT Historical Society uncover the little-known story of 18th-century cartographer Bernard Romans. A new exhibit of his maps at the museum pieces together the life story of a bold, talented, and adventurous immigrant to Connecticut who put his considerable skills to work for the American cause and may have paid the ultimate price for it. 

“War, Maps, Mystery: Dutch Mapmaker Bernard Romans and the American Revolution” is on view at the Connecticut Historical Society until May 2, 2020. To learn more, visit chs.org.   For more great stories on maps, order Connecticut  Explored’s back issue for Spring 2012 -entitled “Putting Connecticut on the Map”- at our website at ctexplored.org

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

     For more than a generation, Kendall F. Wiggin has been one of the most influential champions of history issues and institutions in Connecticut. At the end of 2019, Ken is retiring after 21 years as Connecticut's State Librarian. In a revealing interview, State Historian Walter Woodward sat down with Ken for a wide-ranging discussion about his agency's complex role in preserving the state's past, the effect of the Internet on historical research and libraries, the role of Connecticut history in public education, his successes and regrets, some advice for his successor, and more.  

How did Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemons use scrapbooks to fight unscrupulous publishers who reprinted his work without paying him? Why did celebrities like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony keep scrapbooks? How did abolitionists, suffragettes, and African Americans use scrapbooks to tell their story? Before the era of google and Instagram, how did American use scrapbooks to curate printed stories that contained information they wanted to save for the future?

In this episode, our guest, Dr. Ellen Gruber Garvey explores how Americans from all walks of life created scrapbooks to document, store, critique, and participate in a rapidly changing world of information overload. This episode was recorded as a lecture at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. You’ll have to use your imagination a little to picture some of the types of scrapbooks that Dr. Garvey refers to but you’ll be fascinated by impact scrapbooks had on American history.

We wish to thank our guest Dr. Ellen Gruber Garvey, professor of English at the New Jersey City University and the host for the lecture, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Read more in Dr. Garvey’s book Writing with Scissors American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance published by Oxford University Press. This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg, subscribe on iTunes, IHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. Subscribe to Connecticut Explored and get the upcoming Winter issue with stories about events or inventions that disrupted history. Subscribe, buy back issues and collections—at ctexplored.org

Say the name Wilbur Cross and most Connecticans think of a parkway. Wilbur Cross the man, however, was a Connectican of extraordinary accomplishment. Born in 1862 in the factory village of Gurleyville, he became a world-class scholar, author, educational reformer, founding Dean of the Yale Graduate school, and, starting at age 68, a popular four-term governor who guided Connecticut through the worst years of the Great Depression. 

In this episode, state historian Walt Woodward sits down at the New Haven Museum with poet and publisher David Wilk, whose City Point Press recently reissued Cross's 1943 autobiography Connecticut Yankee: An Autobiography of Wilbur L. Cross, to discuss Cross's remarkable nineteenth and twentieth century life. 

As a bonus, we include a reading by David Wilk of Wilbur Cross's 1936 Thanksgiving Proclamation, regarded then and now for its eloquent invitation to thankful reflection. 

Our guest, Elisabeth Petry is a journalist. She knows how to uncover a clue, follow a lead, and tell a good story. Her mother was bestselling novelist Ann Petry, whose 1946 debut novel The Street became the first novel by an African American to sell more than a million copies. In this episode, Liz tells us more about her family tree—the James and Lane Families—four generations of strivers and achievers descended from self-emancipated slaves, who settled in New Haven, Hartford, and Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Four hundred family letters survive, many of which contained stories that were fodder for Ann Petry’s novels. Hear more about how Liz and two of her cousins are taking the family’s story to the screen. We join Steve Courtney at the Mark Twain House & Museum as he introduces the lecture from which this podcast was recorded.

We wish to thank our guest Elisabeth Petry and the host for the lecture, the Mark Twain House & Museum. Read more about Liz’s search for her family history in the Fall 2019 issue of Connecticut Explored where you’ll also find Martha Hall Kelly’s story about Caroline Ferriday. You can listen to our podcast with Kelly in episode 34 and to hear more about Barbara Beeching’s research on the black middle class in Hartford, listen to Episode 53 of Grating the Nutmeg. For more information on the James Family project and documentary go to https://www.jamesfamilyletters.com/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg, subscribe on iTunes, IHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com

Please leave a review! We’d love to get your feedback!

         Every Governor of our state makes history, but there have been very few who know their history as well as Connecticut’s current governor Edward M. "Ned" Lamont.”

        In this very special episode, Mary Donohue and Walt Woodward, along with Connecticut Explored publisher Elizabeth Normen and producer Patrick O'Sullivan went to the state capitol to talk with Governor Lamont about a speech – and now audio essay he recorded for this podcast – titled “100 Years of Fake News and Real and Fake Wars.”

In an era when Americans are challenged to separate fact from fiction in a myriad of different media, the Governor’s message is a kind of cautionary tale for all of us. And, as you’ll see, it reflects some keen and insightful thinking from a governor who takes his history seriously. 

Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, more than 20 kidnapped enslaved African people were sold to the Virginia colonists. Slavery was well established in the early Connecticut Colony, too. Traded, sold, given as gifts, and subjected to beatings as documents attest, the enslaved people of Hartford suffered no less than enslaved people anywhere. In today’s episode, Connecticut Explored’s Mary Donohue finds out about an innovative, model project that uses fine-grained scholarship to uncover the lives of almost 500 Africans, African Americans, and Native Americans buried between 1640 and 1815 in Hartford’s oldest historic site, the Ancient Burying Ground. She talks with Dr. Kathy Hermes, professor at Central Connecticut State University, about the project, sponsored by the Ancient Burying Ground Association and about the new website that makes all this research available with a click of a mouse.

For more information, visit the new website at www.africannativeburialsct.org. Join us on September 12, 2019 at 6 p.m. at the Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, in downtown Hartford for a free lecture by Dr. Hermes “Uncovering Their History: African, African American and Native Americans Buried in Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground, 1640-1815” that will launch the website. To learn more about how to research Hartford’s early black community, join Dr. Hermes for a workshop at the Hartford History Center, October 5, 2019, 11 a.m., also free to the public. And come view the exhibition at the Hartford History Center: Uncovering the Ancient Burying Ground, an exhibition featuring historic photos, maps, drawings, and postcards.

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, assistant publisher, Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Visual art by coramarshall.com.

To order a Fall 2019 issue of Connecticut Explored with a feature article by Dr. Hermes about this project, go to ctexplored.org.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored and get the upcoming Winter issue with stories about events or inventions that disrupted history.  Subscribe, buy back issues and collections—including a make-your-own collection at a special price—at ctexplored.org. 

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, IHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com

Food historian and author of Pizza in New Haven Colin M. Caplin tells State Historian Walt Woodward and co-host Betsy Golden Kellem the fascinating story of the creation and rise to world-class celebrity of New Haven Pizza.

Join us at Modern Apizza in New Haven for a lunch-time food and information feast you won’t want to miss.

And at the end, you’ll hear about a special offer that might have you joining Walt Betsy and Colin for another podcast lunch and another slice of New Haven Pizza.

In this installment of GTN, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society takes a walk through the museum's archival collection of documents related to the Ku Klux Klan. You'll learn about the Klan's sudden rise, and rapid fall, in 1920s Connecticut, a dark time when Connecticut was torn by disagreements over immigration policy and the changing demographics of United States.

To learn more, you can join Natalie at the Connecticut Historical Society on September 14, 2019 for a gallery program related to this topic, or visit the CHS's Research Center anytime to view the Ku Klux Klan documents yourself. 

This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org Please leave a review on iTunes for Grating the Nutmeg-we’d appreciate it!

In this Gate-leg Table interview with state historian Walt Woodward, transportation historian Richard DeLuca takes us on an expert's tour of Connecticut's long history of charging people to get from here to there. From turnpikes to bicycle roads, the state highway system to the parkways and toll roads Connecticut got rid of in the 1980s, DeLuca provides the background you need to make good decisions about The Toll Question in Connecticut. DeLuca is the author of POST ROADS AND IRON HORSES and PAVED ROADS AND PUBLIC MONEY, forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. 

Two of Connecticut’s most influential women, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, the owner of G. Fox, the largest privately-owned department store in the United States at the time and U.S. Congresswoman Chase Going Woodhouse, the second woman to be elected to the US Congress from Connecticut, spent seven weeks travelling through 10 countries in the Middle East and Europe in 1949. Only four years after the end of WWII and one year after the founding of the new nation of Israel, Auerbach and Woodhouse were shown battlefields, refugee camps, and the ruins of German cities. Auerbach’s diary entries reveal what she saw and experienced-civil war in Greece, Arab refugee camps in Transjordan, the value of using Hebrew in Israel, and the fear of rising anti-Semitism and communism in Germany. In this episode, edited from a lecture given at the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, Dr. Tracey Wilson comments on Auerbach and Woodhouse’s contribution to the development of women in leadership roles in Connecticut and reads from Mrs. Auerbach’s travel diaries. Both women are in the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame.

Dr. Wilson received her Ph. D in history from Brown University and serves as the West Hartford Town Historian. To listen to the full lecture or view the videotape, contact the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. The Auerbach diaries are in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, and the papers of Chase Going Woodhouse are in the collection of the Dodd Center, University of Connecticut at Storrs. To hear more about G. Fox Dept Store, listen to Episode 73 of Grating the Nutmeg, “Dept Stores, G. Fox and the Black Freedom Movement”. 

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

 To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on itunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org

BONUS CONTENT: LECTURE ONLY 

In Part 2 of our Series Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of Dartmouth College and Its Roots in the town of Columbia. Mohegan Elder Beth Regan tells the story of Samson Occom. Occom,  a Mohegan convert to Christianity,  was educated by Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, became a teacher and minister, raised much of the money used to establish Dartmouth, and went on to found the utopian native Christian community of Brothertown, New York. Occom’s story as told by Mohegan elder Regan provides a different and importantperspective on Dartmouth’s founding, one that is not to be missed.

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This episode is dedicated to Mohegan Nonner and elder Faith Damon Davison, with whom Regan was to give her talk. She was prevented by the onset of an illness that led to her passing a few weeks later. A wise and wonderful person, Nonner Faith Damon Davison will be missed by all of us who knew her, - 

Recently, alumni of Dartmouth College, members of the Mohegan nation, the Columbia Historical Society and state and local officials gathered in the quiet corner town of Columbia to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of that Ivy League Institution.

Why Columbia? That is where the Great Awakening minister Eleazar Wheelock, inspired by the educational achievements of Mohegan student Samson Occom, founded Moor’s Indian Charity School, the training school for indigenous missionaries that led directly to Wheelock’s founding of Dartmouth in 1769.

In this episode, following Elder Beth Regan’s Mohegan-language conference invocation, state historian Walt Woodward describes Eleazar Wheelock’s life as a local minister and Great Awakening evangelist, his relationship with Samson Occom, and life at Moor’s Indian Charity School.

“Eleazar Wheelock, the Great Awakening, Samson Occom, and the Indian School -  This episode of Grating the Nutmeg.”

This episode celebrates the 100^th anniversary of the most influential design school of the twentieth century, the Bauhaus, and Connecticut’s connection to it. Connecticut Explored’s Assistant Publisher Mary Donohue and conceptual artist, photographer and frequent Connecticut Explored contributor Bob Gregson talk about pioneering Modern artists Anni and Josef Albers, who escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s and made New Haven their home in  1950. It’s a remarkable story. Josef was associated with the Bauhaus longer than any other artist and Anni was the last surviving teacher from the Bauhaus. Both had independent careers as world  famous, influential teachers and artists.

For more information about the Albers, read Bob’s feature story in the Winter 2018-2019 issue of Connecticut Explored at ctexplored.org and for more about the Albers,  go to the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation’s website at albersfoundation.org.  For more about our guest, go to BobGregson.com

This episode was hosted and produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. 

And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org.

Through May 31, 2019, for just $20, Grating the Nutmeg listeners receive 6 issues for the price of 4 with coupon code GTNSpring19.  That’s 2 free issues added to a one-year subscription with coupon code GTNSpring19 when you subscribe by May 31, 2019 at ctexplored.org/shop

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Spotify or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com.

It’s not very often that a historian interviews a poet for a history podcast, but in this episode state historian Walt Woodward interviews award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, environmentalist, and former Deputy Commission of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection David K. Leff about his   new verse novel, The Breach: Voices Haunting a New England Mill Town (Homebound Books, 2019). The Breach is a fascinating study of decline in  a New England factory village  caught in the throes of both an economic and an environmental crisis. And - plus, plus, plus - it’s a story  told mostly by historical objects. Leff talks about his book,  the reasons he lets objects tell the story, and reads some of the entries, too.   Warning: Leff's readings contain a bit of profanity, one violent episode, and a hint of sex.

In this podcast cross-over episode,  Johnna Kaplan, author of Connecticut Explored's spring 2019 story about Fort Trumbull in New London, Connecticut is joined by her Going/Steadypodcast co-host Kerri Provost. Listen as they dive into the history of Fort Trumbull, a Connecticut state park that’s seen a devastating Revolutionary War battle, witnessed Prohibition-era high-speed boat chases, and housed a top-secret military research facility. Today Fort Trumbull is one of New London’s must-visit attractions, part of the new Thames River Heritage Park. 

Thanks to the co-hosts of Going/Steady, Kerri Provost of Real Hartford and Johnna Kaplan of The Size of Connecticut. Listen to Going/Steady podcast at goingsteadyct.com and on iTunes. For more information about the fort, visit ct.gov/deep and fortfriends.org.  For more about the summer water taxi and historic attractions go to thamesriverheritagepark.org

This episode produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Soundcloud or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And to read Johnna's story, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history,at ctexplored.org.

Through May 31, 2019, for just $20, Grating the Nutmeg listeners receive 6 issues for the price of 4 with coupon code GTNSpring19. That’s 2 free issues added to a one-year subscription with coupon code GTNSpring19 when you subscribe by May 31, 2019 at ctexplored.org/shop

The story behind this episode started with the high-profile heist in 1991 of a stained-glass window from the nineteenth century mausoleum of a New London industrialist. The window was designed by world-famous artist Louis Comfort Tiffany.  But the thieves hadn’t counted on a persistent detective. Tiffany, best known for his brilliant innovations in glass, had deep Connecticut roots. A new permanent exhibition about his work, including 100 fine- and decorative-arts objects, is now on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London. Join host Mary Donohue and curator Tanya Pohrt and museum director Sam Quigley to discover more about Tiffany’s career, his family ties to New London, and his life-long pursuit of beauty.

Read our story about Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Winter 2018-2019 issue online at ctexplored.org. For more information about the Lyman Allyn’s exhibition “Louis Comfort Tiffany in New London” and the Lyman Allyn Art Museum visit lymanallyn.org.  To see a fantastic interior designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his firm Associated Artists, visit the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford.

This episode was hosted and produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan with music by Miles Elliot.

To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on itunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay,, Sound Cloud or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history,  at ctexplored.org. Through May 31, 2019, we’ve got a special offer for Grating the Nutmeg listeners. For just $20, you’ll receive 6 issues for the price of 4 with coupon code GTNSpring19. That’s 2 free issues added to a one-year subscription with coupon code GTNSpring19 when you subscribe by May 31, 2019.

Recently, US News and World Report ranked Connecticut 4th best among the 50 states in the quality of our healthcare. We have great research universities and teaching hospitals, and pharma, biotech, and medical engineering companies most states envy. That’s what makes this podcast so surprising. This is the story of how the little Litchfield County hill town of Sharon – with a population of 2700 people – has produced some of our state’s leading medical innovators. And it’s been doing so for centuries.  

         Join State Historian Walt Woodward on a visit to the Sharon Historical Society where co-curators Susan Shepard and Marge Smith tell us about the breakthroughs in innoculation, immunotherapy, and gender equity in the medical field pioneered by Sharon residents. It’s part of their exhibit “Sharon Cures: Centuries of Medicine in One Small Town”. It’s three stories in one, that will surprise, inform, and make you want to learn more about this town of medical marvels.

While you're listening, view an album of photos from the exhibit on the Connecticut State Historian's Facebook Page