Grating The Nutmeg

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 h

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

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, P

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

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 f

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 Andy King-The Mashantucket Pequots and the rhododendron D

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 e

     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/o

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