Grating The Nutmeg

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

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 Ho

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 t

         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 Connec

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 lands

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 

In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society takes a look at the iconic Rosie the Riveter character. To get the scoop on what it was like to be a real-life "Rosie" in CT during WWII, she speaks to Gretchen Caulfield, President of the American Rosie the Riveter Association. (https://rosietheriveter.net/)    Get our Commemorative 75th Anniversary of World War II Fall 2020 issue-full of CT WWII stories-by subscribing to Connecticut Explored at our Special Podcast Sale Price! Get 6 issues for the price of 4 or 10 issues for the price of 8! Teacher rates excluded. Use the code NUTMEG on our website at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/ And see photos of Connecticut’s own Working Women in WWII at this link: https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-own-rosie-the-riveter/    This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.

  (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 alo

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

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 Connect

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 t

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

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. 

In this episode CT Explored publisher Elizabeth Normen draws inspiration from the haunting words of her great-great grandmother, the wife of a sea captain during the Great Age of Sail. Her ancestor was one of hundreds of women in the 19th century who made the difficult choice to leave all they knew and those they loved for the uncertainly of a life at sea. What were the joys and hardships for women who made that choice? Find out in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg. Find more stories about brave women in our Summer 2020 issue commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, available now at ctexplored.org, including important stories about Native American and African American women and the right to vote. And for more stories about Connecticut’s maritime history, see the Spring 2009 issue online at ctexplored.org. Please support us by subscribing at ctexplored.org. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Normen and Patrick O’Sullivan. Thanks for Moira O’Sullivan for narrating portions of the sto

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