Grating the Nutmeg

         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 prov...

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...

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. Tw...

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, " S...

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 2...

  (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 t...

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 t...

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...

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 t...

F or 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. W...

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...

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, whe...

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 wo...

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...

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. Emergency Hospital #16 New Haven[Library of Congress]  He asked the questions we're asking about today's pandemic to pandemic of a century ago. Where did it come from...

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 20 th 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 fr...

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), S...

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...

CT Explored publisher Elizabeth Normen sits down with Dr. Benjamin Foster and Connecticut State Representative Bobby Gibson to talk about their efforts to pass legislation requiring teaching African American history in Connecticut, their vision for the curriculum, and why it matters. "When kids  started to say math is for whites," Foster, a longtime educator says, "I knew we had to do something" t...

           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.   Their intertwined, but very different lives of antebellum antislavery activism helped define the possibilities for blacks in American Society.  State historian Walt Woodward interviews UCON...

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 historian...

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 his...

         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 N...