Grating the Nutmeg

THE P T BARNUM YOU NEVER KNEW   In this special Connecticut Public Television audio documentary, we tell the story almost no one knows about the other side of PT Barnum. Almost everyone is familiar with Barnum's extraordinary career as a showman, entrepreneur, and creator of The Greatest Show on Earth, but "Barnum's Connecticut", which host Walt Woodward wrote and produced as a companion to CPTV's...

This episode, the fourth in our 6-part series commemorating the Constitution of 1818, explores one of the main accomplishments of the state's first constitution: the separation of church and state. Professor Robert Imholt challenges that assertion, though, arguing that the process to disentangle religion from the state began much earlier. Still, find out how deep our Puritan roots were as the stat...

In the 1910s, a group of Connecticut reformers formed a society aimed at solving a growing crisis – the spread of venereal diseases. The United States' entry into WWI provided this so-called "social hygienist" movement with an unprecedented opportunity to influence the sexual mores of Americans. In this episode produced by Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger, Natalie tells us how tha...

Hartford native Gerry Peterson has played golf with President Barack Obama and was inducted into the Black Golf Hall of Fame in 2015. Golf has always been a huge part of his life from his start as a kid caddie during the Depression to playing as a young executive at Aetna Life and Casualty. But what did it take for Peterson, a black golfer, to become a member of the whites-only Keney Park Golf Clu...

Attorney Wesley Horton, president of the Connecticut Supreme Court Historical Society, outlines the main issues of debate as state delegates finally gather to draft a state constitution. What happened inside the convention? How do we know? Find out in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg. This episode was recorded at Connecticut's Old State House and produced by Elizabeth Normen.    This episode is...

  Dr. Richard Buel Jr., Professor Emeritus, Wesleyan University, describes the political climate that led to the Constitution of 1818 and how we must look to what was happening in France, and the ongoing conflict between England and France to understand what was happening here.  This episode is sponsored by attorney Peter Bowman, holding distracted drivers accountable for their actions. Find out m...

Part 1 - Henry 'Opukaha'ia Two young native men.  Henry Opukaha'ia, a native of Hawaii, who died in Cornwall, CT in 1818. Albert Afraid of Hawk, a Lakota Sioux native who died in Danbury in 1900.  Nick Bellantoni was the archaeologist tasked with helping return the remains of each of these men to their homes and families, more than a century after they had died.  Hear him tell their strangely conn...

PART TWO: ALBERT AFRAID OF HAWK  Two young men. Henry Opukaha'ia, a native of Hawaii, who died in Cornwall, CT in 1818. Albert Afraid of Hawk, a Lakota Sioux native who died in Danbury in 1900.  Nick Bellantoni was the archaeologist tasked with helping return the remains of each of these men to their homes and families, more than a century after they had died.  Hear him tell their strangely connec...

     In an unforgettable interview, historian Barbara Beeching describes the creation of a black middle class in Hartford – not in the twentieth century, but back in the 1800s. It's a tale full of insights and surprises – not the least of which is Beeching herself.       BONUS: For reasons that will become clear in the 1st five minutes,  this  episode may make you want to upgrade your Bucket List....

In this episode recorded at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Twain scholar and University of St. Joseph Professor of English Emerita Kerry Driscoll explores one of the last unexamined aspects of American author and humorist Mark Twain. Twain, a resident of Hartford from 1871 to 1891, wrote some of his most beloved works while living in Hartford and was generally known for championing the underdog...

In 2010, Jamaicans became the largest foreign born population in Connecticut.  At the same time, Jamaicans have the highest percentage of property ownership in Hartford County of any foreign born group. How did so many West Indians come to call Connecticut home? University of Connecticut Associate Professor Fiona Vernal documents this 70 year transformation in her traveling exhibit "Home Away From...

What do you think of when you hear "New Haven?" Yale University? The New Haven Green? IKEA? How about the beach? Today we're taking you on a trip to the beach in New Haven! Morris Cove on the east shore of New Haven Harbor is a world apart from the rest of the city. A sandy beach, an armed attack by the British, a vanished amusement park, and the summer home of the New Haven Museum all come to lig...

     All the time Joel Kupperman was a soft spoken, distinguished philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut, he carried a secret he discussed with no one – not even his family.    That secret? That he had once been America's greatest child radio and tv star . Joel Kupperman was so popular he was written about by J D Salinger, Philip Roth, Nora Ephron, and the poet William Friedman. Now...

A group of architects known as the Harvard Five made their mark on New Canaan, Connecticut—a suburban town within commuting distance of New York City. They designed and built there some of the most influential and significant examples of Mid-century Modern architecture in the country. Today you can visit Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, now a museum operated by the National Trust for Hi...

America's First Law School, Sarah Pierce's Academy, & The Way We Mourned It was home to America's first law school and to one of the first schools in which a woman could get a real education. Litchfield today is one of Connecticut's prettiest towns. Join state historian Walt Woodward on a field trip to the Litchfield Historical Society, where Executive Director Cathy Fields talks about her amazing...

Episode Notes. Episode 46 Staying on the Land: Five Generations of Connecticut Pioneers   Political unrest, religious dissension, women's rights, and mental health-stories from today's news? All this happens in Thy Children's Children by historian Diana McCain. It's the story of a real family, the Lyman's of Middlefield, in the thick of CT and American history for more than a century. Hear how his...

     On the 200th anniversary of the creation of the state Constitution of 1818, we remember one of Connecticut's least well known but most important events. Hear State Historian Walter Woodward's Old State House talk about the events that led to the Constitution of 1818, and all that document did and didn't do. Presented by Attorney Peter Bowman, helping the seriously injured and holding distract...

   When co-host Brenda Miller suggested we do a podcast with the authors of a new book about America's first (1796) cookbook, I thought a culinary episode might be a nice change of pace.     What we found, though, is that Keith Staveley and Kathleen Fitzgerald have not only written an extraordinary history of Amelia Simmons's  Hartford-published  American Cookery, they've also written one of the b...

Americans moved out of the cities and into the suburbs in droves after World War II looking for single-family homes. In this episode, we talk with the experts about Connecticut's history of steering certain people to certain neighborhoods through restrictive covenants, racial and religious discrimination, and federal housing policies—all of which helped determine where African American and Jewish...

      It's a brand new year, and what better way to start 2018 than with a Treasure Hunt.   Join Brenda Miller, Executive Director of the History Center at Hartford Public Library and State Historian Walt Woodward as they explore the treasures of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College with curator Rick Ring. 

     Archaeologists working at Wethersfield's Webb-Dean-Stevens Museum recently found something completely unexpected - signs of a 17th century palisade adjacent to the historic house where General Washington met with French Count Rochambeau to plan the campaign that won the American Revolution. Along with the soil stain that showed there was a defensive wall, they also found artifacts dating to t...

Conniving bosses, predatory slumlords, greedy industrialists and political intrigue abound in Steve Thornton's latest history book, Wicked Hartford— but his take on this universal topic is not quite what you'd expect. Hear Steve tell us about the fascinating stories in "wicked" Hartford history.   Music by Hartford jazz artist Orice Jenkins from the album 'SOAR' available on iTunes now. Connecticu...

      In this special 3 Part series on  Witch-Hunting in Connecticut, we investigate the surprising story of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut.  Why did Connecticut execute New  England's  1st witch? Why was it early New England's fiercest prosecutor of witches (Who  knew?)  And how did European witch-hunting affect the same practice in New England? We cover all this and more in an exciting three...

               In part two of our Special Series  Witch-Hunting in Connecticut,  you'll hear the sobering tale of Connecticut's rifle in New England witch-hunting, from executing the first witch, to the Hartford Witch hunts of the 1660s, to the trial of Katherine Harrison, arguably the most important witchcraft trial to take place before Salem. 

   In part 3 of our Special Witch-Hunting in Connecticut s eries, Brenda Miller, Executive Director of the Hartford History Center and I interview historian Richard Ross about his new book,  Before Salem: Witch- the Connecticut River Valley 1647-1663. Ross's historical spadework provides many new insights into one of Connecticut's most important, and least well known, events.