Grating the Nutmeg

  Whaling was big business. Connecticut and her sister New England states built ships, forged cast iron tools, produced wooden storage casks and outfitted sailors. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New England's predominance in successful whaling. We're going to get into the nitty gritty of the trade in this episode and hear about some of the striking artifacts from Mystic...

  The Redding Encampment, Connecticut's first State Archaeological Preserve, is located in Putnam Memorial State Park. Understanding of the Revolutionary War has emphasized the battles, maneuvers, and war meetings; but far more time was expended during the long periods of winter encampment. The winter months were a brutal test of individual fortitude, unifying command, and local support. In the jo...

  Connecticut Explored and our podcast, Grating the Nutmeg , have featured many of the heritage trails that mark the important histories and sites of Connecticut's people. Preservation Connecticut has undertaken a survey of LGBTQ+ heritage sites across the state. Now, Grating the Nutmeg and Preservation Connecticut have teamed up to bring you a three-episode podcast series that pairs new research...

  American whale oil lit the world. The Industrial Revolution couldn't have happened without it. Connecticut was part of the whaling industry of the nineteenth century that sent thousands of American ships manned by tens of thousands of men to hunt whales across the world's oceans. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New England's predominance in successful   whaling. In fac...

  In this episode, host Mary Donohue visits the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, a place that includes stellar architecture, art by some of the most renowned artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and an exhibition that tells the story of Waterbury's rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. The Mattatuck Museum is an art and regional history museum on the Green in downtown Waterbury, that sta...

  In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the CT Museum of Culture and History tells the story of the Good Will Club, the forerunner of the youth club movement that got its start in Hartford. But the story of the club can't be separated from that of its founder, a woman who's an inductee of the CT Women's Hall of Fame for her barrier-breaking work in the legal field.   There are lots of ways to learn...

  We're celebrating May, Historic Preservation Month, with an episode on the Modern houses of the 1950s and 1960s.     Could you live in a glass house? New Canaan, Connecticut's Mid-Century Modern homes designed after the Second War are world famous. In addition to Philip Johnson's Glass House, now a museum, New Canaan has homes designed by Marcel Breuer, Eliot Noyes, Frank Lloyd Wright and Edward...

  In her new book, Book and Dagger, How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of the World , Dr. Elyse Graham tells the story of academics, like Yale literature professor Joseph Curtis, who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents, and Sherman Kent, a Yale history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa.   At the start of World...

  Last year in episode 186, we talked about Grove Street Cemetery's pioneering role as the first planned cemetery in the country. The design of Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven in the 1790s used several of the features that became standard, like family plots and established walkways.   Today, we're going to move the clock forward and discuss the rural cemetery movement of the 19 th century with...

Coffee is more than a hot drink or a boost of caffeine. For Connecticans, it's hundreds of years of history. It has fueled new ideas, social reform, and workers' rights. It is comfort in wartime and connections across cultures. It is universal, yet distinctly local. In this episode, the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History 's Natalie Belanger chats with her colleague, Karen Li Miller, about t...

Carousels are marvels of brightly painted animals, mechanical excellence, music and lights.  Located in a historic mill building in Bristol, the Carousel Museum houses well over 100 antique wooden carousel animals including white rabbits, pigs, lions and even an alligator. The museum has a full-size carousel inside the building complete with beautifully painted horses and Wurlitzer music - and you...

The New Haven Museum staff and their community partners have reinterpreted the Amistad story in an exhibition that takes a new angle on the familiar story of the Amistad.   The 1839 Amistad Revolt was led by 53 West African captives who were being trafficked from Havana's slave markets on the schooner La Amistad after being kidnapped from their homeland. For nearly 19 months in New Haven, the Amis...

  After a campaign initiated by schoolchildren, Prudence Crandall was designated the Connecticut State Heroine by the Connecticut General Assembly on Oct. 1, 1995. You may not know Connecticut has a state heroine, or you might have some inkling that Crandall was maybe a spinster Quaker schoolmarm, who had an unsuccessful school in the hinterlands of eastern Connecticut.  Founded in 1833, the Crand...

In this episode, Host Mary Donohue talks to Griffin Dunne, actor, producer and director and now New York Times best-selling author about his family memoir The Friday Afternoon Club. His Hartford to Hollywood family includes generations of writers, movie producers, journalists, and actors including his father Dominick Dunne, uncle John Gregory Dunne, and aunt Joan Didion.   This prominent family dy...

We did it!!  This is our 200 th episode of Grating the Nutmeg! Thanks to our listeners, we have travelled across the state during every time period to bring you vivid, fascinating stories from our state's history. Become a podcast subscriber to get notified every time there's a new episode!   During this holiday season, it seemed like the perfect time to bring you the story of Connecticut's bigges...

  In the mid-20th century, Hartford's G. Fox and Co. was one of the most successful family-owned department stores in the United States. Today, many Connecticans have fond memories of visiting G. Fox at the holiday season -- marvelling at the Christmas Village atop the marquee and meeting Santa in Toyland. In this episode, Natalie Belanger and Jen Busa of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and Hist...

  We all know a little about New England and Connecticut's  European maritime history. Dutch traders came to North America to trade for beaver pelts and English colonists came to start new communities such as Hartford. But a new exhibition at the Mystic Seaport Museum doesn't rehash this history - it looks to reveal African and Indigenous perspectives on water and the sea.    Entwined: Freedom, So...

  Early voting has already started in the 2024 presidential election and I just couldn't resist the suggestion by my guests to explore what Samuel Clemens alias Mark Twain, Hartford's greatest Gilded Age humorist, had to say about the United States presidents. Was Twain the John Stewart or John Oliver of his day? Known for his sharp wit and scathing satire, what presidents met with his approval? C...

  Have you got your Halloween costume ready? Been on any graveyard tours this month? Well, this story for you! I'd never thought of body snatching as having anything to do with Connecticut but as this episode proves, the disappearance of a young women's body lead to a New Haven riot. I'll get the details from Richard Ross author of the new book American Body Snatchers, Merchandising the Dead in 19...

  Most people know something about Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens. After all, he wrote his most famous books while living in Hartford, Connecticut. His 25-room house on Farmington Avenue cost over $40,000 in 1874 dollars. Raised as a child in Missouri, he became world famous for his wit and humor both in print and on stage. But what if the man who served as Twain's butler for 17 years...

In this episode, you'll hear about the remarkable life and legacy of the man that Lin-Manuel Miranda called "America's favorite fighting Frenchman," the Marquis de Lafayette. This month marks the 200th anniversary of Lafayette's visit to Connecticut, part of his so-called "Farewell Tour" of America in 1824. Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History spoke with Julien Icher o...

Author Steve Thornton asks "Who really makes history"? In his new book, Radical Connecticut: People's History in the Constitution State , co-authored by Andy Piascik,  guest Steve Thornton tells the stories of everyday people and well-known figures whose work has often been obscured, denigrated, or dismissed. There are narratives of movements, strikes, popular organizations and people in Connectic...

  Have you ever discovered that one of your favorite places is being renovated? Like your grandmother's kitchen, your favorite restaurant, or even a museum, and you worry that the charm or the appeal of the place might be gone after the renovation? Podcast editor Patrick O'Sullivan and Producer Mary Donohue went to just such a place, the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in New Haven. We h...

  This year marks the 80 th  anniversary of the Hartford Circus Fire. In this episode of   Grating the Nutmeg , Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History tells the story of the deadliest man-made disaster in Connecticut history.     On July 6, 1944, the Big Top of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus caught fire during a matinee performance. Within ten minutes...

July 1990 marked the passing of a landmark piece of federal legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act, known as the ADA. To recognize this event and to celebrate Disability Pride Month, we are uncovering the legacy of disability rights leader, Phyllis Zlotnick (1942-2011). Zlotnick was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at birth. Beginning in the 1970's, Phyllis recognized she was being "shu...