81. Wilbur L. Cross, Connecticut Yankee

Say the name Wilbur Cross and most Connecticans think of a parkway. Wilbur Cross the man, however, was a Connectican of extraordinary accomplishment. Born in 1862 in the factory village of Gurleyville, he became a world-class scholar, author, educational reformer, founding Dean of the Yale Graduate school, and, starting at age 68, a popular four-term governor who guided Connecticut through the worst years of the Great Depression. 

In this episode, state historian Walt Woodward sits down at the New Haven Museum with poet and publisher David Wilk, whose City Point Press recently reissued Cross's 1943 autobiography Connecticut Yankee: An Autobiography of Wilbur L. Cross, to discuss Cross's remarkable nineteenth and twentieth century life. 

As a bonus, we include a reading by David Wilk of Wilbur Cross's 1936 Thanksgiving Proclamation, regarded then and now for its eloquent invitation to thankful reflection.