

Grating the Nutmeg
Connecticut Explored Magazine
Connecticut is a small state with big stories. GTN episodes include top-flight historians, compelling first-person stories and new voices in Connecticut history. Executive Producers Mary Donohue, Walt Woodward, and Natalie Belanger look at the people and places that have made a difference in CT history. New episodes every two weeks. A joint production of Connecticut Explored magazine and the CT State Historian Emeritus.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 1, 2021 • 44min
113. Yale Needs Women
In 1969, women were allowed entry to undergraduate study at Yale for the first time. Their experience was not the same as their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the school’s privileges, the young women nonetheless met the challenge of being first and changed Yale in ways it had never anticipated. Mary Donohue interviews historian and Yale alumna Anne Gardiner Perkins, author of Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant and New Haven leader Constance Royster, one of Yale’s first women undergrads. Anne Gardiner Perkins is an award-winning historian and higher education expert, and the author of Yale Needs Women, which won the 2020 Connecticut Book Award. Ms. Royster holds a J.D. from Rutgers University Law School – Newark, and a B.A. cum laude from Yale University. Read more!“UConn Law: The Trailblazing Bessye Bennett,” Spring 2014 “Yale’s Grace Murray Hopper College,” Fall 2017 This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Ms. Donohue has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at marydonohue@comcast.net

Feb 15, 2021 • 59min
112. And So The Tomb Remained
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.

Feb 1, 2021 • 21min
111. The New Haven Black Panther Trials
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 Haven Black Panther Trials,” appears in African American Connecticut Explored, published through a collaboration between Connecticut Explored and the Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Williams is also the author of Black Politics, White Power: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven. And in these two Connecticut Explored articles online below: https://www.ctexplored.org/the-hartford-chapter-of-the-black-panthers-an-interview-with-butch-lewis/ https://www.ctexplored.org/the-new-haven-black-panther-trials/ You can learn more about this topic by tuning in to a virtual talk by Dr. Yohuru Williams, historian and founder of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, on February 24, 2021. "No Haven: Civil Rights, Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven," hosted by the Connecticut Historical Society, will be streamed live on Crowdcast and available after for re-watch. Click here to register. Natalie Belanger is the Adult Programs Manager at the Connecticut Historical Society. You can contact her at natalie_belanger@chs.org. Produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Photo Credit: Black Panther Community News Service, CHS Collection, 2018.22.2

Jan 18, 2021 • 53min
110. Polish Jewish History, World War II and a Jewish Child’s Survival
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 Holocaust, go to the website of Voices of Hope at http://ctvoicesofhope.org/ For more about Connecticut’s military history, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-at-war/ and to read Dr. Chameides story in the Fall issue of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/a-jewish-childs-experience-of-war/ This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at https://www.granthousect.com/

Jan 1, 2021 • 31min
109. Communicating with the Spirits: Theodate Pope Riddle
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 the website of Connecticut Explored for these articles at: https://www.ctexplored.org/isabella-beecher-hooker-and-the-spirit-of-reform/ https://www.ctexplored.org/the-pine-grove-spiritualist-camp/ Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. This episode was produced by Mary M. Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Want a daily dose of Connecticut history? Subscribe to TODAYINCTHISTORY.com and follow Connecticut Explored on Facebook and Instagram.

Dec 15, 2020 • 56min
108. Up and Down the River
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

Dec 6, 2020 • 32min
107. Miss Florence’s Boardinghouse and American Impressionism
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 Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002. https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/florence-griswold For more information and photos go to the website of Connecticut Explored at: https://www.ctexplored.org/the-spirit-of-miss-florence-restored/ https://www.ctexplored.org/painting-with-needle-thread/ https://www.ctexplored.org/only-waiting-to-be-painted-the-inspirational-landscape-of-old-lyme/ To learn more about the Florence Griswold Museum and the current exhibitions, go to https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/ Mary M. Donohue is the Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history. She has documented Connecticut’s architecture, built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. This episode was produced by Mary M. Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. You can help us continue to produce Grating the Nutmeg. Please make a gift to Friends of Connecticut Explored and use coupon code Gratingthenutmeg to have your gift support the podcast. All gifts with this coupon code will be shared with the Office of the State Historian to support its outreach efforts. Go to ctexplored.org to make your donation.

Nov 16, 2020 • 1h 3min
106–Part 1 Steve Grant's Legendary 1991 Source-to-Sea Connecticut River Journey
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 landscape and environment on our TOPICS page.

Nov 16, 2020 • 59min
106 - Part 2. Steve Grant's Legendary 1991 Source to Sea Connecticut River Journey
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

Nov 1, 2020 • 38min
105. Connecticut’s Rosie the Riveter: Working Women in WWII
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.