Grating the Nutmeg

  (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 the fascinating history of this delicious tradition. BAKE YOUR WAY TO GLORY!                                                          Join in a statewide election cake decorating contest held by Connecticut's Old State House.   Celebrate a 200-year old Connecticut Election Day tradition by entering our Election Day Cake Virtual Contest. Inspire everyone to vote by baking a cake, decorating it, and entering to win! Bake your cake using the original Election Day Cake recipe or follow a recipe of your own choosing! Since our judges won't be able to taste your delicious creations, we are going to judge on decoration alone. Make a cake that you would love to eat on election day-- one that looks as good as it tastes, celebrates elections, and inspires voting! Watch our Facebook Live interview with State Historian Dr. Walt Woodward from September 23rd, Hartford's Election Day Cake: A Yummy Civic Tradition, to learn more about this great tradition. Make sure that your are following Connecticut's Old State House on Facebook, Instagram (@CTOldStateHouse) and Twitter (@CTOldStateHouse) or opt into our email list for October updates and the winning announcement on Monday, November 2, 20202!   Rules: 1. Bake a cake and decorate it in a way that celebrates voting and inspires people to vote on November 3rd.  2. The cake MUST be non-partisan. 3. Cakes that promote an issue, party, or person will be disqualified. 4. Submit no more than three pictures of your cake. One photo must be of the entire cake either from above or at an angle. 5. Send your submission to ctdemocracycenter@gmail.com by 5pm on Monday, October 26, 2020.  6. Only one submission per person is permitted.  7. This contest is open to all ages.  Winners and prizes will be announced on Monday, November 2, 2020.  ------------------------------------------------- Please note that this is a virtual event. There is no in-person component.

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 the home’s Colonial charm and added to it! Cass Gilbert had  a big impact on Connecticut’s architecture in Hartford, Waterbury, Waterford and New Haven. But there’s more to the Keeler Tavern than a pretty place! New research is enhancing the museum’s ability to tell women’s  and African American history in programming for adults and children. The pandemic pushed many museums to reach out to their audience using new technologies. Hear more about how the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center’s dynamic staff is telling their story and finding new audiences in 2020 with architectural historian Mary Donohue.   Thank our guests Hildi Grob, Executive Director, Catherine Prescott, Chief Curator, and Melissa Houston, Educational Director from the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center.  See more at https://keelertavernmuseum.org/ Find a photo album for this episode at   https://www.ctexplored.org/ Read more online at ctexplored.org in the article https://www.ctexplored.org/benedict-arnold-and-the-battle-of-ridgefield/ And read about architect Cass Gilbert in our online articles including https://www.ctexplored.org/glamour-and-purpose-in-new-havens-union-station/ https://www.ctexplored.org/longer-lasting-than-brass-waterburys-city-hall-restored/ https://www.ctexplored.org/seaside/ Our mid-reel sponsor is the Wilton Historical Society at http://wiltonhistorical.org/ Mentioned in the episode: Historical Interpreter-Cheyney McKnight at NotYourMommasHistory http://www.notyourmommashistory.com/ Playwrights: Joanne Hudson, Redding, CT and Royal Shiree, Lynchburg, VA This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan.  Music by Hyde.

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 ever put together a piece of Ikea furniture - the story of the recessed hexagonal screw and the Allen wrench

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 through her life resonant with women now including body positivity, female agency, an artist’s control of their own work and career as well as a rags to riches immigrant success story. This episode includes snippets from three of her most famous songs-“One of These Days” by African American composer Sheldon Brooks; “I’m the Last of the Red Hot Mama’s” by Milton Agar and Jack Yellen, and “My Yiddishe Momme” by Jack Yellen. Tucker never forgot Hartford and contributed to numerous local charities. She left almost 400 scrapbooks documenting her full career to the New York Public Library. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999. https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/sophie-tucker For more information and photos go to the website of Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/sophie-tucker-last-of-the-red-hot-mamas/ Tor read more about her mother and the “Handkerchief Brigade” go to https://www.ctexplored.org/the-handkerchief-brigade/ Look for a new online exhibition in late Sept, 2020 on the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford at https://jhsgh.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 Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at ctexplored.org

For 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. Where it’s located,  who it commemorates, and its sculptor are all part of the national conversation now. Built on Native American land, it features the faces of four American presidents--two of whom were slaveholders (Washington and Jefferson) and two of whom were involved in efforts to uproot Western Native American tribes (Lincoln and Roosevelt). And the sculptor behind the design, Connecticut resident Gutzon Borglum? He was someone who, according to the New York Times article “How Mount Rushmore became Mount Rushmore” published July 1, 2020, formed great bonds with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and participated in their meetings to secure funding for the Stone Mountain project in Georgia. Borglum also espoused white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideas. To read the full article, go to https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-mount-rushmore-connection/ To read more about his career, go to http://www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m582.htm This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. To hear more episodes of Grating the Nutmeg subscribe on itunes, iHeartRadio, GooglePlay, Sound Cloud or at gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com. And for more great Connecticut history stories, subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, at https://www.ctexplored.org/

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 topic,  visit the CHS’s website at CHS.org/wocvotes. For a broader look at the woman’s suffrage movement in CT, you can see the exhibit “A Vote of Her Own: The Long Fight for Woman Suffrage” on view at the CHS in fall 2020.  And don’t forget to order your copy of the Summer issue of CT Explored at ctexplored.org with the article “Uncovering African American Women’s Fight for Suffrage” by Karen Li Miller, available at ctexplored.org/shop Read more about Mary Townsend Seymour at https://www.ctexplored.org/audacious-alliance-mary-townsend-seymour/ Thank you to our guests. This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan. Photo credit: Mary A. Johnson (center) with Elizabeth R. Morris (left) and Rosa J. Fisher (right) representing Hartford’s Colored Women’s Liberty Loan Committee, 1918. Photographer Edward M. Crocker, The Hartford Courant, State Archives, Connecticut State Library.

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, when looking for answers about the Rough Justice handed out to Nathan Hale by the British in New York in 1776, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. 

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 women who made that choice? Find out in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg. Find more stories about brave women in our Summer 2020 issue commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, available now at ctexplored.org, including important stories about Native American and African American women and the right to vote. And for more stories about Connecticut’s maritime history, see the Spring 2009 issue online at ctexplored.org. Please support us by subscribing at ctexplored.org. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Normen and Patrick O’Sullivan. Thanks for Moira O’Sullivan for narrating portions of the story.