We did it!!  This is our 200th 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 biggest toymaker! 

 

Of all the toys that are enshrined in the National Toy of Fame, two stand out as having solid Connecticut connections, the Cabbage Patch doll and the Erector Set. In this episode, we’re going to find out how A.C. Gilbert, a Yale educated doctor, became a millionaire with an idea he got while riding the Metro North train from New Haven to New York City. His construction toy, the Erector Set, sold in the millions and helped to educate generations of scientists and engineers. He came up with dozens of best-selling toys that were all manufactured at his factory in New Haven, Connecticut. We’ll also interview Walter Zawalich, Gilbert Trains Curator, at the Eli Whitney Museum about their holiday Gilbert train show. Co-host Patrick O’Sullivan will share his information on 1965’s James Bond slot car toy that helped to push the company into closing.

 

Much of today’s information comes from the book The Man Who Changed How Boys and Toys Were Made, The Life and Times of A.C. Gilbert, the Man Who Saved Christmas by Bruce Watson and the website of the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Connecticut. The Whitney Museum collects and studies the products and legacy of A.C. Gilbert and his company.

 

Find out more here: https://www.eliwhitney.org/museum/-gilbert-project/-man/a-c-gilbert-scientific-toymaker-essays-arts-and-sciences-october

 

The information on the Eli Whitney Train Show is here: https://www.eliwhitney.org/exhibitions/train-display-2024-25

 

Other museums with train shows:

Connecticut River Museum

https://ctrivermuseum.org/events/steve-cryans-31st-annual-train-show/

 

Wilton Historical Society

https://wiltonhistorical.org/events/great-train-holiday-show/

 

To get information about how to  visit Erector Square, the A.C.Gilbert Factory complex now adaptively reused as artist studios, go to their website at https://erectorsquarestudios.com/

 

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To celebrate reaching 200 episodes, we’re asking listeners to donate $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue to bring you new episodes every two weeks. It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org    Click the donate button at the top and look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. We appreciate your support!

Subscribe to get your copy of our beautiful magazine Connecticut Explored delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at  https://simplecirc.com/subscribe/connecticut-explored

Our current issue is on food-find out where to get the best ice cream sundaes in West Hartford.

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram , Threads, and BlueSky.

 

Follow host Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!

 

 

 

 

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 History talk about the history of the store, owner Beatrice Fox Auerbach's commitment to customer service, and the holiday traditions that so many customers still remember. 

 

You'll hear snippets from oral histories conducted in the 2000s by the Stave Group for the Connecticut Museum. Transcripts and audio files of these oral histories are available at the CT Digital Archive, a collaborative member organization that supports digital preservation and access for all Connecticut's people. The voices you heard today were those of Ann Uccello,  Bruce Blawie, Ruth Blawie, Betty Jane Ladd, Bruce Stave, and Fanny Raptopolous.

 

Want to try making the Date Nut Bread that Jen and Natalie made for this episode? Here's the recipe, as published in the Hartford Courant February 26, 2009.

 

G. FOX & CO.’S DATE NUT BREAD RECIPE

1 cup dates, pitted and chopped into 1/4-inch pieces

1 cup sugar

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup shortening

2 eggs, well beaten

2 cups flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla

Grease a 9-by-5-inch pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Place dates and sugar in a large mixing bowl. In a saucepan, combine the water and shortening and simmer until shortening is melted. Pour over dates and sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Cool slightly.

Stir mix ingredients with a wooden spoon, not an electric mixer. Add eggs, beating well. Combine dry ingredients. Stir into date mixture until well blended. Batter may be slightly lumpy. Add walnuts and vanilla.

Turn batter into greased loaf pan and bake one hour until center of loaf springs back when touched. Cool thoroughly before removing from pan.

 

Image credit: G. Fox 1969 holiday catalogue, CMCH collection 2020.57.25

 

Hear more about how G. Fox intergrated their workforce on Grating the Nutmeg episode 73 Dept Stores, G. Fox and the Black Freedom Movement. Listen here:

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/73-dept-stores-gfox-and-the-black-freedom-movement

 

 

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To celebrate reaching 200 episodes, we’re asking listeners to donate $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue to bring you new episodes every two weeks. It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org    Click the donate button at the top and look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. We appreciate your support!

Subscribe to get your copy of our beautiful magazine Connecticut Explored delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at  https://simplecirc.com/subscribe/connecticut-explored

Our current issue is on food-find out our recommendation for the best ice cream sundaes in West Hartford! 

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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram , Threads, and BlueSky.

 

Follow host Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram: @WeHaSidewalkHistorian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!

 

 

 

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, Sovereignty, and the Sea is an exhibition that surveys the interplay

of maritime histories through Indigenous, African, and African American worldviews.

On view until Spring 2026, the exhibition examines  twelve millennia of Black

and Indigenous history through objects and loaned belongings from Indigenous and African

communities dating back 2,500 years, coalescing in a selection of 22 contemporary artworks.

 

For more on the exhibition, go here:

https://mysticseaport.org/press-release/a-new-major-exhibition-at-mystic-seaport-museum-entwined-freedom-sovereignty-and-the-sea/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlsy5BhDeARIsABRc6ZsdXrwnuOdXNuyzChssJb7G7QDvtp-1ou95r4jkzwwmo2qLD7Q_1P4aAi39EALw_wcB

 

Entwined is the first exhibition by my guest Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Senior Curator of

Social Histories at Mystic Seaport Museum. She earned her PhD  in Anthropology with a focus in Archeology at the University of Connecticut.

 

Our second guest is Dr. Kathy Hermes, publisher of Connecticut Explored magazine and Project Historian of the award-winning project Uncovering Their History: African, African American and Native American Burials in Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground.

 

This is the third and final episode in our 2024 series on Connecticut’s maritime history. Don’t miss listening to Episode 182. Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution with best-selling author Eric Jay Dolan and Episode 180. Colonial Connecticut: Sugar, Slavery, and Connections to the West Indies with Dr. Mathew Warshaurer and Dr. Kathy Hermes. Here’s the links to these episodes:

 

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/182-rebels-at-sea-privateering-in-the-american-revolution

 

  https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/180-colonial-connecticut-sugar-slavery-and-connections-to-the-west-indies

 

Here’s the link to the Seaman’s Protection Certificates-list on the Mystic Seaport website:

 https://research.mysticseaport.org/databases/protection/

 

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Help us make up our loss of state funding and celebrate our 200 episodes by donating $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue to bring you new episodes every two weeks. It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org    Click the donate button at the top and look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. We appreciate your support!

 Here's the link to our online benefit auction-valid until Nov. 20, 2024.

https://secure.qgiv.com/event/gtn2024/

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit. https:/simplecirc.com/subscribe/connecticut-explored

 

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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.

 

Follow host Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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? Corruption, national identity, the power of big business, and America’s global role were just as contested then as they are now. His funny, insightful observations about the presidents of his day apply readily to the modern presidency.

 

Guests on this episode are Twain experts Mallory Howard, Assistant Curator at The Mark Twain House & Museum and Dr. Jason Scappaticci, historian and Associate Dean of Student Affairs at Connecticut State Community College Capital in Hartford.

 

Looking for a fun and informative event for your library, book club, or historical society?

The Mark Twain House & Museum can bring you distinctive, entertaining, and interactive presentations on Mark Twain’s life, work, interests, and era. You can book a presentation on the subject of this episode at the Mark Twain House website here: https://marktwainhouse.org/outreach/

 

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We’re almost there! This is our 197th episode. Thanks to our listeners, Grating the Nutmeg is going to hit 200 episodes soon! We love bringing you a new episode every two weeks. In celebration of our 200th episode and to help fund Grating the Nutmeg in 2025, we are holding our first ever Grating the Nutmeg Benefit Online Auction. The auction bidding opens on November 1st. You can bid on art, special one-of -a- kind experiences like a private tour of the Connecticut State Capitol including the Hall of Flags, theater tickets, museum admissions, hands-on genealogy assistance, behind the scenes tours at fascinating places, and restaurant gift cards. You’ll be able to bid on a delish lunch at one of Hartford’s best restaurants with our publisher Dr. Kathy Hermes and the Connecticut State Historian Dr. Andy Horowitz. All the bidding information is on our website and links to the auction bidding are on our social media pages. Go to the auction here: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/gtn2024/

It’s easy to bid on your phone or laptop.   The holidays are coming up-you may find that perfect gift in our auction items for that hard to buy for person!

 

Toast the start of conservation work with the team working to stabilize the 18th-century wallpaper adorning the Phelps-Hatheway House. Enjoy exclusive access to the expertise of conservators who will explain and demonstrate their work caring for the papers.

To reserve your spot for the Nov. 3, 2024 event, go to https://ctlandmarks.org/wallpaper/

To celebrate our 200 episodes, we’re asking listeners to donate $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue to bring you new episodes every two weeks. It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org    Click the donate button at the top and look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. We appreciate your support!

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit.

 

----------------------------

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.

 

Follow host Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history.

 

 

 

 

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 19th Century New England and Washington, DC.

 

Dick Ross is a retired college librarian and professor emeritius from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Order his new book American Body Snatchers, Merchandising the Dead in New England and Washington, D.C. from Amazon here: American Body Snatchers: Merchandising the Dead in 19th Century New England and Washington, D.C. 

Order his book on the Connecticut witch trials here:

Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647-1663

 

You can hear more about that topic in GTN #39, parts 1-3, here:

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/39-witch-hunting-in-connecticut-part-1-the-european-prelude

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/39-witch-hunting-in-connecticut-part-2-the-connecticut-trials-0

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/39-witch-hunting-in-connecticut-part-3-interview-with-richard-ross-before-salem

 

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Toast the start of conservation work with the team working to stabilize the 18th-century Réveillon wallpaper adorning the Phelps-Hatheway House. Enjoy exclusive access to the expertise of conservators from Studio TKM Associates, who will explain and demonstrate their work caring for the papers. Attendees of this intimate gathering are invited to learn about the house and its residents while imagining the turbulence of the 1790s as two nations attempted to assert their independence—and their identities.

To reserve your spot for the Nov. 3, 2024 event, go to https://ctlandmarks.org/wallpaper/

Proceeds from this event benefit the wallpaper conservation project at the Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden. Learn more here.

 

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We’re almost there! This is our 196th episode. Thanks to our listeners, Grating the Nutmeg is going to hit 200 episodes soon! We love bringing you a new episode every two weeks. In celebration of our 200th episode and to help fund Grating the Nutmeg in 2025, we are holding our first ever Grating the Nutmeg Benefit Online Auction in November. We’ll have special, one of a kind experiences, tickets, museum admissions, behind the scenes tours, and restaurant gift cards. All the information will be on our website in November and links to the auction will be on our social media pages. If you have something to donate, email Kathy Hermes at [email protected] 

To celebrate our 200 episodes, we’re asking listeners to donate $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue to bring you new episodes every two weeks. It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org    Click the donate button at the top and look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. We appreciate it!

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit.

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. 

 

 

 

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 had a story that was just as powerful and gripping as Twain’s? In today’s episode we are going to meet that man, George Griffin.

 

Twain scholar and collector Kevin MacDonnell's biographical sketch George Griffin: Meeting Mark Twain's Butler which provides the most comprehensive look into Griffin’s life to date, and brings us face to face with the man who is said to have inspired Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. George Griffin came to wash the windows in Mark Twain’s new house in 1874 and stayed for seventeen years, taking on the position of butler, the highest-ranking employee in the household.

 

A photograph of Griffin was discovered recently. It is the only known picture of the man who was also a prominent leader in Hartford’s Black community, serving as deacon of Hartford’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

 

The guests in this episode are Dr. Camesha Scruggs, professor of history at Central Connecticut State University and Twain scholar Kevin MacDonnell.

 

 Dr. Scruggs received her PhD in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Her current manuscript project is a further examination of how interventions from social, civic, government, secondary and higher education institutions impact the occupation of domestic service during the New Deal Era. She may be contacted at [email protected]

 

Kevin MacDonnell earned his MLS at the University of Texas and serves on the editorial board of the Mark Twain Journal.  He has contributed articles to the Mark Twain Encyclopedia (1993), co-edited Mark Twain and Youth, and has reviewed over fifty books for the Mark Twain Forum. His collection of more than 11,000 Mark Twain items--first editions, letters, photographs, archives, manuscripts, and artifacts--is the largest in private hands and is frequently shared with other scholars and museums. He gives frequent lectures on Twain and may be reached at [email protected]

 

Copies of The Mark Twain Journal featuring Kevin MacDonnell’s biographical sketch George Griffin: Meeting Mark Twain’s Butler Face-to-Face may be purchased from the Mark Twain House Museum Store for $12.00. The link to the journal in the museum shop is here: https://marktwainhousestore.org/products/mark-twain-journal-volume-62-number-1

 

You can also take a special tour of the Twain House.

 

The George Griffin Living History Tour invites visitors to step back in time to the year 1885. The premise of the tour is that the Clemens family are looking to hire a new cook, and Mr. Griffin has been tasked with conducting the first round of interviews—after all, as the head of the domestic staff, he knows exactly the kind of temperament and skills needed to keep the house running. He leads visitors through each restored room of the house, and gives them his own experience of not only the domestic labor done in that space, but also the emotional labor that he must navigate daily as a formerly enslaved black man working in the house of a wealthy white family. And who is “G. G., Chief of Ordnance?” Find out for yourself when you take a Living History tour with George Griffin.

 

 

Dr. Scruggs' Reading Recommendations: 

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War by Tera Hunter

The African -American Experience in Nineteenth Century Connecticut: Benevolence and Bitterness by Theresa Vara Dannen

Hopes and Expectations: The Origins of the Black Middle Class in Hartford by Barbara Beeching

 

VIDEO: Dr. Cameesha Scruggs, Rev. Samuel Blanks of the AME Zion Church, and Kevin MacDonnell participate in a panel discussion led by Steve Courtney:   https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mark+twain+house+griffin

 

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Can you spare $10 a month to help support Grating the Nutmeg? It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. 

 

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit.

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.

 

 You can find host and executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram: @WeHaSidewalkHistorian. Join us in two weeks for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history.

 

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 of the Lafayette Trail about the Marquis' role in the American Revolution, and how his farewell tour 50 years later helped Americans to reflect on how far they'd come. 

 

Check out The Lafayette Trail's YouTube series "Follow the Frenchmen” here:

 https://www.youtube.com/@thelafayettetrailinc.1207/videos?app=desktop

 

The website for the Lafayette Trail is here:

https://www.thelafayettetrail.org/

 And the Connecticut Lafayette Trail website is here:

https://lafayettecttrail.org/

 

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To celebrate our 200 episodes, we’re asking listeners to donate $20 a month or $200 annually to help us continue bring you new episodes every two weeks.  It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at https://ctexplored.networkforgood.com/projects/179036-support-ct-history-podcast-grating-the-nutmeg

Thank you!

 

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at https://simplecirc.com/subscribe/connecticut-explored

 

We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit.

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.

 

This is Mary Donohue for Grating the Nutmeg. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history.

 

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 Connecticut who changed the state and the country for the better.

Unlike a traditional history that focuses on the actions of politicians, generals, business moguls and other elites, Radical Connecticut is about workers, the poor, people of color, women, artists and others who engaged in the never-ending struggle for justice and freedom.  In this episode, we’ll hear more about unions and labor strikes in Connecticut history including Thornton’s participation in the Colt Firearms strike of the 1980’s. 

Historian, activist, and union organizer, Thornton was designated a Connecticut History Gamechanger by Connecticut Explored magazine in 2022 for his bottom-up approach to Connecticut history. He authors the website The Shoeleather History Project which documents and explores progressive organizing from Hartford’s grassroots. You can also hear more from Steve in our Grating the Nutmeg episode # 145. Activists Paul and Eslanda Robeson in Connecticut

The link to Steve’s Shoeleather History Project  website and to purchase his new book is here:   https://shoeleatherhistoryproject.com/

 Read Dr. Cecelia Bucki’s feature article on labor history here:  https://www.ctexplored.org/the-labor-movement-in-connecticut/

Can you spare $10 a month to help support Grating the Nutmeg? It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at the link below. Thank you! 

https://ctexplored.networkforgood.com/projects/179036-support-ct-history-podcast-grating-the-nutmeg

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit. 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages. 

This is Mary Donohue for Grating the Nutmeg. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 had both been to the museum many times before the pandemic. But, the newly-reopened Peabody Museum is not just better, it’s fantastic!

 

The massive dinosaur and prehistoric fossil collections in the Burke Hall of Dinosaurs are what every schoolchild remembers from a fieldtrip.  The renovation has created new space for exhibiting more of its cultural, anthropological, and other scientific collections, including never-before displayed artifacts and contemporary art. For example, one intriguing  new area was the History of Science and Technology gallery that included Yale’s first microscope — purchased in 1734. Just this summer, the Hall of the Pacific has opened with artwork, photographs and artifacts that celebrate the cultures of Pacific Islander communities.

 

With a $160 million dollar bequest, they’ve increased the size of the museum from 30,000 to 44,000 square feet, added 5 classrooms, new galleries and a study gallery for faculty and students to use. The space is bright, inviting and provides visitors a place to sit down or bring lunch. Maybe the two things that will have the biggest impact in the future is that the museum is now completely free to visit. They have also worked hard to correct old, outdated information as well as to interpret the artifacts in a way that acknowledges their history more fully and authentically.

 

The guest for this episode is David Skelly, Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History and Yale Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

 

Our thanks to David Skelly and Steven Scarpa, Associate Director of the museum’s Marketing & Communications Department for making arrangements for the podcast recording as well as a fabulous tour.

 

Don’t forget that the museum admission is now free! You can reserve timed entrance passes on the museum’s website to help you plan your visit. https://peabody.yale.edu/visit

 

And once you’re in New Haven, don’t forget that the Grove Street Cemetery from Grating the Nutmeg episode # 186 is just blocks away - or check out the New Haven Museum’s new Amistad gallery!

 

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Can you spare $10 a month to help support the new voices, research, and books we feature on Grating the Nutmeg? It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. Thank you!

 

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.   We’ve got issues coming up on food, celebrations and the environment with places you’ll want to read about and visit.

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.

 

This year marks the 80th 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 the tent was burned away, taking the lives of 168 people with it. Hundreds of people were injured, and thousands of survivors would remember that day for the rest of their lives. For generations, people have been drawn to the story of the fire, and to the mystery surrounding the identify of the unclaimed child victim who came to be known as "Little Miss 1565."

 

Please note that this story includes graphic content and may not be suitable for all listeners. 

 

If you'd like to learn more about the disaster, there are many sources available. Here's a partial list. You can also visit the site of the disaster, which is marked with a memorial, on Barbour Street in Hartford, behind the site of the former Fred D. Wish School. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g33804-d3324207-Reviews-Hartford_Circus_Fire_Memorial-Hartford_Connecticut.html

 

Stewart O'Nan, The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy, 2000

Don Massey and Rick Davey, A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and the Mystery of Little Miss 1565, 2001

Don Massey, ed., Circus Fire Memories: Survivor Recollections of July 6, 1944, 2006

Michael Skidgell, The Hartford Circus Fire: Tragedy Under the Big Top, 2014

 

You can read some survivor accounts in this Fall 2006 CT Explored article. 

 

A wide collection of primary sources are collected by Michael Skidgell on the website https://www.circusfire1944.com/

 

You can also read more here:

https://connecticuthistory.org/the-hartford-circus-fire/

 

Image credit: Connecticut Museum of Culture and History

 

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Grating the Nutmeg brings you top-flight historians, compelling first-person stories, and new voices in Connecticut history. Your donation will ensure that Executive Producers Mary Donohue and Natalie Belanger can bring you a fresh episode at no cost every two weeks! GTN works with museums around the state to spotlight places that you’ll want to visit, books published by Connecticut authors, new exhibit openings, and more.

 

Can you spare $10 a month to help support the new voices, research, and books on Grating the Nutmeg? It’s easy to set up a monthly donation on the Connecticut Explored website at ctexplored.org   Click the donate button at the top and then look for the Grating the Nutmeg link. Thank you!

 

Subscribe to get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine delivered to your mailbox or your inbox-subscribe at ctexplored.org.  You won’t want to miss our Summer issue with new places to go and lots of day trip ideas!

 

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages to get behind the scenes photos and links to the latest episodes.