Grating the Nutmeg

In this episode, architectural historian Mary Donohue and podcast engineer Patrick O'Sullivan explore the Hartford work of early twentieth century architect Donn Barber especially his magnificent Connecticut State Library building and two of the city's early skyscrapers. Her guest, retired Connecticut State Librarian Ken Wiggin, explains how Barber got the plum commission to design the Connecticut State Library.

Donn Barber, born in 1871, a New York City architect, could be called the "Father of Hartford Skyscrapers." He designed Hartford's first skyscraper, the Hartford National Bank in 1911, and another, the Travelers Tower in 1919, that reigned as the tallest in New England for decades. The first—the Hartford National Bank Building—was demolished in 1990, while the other—Travelers Tower—is still an icon of the Hartford skyline, one whose owner restored it in 2013. Barber and these two buildings not only dramatically changed Hartford's skyline, they also played a role in advancing the city's burgeoning white-collar banking and insurance industries in the early 20th century.

By 1906, architect Donn Barber had received his first commission from the Travelers Insurance Company to design the first section of the Travelers building on Main Street. But was the magnificent Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building in 1910 that cemented his reputation in Hartford for designing grand show stopping buildings.

Barber's Hartford work included several landmark buildings. He designed the Connecticut State Library in 1910, the unrealized Charter Oak Bank Building in 1914, the Travelers Tower in three stages between 1906 and 1919; the Hartford Times Building in 1920, and the Travelers Insurance Co. building at Grove and Prospect streets in 1921.

Washington, D.C.-born Donn Barber received the best architectural training available and worked in some of New York City's toniest architectural design firms. He was educated at Yale and Columbia universities and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. The Ecole fostered a generation of American architects who designed in what became known in architecture and city-planning circles as the Beaux Arts style. This Classically-based style reshaped American taste, and its cities, at the beginning of the 20th century. Barber worked for Carrere & Hastings, Cass Gilbert (architect of Waterbury City Hall and New Haven's Union Station and former owner/resident of Ridgefield's Keeler Tavern Museum), and Lord & Howlett before opening his own office in 1900.

Learn more about his Hartford work here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-state-library-george-godard-gets-his-building/

https://www.ctexplored.org/saving-face-the-hartford-times-building/

and in the Spring 2022 issue of Connecticut Explored.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan, High Wattage Media, LLC.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

This topic was inspired by "Albert's Odd Jobs," an exhibition on view at the CT Historical Society through April 16, 2022. It covers the life of Glastonbury's Albert Walker, a farmer, skilled artisan, amateur magician, and, of course, a Wide Awake. You can take a virtual 3D tour of "Albert's Odd Jobs" on the museum's website, chs.org.

Special thanks to guest Jon Grinspan, the Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Grinspan studies the deep history of American democracy, especially the wild partisan campaigns of the 1800s. He frequently contributes to the New York Times, and his work has been featured in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. His most recent book is The Age of Acrimony: How American Fought to Fix Their Democracy 1865-1915.

Learn more about Connecticut and the Civil War here:

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticut-in-the-civil-war-2/

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/shop/

Image credit: Wide Awake Flag, 1889. This flag was reportedly carried by the Wide Awakes during an excursion to Washington, D.C. for the Presidential inauguration parade of Benjamin Harrison on 4 March 1889. CHS Collection, 1950.530.0

March is Women's History Month and in this episode publisher Elizabeth Normen talks with author Eve Kahn about her 2019 book, Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Wiliams,1857 - 1907 (Wesleyan University Press, 2019). It's a rare insider view of the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. Kahn drew from a collection of Williams's gossipy letters home in which she describes her desperation to escape her teaching job at Smith College to paint and travel abroad. Hear how Williams talked her way into artist James McNeil Whistler's London home, and about drawing from a cadaver at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Find out more about the book at https://www.evekahn.com and read her story in the Winter 2021-2022 issue of CTExplored at https://www.ctexplored.org/mary-rogers-williams-we-shall-want-to-do-a-lot-of-rambling/.

Forty years ago, a freshman legislator in the Connecticut General Assembly wrote and engineered passage of one of the most important pieces of consumer protection legislation in history – The Lemon Law (actually two laws passed in 1982 and 1984) that required automobile manufacturers to repair defective vehicles in a timely manner, replace the vehicle with a new one, or refund the customer's purchase price. Today Lemon Laws are in place in every state of the union and countries around the world. John J Woodcock, father of the Lemon Law, tells the story of the Lemon Law's creation, passage, and the years long battle with car manufacturers to preserve its integrity. Produced by Walter Woodward.

As we all ease into 2022, we want to thank our listeners for supporting Grating the Nutmeg! We've just had our 6th birthday and hit over 100,000 downloads! We couldn't have done it without you. Be sure to let us know if there are topics you think we should investigate.

If you could manufacture something out of stone or metal and make a buck, chances are it was produced in Connecticut. Asst. Publisher Mary Donohue explores the history of an unusual and unique--in the truest sense of the word--Connecticut company that made grave markers out of zinc. Affectionately known as "Zinkies" by cemetery buffs, these bluish-grey metal gravestones were made in Bridgeport and shipped across the country. The company's slogan was "As enduring as the pyramids" but was that true or just boosterism? We'll find out with author and Bridgeport historian Carolyn Ivanoff whose feature article on the Monumental Bronze Company comes out in Connecticut Explored's upcoming Spring 2022 issue.

Her book, "We Fought at Gettysburg," scheduled for publication in late spring 2022, features first-hand accounts by the survivors of the 17th Connecticut Infantry and their experiences on the greatest battlefield of the American Civil War.

Thanks to Carolyn Ivanoff for being our guest. You can find her Bridgeport history blog at https://bportlibrary.org/hc/business-and-commerce/monuments-everlasting-bridgeports-monumental-bronze-company/#more-14000

Don't forget to get your copy of Connecticut Explored's Spring 2022 issue to read more about the "Zinkies." And to see dozens of Zinkies from across the country, follow the "gardenofwhitebronze" on Instagram. The digitized catalog at the Smithsonian Institution can be seen here https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/whitebronzemonu00monu

Episode photo shows the Beech Family monument, Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport. The front panel shows the iconic harvested wheat and scythe bas-relief. The "golden sheaf" on the front panel symbolized that the deceased had had a long and abundant life. Photo by Carolyn Ivanoff.

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]

Did you know that you can get our new e-newsletter, CTExplored/Inbox by signing up at our website ctexplored.org? You'll receive your bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from around the state to see or watch this month and more!

In this episode, Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger, frequent contributor to Grating the Nutmeg, talks with Antoinette Brim-Bell, Professor of English at Capital Community College, about Ann Plato, one of the first Black women to publish a book in the United States. Ann Plato is part of Capitol Community College's NEH-funded Hartford Heritage Project which highlights the history of the Talcott Street Church, the first Black congregation in Hartford and where Plato was a teacher.

Many thanks to Antoinette Brim-Bell! If you want to learn more about the Hartford Heritage Project, visit their website. Ann Plato's book, Essay: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, has been digitized by the New York Public Library and is available to read online.

Want to know more about Connecticut's landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox- https://www.ctexplored.org/

And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward at https://todayincthistory.com/

This episode was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan.

Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg!

Is there a sucker born every minute? I don't have the answer to that but it is attributed to one of Connecticut's most famous residents, circus showman P. T. Barnum. Did he really say it-no one knows for sure but we do know that he made and lost several fortunes, helped to create the American circus, exhibited a phony mermaid cobbled together from a monkey and a fish and that he loved Bridgeport!

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, finds out more about the Barnum's over the top life and his lasting mark on Bridgeport, Connecticut with her guest Bruce Hawley, author of "P. T. Barnum Builds a City" in the Winter 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored. Mr. Hawley is a board member the Barnum Museum Foundation, the Circus Historical Society, and the Circus Fans Association of America. He is a distant cousin of P.T. Barnum.

The Barnum Museum, originally called The Barnum Institute of Science and History, was just designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Dept of the Interior. Plan your visit at https://barnum-museum.org/

Here's more about Barnum in these Connecticut Explored stories and Grating the Nutmeg episodes-enjoy!

https://www.ctexplored.org/building-art-of-clay/

https://www.ctexplored.org/tom-thumb-and-the-age-of-celebrity/

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/gtn-30-p-t-barnum-and-the-art-of-money-getting

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/gtn60-special-cptv-audio-documentary-barnums-connecticut-0

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/30-part-2-the-1st-ten-rules-for-making-money-by-p-t-barnum-0

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/30-part-3-p-t-barnums-the-art-of-money-getting

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg received support from the State Historic Preservation Office of the Dept of Economic and Community Development with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

In the spirit of the season, we're pleased to present a Victorian era Christmas story, written by the celebrated 19th century author from Guilford, Reverend William Henry Harrison Murray. Better known as "Adirondack" Murray, because his books almost single-handedly transformed that region from a New York wilderness to one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, Murray was one of the first mass audience authors to promote recreational camping as a leisure time activity, and coined the term "vacation." He is recognized as a father of the American Outdoor movement. His belief that the north woods were health giving and spiritually beneficial, and that the rustic nobility of Adirondack woodsmen was produced by their wilderness life, drew Americans by the millions to the woods, and to his books and tales. In "John Norton's Vagabond," fro Murray's 1897 book "Holiday Tales: Christmas in the Adirondacks," we meet one of those noble rustic woodsmen, the trapper John Norton, who decides, in counsel with his dogs Rover and Sport, to hold a Christmas dinner, to which he will invite even vagabonds. It might be helpful to know that in John Norton's trapper's world the word vagabond meant more than just a person who wanders about–it meant a person who stole other men's traps and poached their furs, in short, the worst of the worst. So with that as background, get a cup of cocoa, grab an easy chair, and have a listen to Rev, William Henry Harrison "Adirondack Murray's" Christmas story, "John Norton's Vagabond.

Special thanks to the Free Music Archive, Creative Commons, and these amazingly talented artists for the use of this wonderful music: Borrtex, "Christmas Memory," "Christmas Tree," Poddington Bear, "Angels We Have Heard on High" Rue Royale, "Snow on Snow"

Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society is joined by historian Barbara Sicherman, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita at Trinity College, to discuss the landmark reproductive rights case, Griswold v. Connecticut. Professor Sicherman talks about the origins of the lawsuit, what it meant for women in our state, and its long-term influence on civil rights rulings.

If you want to learn more, you can read Barbara Sicherman's article, "Connecticut Women Fight for Reproductive Rights", in the Fall 2017 issue of Connecticut Explored, or see her pieces about Estelle Griswold and Catharine Roraback in the Summer 2011 article, "Women Who Changed the World."

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

Recently, Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward announced he will be retiring next July 1st. To find out what "historical" retirement is like, Woodward sat down with Nick Bellantoni, who retired as state archaeologist in 2014, and is now Connecticut's state archaeologist emeritus. The resulting conversation was a fascinating discussion of archaeological sites in Connecticut, Nick's successor state archaeologists, and Nick's own career of amazing discoveries.