230. Pursuing Happiness: New Horizons Village
Grating the Nutmeg
In 1955, a group of disabled young adults living at New Britain Memorial Hospital signed a letter declaring their intention to seek out "adventuresome living for the physically handicapped." They formed a nonprofit called New Horizons and set out on a thirty-year journey to raise money and navigate legal barriers in order to realize their most cherished dream: a housing complex for the disabled, run by the disabled. In 2026, New Horizons Village in Farmington turns 40. In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the gives you a capsule history of the New Horizons movement and speaks with...
info_outline
229. Irish Immigration in Art from the Fairfield Great Hunger Museum at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum
Grating the Nutmeg
Famine Irish, lace-curtain Irish, shanty Irish: the Irish Diaspora has shaped Connecticut’s European immigrant history from the 1840s. Traces of Irish history and culture in the state are not only found in archival and artifact collections but also through the historic buildings, neighborhoods, and cemeteries that stand across the state. Whether they were immigrants, expatriates, refugees, or indentured servants when they arrived from Ireland, 14 percent of Connecticut’s current residents claim Irish ancestry. In today’s episode, we take you to a new exhibition, curated by...
info_outline
228. Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut
Grating the Nutmeg
If you are driving in Bristol, Connecticut-maybe you’re going to Lake Compounce Amusement Park - and suddenly you spy a cluster of huge satellite dishes, you might wonder if space aliens had really landed. But what you’ve discovered is the home base of ESPN - originally entitled the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network - shortened to ESPN in 1985. Every year tens of millions of fans watch ESPN but 47 years ago, a 24-hour sports television cable network was considered a wild and impossible idea. Our guests on this episode are the authors of the new audiobook ...
info_outline
227. Pioneering Woman Sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Grating the Nutmeg
I’ve got a story about an artist that I’ve been obsessed with for years. In this episode, Patricia Hoerth Batchelder talks about her new biography of Evelyn Beatrice Longman, The Woman Who Sculpted Golden Boy, Thomas Edison, and Other Monuments. Poor, motherless at five, and uneducated after elementary school, Longman made the highly ambitious claim at nineteen that she could create monumental sculpture. The book tells the story of how she created beauty, moved into upper class society, and succeeded in a field of art that was overwhelmingly dominated by men. Ms. Batchelder has worked for...
info_outline
226. Abby (and Julia) Smith and Their Cows
Grating the Nutmeg
Last year, in Episode 217, listeners were introduced to Hannah Smith. Born in 1767, Hannah was the matriarch of the non-conformist Smith Family of Glastonbury. In the 2020s, her diaries inspired Leonard Raybon, a music professor at Tulane, to compose an original mini-musical based on her writings. You can view the debut performance of "Hannah and Her Daughters" . This episode focuses on the next generation of the Smith family. Hannah Hickock married Zephaniah Smith of Glastonbury in 1786, and their marriage produced five daughters. Two of the...
info_outline
CELEBRATING WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Grating the Nutmeg
March is Women’s History Month! Here's 5 Not to Be Missed Stories!
info_outline
225. On Trial: Alfred Marder and Catherine Roraback - A Communist’s Arrest in 1950’s McCarthy-era New Haven (10th Anniversary Encore Release)
Grating the Nutmeg
Grating the Nutmeg is 10 years old! In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered and re-edited edition of an episode we recorded in 2016 at the with Alfred Marder, Judge Andrew Roraback and his father Charles Roraback. This compelling first-person interview with Alfred Marder shares his experiences as a defendant in New Haven’s Smith trial. Mr. Marder died in 2023 at the age of 101. He was defended by civil rights attorney Catherine Roraback, an inductee in the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1954, 32-year-old Alfred Marder was arrested in New...
info_outline
224. Scholar, Activist, Trailblazer: The Enduring Legacy of Dr. Lorenzo Greene
Grating the Nutmeg
Connecticut is a small state that has had a huge national impact. In this episode, we celebrate someone that we are proud to say was born in Connecticut and went on to be a pioneering historian in Black history. Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene received his BA in from Howard University in 1924, his MA from Columbia University in 1926 and his Ph.D. in 1942. He was born in Ansonia, Connecticut. We can learn more about his family from the 1900 federal census record. His father Willie was born in 1858 in Virginia before the end of slavery, and his mother was born in West Virginia in 1870. Both came to...
info_outline
223. The ‘Great Temperance Times’ in Nineteenth-Century Black Connecticut
Grating the Nutmeg
At first glance, alcohol and racial equality might seem unrelated—but for Black activists, the temperance movement was a powerful vehicle for social change. In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum chats with Mackenzie Tor about her research into Black temperance activism in 1830s and 1840s Connecticut. Mackenzie talks about how people like Maria Stewart, James Pennington, and the Beman family used temperance as a strategy for civic inclusion. Through their words and organizing efforts, from newspaper columns to church halls,...
info_outline
TOP 10 MOST STREAMED of ALL TIME!
Grating the Nutmeg
The GOATs! Our most streamed episodes EVER! Don’t MISS these CT stories:
info_outline
In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the CT Museum of Culture and History tells the story of the Good Will Club, the forerunner of the youth club movement that got its start in Hartford. But the story of the club can't be separated from that of its founder, a woman who's an inductee of the CT Women's Hall of Fame for her barrier-breaking work in the legal field.
There are lots of ways to learn more about the history of the Good Will Club and about Mary Hall. Here’s a partial list of sources consulted for this episode:
Elizabeth Warren, “Mary Hall: Breaking the Legal Barrier,” CT Explored, Spring 2010
Kevin Flood, “The Boys and Girls Clubs of America Started Here,” CT Explored, Fall 2019
Mary Hall’s Entry in the CT Women’s Hall of Fame
Judge A. Susan Peck, “Upcoming Survey on the Status of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession,” CT Lawyer, September/October 2024
Some other sources you might like to check out: You can look at digitized issues of the Good Will Star, the newspaper published by the boys of the Good Will Club, held at the Connecticut State Library; see a timeline of the history of the Boys and Girls Club of Hartford; and visit the Connecticut Museum’s Waterman Research Center to see published histories of the Good Will/Boys and Girls Club as well as Mary Hall’s scrapbook.
This episode received support from the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, Hartford, Connecticut.
image: Mary Hall and Good Will Club Boys, Mary Hall Scrapbook, MS 78249 CMCH Collection.
--------------------------------------------------
Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show. Go to ctexplored.org to send your donation now.
Get your copy of Connecticut Explored magazine, in print and digital editions now so you don’t miss the Summer issue!
Each issue offers a photo essay, feature-length stories you can sink your teeth into, and shorter stories you can breeze through—plus lots of beautiful, large historic images. We include oral histories, stunning museum objects, must-see destinations, and more. From Colonial history to pop-culture, you’ll find it all in this magazine.
Subscribe to get your copy today in your mailbox or your inbox at ctexplored.org
This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger, Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/
Follow GTN on our socials - Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.
Follow executive producer 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!