216. Brewing Community: Labor, Alcohol, and Unrest in Industrial New Britain
Release Date: 09/01/2025
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...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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CELEBRATING WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Grating the Nutmeg
March is Women’s History Month! Here's 5 Not to Be Missed Stories!
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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TOP 10 MOST STREAMED of ALL TIME!
Grating the Nutmeg
The GOATs! Our most streamed episodes EVER! Don’t MISS these CT stories:
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Immigrants from Lithuania who made their way to New Britain, Connecticut at the beginning of the twentieth century found work in the city’s factories turning out tools and hardware. Their weekly routine included work, church and socializing at neighborhood saloons. But major upheavals in American society were happening at the time that affected their lives including the rise of organized labor, the temperance movement, anti-immigrant sentiment, and labor strikes.
In this episode, we have two new voices in public history, Central Connecticut State University students Jon Kozak and Nathaniel Smith. They produced the episode as a class project under Dr. Leah Glazier at Central Connecticut State University. This episode reminds us that some of the most interesting history can be found all around you in your own community.
A big thanks to Jon Kosak and Nathaniel Smith for their hard work in producing this episode. I also want to thank Dr. Glazier, professor of public history for her help.
Contact Jon Kosak at: j.kozak@my.ccsu.edu
Contact Dr. Leah Glazier at: glaserles@ccsu.edu
Jon and Nathaniel used a wide variety of local history materials including oral histories and the New Britain Herald newspaper.
Museum Collections:
The New Britain Public Library Local History Room, The New Britain Industrial Museum, Connecticut State Library, and the Elihu Burritt Library at Central Connecticut State University, specifically their special collections and archive of the New Britain Herald newspaper.
Oral Histories:
John Skritulsky, had been interviewed by the Federal Writers Project in 1938, by a writer in the FWP’s New Britain office by the name of Albert Kayeski. Being Lithuanian himself, Kayeski understood the importance of this ethnic community in telling the story of an industrialized New Britain. Several of his other profiles bear mention of taverns, be it Skritulsky’s or others as places to gather. Use of New Britain directories from the turn of the twentieth century reinforced the prevalence and importance of these institutions. It must be noted that for the clarity of our story, the character of Jonas, whose story was found in a FWP profile by Kayeski, History of a Lithuanian Immigrant, was originally listed with the name John, and was given no last name. We changed his name to Jonas, the Lithuanian translation of John, to avoid confusion with John Skritulsky in the narrative. No other names were altered from the original source material.
Manuscript reference:
Portrait of Occupations, Investments, and Businesses of Lithuanian Immigrants in New Britain Connecticut by the Reverend William Wolkovich-Valkavicius from 1979, Local History Room, New Britain Public Library.
Song Credit: This version, by the musical group Ugniavijas, recorded in 2014 is a centuries-old Lithuanian folk song whose title roughly translates to “Sweet Beer of the Oats. The original lyrics with an English translation can be found here. It is a song that remains important to the people of Lithuania and is still sung today, often by schoolchildren.
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Connecticut Landmarks Event
Join Connecticut Landmarks at East Haddam’s Palmer-Warner House for our second annual Summer Pipes & Cider! Sip barrel-aged cider and whiskey from Yankee Cider Company. Enjoy a bagpipe performance by the Portland & District Pipers, accompanied by a scenic trail walk. Plus, bring your friends for a round of pub trivia with prizes for the top two teams. Are you a fan of the TV series, Outlander? Come wearing your best Outlander attire and test your knowledge during trivia! Extend your experience with a tour of the Palmer-Warner House, which previous owner Frederic Palmer called Dunstaffnage as a nod to his Scottish heritage. Raise a glass, embrace the music, and celebrate the magic of Scotland! Event and tour tickets are available at ctlandmarks.org/pipesandcider. We hope to see you at 1 pm on Saturday, September 13 for Summer Pipes & Cider!
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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 executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!