220. Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Plant: The Promise and Peril of Nuclear Energy
Release Date: 10/31/2025
239. Sam Colt Mines the West (10th Anniversary Encore Release)
Grating the Nutmeg
In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered edition of an episode recorded in 2017 at the University of Hartford as part of the Presidents’ College and ’s “Connecticans in the American West” lecture series. In this episode, Dr. Leah Glaser tells the story of Sam Colt’s investment in the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company in the 1850s, a company that was incorporated in Cincinnati, Ohio to exploit silver mines in the new Arizona Territory. As we found out in Grating the Nutmeg episode #129 Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed American, Colt...
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238. Living on the Edge: New England, New Netherland, and New Sweden
Grating the Nutmeg
In the 1600s, Connecticut settlers had to contend with a multitude of threats to their survival, both as individuals and as a colony. Those threats weren't just internal — poor harvests, disease, religious strife — but external, too. The colonists were caught up in a complicated web of international diplomacy, vulnerable to the ambitions of imperial powers like the Spanish, the Dutch, the English, and....the Swedes? In this episode, Natalie Belanger chats with Elizabeth Hines, Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. Hines is working on a book about Anglo-Dutch...
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237. Mary Barlow: Hartford’s Fallen “Six-Triple-Eight” Soldier
Grating the Nutmeg
This episode tells the story of one of the women depicted in The Six Triple Eight, a 2024 WWII war drama film by Tyler Perry that tells the true story of the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion. Mary Jewel Barlow was one of only three members of the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion who died in service during World War II and one of only four women buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in France. The 6888 was an all-Black, all-female Women’s Army Corps battalion. A real young woman from Hartford’s North End, Barlow’s life and sacrifice deserve recognition. The guest is . A...
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236. Greater Hartford’s West Indian Diaspora (10th Anniversary Encore Release)
Grating the Nutmeg
In celebration of our tenth anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered edition of an episode recorded in 2018 by Dr. Walter Woodward, Connecticut State Historian Emeritus with Dr. Fiona Vernal and former Hartford History Center Program Manager Jasmin Agusto. Dr. Vernal serves on the Connecticut Explored magazine Editorial Board. She holds a BA in history from Princeton University and a PhD. from Yale University. She is an associate professor of history and Africana studies and director of EPOCH: Engaged Public, Oral, and Community Histories at the University of Connecticut. Since this...
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235. Awakenings and Revolutions: The Harts, Saybrook, and the New Nation
Grating the Nutmeg
From the high seas to the town square, we’re bringing you the story of a New England family navigating revolution, economic expansion, and nation building. is a new look at the residents of the Old Saybrook Historical Society’s Gen. William Hart House and the Hart family of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Moving between the Connecticut River estuary, Hartford, New London, Boston, New York, and as far as Ohio and the West Indies, the story reveals the Harts’ surprising connections to major moments of Connecticut’s and our nation’s early history. Author and historian Elizabeth...
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234. Saving Connecticut’s Historic Barns
Grating the Nutmeg
In 2006, , then the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, realized that historic barns across the state were being demolished or allowed to fall down. What could be done to save them? Where were they? How many are there? How can we get people across the state to be interested in barns? All of this was unknown. My guest, Todd Levine, was hired to help answer those critical questions. Todd is currently the Environmental Review officer and Connecticut Freedom Trail Coordinator at the . He is an architectural historian and received his graduate degree from the Savannah College...
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233. Rough Justice for Connecticut State Hero Nathan Hale (10th Anniversary Encore Release)
Grating the Nutmeg
Happy 250th birthday to our nation and 10th anniversary to Grating the Nutmeg! In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered edition of an episode recorded in 2020 with , Connecticut State Historian Emeritus. Dr. 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 book from Globe Pequot Press. As you’ll soon hear, when looking for answers about the...
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232. Guides for Black Travelers: New London’s Green Book Sites
Grating the Nutmeg
What’s the first thing you do when you want to take a trip? Look through Instagram to find things to do? Or Yelp for restaurants that serve local cuisine? Today travelers can follow social media influencers and websites that promise to give you an insider’s look at places to stay or the best discounted hotel rates. But for Black travelers in the Jim Crow era through the 1960s, it wasn’t easy to find places to eat or stay overnight. In this episode, we are going to talk about two national guides for Black travelers, both published beginning in the 1930s, and places that were included...
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231. John Hooker: Hartford’s Abolitionist Lawyer
Grating the Nutmeg
In this episode, you’ll be introduced to John Hooker, a Hartford lawyer, judge, and abolitionist as well as a reformer for women’s rights. Hooker was the president of the anti-slavery committee in Hartford, published the Charter Oak anti-slavery newspaper with the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society of Hartford, and co-authored with his wife Isabella Beecher Hooker, the state bill in 1877 that gave married women more control of their property. Why isn’t he better known? Our guest for this episode is Erika Slocumb, Director of Interpretation & Visitor Experience at the ....
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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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The Connecticut Yankee atomic power plant was one of the earliest commercial nuclear reactors in New England. Though it was dismantled at the turn of the 21st century, its legacy remains, both for the landscape of the Connecticut River Valley where it once stood, and for contemporary debates about energy today. This episode explores the plant’s life and afterlife, the activists who opposed it, and the promises and perils of nuclear power in the 1960s and today, through the reminiscences of Paul Gionfriddo, a former state legislator and longtime president of People’s Action for Clean Energy, a group that has advocated for conservation and renewable energy in Connecticut since the early 1970s.
This episode is presented by Dr. Amrys Williams and Jon Kozak. Williams is a historian of science, technology,and the environment who serves as the Executive Director of the Connecticut League of Museums. Her recent research projects have focused on anti-nuclear activism, radioecology, and the public interpretation of nuclear places. Kozak is a graduate student in Public History at Central Connecticut State University and the Communications Manager for the Connecticut League of Museums. His recent research has focused on energy landscapes and the Connecticut Yankee plant.
Their guest is Paul Gionfriddo is a former state representative and mayor of Middletown, a graduate of Wesleyan University, and a retired nonprofit professional. He has advocated for mental health and renewable energy, and served as President of People’s Action for Clean Energy from 1975 until 1999.
For more information, visit these sites:
-Connecticut Yankee website: connyankee.com/
-People’s Action for Clean Energy website: pacecleanenergy.org/
-1960s film of the construction of the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant: youtube.com/watch?v=AiCYVMboju8
-The Atom and Eve, 1960s film promoting CT Yankee plant and atomic power in New England: footagefarm.com/reel-details/communications/telephone/1966---colour-atomic-energy-usa--atom-and-eve ; https://catalog.archives.gov/id/88095
-US Department of Energy Flickr Photo Stream, with many images of the Haddam Neck Plant before and during its operating lifetime: flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/10822396434/in/photostream/
-Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company, Haddam Neck Plant Records at the University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections: archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/335
-Wesleyan Anti-Nuclear Protests Collection, Wesleyan University Archives and Special Collections: archives.wesleyan.edu/repositories/ua/resources/wesleyan_university_anti-nuclear_protests_collecti
-Connecticut Collections: ctcollections.org/
Production notes
-Projector sound effect: cine-projector SFX.wav by Rollo145 -- https://freesound.org/s/220348/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 3.0
-Archival audio from:
-Gene Starbecker, The Atom and Eve (Bay State Film Production Inc., 1966).
-Construction of Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Plant, produced for Connecticut Yankee by Kevin Donovan Films, Glastonbury, CT, ca. 1968.
Photo Credit
Photo of CY when it was in operation from the Department of Energy.
Connecticut League of Museums: ctleague.org/
This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Amyrs Williams and Jon Kozak. GTN podcast engineer is Patrick O’Sullivan at 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.