232. Guides for Black Travelers: New London’s Green Book Sites
Release Date: 06/15/2026
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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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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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 from New London, Connecticut.
Our guests, Nicole Thomas and Tom Schuch, are part of the team that produced the New London Black Heritage Trail, designated as one of 20 Connecticut History Gamechangers by Connecticut Explored magazine in 2022.
Nicole Thomas was born and raised in New London. She is the Assistant Site Administrator at the Hempstead Houses Museum for Connecticut Landmarks and is instrumental in the interpretation of the life of Adm Jackson who was enslaved at the Hempstead Houses. You can hear that story on Grating the Nutmeg episode #175 Sleeping with the Ancestors with author Joe McGill.
Tom Schuch is a New London native and a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He has a special interest in forgotten local history. This interest led to the discovery of several of the New London Green Book sites, as well as other sites that are now part of the New London Black Heritage Trail. Tom was featured on Grating the Nutmeg episode #149 New London and the Middle Passage.
Be sure to go to the Connecticut Landmarks website to plan your visit to the Hempstead Houses.
Learn about the mid-20th century Green Book guides that Black Americans used to find welcoming lodging and other services whether traveling for work or pleasure on Preservation Connecticut’s website Architecture of the Green book in Connecticut:
https://preservationct.org/
And find Tom Schuch’s blog All Schuch Up on Substack.com
To see the Green books, visit https://www.nypl.org/blog/
To listen to Nicole and Tom’s other Grating the Nutmeg episodes. Visit:
https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/175-sleeping-with-the-ancestors-in-connecticut
https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/149-the-middle-passage-west-africa-to-connecticut
Grating the Nutmeg is partnering with Preservation Connecticut to bring you summer and fall episodes on saving historic barns, New London sites found in the historic Green Book guide for black travelers, Mid-Century Modern architecture, and sites that reveal the state’s LGBTQ+ history. Connecticut’s historic places matter! Visit Preservation Connecticut’s website to learnmore and become a member at https://preservationct.org/
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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at www.
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!