Best Connecticut Explored Magazine Podcasts (2025)

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215. Connecticut’s Wild Visionary: Children’s Author Maurice Sendak 52:31

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13d ago52:31

52:31

Artist and author Maurice Sendak was able to achieve significant and enduring success in art and children’s literature during his lifetime. But what secrets did he had to keep from his family, publishers, parents, librarians, and readers as a gay, Jewish man negotiating the field of children’s literature? Sendak wrote and illustrated books that nur…

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214. Monstrous: The Business of Whaling 41:57

28d ago41:57

41:57

Whaling was big business. Connecticut and her sister New England states built ships, forged cast iron tools, produced wooden storage casks and outfitted sailors. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New England’s predominance in successful whaling. We’re going to get into the nitty gritty of the trade in this episode and hear …

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213. When the Continental Army Camped in Connecticut 34:42

1M ago34:42

34:42

The Redding Encampment, Connecticut’s first State Archaeological Preserve, is located in Putnam Memorial State Park. Understanding of the Revolutionary War has emphasized the battles, maneuvers, and war meetings; but far more time was expended during the long periods of winter encampment. The winter months were a brutal test of individual fortitude…

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212. Ingredients for Revolution: Feminist Restaurants featuring Bloodroot Restaurant 42:06

2M ago42:06

42:06

Connecticut Explored and our podcast, Grating the Nutmeg, have featured many of the heritage trails that mark the important histories and sites of Connecticut’s people. Preservation Connecticut has undertaken a survey of LGBTQ+ heritage sites across the state. Now, Grating the Nutmeg and Preservation Connecticut have teamed up to bring you a three-…

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211. Leviathan: New Englanders and the History of Whaling 50:52

3M ago50:52

50:52

American whale oil lit the world. The Industrial Revolution couldn’t have happened without it. Connecticut was part of the whaling industry of the nineteenth century that sent thousands of American ships manned by tens of thousands of men to hunt whales across the world’s oceans. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New Englan…

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210. The Mattatuck Museum: Waterbury and Summer Leisure 39:56

3M ago39:56

39:56

In this episode, host Mary Donohue visits the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, a place that includes stellar architecture, art by some of the most renowned artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and an exhibition that tells the story of Waterbury’s rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. The Mattatuck Museum is an art and regional history mus…

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209. Mary Hall and the Good Will Club 20:03

4M ago20:03

20:03

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 th…

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208. Saving Connecticut’s Mid-Century Modern Homes 40:34

4M ago40:34

40:34

We’re celebrating May, Historic Preservation Month, with an episode on the Modern houses of the 1950s and 1960s. Could you live in a glass house? New Canaan, Connecticut’s Mid-Century Modern homes designed after the Second War are world famous. In addition to Philip Johnson’s Glass House, now a museum, New Canaan has homes designed by Marcel Breuer…

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207. Book and Dagger: Yale Professors Become Successful WWII Spies 40:36

5M ago40:36

40:36

In her new book, Book and Dagger, How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of the World, Dr. Elyse Graham tells the story of academics, like Yale literature professor Joseph Curtis, who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents, and Sherman Kent, a Yale history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all…

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206. Hartford’s Rural Cemetery: Cedar Hill 30:58

5M ago30:58

30:58

Last year in episode 186, we talked about Grove Street Cemetery’s pioneering role as the first planned cemetery in the country. The design of Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven in the 1790s used several of the features that became standard, like family plots and established walkways. Today, we’re going to move the clock forward and discuss the rura…

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205. Coffee — A Connecticut Story 34:01

6M ago34:01

34:01

Coffee is more than a hot drink or a boost of caffeine. For Connecticans, it’s hundreds of years of history. It has fueled new ideas, social reform, and workers’ rights. It is comfort in wartime and connections across cultures. It is universal, yet distinctly local. In this episode, the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's Natalie Belanger c…

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204. Artistry, Charm, and Whimsy: Connecticut’s Carousel Museum 34:28

6M ago34:28

34:28

Carousels are marvels of brightly painted animals, mechanical excellence, music and lights. Located in a historic mill building in Bristol, the Carousel Museum houses well over 100 antique wooden carousel animals including white rabbits, pigs, lions and even an alligator. The museum has a full-size carousel inside the building complete with beautif…

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203. Amistad Retold: New Haven and the 1839 Amistad Revolt 42:27

7M ago42:27

42:27

The New Haven Museum staff and their community partners have reinterpreted the Amistad story in an exhibition that takes a new angle on the familiar story of the Amistad. The 1839 Amistad Revolt was led by 53 West African captives who were being trafficked from Havana’s slave markets on the schooner La Amistad after being kidnapped from their homel…

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202. Miss Crandall’s School for Black Women 56:17

7M ago56:17

56:17

After a campaign initiated by schoolchildren, Prudence Crandall was designated the Connecticut State Heroine by the Connecticut General Assembly on Oct. 1, 1995. You may not know Connecticut has a state heroine, or you might have some inkling that Crandall was maybe a spinster Quaker schoolmarm, who had an unsuccessful school in the hinterlands of …

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201. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir with Griffin Dunne 58:24

8M ago58:24

58:24

In this episode, Host Mary Donohue talks to Griffin Dunne, actor, producer and director and now New York Times best-selling author about his family memoir The Friday Afternoon Club. His Hartford to Hollywood family includes generations of writers, movie producers, journalists, and actors including his father Dominick Dunne, uncle John Gregory Dunne…

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200. Erector Sets, Trains and New Haven’s Toymaker A.C. Gilbert 35:58

8M ago35:58

35:58

We did it!! This is our 200th episode of Grating the Nutmeg! Thanks to our listeners, we have travelled across the state during every time period to bring you vivid, fascinating stories from our state’s history. Become a podcast subscriber to get notified every time there’s a new episode! During this holiday season, it seemed like the perfect time …

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199. G. Fox and Company Department Store and the Holidays 45:13

9M ago45:13

45:13

In the mid-20th century, Hartford's G. Fox and Co. was one of the most successful family-owned department stores in the United States. Today, many Connecticans have fond memories of visiting G. Fox at the holiday season -- marvelling at the Christmas Village atop the marquee and meeting Santa in Toyland. In this episode, Natalie Belanger and Jen Bu…

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198. Entwined: Black and Indigenous Maritime History 43:23

10M ago43:23

43:23

We all know a little about New England and Connecticut’s European maritime history. Dutch traders came to North America to trade for beaver pelts and English colonists came to start new communities such as Hartford. But a new exhibition at the Mystic Seaport Museum doesn’t rehash this history - it looks to reveal African and Indigenous perspectives…

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197. Mark Twain and the American Presidents 43:56

10M ago43:56

43:56

Early voting has already started in the 2024 presidential election and I just couldn’t resist the suggestion by my guests to explore what Samuel Clemens alias Mark Twain, Hartford’s greatest Gilded Age humorist, had to say about the United States presidents. Was Twain the John Stewart or John Oliver of his day? Known for his sharp wit and scathing …

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196. Connecticut Body Snatchers: Merchandising the Dead in the 19th Century 43:00

11M ago43:00

43:00

Have you got your Halloween costume ready? Been on any graveyard tours this month? Well, this story for you! I’d never thought of body snatching as having anything to do with Connecticut but as this episode proves, the disappearance of a young women’s body lead to a New Haven riot. I’ll get the details from Richard Ross author of the new book Ameri…

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195. George Griffin: Revealing the Life and Likeness of Mark Twain’s Butler 47:20

11M ago47:20

47:20

Most people know something about Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens. After all, he wrote his most famous books while living in Hartford, Connecticut. His 25-room house on Farmington Avenue cost over $40,000 in 1874 dollars. Raised as a child in Missouri, he became world famous for his wit and humor both in print and on stage. But what if th…

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194. Revolutionary War Hero Lafayette Makes a Triumphal Return Tour 37:22

12M ago37:22

37:22

In this episode, you'll hear about the remarkable life and legacy of the man that Lin-Manuel Miranda called "America's favorite fighting Frenchman," the Marquis de Lafayette. This month marks the 200th anniversary of Lafayette's visit to Connecticut, part of his so-called "Farewell Tour" of America in 1824. Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museu…

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193. Radical Connecticut: Labor Strikes! 44:56

12M ago44:56

44:56

Author Steve Thornton asks “Who really makes history”? In his new book, Radical Connecticut: People’s History in the Constitution State, co-authored by Andy Piascik, guest Steve Thornton tells the stories of everyday people and well-known figures whose work has often been obscured, denigrated, or dismissed. There are narratives of movements, strike…

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192. More than Dinosaurs: The New Peabody Museum of Natural History 33:30

1y ago33:30

33:30

Have you ever discovered that one of your favorite places is being renovated? Like your grandmother’s kitchen, your favorite restaurant, or even a museum, and you worry that the charm or the appeal of the place might be gone after the renovation? Podcast editor Patrick O’Sullivan and Producer Mary Donohue went to just such a place, the Peabody Muse…

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191. The Hartford Circus Fire Tragedy 31:47

1y ago31:47

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This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Hartford Circus Fire. In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History tells the story of the deadliest man-made disaster in Connecticut history. On July 6, 1944, the Big Top of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus caught fire during a …