Celebrate Women’s History Month with Grating the Nutmeg
Mar 6, 2024
March 1st marks the start of Women’s History Month. To celebrate, we’ve gathered a sampling of five episodes that share the incredible stories of Connecticut women throughout history. Click on the links below, and then press play on the next page for your next good story. We hope you enjoy these episodes and are inspired by the great women of Connecticut history!
113. Yale Needs Women: In 1969, women were permitted entry to undergraduate study at Yale for the first time. However, they did not enjoy the same experience as their male peers. Isolated, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the school’s privileges, the young women nonetheless changed Yale in ways it never anticipated. Tune in to this episode featuring historian and Yale alumna Anne Gardiner Perkins, author of Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant and New Haven leader Constance Royster, one of Yale’s first women undergrads.
134. “Another Name for Happiness:” The Life of Ann Plato: In this episode, Antoinette Brim-Bell, Professor of English at Capital Community College, talks about Ann Plato, one of the first Black women to publish a book in the United States. Ann Plato is part of Capital Community College’s NEH-funded Hartford Heritage Project which highlights the history of the Talcott Street Church, the first Black congregation in Hartford and where Plato was a teacher. Ann Plato’s book, Essay: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, has been digitized by the New York Public Library and is available to read online.
137. An American Woman Artist Abroad – Mary Rogers Williams: Author Eve Kahn’s book, Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams, 1857 – 1907, offers a rare insider view of the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. Kahn drew from a collection of Williams’ letters home describing her desperation to escape her teaching job at Smith College to paint and travel abroad. Hear how Williams talked her way into artist James McNeill Whistler’s London home, and about drawing from a cadaver at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
144. A Visit to the Katharine Hepburn Museum at “The Kate” in Old Saybrook: This episode features an interview with Executive Director Brett Elliott and Director of Community Relations Robin Andreoli about this gem of a museum for America's most Oscar-winning actor (and long-time Saybrook resident). The Katharine Hepburn Museum and "The Kate" are must-see Connecticut destinations!
158. Theodate Pope Survives the Sinking of the Lusitania You’ve probably heard of the Titanic, but have you ever heard of the Lusitania? This British transatlantic luxury liner was hit by a German submarine torpedo and sank within an hour. One of the surviving passengers was Theodate Pope, the architect and owner of what is now the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington. Why did she sail on a British ship when Britain was at war? How was Spiritualism linked to this story? How was an oar instrumental to Pope’s survival? Tune in to this episode to hear Pope’s first-hand accounts of the sinking and its after-effects.