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Fall 2025: Our Environment. Final days to bid on exciting items and support our podcast! Learn about making buttons in Cheshire, CT artist photographing the shore and events you don't want to miss!
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Join Connecticut Landmarks in Suffield on Sunday, November 2nd to celebrate the conclusion of the Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden’s 18th-century Parisian wallpaper conservation project! This event will feature presentations by historic wallpaper experts Peggy Wishart, Steve Larson, and Deborah LaCamera, followed by a champagne toast. As daylight wanes, explore the museum to hear from Studio TKM conservators and museum staff who will be answering questions about the history of the house and the wallpaper project. For more information visit: ctlandmarks.org/wallpaper
Tickets are $40/Person. Use code EXPLORE at checkout to receive $10-off ticket pricing!
FINAL DAYS TO BID! Our second annual online benefit auction closes on Sunday. The auction is the largest fundraiser of the year for our award-winning CT history podcast Grating the Nutmeg. New episodes are produced every two weeks and are free to listen to. We have over 30,000 downloads per year. We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary and counting! Our podcast is free to all listeners and to keep it free, we need to raise money for our support. This online auction is made possible by our organizational partners, our community’s businesses, and generous individuals. All purchases help keep Grating the Nutmeg accessible to all!
Auction Dates:
September 25, 2025 12:00 a.m. - October 18, 2025 11:49 p.m.
The Latest From Grating the Nutmeg
Connecticut in the Industrial Revolution: Making Buttons in Cheshire
A button sounds like a very ordinary thing. But button production in Cheshire was part of Connecticut’s pioneering role in the precision manufacturing revolution of the nineteenth century. According to connecticuthistory.org, button production began with pewter buttons in the mid-eighteenth century but quickly turned to brass in the early nineteenth century. By 1860s, machines in the Scovill Brass factory in Waterbury produced 216,000 buttons per day. This type of industrial production volume for an everyday necessity such as buttons propelled investors and entrepreneurs to establish companies such as the Ball & Socket Manufacturing Company. But what were the benefits and costs of Cheshire’s industrial development during Connecticut’s Industrial Revolution?
Listen: Connecticut in the Industrial Revolution: Making Buttons in Cheshire
Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show.
Photo Essay: Capturing Pollution Among the Tides
How many times have you gone to the shore and stumbled upon debris such as plastic bottles, straws, and strewn metallic pieces of a birthday balloon? Connecticut Artist, Elizabeth Ellenwood made it her mission to finish a series of work that is not only visually striking but also forces the viewer to be confronted with the impact littering has on the environment.
Ellenwood writes, “I created the photographic series Among the Tides to explore local and global issues of ocean pollution. My goal was to use a variety of photographic methods to produce visually arresting, thought-provoking images that reveal trash and microplastics collected from New England beaches—and to highlight our responsibility as consumers.”
Read the full essay and view all of Ellenwood’s photos in our Fall 25 issue.
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Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Season:
Amistad Center’s Fall Programs and Events
Join the Amistad Center for a fabulous fall, with a focus on healing, culture, and community! Engage with our current exhibition, photographer Wendel White’s Manifest: Thirteen Colonies, in our John H. Motley Study, and explore African art in our dynamic Yoruba World exhibition in our Pryor Gallery, all on the second floor of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
In September and October, join us for our I Am a Man: Black Men and Boys’ Mental Health Initiative, which centers the mental health and well-being of Black men and boys through community, creativity, and culturally grounded care. On Sunday, October 26, join us for a daylong wellness workshop and luncheon led by licensed therapist and New Haven–based Yoruba practitioner Enroue Halfkenny. This immersive workshop offers tools for emotional wellness, ancestral grounding, and community healing.
We will be celebrating with our community at our Amistad Annual Meeting and Cocktail Party on November 10, and we would love to see you there!
The Amistad Center for Art & Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street, Hartford. amistadcenter.org; 860-838-4122
Where Art Meets Autumn
This fall, discover a rare destination where the beauty of the natural world meets the brilliance of human creativity. At Hill–Stead Museum, you can experience world-class Impressionist masterpieces, including works by Monet, Degas, and Cassatt, inside the beautifully preserved Colonial Revival home. Then, step outside into 152 acres of rolling meadows, forested trails, and formal gardens alive with fall color. Whether you’re strolling through the trails or taking in sweeping views of autumn hills from the veranda, Hill–Stead offers a deep connection to both culture and the land. Come nurture the life of the mind and the spirit at a place designed to inspire both. Visit the historic house, Wednesday through Sunday from 10 AM to 4 PM, and take advantage of free access to the grounds every day, from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM. Learn more at hillstead.org.
Hill–Stead Museum, 35 Mountain Road, Farmington. hillstead.org; 860-677-4787
Fall Preservation Event
As we wrap up celebrations of our 50th anniversary year, let’s gather to look toward the future and envision the next 50 years of preservation in Connecticut. Join us on Thursday, November 6, at the exquisite, Cass Gilbert–designed Waterbury City Hall (1915), a building that stands as a preservation testament to community coming together for the common good. We’ll be joined by esteemed preservationists and local leaders to explore the challenges and opportunities we face, together, in protecting our treasured historic built environment.
Keep up to date with news about this event and other preservation news by joining Preservation Connecticut’s email list at preservationct.org. See you in Waterbury!
Preservation Connecticut; preservationct.org
Editor’s Picks:
Nicholas F. Bellantoni, “State Archaeologist on 30 Years of Great Finds” Connecticut Explored, Summer 2014.
Andrew W. Kahrl, “No Day at the Beach” Connecticut Explored, Summer 2014.
Walter W. Woodward, “The Unsteady Meaning of “The Land of Steady Habits” Connecticut Explored, Fall 2012.