This Day in New Haven History

Welcome to This Day In Erector Set History as your host Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to Christmas in 1916 when the A.C. Gilbert Company of Erector Set fame was pitching "Brik-tor," a new toy that they were marketing by trying to organize engineering clubs for boys to rival the Boy Scouts. Meanwhile, over at Shartenberg's Department store, they're selling Jordans, not the sneakers, but Ned Jordan's new auto-mobile where the trick was he manufactured nothing but assembled the vehicle from parts bought from other companies.

Welcome to This Day In Appliance-Buying History as Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel you back to Christmas time 1916 when the United Illuminating Company was eager for the housewives of New Haven to put away their washboards and instead invest big time in their whole array of new electrical appliances, including a washing machine that put clothes through the wringer, and, yes, an electric vibrator to relax with after the wash is done.

Welcome to This Day In Christmas-At-The-Front History as your time-traveling host Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum go back to 1917. America had just entered the war in Europe and the writers of a Saturday Chronicle article declare that the gifts Connecticut boys on the front lines in France are receiving are a darn sight better than what they experienced as young young soldiers in the Civil War.

Welcome to This Day In Christmas Shopping History as your host Allan Appel and co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum travel back to when all the action was not at the tree on the Green, but at Toyland and Toyville and the great displays put on by Malley's, Shartenberg's, and the fabled and long gone department stores of mid-20th century Chapel Street, the epicenter for gift-buying in the Elm City.

Hide that wreath! Don't give that present! And for God's sake go to work and don't make merry. Such pagan and "Pope-ish" thngs were frowned upon and legislated against by our Puritan forbears in ye olde New Haven. Why, Christmas is not mentioned anywhere in Scripture, so why celebrate it? Such now Scroogie insights emerged in the first of our holiday week of broadcasts with your host Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum on This Day In New Haven History.

Hosts Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum chat with Center Church's acting minister, Kevin Ewing; church historian Michelle Georgevich; church clerk Nancy Mellone; and one of the church's deacons Demeka Anderson about Thanksgiving at Center Church.

Welcome to This Day In Vets Day History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle salute the veterans and the origin of the holiday that originally marked the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 when armistice was finally declared in the war to end all wars. Few people know of the economic downturn, extreme labor agitation, and Communist scare tactics that seemed to follow right on the heels of peace.

Welcome to This Day In Selling The Seats History as your host Allan Appel and co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel back to 1849 when rental of church pews figured as a big part of the revenue of our town's ecclesiastical establishments.

Welcome to This Day In Crime Spree History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to a shaken Elm City when a string of robberies of Yale students followed soon on by several murders of what one letter writer called "impressive and horrible ferocity" ignited an early debate about the deterrent power of public hanging, which is what they called capital punishment in 1849.

Welcome to This Day In Welcoming Refugees History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle time travel to 1849 when a now, barely known persecution of Protestant converts on the Portuguese - read Catholic - Island of Madeira landed fourteen of them at Center Church. There a fundraiser was held to help the refugees, who would eventually number 400 strong, travel to permanent homes in, of all places, Illinois.

Welcome to This Day In Medical Care History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle time-travel back to 1834 when an upstart herbalist and natural cures-based physician established an infirmary in the Hill. He challenged the academic docs to start healing the sick, not making them worse with their blood-letting and their "poisons."

Welcome to This Day in Tool-Making History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot, Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven time travel back to 1834 when the New Haven Axe Factory went out of business because superior products were being produced upstate in Collinsville.

Welcome to This Day In Fencing History as your host Allan Appel and regular time-traveling co-pilot, Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum, learn to cut and thrust as we acquaint ourselves with the Angelo system of sword exercise, all the rage in 1834 New Haven when fighting with swords was being transformed from a military pursuit to a sport.

Welcome to This Day In Mud-Slinging Political History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to the mid-terms of 1834 when New Haven Whigs called rising Democratic star Martin Van Buren a "mole," a mammal related to the rat, and whole lot worse.

Welcome to This Day In Dental Pain History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel-back to that pre-anesthesia year of 1834 when excessive consumption of Halloween sweets could land you in the feared dentist's chair.

Welcome to This Day In Halloween Vandalism History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to 1911 when the adults had not yet convinced the kids that tricker-treating for sweets would make a good substitute for some serious juvenile mischief, which included burning down an old house in Westville.

Welcome To This Day In Taft Hotel History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to 1911 as the newest and most modern hotel in our town and maybe all New England is not only ready to greet guests, but also to burn up their garbage in a large newfangled incinerator.

Welcome to This Day In Leaf-Burning History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time-travel back to 1911 when autumn leaf-burners are advised not to start the conflagrations in the streets where the Model Ts and the other new "machines," that is, automobiles full of gasoline might themselves ignite.

Welcome to This Day In At Least I Voted For McGovern History as your host Allan Appel and Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel back to 1972 when anti-war liberal George McGovern was going up against Richard Nixon in the presidential election of 1972. Then, as now, the city's labor unions sent out the flyers and knocked on the doors, especially members of the United Auto Workers, but it wasn't enough. Nixon carried Connecticut, and every other state except Massachusetts.

Welcome to This Day In Oak Street Connector History as local folks get ready to cut the ribbon on what became the highway to nowhere. However, on this day in 1959 officials still thought it was going to extend to Derby, and suburbanites would use it, in the other direction, to come shop in downtown. Ah, hindsight!

Welcome to This Day In Fire Prevention History, as your host Allan Appel and the New Haven Museum's Jason Bischoff Wurstle time travel back to 1958 where officials at the new Fire Department training school report on how they'll handle "peace-time radiation which will develop when atomic power is used in local industries."

Welcome to This Day In Car Rental History as your host Allan Appel and the New Haven Museum's Jason Bischoff-Wurstle time-travel to 1957. With so much new business expected as a result of the Redevelopment Agency's building the Oak Street Connector, Long Wharf Terminal, and lots of other big stuff, you're going to need the availability, first time ever, of 24-hour car rental services at the Taft Hotel.

Welcome to This Day In Harbor History as your host Allan Appel and co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel back to 1955. The era of modern urban redevelopment is just gathering steam, and if more business is to come to town, the main channel in the harbor must be deepened 40 feet.

Welcome to This Day in Cigar Dispensing History as your host Allan Appel and fellow time traveler Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum travel back to the heyday of the tobacco industry in Connecticut and how an amazing "cigar slot machine," that is, a vending machine might be counted as a new New Haven entrepreneurial first.

Welcome to This Day in Disease Prevention History as your host Allan Appel and co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle from the New Haven Museum travel back to 1908 when medical authorities were proud of new measures to control tuberculosis. Yet were Elm City public health officials ignoring another killer, pneumonia, which just last year had killed nearly 12,000 people in neighboring New York.

Welcome to This Day In Jack O' Lantern History as your host Allan Appel and fellow time-traveler from the New Haven Museum, Jason Bischoff-Wurstle check out the styles of pumpkin carving in fashion in the Elm City of 1908.

Welcome to To This Day In Aurora Borealis History as your host Allan Appel and time-traveling co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum take you back to 1908, when the non-electrified skies over New Haven were perfect for checking out the Northern Lights.

Welcome to This Day in Ooops, I May Have Jumped To Wrong Conclusions History as your host Allan Appel and regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum time travel back to 1876. That's when a citizen calling himself or herself Dynamite got very concerned that our town might blow up because Winchester armory-bound wagons full of powder were seen on busy streets and being hauled by carelessly smoking drivers. Could Dynamite really see or know what was in those barrels? Officials responded that it was not powder, all is safe, don't worry, be happy. But who was right?