As soon as the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, free Black men in the North rushed to enlist, but they were turned away, as President Lincoln worried that arming Black soldiers would lead to secession by the border states. With the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the dire need for more recruits to the Union Army, Black soldiers were formally welcomed into the armed forces, eventually comprising 10% of the Union Army. It wasn’t just the Black soldiers who fought and sacrificed for their country, though, it was also their families they left behind as they marched off to war.  Joining me in this episode s Dr. Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr., Assistant Professor of African American History at Furman University and author of The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Battle Cry of Freedom,” written in 1862 by American composer George Frederick Root to support Lincoln’s 1862 call for 300,000 volunteers for the Union Army; this version was performed by Harlan and Stanley in 1907 and is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is “Unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters,” photograph created between 1863 and 1865, available via the Library of Congress with no known restrictions on publication. Additional sources: “A Call to Remember the 200,000 Black Troops Who Helped Save the Union,” by Christine Hause, The New York Times, February 26, 2022. “Remembering the Significant Role of the U.S. Colored Troops in America’s History,” Wounded Warrior Project. “Black Americans in the U.S. Army,” U.S. Army. “Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War,” National Archives. “African-American Soldiers During the Civil War,” Library of Congress. “Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” by Steven Mintz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “Black Civil War Soldiers,” History.com, Originally posted April 14, 2010; updated November 22, 2022. “Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America,” by David Walker, Boston, Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. “War Declared: States Secede from the Union!” National Park Service. “Civil War Begins,” United States Senate. “Black Women, the Civil War, and United States Colored Troops,” by Holly Pinheiro, Black Perspectives, July 20, 2021. Related episodes: Susie King Taylor (Episode 3) Mary Ann Shadd Cary (Episode 33) The Abolition Movement of the 1830s (Episode 45) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1848, a group of religious perfectionists, led by John Humphrey Noyes, established a commune in Oneida, New York, where they lived and worked together. Women in the community had certain freedoms compared to the outside world, in both dress and occupation. What captured the attention of the outside world, though, were the sexual practices of the Oneidans, who believed in complex marriage where every man and every woman in the community were married to each other and where birth control was achieved via male continence.  Joining me to discuss the Oneida community, and its most infamous resident, presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, is New York Times bestselling writer Susan Wels, author of An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode Music is “Walk Together (Acoustic Piano and Guitar Version)” by Olexy from Pixabay. The episode image is “Oneida Community,” photograph taken between 1860 and 1880; image is in the Public Domain and available via the Library of Congress. Additional sources: “The First Great Awakening.” by Christine Leigh Heyrman, Divining America, TeacherServe©, National Humanities Center. “Great Awakening,” History.com, Originally posted March 7, 2018, Updated September 20, 2019. “Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening,” USHistory.org. “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic: Religion and the New Republic,” Library of Congress. “The Second Great Awakening,” by Isaiah Dicker, Guided History: History Research Guides by Boston University Students. “‘My Heart Was So Full of Love That It Overflowed’: Charles Grandison Finney Experiences Conversion,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. “People & Ideas: Charles Finney,” God in America, PBS. “The Utopia of Sharing in Oneida, N.Y.”by Beth Quinn Barnard, The New York Times, August 3, 2007. “The Rich, Sexy History Of Oneida — Commune And Silverware Maker,” WBUR, May 20, 2016. “Oneida Community (1848-1880): A Utopian Community,” Social Welfare History Project  (June 2017), Virginia Commonwealth University. “Oneida Community Collection,” Syracuse University. Oneida Mansion House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1980s undocumented Irish immigrants convinced United States lawmakers to create a program that would provide a path to citizenship for individuals without family connections in the United States. That program eventually became the Diversity Visa Lottery, established as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. Despite the program’s roots in demand from Irish immigrants, the majority of the recipients of diversity visas have been awarded to immigrants from Africa, with more than 480,000 individuals and their families immigrating to the United States from Africa between 1995 and 2022 via the Diversity Visa Program. Joining me this week for a deep dive into the diversity visa lottery, and its impact on West African countries, is historian Dr. Carly Goodman, Senior Editor at the Washington Posts’s Made by History and author of Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music “Melancholic Afrobeat” by artbybigvee from Pixabay and is available in the public domain. The episode image is “Loterie Americaine visa services in French and English in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2015,” and is used by permission of the photographer, Carly Goodman. Additional sources: “Find out if you are eligible for the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery and how to register,” USA.gov. “Immigration History Timeline,” Immigration History. “Fifty Years On, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Continues to Reshape the United States,” by Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman, and Isabel Ball, Migration Policy Institute, October 15, 2015. “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 – Civil Rights Movement Era,” The Asian American Education Project. “European Immigrants in the United States,” by Elijah Alperin and Jeanne Batalova, Migration Policy Institute, August 1, 2018. “1986: Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986,” Library of Congress. “Diversity visa lottery, criticized after New York terrorist attack, was invented to help the Irish,” by Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post,  November 1, 2017. “The ‘Diversity’ Green Card Lottery Was Originally for White Immigrants,” by Becky Little, History.com, Originally posted November 2, 2017; Updated March 9, 2019. “U.S. Lottery will award 20,000 visas in 1989-90,” by Karlyn Barker, The Washington Post, March 2, 1989. “While Immigration Reform Waits, Lottery Fills the Void,” by Lisa Wormwood, Special to The Christian Science Monitor, April 13, 1989. “Fact Sheet: Temporary Protected Status (TPS),” National Immigration Forum, updated February 1, 2023. “Temporary Protected Status,” U.S. Department of Justice. “Family Reunification Is the Bedrock of U.S. Immigration Policy,” by Philip E. Wolgin, The Center for American Progress, February 12, 2018. “What is the Diversity Visa Program?” FWD.us, September 14, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite a plea from Abigail Adams to her husband to “Remember the Ladies,” women, especially married women, didn’t have many legal rights in the Early Republic. Even so, women used existing legal structures to advocate for themselves and their children, leaning on their dependent status and the obligations of their husbands and the state to provide for them.  I’m joined this week by Dr. ​​Jacqueline Beatty, Assistant Professor of History at York College of Pennsylvania, and author of In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Chester,” composed by William Billings in 1778, performed by the United States Marine Corps Band in 2014; the recording is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is: ”A New England kitchen. A hundred years ago,” by H. W. Peirce, ca. 1876, via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources: “When Women Lost the Vote,” Museum of the American Revolution. “Lydia Chapin Taft – New England’s First Woman Voter,” New England Historical Society. “Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March - 5 April 1776 [electronic edition],”. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society.  “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776 [electronic edition],” Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society. “On the Trail of America’s First Women to Vote,”  by Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; Published Feb. 24, 2020, Updated Aug. 7, 2020. “Coverture: The Word You Probably Don't Know But Should,” National Women’s History Museum, September 4, 2012. “Boston: A City Steeped in U.S. History,” History.com; Published March 7, 2019, Updated March 13, 2019. “Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery,” The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “Philadelphia: Colonial City to Modern Metropolis [video],” Penn Museum, July 6, 2018. “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery - March 1, 1780,” Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. “Historic Overview,” Explore Charleston. “How Slavery Built Charleston,” by Brentin Mock, Bloomberg, July 20, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1963, on the heels of a failed desegregation campaign in Albany, Georgia, Martin Luther King., Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided to take a stand for Civil Rights in “the Most Segregated City in America,” Birmingham, Alabama. In Project Confrontation, the plan was to escalate, and escalate, and escalate. And escalate they did, until even President John F. Kennedy couldn’t look away. Joining me now to help us learn more about the Birmingham campaign is journalist Paul Kix, author of You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “An Inspired Morning” by PianoAmor via Pixabay. The episode image is “Civil rights leaders left to right Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King, Jr., at a press conference during the Birmingham Campaign,” in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 16, 1963, by photographer M.S. Trikosko, and available via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources and References: “Albany Movement,” King Encyclopedia, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. “The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),” National Archives. “The Birmingham Campaign,” PBS. “Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (1922-2011),” National Park Service. “Opinion: Harry Belafonte and the Birmingham protests that changed America,” by Paul Kix, Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2023. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," by Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963, Posted on the University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center website. “The Children’s Crusade: When the Youth of Birmingham Marched for Justice,” by Alexis Clark, History.com, October 14, 2020. “Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights by President John F. Kennedy [video],” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the 19th Century, growing international trade and imperialist conquest combined with new technologies to transport and care for flora led to a burgeoning fascination with plant life. American writers, from Emily Dickinson to Frederick Douglass played with plant imagery to make sense of their world and their country and to bolster their political arguments.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Kuhn, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Virginia, and author of The Garden Politic: Global Plants and Botanical Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Down by the Salley Gardens,” performed by Celtic Aire, United States Air Force Band; the composition is traditional, and the lyrics are by Willian Butler Yeats; the recording is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is from Plate VI of Familiar Lectures on Botany, by Almira Phelps, 1838 edition. Additional Sources and References: “The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved the Plant Kingdom,” by Luke Keogh, Arnoldia Volume 74, Issue 4, May 17, 2017. “History of Kew,” Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “The Great British Tea Heist,” by Sarah Rose, Smithsonian Magazine, March 9, 2010. “Almira Phelps,” History of American Women.  “‘How Many Stamens Has Your Flower?’ The Botanical Education of Emily Dickinson,” by Anne Garner, New York Academy of Medicine, April 28, 2016. “Emily Dickinson’s Schooling: Amherst Academy,” Emily Dickinson Museum. “Gardens at the Stowe Center,” Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. “Hawthorne in the Garden,” by W.H. Demick, The House of the Seven Gables, July 1, 2020. “Frederick Douglass On How Slave Owners Used Food As A Weapon Of Control,” by Nina Martyris, NPR, February 10, 2017. “Cedar Hill: Frederick Douglass's Rustic Sanctuary,” National Park Service. “Amoral Abolitionism: Frederick Douglass and the Environmental Case against Slavery,” by Cristin Ellis, American Literature 1 June 2014; 86 (2): 275–303.  “‘Buried in Guano’: Race, Labor, and Sustainability,” by Jennifer C. James,  American Literary History 24, no. 1 (2012): 115–42. “The Intelligent Plant,” by Michael Pollan, The New Yorker, December 15, 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, 2015. The Overstory, by Richard Powers, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben, Greystone Books, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While voters were casting their ballots in the 1972 presidential election, Native demonstrators had taken over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, DC, barricading themselves in with office furniture and preparing to fight with makeshift weapons. The occupation marked the finale of a cross-country caravan, the Trail of Broken Treaties, and the activists were demanding the consideration of their Twenty-Point Position Paper, which called for a restoration of Indigenous rights and recognition of Native American sovereignty. Joining me to help us understand the 1972 occupation and to discuss the larger story of native presence and activism in DC is Dr. Elizabeth Rule, author of Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation's Capital and Founder of the Guide to Indigenous Lands Project. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Hank Adams, in the fall of 1972, addressing the mission of the cross-country trip to Washington, D.C., from the Hank Adams Collection that was donated to the Washington Secretary of State and is included in: “Hank Adams: “An Uncommon Life.” Additional Sources: “The Trail of Broken Treaties, 1972,” National Park Service “The Trail of Broken Treaties: A March on Washington, DC 1972,” William & Mary Libraries. “Native Americans Take Over Bureau of Indian Affairs: 1972,” by Bob Simpson, The Washington Area Spark, March 26, 2013. “Trail of Broken Treaties 20-Point Position Paper,” October 1872, Minneapolis, Minnesota. “When Native American Activists Occupied Alcatraz Island,” by Evan Andrews, History.com, original November 20, 2014; updated September 1, 2018. “Occupy Wounded Knee: A 71-Day Siege and a Forgotten Civil Rights Movement,” by Emily Chertoff, The Atlantic, October 23, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the decades following the Civil War, African Americans reliably voted for the Republican Party, which had led the efforts to outlaw slavery and enfranchise Black voters; and white southerners reliably voted for the Democratic Party. When Black voters started to vote for Democratic candidates in larger numbers, starting with the 1936 re-election of FDR, whose New Deal policies had helped poor African Americans, Republicans began to turn their sights toward white Southern voters. By the 1964 Presidential election, Republican Barry Goldwater was actively courting those voters, winning five states in the deep South, despite his otherwise poor showing nationwide. Republican Richard Nixon successfully refined the strategy in his 1968 defeat of Democrat Hubert Humphrey. In the following decades, the Republican Party continued to employ the Southern Strategy, eventually leading to a complete realignment of the parties. Joining me for a deep dive on the Southern Strategy is Dr. Kevin M. Kruse, Professor of History at Princeton University, author of several books on the political and social history of twentieth-century America, and co-editor with fellow Princeton History Dr. Julian E. Zelizer of Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies about Our Past.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Richard Nixon campaigning in 1968; it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The mid-episode audio is the "Go, Go Goldwater" radio jingle produced by Erwin Wasey, Ruthrauff and Ryan, Inc. (EWR & R) from the 1964 presidential campaign; it is widely available on YouTube and is sampled here for educational purpose. Additional Sources: To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party, by Heather Cox Richardson, Basic Books, 2021. “The Kansas-Nebraska Act,” United States Senate. “Missouri Compromise (1820),” National Archives. “Whig Party,” History.com, Originally Published November 6, 2009, Last Updated July 29, 2022. “Republican Party founded,” History.com, Originally Published February 9, 2010; Last Updated March 18, 2021. “What we get wrong about the Southern strategy,” by Angie Maxwell, The Washington Post, July 26, 2019. “Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy,” by Rick Perlstein, The Nation, November 13, 2012. “How the Southern Strategy Made Donald Trump Possible,” by Jeet Heer, The New Republic, February 18, 2016. “Paul Manafort's role in the Republicans' notorious 'Southern Strategy,'” by Sue Sturgis, Facing South, November 3, 2017. “Candace Owens wrongly called GOP’s Southern strategy a ‘myth,’” by Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post, April 9, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1983, Harold Washington took on the Chicago machine and won, with the help of a multiracial coalition, becoming the first Black mayor of Chicago. Winning the mayoral election was only the first fight, and 29 of the 50 alderpersons on City Council, led by the “the Eddies,” Aldermen Ed Vrdolyak and Edward M. Burke, opposed Washington’s every move. This week we look at Washington’s rise to the 5th floor of City Hall, who helped him get there, and the struggles he faced once elected. Joining me to help us learn more about Harold Washington is Dr. Gordon K. Mantler, Executive Director of the University Writing Program and Associate Professor of Writing and of History at the George Washington University and author of The Multiracial Promise: Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photo of Harold Washington, US Federal Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “WASHINGTON, Harold,” HIstory, Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives. “Mayor Harold Washington Biography,” Chicago Public Library. “Achieving the Dream: Harold Washington,” WTTW Chicago. “Who Was Harold Washington? A Look Back at the Legacy of Chicago's First Black Mayor,” NBC5 Chicago, April 15, 2022. “How Mayor Harold Washington Shaped the City of Chicago,” by Adam Doster, Chicago Magazine, April 29, 2013. “Punch 9 for Harold Washington [video],” directed by Joe Winston, 2021. “The Legacy of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington [video],” UChicago Institute of Politics, Streamed live on Apr 27, 2022. “ILLINOIS SETS UP AT LARGE VOTING; Governor Signs Emergency Bill for House Election,” The New York Times, January 30, 1964, Page 14. “Hyde Park Stories: Harold Washington Park,” by Patricia L. Morse, Hyde Park Historical Society, February 22, 2023.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On February 29, 1968, Lady Bird Johnson hosted the first–and last–White House Fashion Show. The fashion show, intended both to highlight the fourth largest industry in the United States and to promote domestic tourism, inadvertently became one of the many PR missteps of the Johnson administration, as it occurred in the midst of the Tet Offensive. Just one month later LBJ announced on national television that he would not seek reelection, and today the fashion show is largely forgotten.  Joining me to help us understand how and why Lady Bird Johnson ended up hosting a White House Fashion Show, and why it was never repeated, is fashion history Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, author of Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode is “The Stars and Stripes Forever March,” composed by John Philip Sousa and performed by the United States Marine Corps Band; the audio is in the public domain. The episode image is from the 1968 “Discover America” White House Fashion Show, available via the National Archives (NAID: 218517833, Local ID: 306-SSA-68-8218-CC5), and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Claudia Alta Taylor ‘Lady Bird’ Johnson,” The White House. “The Environmental First Lady,” Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, The University of Texas at Autin. “Spotlight: 1968 White House Fashion Show,” by Kaitlyn Crain Enriquez, National Archives - The Unwritten Record, August 10, 2021. “The White House Fashion Show [video],” White House Historical Association, posted on YouTube on June 14, 2022. “The 1968 Fashion Show, the History Lesson Melania Missed,” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Politico, March 5, 2018. “Why the First White House Fashion Show Was Also the Last,” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Slate, October 10, 2014. “Discover America Scarf,” Frankie Welch’s Americana: Fashion, Scarves, and Politics, UGA Special Collections Library Online Exhibitions. “TET: Who Won?” by Don Oberdorfer, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2004. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 19th Century New York, everyone knew who to go to to end an unwanted pregnancy: the French-trained, sophisticated Madame Restell, who lived in a posh mansion on 5th Avenue. In reality, Madame Restell was English immigrant Ann Trow Lohman, and she had never even been to France, but she managed to combine medical skill with her carefully crafted public persona to become tremendously wealthy, while providing a much-needed service. As the legal landscape of the United States grew ever more conservative, Madame Restell did her best to evade the authorities, and then Anthony Comstock knocked on her door. Joining me this week to help us understand more about Madame Restell is historian and writer Jennifer Wright, author of Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is part of Twelve Pieces for piano, op. 40, No. 9, Valse in F-sharp minor, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1878, performed by Kevin McLeod, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is “The arrest of abortionist Ann Lohman (a.k.a. Madame Restell) by Anthony Comstock,” from the February 23, 1878, edition of the New York Illustrated Times; scanned from The Wickedest Woman in New York: Madame Restell, the Abortionist by Clifford Browder; available via Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain. Additional sources: “Madame Restell: The Abortionist of Fifth Avenue,” by Karen Abbott, Smithsonian Magazine, November 27, 2012. “Life Story: Ann Trow Lohman, a.k.a. Madame Restell (1812 - 1878),” Women and the American Story, New York Historical Society. “When 'The Wickedest Woman of New York' Lived on Fifth Avenue,” by Simon Scully, Mental Floss, October 2, 2020. “Madame Restell’s Other Profession,” By Christopher Gray, The New York Times, October 10, 2013. “‘Sex and the Constitution’: Anthony Comstock and the reign of the moralists,” by Geoffrey Stone, The Washington Post, March 23, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her 2015 book, Gloria Steinem described the National Women’s Conference of 1977 as “the most important event nobody knows about.” The four-day event in Houston, Texas, which brought together 2,000 delegates and another 15,000-20,000 observers was the culmination of a commission appointed first by President Ford and then by President Carter, and was and funded by Congress for $5 million to investigate how federal legislation could best help women. The excited delegates believed that the conference would change history, so what happened, and why do so few people now even remember that it happened. Joining me to help us learn more about the National Women’s Conference are Dr. Nancy Beck Young, the Moores Professor of History; and Dr. Elizabeth Rodwell, Assistant Professor of Digital Media, who are both on the leadership team for The Sharing Stories from 1977 project through the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Retro Disco Old School” by Musictown from Pixabay. The episode image is from the final mile of the Torch Relay on its arrival to Houston on November 18, 1977. From left to right: Bella Abzug, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, Michele Cearcy, Betty Friedan, Billie Jean King. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration. Additional sources: Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics, by Marjorie J. Spruill, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. “Women Unite! Lessons from 1977 for 2017,” by Marjorie Spruill, Process :A Blog for American History, from the Organization of American Historians, The Journal of American History, and The American Historian, January 20, 2017. “The 1977 Conference on Women’s Rights That Split America in Two,” by Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 15, 2017. “Sisters of ‘77 [video],” Directed by Cynthia Salzman Mondell and Allen Mondell, March 1, 2005. “Spotlight: National Women’s Conference of 1977,” by Chucik, National Archives, November 16, 2017. “Women on the Move: Texas and the Fight for Women’s Rights,” Texas Archive of the Moving Image.  “National Women's Conference, 1977,” by Debbie Mauldin Cottrell, Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. “The 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston Was Supposed to Change the World. What Went Wrong?” by Dianna Wray, Houstonia Magazine, January 20, 2018. “Road Warrior: After fifty years, Gloria Steinem is still at the forefront of the feminist cause,” by Jane Kramer, The New Yorker, October 12, 2015. “What’s left undone 45 years after the National Women’s Conference,” by Errin Haines, The 19th, March 25, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By 1833, Lydia Maria Child was a popular author, having published both fiction and nonfiction, including the wildly successful advice book The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy. And she had been editing a beloved monthly periodical for children called Juvenile Miscellany for seven years. But her popularity crumbled precipitously when she published An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, arguing for the immediate emancipation of enslaved people. Child never stopped writing or fighting for the causes she believed in, but she never again reached the literary heights to which she’d seemed poised to ascend. Joining me to help us learn more about Lydia Maria Child is Dr. Lydia Moland, Professor of Philosophy at Colby College and author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The poem mid-episode, read by Teddy, is “The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day,” written by Lydia Maria Child and originally published in 1844 in Flowers for Children, Volume 2. The image is of Lydia Maria Child, from “Representative Women,” by L. Schamer, produced by Louis Prang Lithography Company, in 1870; the image is available courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and is in the public domain. Additional sources: “Lydia Maria Child,” Poetry Foundation. “Lydia Maria Child,” David Ruggles Center for History and Education. “October 20, 1880: Lydia Maria Child Dies,” Mass Moments. “Lydia Maria Child 1802-1880,” From a talk titled, “Here are some of her accomplishments” by Jane Sciacca, Wayland Historical Society, October 2018. “Lydia Maria Child,” National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. “William Lloyd Garrison,” National Park Service. “Lydia Maria Child Taught Americans to Make Do With Less,“ by Lydia Moland, Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2022. “Activists have always been frustrated at allies’ insistence on gradual change,” by Lydia Moland, Washington Post, March 28, 2022. “Books by Child, Lydia Maria,” Project Gutenberg “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself,” by Harriet A. Jacobs; edited by Lydia Maria Child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the morning of July 24, 1915, employees of the Western Electric Company and their families excitedly boarded the SS Eastland near the Clark Street Bridge in Chicago, eager to set off for a day of fun in Michigan City, Indiana, during their annual company picnic. Tragically, the ship capsized just 19 feet from the wharf in the Chicago River, killing 844 people in one of the worst maritime disasters in United States history. Joining me on this episode to help us understand more about the tragic Eastland disaster are Ted and Barb Wachholz, who co-founded the Eastland Disaster Historical Society with Barb’s sister, Susan Decker, and their mom, Jean Decker. Barb and Susan’s grandmother, Borghild Amelia Aanstad, who went by Bobbie, was 13 years old, when she, along with her sister Solveig, Mother Mariane, and Uncle Olaf, survived the capsizing of the Eastland. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Somewhere a Voice is Calling,” written by Arthur Tate in 1911. This recording is by the Revillon Trio in 1915 and is in the Public Domain. It is available via the Internet Archive. The image is a photograph taken on July 24, 1915 during the rescue operations; it is freely available via the Eastland Disaster Historical Society. Sources: Eastland Disaster Historical Society The Eastland Disaster by Ted Wachholz, Arcadia Publishing (SC), August 17, 2005. “The Forgotten Disaster of the SS Eastland [video],” Ask a Mortician, September 23, 2022. “The Eastland Disaster Killed More Passengers Than the Titanic and the Lusitania. Why Has It Been Forgotten?” by Susan Q. Stranahan, October 27, 2014. “The Eastland Disaster: New look at 100-year-old tragedy [video],” Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2015. “The Eastland Disaster,” WTTW Chicago. “1915 – Eastland Disaster,” Chicagology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve ever lived in Chicago, you’ve probably heard at some point that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. While that’s an exaggeration it’s certainly the case that the Chicagoland region has a large population of people of Polish descent and that Chicago is important historically to American Polonia. From the earliest Polish immigrants to Chicago in the 1830s through today, Poles have helped shape the culture, politics, religion, and food of Chicago. This week we dive into that history. Joining me to help us understand more about Polish Chicago is Dr. Dominic A. Pacyga, professor emeritus of history in the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago and author of several books on Polish immigrants and Chicago, including American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago in 2019. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is “Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 4, in B Flat Minor,” by Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, performed by Polish pianist and Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski in in the early 1920s and captured on an Aeolian Company "DUO-ART" reproducing piano; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is the Tadeusz Kościuszko Monument, an outdoor sculpture by artist Kazimierz Chodziński, installed in the median of East Solidarity Drive, near Chicago's Shedd Aquarium; the photograph was taken by Matthew Weflen on Sunday, February 19, 2023, and is used with permission. Additional Sources: “Poles,”by Dominic Pacyga, Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2005. “Can Chicago Brag about the Size of its Polish Population?” by Jesse Dukes, WBEZ Chicago, October 26, 2015. “Where Have All the Polish Pols Gone?” by Edward McClelland, Chicago Magazine, January 6, 2020. “How Chicago Became a Distinctly Polish American City,” by Marek Kępa, Culture.PL, April 27, 2020. “Explore Polish culture in Chicago’s neighborhoods,” Choose Chicago. “Chicago’s Milwaukee Av. to be renamed Polish Heritage Corridor in honour of city’s Poles,” by Stuart Dowell, The First News, June 20, 2022. “Chicago, The Polish City,” Interview of Dominic Pacyga by Łukasz Kożuchowski, Polish History. “Chicago’s Polish Constitution Day Parade is back. This year, it has a new theme,” by Adriana Cardona-Maguidad, WBEZ Chicago, May 3, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When businessman John H. Johnson died in 2005, Ebony Magazine, the monthly photo-editorial magazine that he launched in 1945, reached an estimated 10 million readers. Under the direction of executive editor Lerone Bennet Jr. for several decades, Ebony helped shape Black culture and perceptions of Black history. Johnson Publishing Company helped shape Chicago history, too, when they opened their Loop location in 1972, at 820 S. Michigan Ave. The now-iconic 11-story, 110,000 square-foot building was the first major downtown building to be designed by an African American architect, John W. Moutoussamy, and the first skyscraper owned by an African American in the Loop.  Joining me this week to help us understand more about Johnson Publishing is Dr. E. James West, a Lecturer at University College London, co-director of the Black Press Research Collective, and author of Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America, A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago, and Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is from the Sol Taishoff Award ceremony on February 25, 1986, where Don Hewitt, John Johnson and John Quinn were recognized for Excellence in Journalism. The video was aired on C-SPAN and is in the public domain. The episode image is “Ebony magazine, Volume LX, Number 12 honoring the life of John H. Johnson, the founder of Johnson Publishing Company, publisher of Ebony magazine,” from the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Bunch Family. Additional Sources: “Succeeding Against the Odds: The Autobiography of a Great American Businessman,” by John H. Johnson and Lerone Bennett, Jr., Johnson Publishing Company, October 1, 1992. “John H. Johnson, 87, Founder of Ebony, Dies,” by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, August 9, 2005. “The Radical Blackness of Ebony Magazine,” by Brent Staples, The New York Times, August 11, 2019. “Lerone Bennett Jr., Historian of Black America, Dies at 89,” by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, February 16, 2018. “75 Years of Ebony Magazine,” The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian. “Under new ownership, 'Ebony' magazine bets on boosting Black business,” by Andrew Craig, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, October 31, 2021. “New apartments pay homage to Ebony/Jet building's history,” by Dennis Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, September 9, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first Cook County Jail was a wooden stockade, built in 1833 in Chicago, which was then a town of around 250 people. Today, the Cook County Department of Corrections, which takes up 8 city blocks on the Southwest Side of Chicago, is one of the largest single-site jails in the country and incarcerates nearly 100,000 people a year. The history of the jail’s expansion is a story of urban politics and patronage, battles over criminal justice reform, and the racist underpinnings of mass incarceration.  Joining me to help us learn more about the Cook County Jail is Dr. Melanie Newport, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and author of This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is “Slow E-Guitar Blues Solo” by JuliusH from Pixabay. The image of the Cook County Department of Corrections is by Stephen Hogan on Flickr and was taken on October 24, 2017; it is used under Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0). Additional Sources: “Learning about American History and Politics through American Jails,” by Elaina Hancock, UConn Today, November 15, 2022. “Jails and Prisons,” by Jess Maghan, Encyclopedia of Chicago. “Cook County Jail’s History,” Cook County Sheriff’s Office. “A rare glimpse into a transformative time at Cook County Jail,” by Renata Cherlise, Chicago Reader, December 9, 2016. “Blues in the Big House [video]” “When a Psychologist Was in Charge of Jail,” by Melanie Newport, The Marshall Project, May 21, 2015. “The COVID-19 Struggle In Chicago's Cook County Jail,” Cheryl Corley, NPR, April 13, 2020. “Cook County to Proceed With End of Cash Bail in Wake of SAFE-T Act Ruling,” NBC5 Chicago, December 29, 2022. Organizations to support: Chicago Community Jail Support Chicago Community Bond Fund Uptown People's Law Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1936, Victor Hugo Green published the first edition of what he called The Negro Motorist Green Book, a 16-page listing of businesses in the New York metropolitan area that would welcome African American customers. By its final printing in 1966, the Green Book had gone international, with a 100-page book that included not just friendly businesses throughout the United States but also hotels and resorts that would be safe for African American travelers in Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa, along with a list of currency exchange rates.  Joining me this week to help us learn more about why African American travelers needed the Green Book and how Victor Green and his family created such an important and long-lasting publication is award-winning television and radio broadcaster and financial educator Alvin Hall, author of the new book, Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The musical interlude and music under the outro is: "Whiskey on the Mississippi," by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License. The image is "The Travelers' Green Book: 1961," Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Additional Sources: “Navigating The Green Book,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. “How the Green Book Helped African-American Tourists Navigate a Segregated Nation,” by Jacinda Townsend, Smithsonian Magazine, April 2016. “The Green Book: The Black Travelers’ Guide to Jim Crow America,” by Evan Andews, History.com, March 13, 2019. “Traveling While Black: The Green Book’s Black History,” by Brent Staples, The New York Times, January 25, 2019. “A look inside the Green Book, which guided Black travelers through a segregated and hostile America,” by George Petras and Janet Loehrke, USA Today, February 19, 2021. “The Movie Green Book Is Named for a Real Guide to Travel in a Segregated World. Its Real History Offers a Key Lesson for Today,” by Arica L. Coleman, Time Magazine, November 17, 2018. “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration,” by Isabel Wilkerson, Smithsonian Magazine, September 2016. “Sundown Towns,” by Ross Coen, BlackPast, August 23, 2020. “Sundown Towns,” Tougaloo College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The second half of the nineteenth century was a momentous time in Italian history, marked by the unification of the peninsula and the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. Three American women writers had a front-seat view of this history while they lived in Italy: Caroline Crane Marsh, the wife of the United States Minister; journalist Anne Hampton Brewster; and Emily Bliss Gould, founder of a vocational school for Italian children. Joining me to help us learn more about these American women in Italy in the late 19th Century is Dr. Etta Madden, the Clif & Gail Smart Professor of English at Missouri State University and author of several books, including Engaging Italy: American Women's Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo credits: Engraving of Emily Bliss Gould, by A.H. Ritchie, based on a portrait by Lorenzo Suszipj, in A Life Worth Living, by Leonard Woolsey Bacon, 1879, Public Domain; Anne Hampton Brewster, Albumen photograph, ca. 1874, McAllister Collection, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Caroline Crane Marsh, ca 1866, Fratelli Alinari, Florence, Special Collections Library, University of Vermont.  Additional Sources: “How Italy became a country, in one animated map,” by Zack Beauchamp, Vox, December 1, 2014. “Issues Relevant to U.S. Foreign Diplomacy: Unification of Italian States,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State. “The Italian Risorgimento: A timeline,” The Florentine, March 10, 2011. “About George Perkins Marsh,” The Marsh Collection, Smithsonian. “Ambasciatrice, Activist, Auntie, Author: Caroline Crane Marsh,” by Etta Madden, New York Public Library, December 19, 2018. “Traveling with Caroline Crane Marsh,” University of Vermont Special Collections, June 11, 2020. “Anne Hampton Brewster,” Archival Gossip Collection. “Anne Hampton Brewster: Nineteenth-Century News from Rome,” by Etta Madden, November 21, 2018. “Anne Hampton Brewster papers finding aid,” Library Company of Philadelphia. “Emily Bliss Gould: An American in Italy–A Guest Post,” by Etta Madden, History in the Margins, September 30, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and after months of increasing tension on campus, the students at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama occupied a building on campus where the Trustees were meeting, demanding a number of reforms, including a role for students in college governance, the end of mandatory ROTC participation, athletic scholarships, African American studies curriculum, and a higher quality of instruction in engineering courses.  Joining me to tell the story of the Tuskegee student uprising is Dr. Brian Jones, Director of New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools and author of The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo credit:  The photo used for this episode comes from: http://sammyyoungejr.weebly.com/the-movement.html. Additional Sources: “The Overlooked History of a Student Uprising That Helped Institutionalize Black Studies in the U.S.,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time, October 4, 2022. “History of Tuskegee University,” Tuskegee University. “Tuskegee Institute's Founding,” National Park Service. “Tuskegee Institute--Training Leaders,” African American Odyssey, Library of Congress “Tuskegee University (1881-),” by Allison O’Connor, Blackpast, October 27, 2009. “Booker T. Washington,” History.com, October 29, 2009. “The Tuskegee Student Uprising & Black education in America,” The Black Table, S1 E38. “Tuskegee Halts All its Classes; Tells Students to Go Home – Acts After Protests,” The New York Times, April 9, 1968. “The Moral Force of the Black University,” by Brian Jones, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 3, 2022. “Jan. 3, 1966: Sammy Younge Jr. Murdered,” Zinn Education Project. “Nov. 14, 1960: Gomillion v. Lightfoot,” Zinn Education Project. Sammy L. Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student To Die In The Black Liberation Movement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Throughout her life, Shirley Chisholm fought for coalitional change. She was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States in 1972, co-founder of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus, both in 1971, and co-founder of the National Congress of Black Women in 1984. Toward the end of her life, Chisholm told an interviewer: “I want history to remember me … as a Black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.”  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Anastasia Curwood, Professor of History and Director of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies at the University of Kentucky, and author of Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Shirley Chisholm speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, on July 12, 1972. The photographer was Warren K. Leffler, and the photograph is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress.  The audio clip of Shirley Chisholm speaking is from her presidential campaign announcement on January 25, 1972, in Brooklyn; the audio is courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archive, via C-SPAN. The audio clip of Rep. Barbara Lee is from Two Broads Talking Politics, Episode 433: Barbara Lee, which originally aired on October 9, 2020; the episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Kelly Therese Pollock and is used with express permission. Additional Sources: “‘Unbought and Unbossed’: When a Black Woman Ran for the White House,” by Jackson Landers, Smithsonian Magazine, April 25, 2016. “‘Unbought and Unbossed’: How Shirley Chisholm Helped Paved the Path for Kamala Harris Nearly Five Decades Ago,” by Stuart Emmrich, Vogue, August 20, 2020. “Politicians reflect on Shirley Chisholm's legacy 50 years after her historic presidential run,” by Anna Lucente Sterling, NY1, February 17, 2022. “CHISHOLM, Shirley Anita,” House.gov. “What You May Not Know About TC Alum Shirley Chisholm,” Teacher’s College, Columbia University, Published Wednesday, November 30, 2022. “Shirley Chisholm, 'Unbossed' Pioneer in Congress, Is Dead at 80,” by James Barron, The New York Times, January 3, 2005. “Congressional Black Caucus swears in its largest group in history,” by Cheyanne M. Daniels, The Hill, January 3, 2023. “Democratic women lawmakers who broke through in 2018 now step into leadership roles,” by Grace Panetta and Mel Leonor Barclay, The 19th, January 3, 2023. “Rep. Lauren Underwood elected to House Democratic leadership position,” by Lynn Sweet, Chicago SunTimes, December 1, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 1960s, Air Force surgeon Dr. Kenneth Cooper was evaluating military fitness plans when he realized that aerobic activities, what we now call cardio, like running and cycling, was the key to overall physical health. His 1968 book Aerobics launched the aerobics revolution that followed, as he inspired women like Jacki Sorensen and Judi Sheppard Missett to combine dance with exercise, creating Dance Aerobics and Jazzercise in the process.   I’m joined on this episode by Dr. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Associate Professor History at The New School and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Jacki Sorensen at an Aerobic Dancing, Inc., event in New York,” photographed by an employee of Aerobic Dancing, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Additional Sources: “The Fitness Craze That Changed the Way Women Exercise,” by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, The Atlantic, June 16, 2019. “History of Aerobic Exercise.” “Kenneth H. Cooper, MD, MPH,” CooperAerobics. “The 75-Year-Old Behind Jazzercise Keeps Dancing on Her Own,” by Samantha Leach, Glamour, June 21, 2019. “Jane Fonda’s 1982 Workout Routine Is Still the Best Exercise Class Out There,” by Patricia Garcia, Vogue, July 7, 2018. “Jane Fonda’s first workout video released,” History.com. “History: IDEA Health & Fitness Association. “Interview with Richard Simmons,” by Eric Spitznagel, Men’s Health, April 25, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stede Bonnet lived a life of luxury in Barbados, inheriting from his father an over 400-acre sugarcane plantation, along with 94 slaves. But in late 1716, when he was 29 years old, Bonnet decided to leave behind his plantation, his wife, and his three surviving children, all under the age of 5, to become a pirate, despite having no experience even captaining a ship. As Captain Charles Johnson put it in A General History of the Pyrates: “He had the least Temptation of any Man to follow such a Course of Life, from the Condition of his Circumstances,” blaming it on a “Disorder in his Mind.” So why did Bonnet leave behind his privileged life, and would he have made the choice again if he knew how it would turn out? Joining me in this episode to help us understand more about Stede Bonnet and his possible motivations is freelance historian Jeremy R. Moss, author of The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Oh, Better Far To Live And Die,” from The Pirates Of Penzance, written by Gilbert & Sullivan and performed by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1959, available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is: “Print engraving of Stede Bonnet in Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates,” Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.  The HBO Show loosely based on the life of Stede Bonnet that we reference in the episode is Our Flag Means Death, created by David Jenkins and starring Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet and Taika Wititi as Blackbeard. Additional Sources: “The Gentleman Pirate: How Stede Bonnet went from wealthy landowner to villain on the sea,” by Amy Crawford, Smithsonian Magazine, July 31, 2007. “The Life Of Stede Bonnet, The Gentleman Who Became A Pirate On A Whim,” by Genevieve Carlton, All That’s Interesting, August 9, 2022. “A Pirate’s Life Was His, Stede Bonnet’s,” North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, September 27, 2016. “Top-Earning Pirates,” Forbes, September 19, 2008. “Stede Bonnet and the Golden Age of Piracy: Part One,” by Danielle Herring, Library of Congress, December 8, 2022. “Stede Bonnet, Gentleman Pirate: how a mid-life crisis created the 'worst pirate of all time',” by Jeremy R. Moss, History Extra, March 3, 2022. “A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time,” by Captain Charles Johnson, 1724. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1775, a smallpox outbreak struck the Continental Northern Army. With many of the soldiers too sick to fight, their attempted capture of Quebec on December 31, 1775, was a devastating failure, the first major defeat of the Revolutionary War for the Americans, and cost General Richard Montgomery his life. Eventually, George Washington, the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, realized that the only way to avoid repeated outbreaks was to order mass inoculation of the amy, a controversial and risky decision that proved successful.  Joining me to help us learn more about smallpox inoculation during the American Revolution is Dr. Andrew M. Wehrman, Associate professor of history at Central Michigan University, and author of The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775,” a painting by John Trumbull from 1786; photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery; public domain. Additional Sources: “How an Enslaved African Man in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox,” by Erin Blakemore, History.com, February 1, 2019. “The origins of inoculation,” by Arthur Boylston, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2012), 105(7), 309–313.  “On This Day in 1721, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Inoculates his Son Against Smallpox,” Boston.gov, June 26, 2017. “Smallpox, Inoculation, and the Revolutionary War,” Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service. “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Smith, 13 April 1764 [electronic edition],” Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society.  “How a public health crisis nearly derailed the American Revolution,” by Andrew Lawler, National Geographic, April 16, 2020. “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination.” by Stefan Riedel, Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) 2005, 18(1), 21–25.  “History of the Smallpox Vaccine,” The World Health Organization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On August 27, 1893, a massive hurricane struck the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, battering the Sea Islands and Lowcountry through the next morning. Around 2,000 people in the thriving African American community perished that night, and many more died in the coming days and weeks as the impacts of the storm continued to be felt. The Red Cross, led by Clara Barton, organized relief efforts in conjunction with the local communities but with little money, as  both the state legislature and the US Congress declined appeals to help. Joining me to help us understand more about this 1893 hurricane and how it affected the course of South Carolina politics is Dr. Caroline Grego, Assistant Professor of History at Queens University of Charlotte, and author of Hurricane Jim Crow: How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry South. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Black women prepare potatoes for planting, February 1894,” from Clara Barton, The Red Cross, 199; the image is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Remembering the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893: Mermaids, culpability, and the postbellum Lowcountry,” by Caroline Grego, Erstwhile: A History Blog, September 21, 2016. “1893 Sea Islands Hurricane,” by Michele Nichole Johnson, New Georgia Encyclopedia. “The Sea Island Hurricane of 1893, 4th deadliest in U.S. history,” Eat Stay Play Beaufort. “The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893,” By Fran Heyward Bollin, Welcome to Beaufort. “The Sea Island Hurricane of 1893,” by Betty Joyce Nash, Economic History, Winter 2006. "Black Autonomy, Red Cross Recovery, and White Backlash after the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893," by Caroline Grego, Journal of Southern History, vol. 85 no. 4, 2019, p. 803-840.  “Sea Islands Hurricane,” Scribner’s Magazine, February 1894. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the Civil War, the simultaneous shift in the labor economy of the Southern United States and the second industrial revolution led to a growing interest in labor organizing. Newly formed labor organizations led a combined 23,000 strikes between 1881 and 1900. Employers noticed, and fought back, sometimes literally, employing Pinkerton agents to break strikes, rounding up and imprisoning or deporting union employees, and using various forms of intimidation against workers.  Joining me to help us learn much more about the story of employers and elites resisting labor rights is Dr. Chad. Pearson, a lecturer at the University of North Texas and author of Capital’s Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Labor Day” by Dick Wright & The Wright Trio, in the Public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is: “The labor troubles at Homestead, Pa. - Attack of the strikers and their sympathizers on the surrendered Pinkerton men,” drawn by Miss G.A. Davis, from a sketch by C. Upham. Pennsylvania Homestead, 1892, available via the Library of Congress with no known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: “Labor Movement,” History.com. “The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914,” by Ryan Engelman, U.S. History Scene “Founding of the National Labor Union and the 1st National Call for a 8-Hour Work Day,” Library of Congress. “The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor (1869-1949),” by Michael Barga, Social Welfare History Project. “The Haymarket Affair,” Illinois Labor History Society. “Our Labor History Timeline,” AFL-CIO. “The Battle of Homestead Strike – July, 1892,” The Battle of Homestead Foundation. “Coeur d'Alene Mining Insurrection: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As many as two million Irish people relocated to North America during the Great Hunger in the mid-19th Century. Even after the famine had ended, Irish families continued to send their teenaged and 20-something children to the United States to earn money to mail back to Ireland. In many immigrant groups, it was single men who immigrated to the US in search of work, but single Irish women, especially young women, came to the US in huge numbers. Between 1851 and 1910 the ratio of men to women arriving in New York from Ireland was roughly equal. Irish women often took jobs in domestic service, drawn by the provided housing, food, and clothing, which allowed them to send the bulk of their earnings back home to Ireland.   Joining me to discuss Irish immigrant women in the late 19th Century is Irish poet Vona Groarke, author of Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O'Hara. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The transitional audio is “My Irish maid,” composed by Max Hoffmann and performed by Billy Murray; Inclusion of the recording in the National Jukebox, courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment. The episode image is: “New York City, Irish depositors of the Emigrant Savings Bank withdrawing money to send to their suffering relatives in the old country,” Illustration  in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, v. 50, no. 1275 (March 13, 1880), p. 29; courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; no known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: “Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: Irish,” Library of Congress. “The Great Hunger: What was the Irish potato famine? How was Queen Victoria involved, how many people died and when did it happen?” by Neal Baker, The Sun, August 25, 2017. “The Potato Famine and Irish Immigration to America,” Constitutional Rights Foundation, Winter 2020 (Volume 26, No. 2).   “Immigrant Irishwomen and maternity services in New York and Boston, 1860–1911,” by Ciara Breathnach, Med Hist. 2022 Jan;66(1):3–23. “‘Bridgets’: Irish Domestic Servants in New York,” by Rikki Schlott-Gibeaux, New York Genealogical & Biographical Society, September 25, 2020. “The Irish Girl and the American Letter: Irish immigrants in 19th Century America,” by Martin Ford, The Irish Story, November 17, 2018. “Who’s Your Granny: The Story of Irish Bridget,” by Lori Lander Murphy, Irish Philadelphia, June 26, 2020. “The Irish-American population is seven times larger than Ireland,” by Sarah Kliff, The Washington Post, March 17, 2013. “Irish Free State declared,” History.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans in the 1950s, yearning to return to normalcy after the Great Depression and World War II, got married, had lots of kids, and used their newly middle-class status to buy cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs. But not everyone conformed to the white middle class American Dream. Black Americans were largely excluded from suburban housing and the benefits of the GI Bill; girls who became pregnant out of wedlock were hidden from sight; children with developmental disabilities were sent to institutions; and gay men hid their homosexual attractions for fear of ostracization, harassment, and even legal consequences. The secrets they kept took a toll on the families who kept them. Joining me to discuss the secrets of the 1950s is Dr. Margaret K. Nelson, Hepburn Professor Emerita of Sociology at Middlebury College and author of Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The transition audio is “The Great American Dream,” by Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra, 1950, available in the Public Domain via Archive. Org. The episode image is “1950s family Gloucester Massachusetts USA 5336436883,” via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Additional Sources: “The Lingering Legacy of America’s First Cookie-Cutter Suburb,” by Winnie Lee, Atlas Obscura, July 10, 2020. “The White Negro (Superficial Reflections on the Hipster),” by Norman Mailer, Dissent Magazine, Summer 1957. “1950s: Pop Culture Explodes In A Decade Of Conformity,” Encyclopedia.com. “These Rebels Fought Conformity in 1950s America—and Are Still Making a Difference Today,” by James R. Gaines, Time Magazine, February 3, 2022. “How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans,” by Erin Blakemore, History.com, June 21, 2019. “An analysis of out-of-wedlock births in the United States,” by George A. Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen, Brookings, August 1, 1996. “The curious survival of the US Communist Party,” by Aidan Lewis, BBC News, Mary 1, 2014. “The Baby in the Suitcase: In 1950s America, unwed pregnancy was a sociological crime,” by Dale M. Brumfield, Lessons from History, December 6, 2019. “1950s - Explore a Decade in LGBTQ History,” Victory Institute. “The Rise of the Suburbs,” US History II (American Yawp) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1970, writer Gordon Merrick published The Lord Won’t Mind, advertised as “the first homosexual novel with a happy ending,” his fifth novel but first to focus on a gay romance story. The novel was a hit and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks. Critics dismissed the work as fantastical, but Merrick, who had been a Broadway actor, newspaper reporter, and American spy before turning novelist, was writing what he knew. Despite his commercial success and enduring fan base, Merrick’s contributions have been ignored and forgotten. Joining me to help us understand Gordon Merrick and his writing is Dr. Joseph Ortiz, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso and author of the 2022 book, Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is the original cover from the 1970 publication of The Lord Won’t Mind. Additional Sources: “Gordon Merrick, 71, Reporter and Novelist,” The New York Times, April 23, 1988. “Gordon Merrick (1916 - 1988),” The Legacy Project. “The Curious Case of Gordon Merrick,” by Andrew Holleran, The Gay & Lesbian Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a girl born in 1883 to a family who couldn’t afford to send her to college, Elsie Robinson had limited options. To escape the drudgery of small-town life and then a stifling marriage, Elsie wrote. And wrote. And wrote. When her asthmatic son was home sick from school, she wrote and illustrated stories to entertain him. When she needed to make money to support herself and her son after her divorce, she wrote again. Eventually, her prolific writing caught the attention of the Hearst media empire, and Elsie became the most-read woman writer in America and the highest-paid woman writer in the Hearst organization. But today, few people remember Elsie Robinson or her writing. Joining me to help us learn more about Elsie Robinson is writer Allison Gilbert, co-author of Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America's Most-Read Woman. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Elsie Robinson, writer and columnist,” from the San Francisco Examiner, available via the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, and in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: Elsie Robinson “Elsie Robinson (1883-1956),” by Allison Gilbert, National Women’s HIstory Museum. “ELSIE ROBINSON, COLUMNIST, DIES; Author of Syndicated 'Listen World' for King Features Succumbs at Age of 73,” The New York Times, September 9, 1956. “Listen, Benicia: Famed syndicated columnist and city native Elsie Robinson will be focus of Capitol event,” by Nick Sestanovich, Benicia Herald, September 7, 2017. “Pain,” by Elsie Robinson, Poetry Nook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, much of the focus of reproductive rights organizing in the US was done in the states, and nowhere was that more effective than in New York, where leftist feminists in groups like Redstockings and more mainstream activists in groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) together pushed the state legislature to enact the most liberal abortion law in the country by early 1970. The wide range of reproductive rights activism in New York also included the headquarters for both the Clergy Consultation Service, which helped women find safe abortion care, and the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA), which fought the often deceptive population control inflicted on women of color.  Joining me to help us understand more about the push for reproductive rights in New York in the 1960s and 1970s is Dr. Felicia Kornbluh, a Professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Vermont, and the author of the upcoming book, A Woman's Life Is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Betty Friedan, president of the National Organization for Women, tells reporters in the New York State Assembly lobby of the groups intention to ‘put sex into section I of the New York constitution,’” Albany New York, 1967, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-DIG-ppmsca-83073]. Additional Sources: “How Clergy Set the Standard for Abortion Care,” by Bridgette Dunlap, The Atlantic, May 29, 2016. “Clergymen Offer Abortion Advice,” by Edward B. Fiskethe, New York Times, May 22, 1967. “The 1960s provide a path for securing legal abortion in 2022,” by Felicia Kornbluh, Washington Post, June 25, 2022. “Harsh, then a haven: A look at New York abortion rights history,” b​By Tim Balk, New York Daily News, May 07, 2022. “Remembering an Era Before Roe, When New York Had the ‘Most Liberal’ Abortion Law,” by Julia Jacobs, The New York Times, June 19, 2018. “The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions,” by Nona Willis Aronowitz, The New York Times, March 23, 2019.  “Karen Stamm collection of Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) records,” Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00811, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts. “Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) Statement of Purpose,” 1975. “Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias: A Warrior in the Struggle for Reproductive Rights,” by Kathryn Krase, National Women’s Health Network, January 5, 1996. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1966, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley declared that the first week of June would be known as “Puerto Rican Week,” culminating in the first Puerto Rican Parade, to honor the growing Puerto Rican population in the city. After the parade, while people were still celebrating, police shot a Puerto Rican man in the leg, following a pattern of police violence against the Puerto Rican community, which sparked a three-day uprising in the Humboldt Park neighborhood that changed Puerto Rican history in Chicago. Joining me to help us understand the Puerto Rican community in Chicago both before and after the Division Street uprising is Dr. Mirelsie Velázquez, an associate professor of education at the University of Oklahoma and author of Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Quiero Vivir en Puerto Rico,” performed by Marta Romero and Anibal Herrero y Su Orquesta, and written by Guillermo Venegas (Hijo). The audio is in the public domain and is available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is “June 12 1966: Smoke rises from burning squad car as a crowd surrounds it during riots in Humboldt Park,” from the 1960s: Days of Rage website. Additional Sources: “It Was a Rebellion: Chicago’s Puerto Rican Community in 1966,” Chicago History Museum, via Google Arts & Culture. “Chicago's 1966 Division Street Riot,” by Daniel Hautzinger, WTTW, September 2, 2020. "Recollections: 1966 Division Street Riot," by Mervin Méndez, Diálogo: Vol. 2 (1997): No. 1 , Article 6. “Puerto Ricans Riots: Chicago 1966,” Center for Puerto Rican Studies, CUNY Hunter. “Spanish-American War,” History.com “1917: Jones-Shafroth Act,” Library of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Labor leader and immigrant rights activist Bert Corona viewed Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the United States, both with and without documentation, as one people without borders, and he understood that their struggles were connected. While other Mexican American labor leaders were campaigning against undocumented workers, Corona fought to shift the opinions of Mexican Americans toward support for the undocumented and helped create a pro-immigrant consciousness among Latinos in the United States. Joining me to help us learn more about the life of Bert Corona is Dr. Eladio B. Bobadilla, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, whose 2019 dissertation looks at the roots of the Immigrants’ Rights Movement and who has written and taught about Bert Corona.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Bert Corona,” source unknown, believed to be available via Creative Commons. Sources: “‘One People without Borders’: The Lost Roots of the Immigrants’ Rights Movement, 1954-2006,” by Eladio B. Bobadilla, Duke University PhD Dissertation, 2019. “From the Archives: Bert Corona; Labor Activist Backed Rights for Undocumented Workers,” by George Ramos, Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2001. “The Legacy of Bert Corona," by Carlos Oretaga, The Progressive Magazine, August 1, 2001. “Remembering Immigrant Defender Bert Corona,” by Eladio Bobadilla, The Progressive Magazine, February 7, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Mexican Revolution in the early 20th Century was a pivotal moment in Mexican history, and it was also a pivotal moment in United States history, as huge numbers of Mexicans fled war-torn Mexico and headed to the US border. Many Mexican Americans in the US today are the descendants of refugees fleeing the Revolution. To understand more about the experience of immigrants who came to the United States during the Mexican Revolution, I’m speaking in this episode with writer Alda P. Dobbs, author of middle grade novels Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna and The Other Side of the River. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Bridge - El Paso to Juarez,” Bain News Service, ca. 1910, Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress, No known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: “The Mexican Revolution: November 20th, 1910,” EDSITEment, National Endowment for the Humanities, March 19, 2012. “How the Mexican revolution of 1910 helped shape U.S. border policy,” audio interview of Kelly Lytle Hernández by Tonya Mosley, NPR Fresh Air, July 5, 2022 “Early Twentieth Century Mexican Immigration to the U.S.,” American Social History Productions, Inc “The History of Mexican Immigration to the U.S. in the Early 20th Century,” interview of Julia Young by Jason Steinhauer, Library of Congress, March 11, 2015. “The Demographic Impact of the Mexican Revolution in the United States,” B.J. Gratton, M.P. Gutmann, R. McCaa & R. Gutierrez-Montes, Texas Population Research Center Papers, 2000. “Mexican Immigration to the United States,” byRamón A. Gutiérrez, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, July 29, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Through the 19th Century, the US-Mexico border moved repeatedly, and the shifting borderlands were a space of cultural and economic transition that often gave rise to racialized gendered violence.   In this episode I speak with Dr. Bernadine Hernández, Associate Professor of American Literary Studies at the University of New Mexico, an activist with fronteristxs, and author of Border Bodies: Racialized Sexuality, Sexual Capital, and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Borderlands. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Mexican church at the smelter, El Paso, Texas, United States, ca. 1907,” Detroit Publishing Co. No known restrictions on publication, Accessed via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources: “A moving border, and the history of a difficult boundary,” by Ron Dungan, USA Today, The Wall, 2018.  “The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border,” by Becky Little, History.com, March 14, 2019. “Mexico's Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution,” by Heather Brady, National Geographic, September 14, 2018. “The Republic of Texas - The Texas Revolution” The Treaties of Velasco,” Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission. “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848),” National Archives. “Refusing to Forget: The History of Racial Violence on the Mexico-Texas Border.” “Rodriguez, Josefa [Chipita] (unknown–1863),” by Marylyn Underwood, Texas State Historical Association. “Woman by the River: Chipita’s ghost lingers on in San Patricio on 156th anniversary of hanging,” by Paul Gonzales, News of San Patricio, November 15, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In mid-1930s, pregnant women in cities in California, Oregon, and Washington could obtain safe surgical abortions in clean facilities from professionals trained in the latest technique. The only catch? The abortions were illegal. The syndicate that provided these abortions was the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring, which  operated from 1934 to 1936 with clinic locations in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and San Diego, Long Beach, Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, California. It employed more than thirty people, which included not just doctors but also receptionists, nurses, and steerers who referred women to the Pacific Coast Abortion clinics from doctors’ offices and pharmacies.  Joining me to help tell the story of the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring is Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Assistant Professor of History at LaSierra University and author of From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969, the source for much of this introduction. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Jewel Inez Joseph, mother of Ruth Attaway who died after an abortion, in court, Los Angeles, 1935,” published in the Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1935, and is available via the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional Sources: “Abortion and the Law in California: Lessons for Today,” by Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, California History, February 1, 2022; 99 (1): 10–29.  “How California created the nation’s easiest abortion access — and why it’s poised to go further” by Kristen Hwang, Cal Matters, April 21, 2022. “San Diego’s History as a Haven for Desperate Women” by Randy Dotinga, Voice of San Diego, July 3, 2022. “‘Criminal Operations’: The First Fifty Years of Abortion Trials in Portland, Oregon,” by Michael Helquist. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 2015; 116 (1), 6–39.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett, the personal was political. After a difficult labor and delivery with her third child, a physician told Mary Ware Dennett she should not have any more children, but he told her nothing about how to prevent pregnancy. Dennett’s husband began an affair with a client of his architectural firm, destroying their marriage, and Dennett devoted her work to ensuring that other couples could receive information about birth control. A 1930 federal court case against her, United States v. Dennett, opened the door to widespread distribution of birth control information in the US. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Assistant Professor of History at Kennesaw State University and faculty research fellow at the Georgia State University College of Law’s Center for Law, Health & Society. She is writing a book called Battle for Birth Control: Mary Dennett, Margaret Sanger, and the Rivalry That Shaped a Movement, that will be published by Rutgers University Press. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photo of Mary Ware Dennett from the New York Journal-American Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University Of Texas. Sources: “The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People,” by Mary Ware Dennett, 1919. Available via Project Gutenberg. “Papers of Mary Ware Dennett,” Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute “The Sex Education Pamphlet That Sparked a Landmark Censorship Case,” by Sharon Spaulding, Smithsonian Magazine, September 30, 2021. “A Birth-Control Crusader,” by Marjorie Heins, The Atlantic, October 1996. “Mary Coffin Ware Dennett,” by Lakshmeeramya Malladi,Embryo Project Encyclopedia, June 22, 2016. “Unsentimental Education: Mary Ware Dennett’s quest to make contraception—and knowledge about sex—available to all,” by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The American Scholar, March 4, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1742, in Pomfret, Connecticut, 19-year-old Sarah Grosvenor discovered she was pregnant, the result of a liaison with 27-year-old Amasa Sessions. Instead of marrying Sarah, Amasa provided her with a physician-prescribed abortifacient, what the youth of Pomfret called “taking the trade." When that didn’t work to end the pregnancy, the physician attempted a manual abortion, which led to Sarah’s death. Three years later, the physician was tried for “highhanded Misdemeanour." The surviving trial documentation gives us an unusually detailed look into the reproductive lives of Connecticut youths in the mid-18th Century.  Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about the Sarah Grosvenor case and its historical context is Dr. Cornelia H. Dayton, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and author of the 1991 article, “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” in The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 1, 1991, pp. 19–49, and co-creator of the Taking the Trade website. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is original artwork created by Matthew Weflen. Additional Sources: “Abortion in Colonial America: A Time of Herbal Remedies and Accepted Actions,” by Kimberly Phillips, UConn Today, August 22, 2022. “The Strange Death of Sarah Grosvenor in 1742,” New England Historical Society. “The History of Abortifacients,” by Stassa Edwards, Jezebel, November 18, 2014. “How U.S. abortion laws went from nonexistent to acrimonious,” by Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, May 17, 2022. “In Connecticut, A Long Battle For Reproductive Freedom,” by Susan Campbell, Hartford Courant, June 5, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time, whose books have been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. You can probably name several of her books and recurring characters, but how much do you know about Agatha Christie herself? In our final British History episode, we look at Agatha Christie’s life, in the hospital dispensary, at home with her daughter, abroad on archeological digs, and behind the typewriter. Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about Agatha Christie is historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, OBE, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces and BBC presenter and author of the new book, Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, which will be published in the United States on September 6, 2022. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Agatha Christie as a young woman, circa 1910. It is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The audio interlude is “Mystery Waltz,” written by Raymond Scott and performed by Raymond Scott and His Orchestra in 1953. The audio is in the public domain and available via Archive.org. Additional Sources: AgathaChristie.com: The home of Agatha Christie “A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley,” BBC Select TV Mini Series, 2013. “When the World’s Most Famous Mystery Writer Vanished,” by Tina Jordan, The New York Times, June 11, 2019. “The Essential Agatha Christie,” by Tina Jordan, The New York Times, October 25, 2020.  “Why Agatha Christie is even more awesome than you thought,” by Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, PBS NewsHouse, September 15, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the United Kingdom joined forces with Turkey and France to declare war on Russia in March 1854, Jamaican-Scottish nurse Mary Seacole decided her help was needed. When the British War Office declined her repeated offers of help, she headed off to Crimea anyway and set up her British Hotel near Balaklava. The British Hotel, which opened in March 1855, was a combination general store, restaurant, and first aid station, and the British soldiers and officers came to love Mary and call her “Mother Seacole.” Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about Mary Seacole is historian and writer Helen Rappaport, author of the new book, In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian, which will be released in the United States on September 6, 2022. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Mary Seacole from an unknown source, believed to be dated around 1850; it is in the public domain.  Additional Sources: “Mary Seacole & Black Victorian History: Remarkable Women in Extraordinary Circumstances,” Helen Rappaport. Mary Seacole Trust. “The Crimean War,” by Andrew Lambert, BBC. “Crimean War,” History.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henrietta Maria, the French Catholic wife of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 17th Century, was called a “Popish brat of France” by her British subjects, blamed for the English Civil War, and seen as a mannish and heartless mother. The reality is, of course, much more nuanced. Henrietta Maria fiercely loved Charles and their children and fought to protect them in any way she could during a time of upheaval and violence. In this episode we push past the caricature of Henrietta Maria to see the real, complicated, person she was. Joining me in this episode is historian and writer Leanda de Lisle, author of the new book, Henrietta Maria: The Warrior Queen Who Divided a Nation, which will be released in the United States on September 6, 2022. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Henrietta Maria,” painted by Anthony van Dyck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “Who was Henrietta Maria of France?” Royal Museums Greenwich “Henrietta Maria, Queen Of Great Britain (1609-69),” Royal Collection Trust “Queen Henrietta Maria,” Merton College Oxford “English Civil Wars,” History.com  “The English Civil Wars: History And Stories,” English Heritage “British Civil Wars,” National Army Museum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Golden Age of Pirates, two fierce and ruthless pirates stood apart from the rest, despite their brief careers. The only women in their crew, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were aggressive fighters to the end, refusing to surrender even when their captain called for quarter.   Joining me to discuss Anne Bonny and Mary Read is pirate expert Dr. Rebecca Simon, author of the new book, Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode audio is “Pirate Song,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry F. Gilbert; and performed by Reinald Werrenrath in July 1925; the audio is in the public domain. The episode image is an illustration of Anne Bonny and Mary Read from the 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates; the image is in the Public Domain and available through the Internet Archive.  Additional Sources: “If There’s a Man Among Ye: The Tale of Pirate Queens Anne Bonny and Mary Read,” by Karen Abbott, Smithsonian Magazine, August 9, 2011. “How Anne Bonny and Mary Read Changed The Face Of Female Piracy,” by Katie Serena, All That’s Interesting, February 20, 2018; Updated May 24, 2021. “How Two 18th-Century Lady Pirates Became BFFs on the High Seas,” by Hadley Meares, Atlas Obscura, September 9, 2015. “The Female Pirates, Anne Bonny & Mary Read,” by Rebecca Simon, May 23, 2022. “Female pirate lovers whose story was ignored by male historians immortalised with statue,” by Maya Oppenheim, The Independent, November 19, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During World War II, the United States Army contracted with a group of engineers at the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering to build the ENIAC, the world’s first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer in order to more quickly calculate numbers for ballistics tables. Once the top-secret device was built, someone needed to figure out how to program the more than 17,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 6,000 switches, and 1,500 mechanical relays so that the calculations could be run. Six women mathematicians who had been manually calculating the figures, were chosen to develop the programming, which they worked out before they were even allowed to see the machine. Joining me to help us learn more about the ENIAC six is Kathy Kleiman, a leader in Internet law and policy, founder of the ENIAC Programmers Project, and author of the 2022 book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Photograph of World's First Computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator,” National Archives at College Park, ARC Identifier 594262. Sources: Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer by Kathy Kleiman The ENIAC Programmers Project “Jean Bartik, Software Pioneer, Dies at 86,” by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, April 7, 2011. “Frances E. Holberton, 84, Early Computer Programmer,” by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, December 17, 2001. The Computers: The Remarkable Story of the ENIAC Programmers, 2016, Vimeo On-Demand. “ENIAC Accumulator #2,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “The world’s first general purpose computer turns 75,” by Erica K. Brockmeier, Penn Today, February 11, 2021. “The Brief History of the ENIAC Computer,” by Steven Levy, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2013. “ENIAC: First computer makes history,” by Michael Kanellos, ZDNet, February 13, 2006. “ENIAC Programmers,” Women in Technology Hall of Fame Awards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A February 2021 report by National Nurses United found that while Filipinos make up 4% of RNs in the United States, they accounted for a stunning 26.4% of the registered nurses who had died of COVID-19 and related complications. Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the United States and especially so many of the frontlines of healthcare? To answer that question, we need to look at the history of American colonization of The Philippines, United States immigration policies, and the establishment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the US.  Joining me to help us learn more about Filipino nurses is Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the 2003 book, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History, and the new book, Asian American Histories of the United States. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Baby show arranged by Red Cross nurse, Phillipines [sic] Chapter, P.I. Philippines, 1922,” Courtesy of the Library of Congress, No known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: When the Reporter Asks You Why There Are So Many Filipino Nurses in the U.S.: You want more than the count of their lives lost,” by Catherine Ceniza Choy, The Margins, May 17, 2021. “Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the U.S.?” by Anne Brice, Berkeley News, May 28, 2019. “Why are there so many Filipino Nurses in California? After Filling a Nursing Shortage in the 1960s, Immigrant Caregivers Have Changed the Practice and the Politics of Health Care” by Catherine Ceniza Choy, Zocalo, September 20, 2019 “Sins of Omission How Government Failures to Track Covid-19 Data Have Led to More Than 3,200 Health Care Worker Deaths and Jeopardize Public Health,” National Nurses United, Updated March 2021. “COVID-19 takes heavy toll on Filipino health care workers,” PBS News Weekend, May 9, 2020. “The History of Medicare,” National Academy of Social Insurance.  “History, Philippines,” by Gregorio C. Borlaza, Britannica.  “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965,” History, Art, & Archives, United States House of Representatives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Alabama plantation owner Samuel Townsend died in 1856, he willed his vast fortune to his children and his nieces. What seems like an ordinary bequest was anything but, since Townsend’s children and nieces were his enslaved property. Townsend, who knew the will would be challenged in court, left nothing to chance, hiring the best lawyer he could find to ensure that his legatees received both their freedom and the resources they would need to survive in a country that was often hostile to free African Americans. To learn more about the Townsend Family, I’m joined in this episode by ​public historian Dr. R. Isabela Morales, the Editor and Project Manager of The Princeton & Slavery Project, and author of Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Fugitive African Americans fording the Rappahannock,” photographed by Timothy H. O’Sullivan in August 1862. The image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Additional Sources: “An enslaved Alabama family and the question of generational wealth in the US,” by Isabela Morales, OUP Blog, June 15, 2022. “Estate of Samuel Townsend,” The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections, Septimus D. Cabiness papers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Benjamin Franklin died in April 1790, his last will contained an unusual codicil, leaving 1000 pounds sterling each to Philadelphia and Boston, to be used in a very specific way that he hoped would both help tradesmen in the two cities and eventually leave the cities, and their respective states, with fortunes to spend on public works 200 years later. At a moment when it wasn’t clear whether the United States would survive at all, Franklin made a gamble on the American spirit. To learn more about the fascinating tale of Ben Franklin’s will, I’m joined by Michael Meyer, Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and author of Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder's Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a painting of Benjamin Franklin, by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis. It is available in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: Library of Congress Benjamin Franklin Papers Franklin Timeline, The Benjamin Franklin House Last WIll & Testament of Benjamin Franklin, Living Trust Network “​​From Ben Franklin, a Gift That's Worth Two Fights,” by Fox Butterfield, The New York Times, April 21, 1990 “How a 200-Year-Old Gift From Benjamin Franklin Made Boston and Philadelphia a Fortune,” by Jake Rossen, Mental Floss, August 20, 2020 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dale Evans is probably best known as the Queen of the West, the wife and co-star of the King of Cowboys, Roy Rogers. But before she ever met Roy, Dale had a successful career in singing, songwriting, and acting, and she had plans to be an even bigger star in musicals, which to Dale, meant not Westerns.  This week we do a deep dive into the life of Dale Evans and how she became a cowgirl, with historian Dr. Theresa Kaminski, author of the new book, Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Dale Evans taken by Harry Warnecke in 1947. It is in the public domain and available via the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. The musical interludes are “Don’t Ever Fall in Love with a Cowboy,” written and performed by Dale Evans in 1949; and “Cowgirl Polka,” written and performed by Dale Evans in 1950. The audio for both is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive.  Additional Sources: “Dale Evans (1912–2001),” by Nancy Hendricks, Encyclopedia of Arkansas, February 6, 2018. “Dale Evans, the Queen of the West, Is Dead at 88,” by James Barron, The New York TImes, February 8, 2001 “Roy Rogers + Dale Evans: A Love Story Made in the West,” by Courtney Fox, Wide Open Country, May 30, 2022 “Dale Evans,” RoyRogers.com “The story of Roy Rogers, the man behind the ‘King of the Cowboys,’” by Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer, June 19, 2022 “The Legacy Lives On: Meet Roy Rogers’ Children,” by Kim C, Country Rebel, November 2, 2020 Videos: Dale Evans Sings "I Love the West" (From "Bells of San Angelo", 1947) “Dale Evans: Beyond The Happy Trails: Dusty Rogers Interview” Roy Rogers & Dale Evans "They Call The Wind Maria & Wand'rin' Star" on The Ed Sullivan Show, 1970 Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Biography - Happy Trails Theatre Feature  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On July 4, Americans will eat 150 million hot dogs, spend $1 billion on beer, and watch 16,000 fireworks displays (and those are just the official ones). But why do we celebrate on July 4, when did it become a national holiday, and did John Adams eat hot dogs? Joining me for the story of the Declaration of Independence, why July 4th might not be the right date to be celebrating, and who the signers actually were, is historian, podcaster, and DC tour guide, Rebecca Fachner. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The musical interlude is “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” written by John Philip Sousa and performed by the United States Navy Band in 1929. The recording is in the public domain and is housed in the Internet Archive. The image is a photograph of “The Declaration of Independence: One of two ‘exact’ facsimiles given to James Madison on June 30, 1824, sent by John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State, according to Congressional Resolution. Copperplate engraving printed on vellum, William J. Stone, 1823.” Declaration is in the collection of David M. Rubenstein and is displayed in Chicago, Illinois. The photograph of the Declaration was taken by Kelly Therese Pollock on July 1, 2022.  Sources: “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” National Archives. “Opinion: Independence Day on July 2? John Adams got it right,” by David Cutler, PBS NewsHour, July 3, 2018. “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776,” Massachusetts Historical Society. “Fourth of July – Independence Day,” History.com, December 16, 2009; Updated June 21, 2022. “Where Did the Term ‘Gerrymander’ Come From?” by Erick Trickey, Smithsonian Magazine, July 20, 2017. “Forgotten Founders: Elbridge Gerry, The ‘Brusque Maverick,’” by Nicholas Mosvick, Constitution Daily, August 3, 2020. “10 Things You Didn't Know About the Fourth of July,” by Jason Serafino, Mental Floss, July 4, 2018; Updated June 28, 2022. “What's the History of July 4th? Plus, 22 Surprising 4th of July Facts,” by Linsay Lowe, Parade Magazine, July 2, 2022. “25 Fun 4th of July Trivia Facts to Spark Your Red, White, and Blue Spirit,” by Josiah Soto, The Pioneer Woman, June 17, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a hot weekend night in August 1966 trans women fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. Although the Compton’s riot didn’t spark a national movement the way Stonewall would three years later, it did have an effect, leading to the creation of support services for transgender people in San Francisco, and a reduction in police brutality against the trans community. Joining me to discuss the riot, its causes, and its aftermath, is historian Dr. Susan Stryker, co-writer and co-director of the Emmy-winning 2005 documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, and author of several books, including Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image origin is unknown; it is used as the cover image of the documentary, and appears in many related news stories without attribution. Additional sources: “At the Crossroads of Turk and Taylor: Resisting carceral power in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District,” by Susan Stryker, Places Journal, October 2021. “Compton's Cafeteria riot: a historic act of trans resistance, three years before Stonewall,” by Sam Levin, The Guardian, June 21, 2019. “Ladies In The Streets: Before Stonewall, Transgender Uprising Changed Lives,” by Nicole Pasulka, NPR Code Switch, May 5, 2015. “Don't Let History Forget About Compton's Cafeteria Riot,” by Neal Broverman, Advocate, August 2, 2018. “Compton's Cafeteria Riot,” by Andrea Borchert, Los Angeles Public Library, April 16, 2021. “How lost photos of a defining landmark in LGBTQ history were rediscovered on Facebook,” by Ryan Kost, San Francisco Chronicle, May 25, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1990, at the third annual Native American/First Nations gay and lesbian conference, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the term Two Spirit was established. An English translation of the Northern Algonquin term niizh manitoag, Two Spirit describes masculine and feminine qualities within a single person. As a pan tribal term, Two Spirit both connected organizers across different Native nations and also helped them re-discover the traditional terminology used in their own cultural history. Joining me to help us understand more about the Two-Spirit people is Dr. Gregory Smithers, a American history at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of the new book, Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “We-Wa, a Zuni berdache, full length portrait,” photographed between circa 1871 and circa 1907 by John K. Hillers, National Archives at College Park, Public domain. Additional sources: “What does 'Two-Spirit' mean? What to know about Two-Spirit, indigenous LGBTQ identities,” by David Oliver, USA Today, December 10, 2021. “8 Things You Should Know About Two Spirit People,” by Tony Enos, Indian Country Today, September 13, 2018. “Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ Identities: Today and Centuries Ago,” Human Rights Campaign, November 23, 2020. “The 'two-spirit' people of indigenous North Americans,” by Walter L. Williams, The Guardian, October 11, 2010. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 12-story Women’s House of Detention, situated in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City, from 1932 to 1974, was central to the queer history of The Village. The House of D, as it was known, housed such inmates as Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur, Andrea Dworkin, and Valerie Solanas, and was formative in their thinking and writing. On the night of the Stonewall Riots, the incarcerated women and transmaculaine people in the House of D, a few hundred feet away from The Stonewall Inn, joined in, chanting “Gay power!” and lighting their possessions on fire and throwing them out the windows onto the street in solidarity. Joining me to help us understand more about the Women’s House of Detention and its role in queer history is historian and writer Hugh Ryan, author of the 2022 book, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Women’s House of Detention, Jefferson Market Courthouse, View Northwest from West 8th Street, at Sixth and Greenwich Avenues, 1943,” Municipal Archives, Department of Public Works Collection. Additional Sources: “Prison Memoirs: The New York Women’s House of Detention,” by Angela Davis,The Village Voice, Originally published October 10, 1974. “The Women’s House of Detention,” by Sarah Bean Apmann, Village Preservation, January 29, 2018. “Women’s House of Detention,” 1931-1974, by Joan Nestle, Out History, Historical Musings 2008. “'The Women's House of Detention' Illuminates a Horrific Prison That 'Helped Define Queerness for America',” by Gabrielle Bruney, Jezebel, May 9, 2022. “Site of the Women's House of Detention (1932-1974),” by Rebecca Woodham and Clio Admin,” Clio: Your Guide to History. February 26, 2021. “The Queer History of the Women’s House of Detention,” by Hugh Ryan, The Activist History Review, May 31, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Queer suffragists were central to the women’s suffrage movement in the United States from its earliest days. However, in a movement that placed great importance on public image in service of the goal of achieving the vote, queer suffragists who pushed the boundaries of “respectability” were sometimes ostracized, and others hid their queerness, or had it erased by others. Joining me to help us learn about queer suffragists is historian Dr. Wendy Rouse, Associate Professor in History at San Jose State University. Dr. Rouse is the author of a new book from New York University Press, Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) and Mary Garrett Hay (1857–1928) casting ballots, presumably during the midterm elections, November 5, 1918.” Carrie Chapman Catt Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (128.00.00) Additional Sources: “When lesbians led the women’s suffrage movement,” by Anya Jabour, The Conversation, January 24, 2020. “How Queer Women Powered the Suffrage Movement,” by Maya Salam, The New York Times, August 14, 2020. “Carrie & Mollie & Anna & Lucy: Queering the Women’s Suffrage Movement,” by Susan War, American Experience, PBS, October 23, 2020. “The Very Queer History of the Suffrage Movement,” by Wendy Rouse, National Park Service. “The Queer Suffragists Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote: New research shows that women’s right to vote, now a century old, was won by a distinctly LGBTQ+ group of activists,” by Sarah D. Collins, Them, August 14, 2020. “When American Suffragists Tried to ‘Wear the Pants,” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, The Atlantic, June 12, 2019. “The Unconventional Life of Mary Walker, the Only Woman to Have Received the U.S. Medal of Honor: Dress reformer, women’s rights activist, and all-around pioneer,” by Anika Burgess, Atlas Obscura, September 27, 2017. “Annie Rensselaer Tinker (1884-1924) Of East Setauket And NYC: Philanthropist, Suffragist, WWI Volunteer In Europe,” by Catherine Tinker, Long Island History Journal, 2017. Related Episodes: Sophonisba Breckinridge Alice Dunbar-Nelson Mary Ann Shadd Cary Mabel Ping-Hua Lee Zitkála-Šá The Suffrage Road Trip of 1915 Fashion, Feminism, and the New Woman of the late 19th Century Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During Reconstruction, cotton planters in the Mississippi Delta recruited Chinese laborers to work on their plantations, to replace the emancipated slaves who had previously done the hard labor. However, the Chinese workers quickly learned that they couldn’t earn enough money picking cotton to send back to their families, and they turned instead to running small grocery stores, filling a niche in the market of the Deep South. At one point, the city of Greenville, Mississippi, had 40,000 residents and 50 Chinese-owned grocery stores. Although the numbers of Chinese Americans living in the Mississippi Delta region had dwindled now, their legacy remains. Joining me to help us learn about this history is filmmaker and musician Larissa Lam, director of the 2021 documentary Far East Deep South, which follows her husband’s family as they search for their own lost family history in the Mississippi Delta.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “In the Mississippi Delta. There is an ever-increasing number of Chinese grocerymen and merchants.” Marion Post Wolcott, photographer.  Leland, Mississippi, 1939. The photograph is courtesy of the Library of Congress and is in the Public Domain. Audio Credit: “The First Day,” by Larissa Lam, from the 2015 album Love & Discovery, Label: LOG Records/Del Oro Music. Song clip used with permission of the artist. Additional Sources: “The Legacy Of The Mississippi Delta Chinese,” Melissa Block and Elissa Nadworny, NPR, March 18, 2017. “Chinese in Mississippi: An Ethnic People in a Biracial Society,” Charles Reagan Wilson, Mississippi History Now, November 2022. “Neither Black Nor White in the Mississippi Delta: Two photographers document a community of Chinese-Americans in the birthplace of the blues,” James Estrin, The New York Times, March 13, 2018. “The Grocery Story of the Mississippi Delta Chinese,” Victoria Bouloubasis, Somewhere South, April 13, 2020. Mississippi Delta Chinese: Life in Chinese Grocery Stores. “Op-Ed: How African Americans and Chinese immigrants forged a community in the Delta generations ago,” by Larissa Lam, Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Patsy Mink’s first term in Congress in 1965, she was one of only 11 women serving in the US House of Representatives, and she was the first woman of color to ever serve in Congress. Mink was no stranger to firsts, being the first Japanese-American woman licensed to practice law in Hawaii, after being one of only two women in her graduating class at the University of Chicago Law School. She would later be the first Asian American to run for President.  Mink leaned on her own experiences of sexism and racism in writing and supporting legislation to help women, especially women of color and women in poverty. MInk co-authored and supported the landmark Title IX Amendment of the Higher Education Act,  that stated that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” After Mink’s death in 2002, Title IX was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. Joining me to help us learn about Patsy Mink are Dr. Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and Patsy Mink’s daughter, Dr. Gwendolyn (Wendy) Mink, former Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and former Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Smith College. Drs. Wu and Mink have co-authored a new book, Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “1972 campaign poster image from the Patsy Mink for President Committee,” Congressional Portrait File, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-122137) - Patsy T. Mink Papers at the Library of Congress. Image is in the Public Domain. Audio Credit: “The National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year 1975 sponsored this conversation with Rep. Martha Griffith (D-Michigan), Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) and Wendy Ross of the U.S. Information Service.” November 26, 1974. Video/Audio is in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: “MINK, Patsy Takemoto,” United States House of Representatives Archives. “Patsy T. Mink Papers” at the Library of Congress “Women who made legal history: Patsy Mink,” University of Chicago Law School, March 31, 2021. “Rewriting the Rules: Celebrating 50 Years of Title IX,” The William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the decades before World War II, 50,000 of the US-born children of Japanese immigrants (a quarter of their total population) migrated from the United States to the Japanese Empire. Although these second generation Japanese Americans (called Nisei) were US citizens, they faced prejudice and discrimination in the US and went to Japan in search of a better life.  Joining me to help us learn about the Nisei who returned to Japan, what motivated them, and the challenges they faced both in Japan and back in the US is Dr. Michael Jin, Assistant Professor of Global Asian Studies and History at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of Citizens, Immigrants, and the Stateless: A Japanese American Diaspora in the Pacific. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Two students pose outisde a building. Phillip Okano attended school in Japan from 1923-1933,” Courtesy of Okano Family Collection, Densho, This work is licensed under a Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Audio Credit: “Tanko Bushi (Coal Miners Dance),” performed by Masao Suzuki, 1956. Courtesy of the Internet Archive. Audio is in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: “Stranded: Nisei in Japan Before, During, and After World War II,” by Brian Niiya, Densho, July 28, 2016. “Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: Japanese,” Library of Congress. “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “First Japanese immigrant arrives in the U.S.” History.com, March 26, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are around 300,000 Thai Americans but almost 5,000 Thai restaurants in the United States. To understand how Thai restaurants became so ubiquitous in the US, we dive into the history of how Thai cuisine arrived in the US before Thai immigrants started to arrive in large numbers, and how Thai Americans capitalized on the popularity of their food to find their niche in the US economy. I’m joined in this episode by Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Dr. Mark Padoongpatt, author of Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Thai chef Salapirom Phanita, from Pattaya Marriot hotel catering, prepares food in the forward-deployed amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga's (LSD 46) galley during a cooking exchange with U.S. Navy chefs as a part of exercise Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Thailand 2013. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Amanda S. Kitchner/Released).” Please consider a donation to the Thai Community Development Center. Additional Sources: “How Thai food took over America,” by Francis Lam, The Splendid Table, January 10, 2019. “The Surprising Reason that There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America,” by Myles Karp, Vice, March 29, 2018. “Jet Tila on the Evolution of Thai Food in America,” by Gowri Chandra, Food and Wine, April 27, 2018. “Thai Food, Constructed and Deconstructed,” by Raegen Pietrucha, UNLV News Center, September 19, 2019. “The Decades-Long Evolution of Thai Cuisine in Los Angeles,” by Jean Trinhm KCET, December 12, 2018. “Thai Cusine’s Right Time and Place,” by Mimi Sheraton, New York Times, May 20, 1981. “Pad Thai Diplomacy,” by Savannah Wallace, Medium, August 9, 2020. “You Call This Thai Food? The Robotic Taster Will Be the Judge,” by Thomas Fuller, New York Times, September 28, 2014. “The Oddly Autocratic Roots of Pad Thai,” by Alex Mayyasi, Atlas Obscura, November 7, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Paik Lee (Paik Kuang Sun) was born in the Korean Empire on August 17, 1900, and was baptized by American Presbyterian minister Dr. Samuel Austin Moffett, one of the first American Presbyterian missionaries to come to Korea. In 1905, her family left Korea for Hawaii, fleeing the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula. Late in her life, Mary wrote a memoir, recounting her family’s struggles in Hawaii and then California, where they faced discrimination and poverty, all while striving to make a better life and holding firm to their Presbyterian faith. I’m joined in this episode by historian Dr. Jane Hong, author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion, who helps contextualize Mary’s story in the larger story of Asian immigration to the United States in the 20th Century. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Lee with their first son, Henry, in Anaheim, 1926,” from family photo albums.  Sources: Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America, by Mary Paik Lee and Sucheng Chan, with a Forward by David K. Yoo, University of Washington Press, 2019. “History of Korean Immigration to America, from 1903 to Present,” Boston University School of Theology: Boston Korean Diaspora Project. “Russo-Japanese War,” History.com, March 23, 2018 (Updated April 9, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paris has a long history as the fashion capital of the world. In the late 19th Century, American women, like European women, wanted the latest in French fashion. The wealthiest women traveled to Paris regularly to visit their favorite couturiers, like the House of Worth and Maison Félix, to update their wardrobes. For those women who couldn’t afford to travel, Paris came to them, via international expositions, magazines, and department stores.  I’m joined in this episode by art historian Dr. Elizabeth L. Block, author of Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion, who helps us understand how the American women who were purchasing gowns and dresses helped transform the fashion industry. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Mrs. William Astor (Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, 1831–1908),” painted by Carolus-Duran, 1890. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image is in the Public Domain. Audio Credit: “Nuit d'Etoiles (Starry Night),” written by Théodore de Banville and Claude Debussy; performed by Julia Culp and Coenraad V. Bos, 1917. Courtesy of the Internet Archive. Audio is in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: “Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895) and the House of Worth,” Metropolitan Museum of Art. “‘The Gilded Age’ Costumes are Like a Late-19th Century High-Fashion Street Style Editorial,” by Fawnia Soo Hoo, Fashionista, February 7, 2022. “How America’s Gilded Age Paved The Way For Fashion Today,” by Eilidh Hargreaves, Vogue, January 30, 2022. “Downtown, Uptown: From The Dry Goods Store To The Palace Of Consumption,” by Keren Ben-Horin, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of New York, Mary 16, 2018. “The history of haute couture,” Harper’s Bazaar, January 19, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, when Americans think of it at all, they take for granted the institution of The Cabinet, the heads of the executive departments and other advisors who meet with the President around a big mahogany table in the White House. But how did The Cabinet come into being? It’s not established in the Constitution, and the writers of The Constitution were explicitly opposed to creating a private executive advisory body. I’m joined in this episode by presidential historian Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, who helps us answer the question of how – and why – President George Washington formed the first Cabinet, and why it continued. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Washington and his cabinet [lithograph],” New York : Published by Currier & Ives, c1876. Via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Image is in the Public domain. Additional Sources: “The President’s Cabinet Was an Invention of America’s First President,” by Karin Wulf, Smithsonian Magazine, April 7, 2020. “Cabinet Members,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon. “The Cabinet,” The White House. “First Cabinet Confirmation,” United States Senate.  “The changing faces of Cabinet diversity, George Washington through Joe Biden,” by Lindsay Chervinsky and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, FixGov, The Brookings Institution, April 13, 2021. “The Cabinet of President Washington,” by By James Parton, The Atlantic, January 1873. “The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription,” America’s Founding Documents, National Archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the founding of the United States, there were people who opposed slavery, but many who grappled with the concept, including slave owner Thomas Jefferson, envisioned a plan of gradual emancipation for the country. In 1817, after the establishment of the American Colonization Society, free Blacks in Philadelphia and elsewhere began to fight for immediate abolition for all enslaved people in the United States. By the 1830s, they were joined in these efforts by white allies. Although not as well known as later abolitionists like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionists of the 1830s played a crucial role in building and popularizing the movement. These abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison, David Ruggles, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, the Forten Family, and the Grimké sisters, faced personal violence, destruction of property, financial ruin, and physical maladies as they raised their voices and put their bodies on the line for the cause. I’m joined in this episode by J.D. Dickey, author of The Republic of Violence: The Tormented Rise of Abolition in Andrew Jackson's America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Anti-Slavery Meeting on the [Boston] Common” From Gleason's Pictorial, May 3, 1851. Photomural from woodcut. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Additional Sources: “Jan. 15, 1817: The Vote on Colonization of Free Blacks in West Africa,” The Zinn Education Project. “Africans in America,” PBS. “Grimke Sisters,” National Park Service. “The Abolitionists,” American Experience, PBS, Aired January 8, 2013. David Ruggles Center for History and Education. “Friends of Freedom: The Pennsylvania Female Anti-Slavery Society,” Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  Related Episodes: The Nativist Riots of Philadelphia in 1844 Prohibition in the 1850s Freedom Suits in Maryland & DC, 1790-1864 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In June 1913, a group of four men ascended to the peak of Denali, the first humans known to have reached the highest point in North America. In a time before ultra lightweight and high-tech equipment, Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Robert Tatum, and Walter Harper had to haul heavy loads of food and supplies and books up the mountain with them, battling fire and clearing away earthquake debris along the way. After nearly two months of expedition, they finally stood atop the world. I’m joined in this episode by Patrick Dean, author of A Window to Heaven: The Daring First Ascent of Denali: America's Wildest Peak. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo Credit: “Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens, 1913.” Photo is in the public domain. Book excerpt: “The Ascent of Denali (Mount Mckinley): A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest Peak in North America,” by Hudson Stuck. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918. The book is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “The First Ascent of Denali: Digital Exhibits,” National Park Service. “Expedition Denali: Making History, Building a Legacy,” by Aparna Rajagopal-Durbin, National Geographic, March 26, 2012. “What It's Like to Climb Denali, North America's Highest Peak,” by James Barkman, Field Mag, June 11, 2018. “Mt. McKinley Owes Its Name to an Epic Act of Trolling,” by Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic, August 31, 2015. “The Long History Behind Renaming Mt. McKinley,” by Ben Railton, Talking Points Memo, September 1, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When German troops invaded Austria in 1938, Cordelia Dodson was visiting Vienna, living with her siblings as they studied German, attended the opera, and marched with Austrian students protesting against Hitler. Even with this experience, Cordelia may have settled into academic life in the United States, but when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and the US entered the war, she felt called to serve her country. In a decades-long career in Europe, Cordelia Dodson Hood combined her linguistic skill, her phenomenal memory, and her ability to connect with people, to gather and analyze intelligence, first about the Germans, and then about the Soviets. Despite the importance of her intelligence work, her story has been largely hidden, overshadowed by the splashier spies of the time. I’m joined in this episode by Kathleen C. Stone, author of They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo Credit: “Cordelia Hood, undated.” Photograph by Nam de Beaufort, courtesy of Sarah Fisher. Audio credit: “Wiener Blut (Vienna Blood),” written by Johann Srauss, and performed by Erna Sack in July 1949, Public Domain. Additional Sources: “Intelligence officer did fieldwork for OSS and CIA: Cordelia Dodson Hood ’36, MA ’41.” Reed Magazine, December 2011. “Cordelia Dodson Hood,” The Lincoln County News, July 31, 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1967, a Cleveland talent agent named Sid Friedman decided to capitalize on the popularity of football in the rust belt by launching a women’s football league, which he envisioned as entertainment, complete with mini-skirts and tear-away jerseys. The women he recruited had other ideas, and soon they were playing competitive tackle football, not in skirts but in football uniforms.  In 1974, the owners of several teams around the country, some from Friedman’s WPFL and some independent of it, formed to create their own league: the National Women’s Football League, the NWFL, which started with 7 teams and grew within a few years to 14 teams across three divisions. The league faced financial difficulties from the beginning and finally folded in 1989, but the desire of women to play professional football lives on. I’m joined in this episode by Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, authors of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo Credit: Brenda Cook, Brant Hopkins, and Baby Murf, Houston Herricanes. January 1979, Safety Valve, Published Monthly by Houston Natural Gas Corp., original photo provided by Brenda Cook, Houston Herricanes. Additional Sources: “Revolution on the American Gridiron: Gender, Contested Space, and Women’s Football in the 1970s,” by Andrew D. Linden, The International Journal of the History of Sport (2015), 32:18, 2171-2189. “The Unusual Origins of the Dallas Bluebonnets, the Trailblazing Women’s Football Team: An excerpt from the new book Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League,” D Magazine, November 2, 2021. “Remembering Toledo’s Troopers: Film to tell story of ’70s female football team,” by Tom Henry, The Blade, June 16, 2013. “Almost Undefeated: The Forgotten Football Upset of 1976: How the Toledo Troopers, the most dominant female football team of all time, met their match,” by Britni de la Cretaz, Longreads, February 19, 2019. “How sexism and homophobia sidelined the National Women's Football League,” by Victoria Whitley-Berry, NPR Morning Edition, November 3, 2021. “The Forgotten History of Women’s Football,” by Erica Westly, Smithsonian Magazine, February 5, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born in 1911, Mildred Ella Didrikson Zaharias, who went by the nickname “Babe,” was a phenomenal, and confident athlete. Babe won Olympic gold in track and field, was an All American player in basketball, pitched in exhibition games in Major League Baseball, and won 17 straight women’s amateur golf tournaments, before turning pro and co-founding the LPGA.In a society that didn’t welcome women like Babe, she nonetheless forged her own path and won the hearts of fans along the way. I’m joined in this episode by History Professor Dr. Corye Perez Beene, author of the biweekly newsletter Awesome American Sports, who makes the case that Babe was the greatest American athlete who has ever lived. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: "Babe Didrikson,” National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Object number NPG.97.211. The image is in the public domain. Sources: Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, by Susan E. Cayleff, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996. This life I've led: my autobiography, by Babe Didrikson Zaharias. New York: Barnes, 1955. Babe Conquers the World: The Legendary Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, by Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace, New York: Calkins Creek, 2014. “Remembering A 'Babe' Sports Fans Shouldn't Forget,” All Things Considered, NPR, June 26, 2011. “The 'greatest all-sport athlete' who helped revolutionize women's golf,” by Ben Morse, CNN, September 8, 2020. “Babe Zaharias Dies; Athlete Had Cancer,” The New York Times, September 28, 1956 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hundred fifty years ago, President Ulysses S. Grant signed an act establishing Yellowstone National Park into law, making it the first national park in the United States, and a cause for celebration in a country still recovering from the devastating Civil War. Not everyone celebrated, though, including Native Americans who had called the land home for thousands of years before white trappers and explorers first experienced the wild majesty of the landscape.  To learn more about the men who championed the creation of the park and the Indigenous resistance to it, I’m joined by historian Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of the new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The between-segment song is “The Fellow in Yellowstone Park,” written by Gilbert Fogarty and performed by Kitty Kallen, assisted by Four Chicks and Chuck, in 1949. The song is available in the public domain through the Internet Archive.  The episode image is: “Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park,” Painted by Thomas Moran in 1873. The painting is in the collect of Smithsonian American Art Museum, a gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III, and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “How Sitting Bull’s Fight for Indigenous Land Rights Shaped the Creation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Smithsonian Magazine, March 1, 2022. “The Big Business Politics Behind the Formation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, March 1, 2022. “History and Culture,” Yellowstone National Park, National Park Service. “Yellowstone turns 150. Here's a peek into the national park's history,” by Jaclyn Diaz, NPR, March 1, 2022. “Yellowstone National Park celebrates 150 wild years -- and what a history it's been,” by Forrest Brown, CNN, February 28, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee (or Creek), and Seminole Nations – known as “The Five Civilized Tribes” by white settlers – were forcibly moved from their lands in the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), they brought their possessions with them, including the people of African descent whom they had enslaved. After the Civil War, these slaves were freed and freedpeople were included in the allocation of Native lands undertaken by the Dawes Commission, making them the one group of former slaves to receive some reparations. However, like freedpeople in the South, their status and rights were often precarious and changed over time, especially with the establishment of Oklahoma statehood in 1907. To learn more, I’m joined by Dr. Alaina E. Roberts, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, and author of I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, Date Unknown; Oklahoma Historical Society.” Additional Sources: “Freedmen History,” Oklahoma Historical Society. We're not going anywhere': Choctaw Freedmen cite history, ties to Tribal Nation in fight for citizenship, by Allison Herrera, KOSU, September 22, 2021. “Black Freedmen struggle for recognition as tribal citizens,” by Sean Murphy, AP News, May 1, 2021. “7 questions about Freedmen answered,” by Brian Oaster, High Country News, October 11, 2021. “Tribes to Confront Bias Against Descendants of Enslaved People,” by Chris Cameron and Mark Walker, The New York Times, May 28, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NOTE: Alice Dunbar-Nelson's story includes acts of sexual violence. Listeners may wish to skip past the introduction to avoid this content. Poet, essayist, and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson is perhaps best known as the widow of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, but she is a remarkable figure in her own right.  Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who had only recently been freed from slavery and an unknown father, Alice graduated from Straight University (later Dillard University), became a teacher, and quickly started her own writing career. Throughout her life, Alice continued to teach and to write and to speak out on issues of women’s suffrage and civil rights for African Americans. To learn more about Alice Dunbar-Nelson, I’m joined by Dr. Tara T. Green, Professor of African American and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and author of the 2022 book, Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “MSS 0113, Alice Dunbar-Nelson papers, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.”  Additional Sources: “Feminize Your Canon: Alice Dunbar-Nelson,” by Joanna Scutts, The Paris Review, September 28, 2020. “An Unsung Legacy: The work and activism of Alice Dunbar-Nelson,” by Grace Miller, Unbound Blog, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, March 12, 2020. “I am an American! The Authorship and Activism of Alice Dunbar-Nelson [Virtual Exhibit],” The Rosenbach, Free Library of Philadelphia. “Alice Dunbar-Nelson Reads [Virtual Exhibit],” The University of Delaware. Writings of Alice Dunbar-Nelson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On February 14, 1945, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean and surviving a run-in with a Nazi U-Boat, the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion disembarked the Île-de-France in Glasgow, Scotland.  The task awaiting the only all-Black, all-female battalion overseas during World War II was daunting. There were airplane hangars filled with a backlog of millions of pieces of mail sitting in Birmingham, England, addressed from friends and family to service members stationed across Europe.  Despite segregation and poor working and living conditions, the Six Triple Eight made quick work of the postal backlog, doing their part to lift morale among the American military personnel stationed in Europe. To learn more about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, I’m joined now by writer Kaia Alderson, author of Sisters in Arms: A Novel of the Daring Black Women Who Served During World War II. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Inspection of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion,” Courtesy of the U.S. Army. Additional Sources: “6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion (Women's Army Corps),” Prepared by Kathleen Fargey, AAMH-FPO, U.S. Army, February 14, 2014. “The Women’s Army Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service,” by Judith A. Bellafaire, U.S. Army Center for Military History Publication 72-15. “The 6888 Postal Directory Battalion- Heroes of World War II [video],” Marking History Channel, July 21, 2021. “The Black Female Battalion That Stood Up to a White Male Army,” by Christina Brown Fisher, The New York Times, June 17, 2020. “The SixTripleEight: No Mail, Low Morale,” National World War II Museum, February 10, 2021. “Seventy-Five Years Ago, the Military’s Only All-Black Female Band Battled the War Department and Won,” by Carrie Hagen, Smithsonian Magazine, March 28, 2019. Related Episodes of Unsung History: “The Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II,” with Dr Katherine Sharp Landdeck “Alaska Territorial Guard in World War II,” with Dr. Holly Guise “Women in the U.S. Military during the Cold War,” with Dr. Tanya Roth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julia Chinn was born into slavery in Kentucky at the tail end of the 18th Century. Despite laws against interracial marriage, Richard Mentor Johnson, the ninth Vice President of the United States, called Julia Chinn his wife, and he recognized their daughters together as his. Johnson left Julia in charge of his Blue Spring Farm when he was away in DC for months at a time, and Julia ran the household and plantation, managed the business affairs, and worked as both manager and nurse at the Chocktaw Academy boarding school for Native American boys on the property. When the Marquis de Lafayette visited Blue Spring, Julia Chinn organized a magnificent celebration in his honor, a party for 5,000 guests, where her daughters performed on the piano. Even while trusting Julia with this authority and openly discussing their relationship, Richard never emancipated Julia Chinn; she remained his property until her death. Joining me to discuss Julia Chinn is Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, and author of an upcoming book on Julia Chinn. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is an artist rendition by Matthew Weflen. Sources: “Disorderly Communion: Julia Chinn, Richard Mentor Johnson, and Life in an Interracial, Antebellum, Southern Church,” by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, The Journal of African American History, Volume 105, Number 2, Spring 2020. The Erasure and Resurrection of Julia Chinn, U.S. Vice President Richard M. Johnson’s Black Wife,” by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, Association of Black Women Historians, March 3, 2019. “He became the nation’s ninth vice president. She was his enslaved wife.” by Ronald G. Shafer, Washington Post, February 7, 2021. “The Lost Story Of Julia Chinn,” by Leslie Potter, Kentucky Life, February 19, 2020. “Choctaw Indian Academy,” by Deana Thomas, Explore Kentucky History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In fall 1947 the Shell Oil Company hired a Women’s Travel Director named Carol Lane, who served in the role until she retired in 1974. Lane’s job was to encourage women to travel, showing them the joys of touring the country by car. Lane herself traveled around the United States and Canada, speaking to women’s clubs and on radio and TV, giving travel tips and packing demonstrations. Eventually, she even awarded women who developed local travel safety programs with the Carol Lane Award. So who was Carol Lane? To learn the answer to that question, I’m joined on this episode by historian Melissa Dollman, author of the digital dissertation, Changing Lanes: A Reanimation of Shell Oil’s Carol Lane, which was the source I consulted in writing the introduction to this episode. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The image is from the booklet Carol Lane’s Dress-O-Graph, from 1953, which is in the public domain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The rise of Nazism before World War II wasn’t limited to Germany. The German-Americna Bund (Amerikadeutscher Volksbund) formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1936, to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany. It quickly grew to 70 local groups around the country, with 20 training camps where kids aged 8-18 practiced military drills and wore Nazi-style uniforms. By 1939, 20,000 people attended the Bund’s Pro American Rally in Madison Square Garden. When Prohibition ended in 1933, Jewish American gangsters who had been running liquor businesses suddenly had more time on their hands, and they decided to fight back against the Bund. In Newark, New Jersey, Abner “Longie” Zwillman formed a secret organization called the Minutemen to fight the Nazis. The Minutemen, who operated from 1933 to 1941, would break up Bund meetings using their fists, baseball bats, and stink bombs. The Minutemen were based in New Jersey, but Jewish gangsters around the country fought the Bund, including in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. To help us learn more, I’m joined on this episode by Leslie K. Barry, author of the historic novel, Newark Minutemen: A True 1930s Legend about One Man's Mission to Save a Nation's Soul Without Losing His Own, whose uncle was a Minuteman in Newark in the 1930s. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The image is: “German American Bund parade in New York City on East 86th St.,” World-Telegram photo, New York, 1937, Public Domain. The audio clip is from the German American Bund Rally on February 20, 1939, and is in the Public Domain.   Additional Sources: “There Were American Nazi Summer Camps Across the US in the 1930s,” by George Dvorsky, Gizmodo, November 19, 2015. “American Nazis in the 1930s—The German American Bund,” by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, June 5, 2017. “When Nazis Took Manhattan,” by Sarah Kate Kramer, NPR: All Things Considered, February 20, 2019. “American Nazis and Nazi Sympathizers Have Been Around Since the 1930’s,” by Eric Ginsburg, Teen Vogue, November 26, 2018. “American Nazism and Madison Square Garden,” The National World War II Museum, April 14, 2021. “Field of Vision - A Night at the Garden [video],” directed by Marshall Curry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann Shadd Cary, born in Delaware in 1823, was a teacher, a writer, an abolitionist, a suffragist, and a lawyer, and is considered to be the first Black woman to publish and edit a newspaper in North America, The Provincial Freeman. When abolitionist Frederick Douglass asked readers of his newspaper in 1848 for suggestions on how to improve life for African Americans, Shadd Cary answered: “We should do more and talk less,” and she spent her life following that motto in both the United States and in Canada, despite the challenges she faced both as an African American and as a woman. To help us understand more, I’m joined by Dr. Jane Rhodes and Dr. Kristin Moriah. Dr. Rhodes is a Professor of Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Dr. Moriah is Assistant Professor of African American Literary Studies at Queen's University and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Black Digital Research (CBDR) at Penn State where her projects include digitizing Mary Ann Shadd Cary's papers. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The image is the only known photograph of Mary Ann Shadd Cary; the photographer is unknown. Additional Selected Sources: “Overlooked No More: How Mary Ann Shadd Cary Shook Up the Abolitionist Movement,” by Megan Specia, The New York Times, June 6, 2018. “Mary Ann Shadd Cary: History,” by Adrienne Shadd, Library and Archives Canada, November 1, 2019. “Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Lawyer, Educator, Suffragist,” by Jennifer Davis, Library of Congress, February 28, 2019. Black Women's Organizing Project, Center for Black Digital Research, Penn State “Mary Ann Shadd Cary: In the Here and Now (Day 1) [video],” Recorded on October 1, 2021. “Mary Ann Shadd Cary: In the Here and Now (Day 2) [video],” Recorded on October 2, 2021 “Mary Ann Shadd Cary Event Series: The Power of Black Art [video],” Recorded on October 9, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In February, 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, a small group of unionized workers at the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, went on strike. When management failed to sign a promised contract by the April 1 deadline, more workers went on strike. And this time they had help from the Unemployed League. What started as a small walkout turned into a massive demonstration by 10,000 strikers, and a battle with the Ohio National Guard, and is now regarded as one of the most important strikes in U.S. history. Joining me on this episode to help us learn more about the Auto-Lite strike is labor historian Dr. Bradley Sommer. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is the front page of The Toledo News-Bee on May 24, 1934. Selected Sources: “The More Things Stay the Same: Lessons from 1934,” by Bradley Sommer, Labor and Working-Class History Association, June 17, 2015. “From Toledo to Standing Rock,” by Bradley Sommer, Jacobin, October 2016. “Lou Hebert on the Auto-Lite Labor Strike,” C-SPAN, July 22, 2019. “Auto-Lite Strike,” Toledo Lucas County Public Library. “Blue-collar origins: Toledo is a city built on the back of labor,” by Jay Skebba, The Toledo Blade, September 2, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In September 1915, four suffragists set off from the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California, in a brand-new Overland 6 convertible to make the 3,000-mile drive across the country to deliver a petition for women’s suffrage to President Woodrow Wilson on the opening day of Congress in December. Along the way they faced illness, terrible driving conditions, and opposition to women’s suffrage.  Joining me to help us learn more about the road trip, and especially the unsung Swedish immigrant heroines, driver Maria Kindberg and mechanic Ingeborg Kindstedt, is historian and activist, Anne Gass, author of the 2021 book, We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Suffrage envoy Sara Bard Field left and her driver, Maria Kindberg center, and machinist Ingeborg Kindstedt right during their cross-country journey to present suffrage petitions to Congress, September-December. United States Washington D.C, 1915,” Public Domain, Located at the Library of Congress. The audio recording clip is: “Fall in Line (Suffrage March),” Written by Zena S. Hawn, and Performed by the Victor Military Band on July 15, 1914, Public Domain, Internet Archive. Selected Additional Sources: “Rhode Island’s Two Unheralded Suffragists,” Small State Big History, by Russell DeSimone, January 11, 2020 “Historical Timeline of the National Womans Party,” Library of Congress “Traveling for Suffrage Part 1: Two women, a cat, a car, and a mission,” by Patri O'Gan, National Museum of American HIstory, March 5, 2014 “Maria Kindberg,” Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame “Ingeborg Kindstedt,” Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame “Sara Bard Field (1882-1974),” by Tim Barnes, Oregon Encyclopedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Enslaved Africans in what is now New York State and in the Middle Passage resisted their enslavement, despite the risk of doing so. In the previously accepted history of these slave revolts, the assumption was that men led the resistance, but Dr. Rebecca Hall dug deeper into the records and read against the grain to find the women warriors who fought for their freedom. Joining me to help us learn more is Dr. Rebecca Hall, a scholar, activist and educator, who writes and speaks on the history of race, gender, law and resistance, and author of the recent highly-acclaimed graphic novel, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “Negro quarters, T.J. Fripp plantation, St. Helena Island (near Beaufort), S.C.” from the Library of Congress. Selected Additional Sources: Benton, Ned. “Dating the Start and End of Slavery in New York,”New York Slavery Records Index: Records of Enslaved Persons and Slave Holders in New York from 1525 though the Civil War, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, “Middle Passage, Transatlantic Slave Trade,” Slavery and Remembrance. Hall, Rebecca. “Not Killing Me Softly: African American Women, Slave Revolts, And Historical Constructions of Racialized Gender,” Vol. 1, Issue 2 of The Freedom Center Journal, a joint publication of University of Cincinnati College of Law and the National Underground Railroad Center, June, (2010). National Park Service, “The Middle Passage.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From September 1942 to December 1944, over 1000 American women served in the war effort as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), flying 80% of all ferrying missions and delivering 12,652 aircraft of 78 types. They also transported cargo, test flew planes, demoed aircraft that the male pilots were scared to fly, simulated missions, and towed targets for live anti-aircraft artillery practice. The WASP did not fly in combat missions, but their work was dangerous, and 38 were killed in accidents. Even with the enormous contributions they made in World War II, the WASP weren’t recognized as part of the military until decades later when they were finally granted veteran status. Joining me to help us learn more about the WASP is Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Associate Professor at Texas Woman's University, and author of the definitive book on the Women Airforce Service Pilots, The Women With Silver Wings. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “WASP Frances Green, Margaret Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn leave their B-17, called Pistol Packin' Mama, during ferry training at Lockbourne Army Air Force base in Ohio. They're carrying their parachutes.” from the National Archives and in the public domain. Selected Additional Sources: Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Women in the Army, US Army. “Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls,” by Susan Stamberg, NPR, March 9, 2010. “Remembering the WASPs: Women who were aviation trailblazers,” CBS News, June 1, 2014. “Flying on the Homefront: Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP),” by Dorothy Cochrane, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, May 20, 2020. “Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of WWII: STEM in 30 Live Chat [Video],” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, September 12, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was born in China in 1896 but lived most of her life in the United States, where, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, she had no path to naturalization until the law changed in 1943. Even though it would not benefit her for decades, Mabel Lee worked for women’s suffrage, leading the New York City Suffrage Parade on horseback at the age of only 16. Lee was the first Chinese woman to earn a PhD in Economics in the United States, graduating from Columbia University in 1921 with a dissertation entitled: “The Economic History of China: With Special Reference to Agriculture,” and then spent her life helping the Chinese community in New York City through her work with as director of the First Chinese Baptist Church of New York City.  Joining me to help us learn more about Mabel Lee is Dr. Cathleen Cahill, Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University and author of the 2020 book Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Radiogram; 6/26/1937; Case #12-943; Chinese Exclusion Act case file for Mabel Lee (Ping Hua Lee);” from Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files, ca. 1882 - ca. 1960; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85; National Archives at New York, New York, NY. Selected Sources: “Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee,” National Park Service “The 16-Year-Old Chinese Immigrant Who Helped Lead a 1912 US Suffrage March,” by Michael Lee, History.com, March 19, 2021 “Asian American Legacy: Dr. Mabel Lee,” by Tim Tseng, December 12, 2013. “Overlooked No More: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Suffragist With a Distinction,” by Jia Lynn Yang, The New York Times, September 19, 2020. “Mabel Ping-Hua Lee ’1916: A Pioneer of the Suffrage Movement,” by Lois Elfman, Barnard Magazine, Fall 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1905, artist Loïs Mailou Jones’s career spanned much of the 20th Century as both a painter and a teacher of generations of Black artists at Howard University. Jones faced racial discrimination in the US throughout much of her long life, and found refuge and inspiration in the Harlem Renaissance Movement and in the expatriate community of Black artists in Paris. Her 1953 marriage to Haitian artist Louis Vergniaud Pierre-Noel, and later research trips to Africa further influenced her work. Her many important paintings include The Ascent of Ethiopia (1932); Les Fétiches (1938); Self-Portrait (1940); Mob Victim (Meditation) (1944); Jardin du Luxembourg (1948); Jeune Fille Française (1951); Ode to Kinshasa (1972); Ubi Girl from Tai Region (1972); Suriname (1982); and Glyphs (1985). Joining me to help us learn more about Loïs Mailou Jones is writer Jennifer Higgie, author of the new book, The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution, and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women's Self Portraits. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Loïs Mailou Jones, 1937, from the Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël Trust. Other Selected Sources: “Lois Mailou Jones, 92, Painter and Teacher” by Holland Cotter, New York Times, June 13, 1998. “Lois Mailou Jones: An Indefatigable Black Woman Artist,” by Betty Perry, The Washington Post, February 23, 1983. “An Interview with Lois Mailou Jones,” by Charles H. Rowell, Callaloo, Vol. 12 No. 2, p. 357-378. “Loïs Mailou Jones: Creating A New African-American Image,” by Greg Cook, WBUR, February 27, 2013. “Interview with Lois Mailou Jones [video],” Good Morning America, February 1, 1996. “Loïs Mailou Jones and David C. Driskell: Intersecting Legacies [video],” The Phillips Collection, October 28, 2020. “Remembering The Masters: Lois Mailou Jones [video],” Sankofa Studios, March 16, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In October 1805, the Yakama encountered the Lewis and Clark Expedition near the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia rivers. By fifty years later, so many European and American trappers, traders, and eventually, settlers, had arrived in the area, putting demands on the land and resources, that federal government officials called a council meeting with the local tribal nations to negotiate a treaty by which the native people would move on to reservations in exchange for federal benefits.  The tribal nations, including the Yakama, signed the treaty--reluctantly--in June 1855, but it had to be ratified by the US Senate before it would go into effect. In the meantime, miners and settlers were supposed to stay off of Yakama land. However, with the discovery of gold, the miners started to trespass, stealing horses and assaulting women in the process. Yakama warriors killed minors in response. Soon, war broke out between the Yakama and the federal government, lasting until 1858. On March 8, 1859, the US Senate finally ratified the 1855 treaty. Joining me to help us learn more about the Yakama War is Emily Washines, who is an enrolled Yakama Nation tribal member with Cree and Skokomish lineage. Emily is a scholar whose research topics ​ include the Yakama War, Native women, traditional knowledge, resource management, fishing rights, and food sovereignty. She runs the Native Friends Blog and hosts the War Cry Podcast. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is courtesy of Emily Washines. Suggested Organization for Donations: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA Selected Sources: Yakama Nation History, Yakama Nation Website “This Week Then: Take a Look Back on the Yakama War” by Alan Stein, Seattle Magazine, November 27, 2018 “It Happened Here: Treaty of 1855 took land, created the Yakama Nation” by Donald W. Meyers, Yakima Herald, June 4, 2017 “Yakama War History Project Seeks Descendants Of U.S. Army Combatants” by Tom Banse, NW News Network, August 9, 2017 “Yakama War: Ayat” Native Friends “Yakama Indian War begins on October 5, 1855” by Paula Becker, History Link, February 26, 2003 The 1858 Yakama War...Fort Simcoe's Story of the 9th U.S. Army Infantry and their Western Prong Attack Campaign, by Steve Charles Plucker, 2016 “The Yakama War [video],” KCTS9, November 12, 2018 Please complete the Listener Survey! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Autumn of 1621, a group of Pilgrims from the Mayflower voyage and Wampanoag men, led by their sachem Massasoit, ate a feast together. The existence of that meal, which held little importance to either the Pilgrims or the Wampanoag, is the basis of the Thanksgiving myth. The myth, re-told in school Thanksgiving pageants and TV shows, is not accurate and is harmful to Native people, especially to the Wampanoag.  In 1970, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts planned a banquet to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. They asked an Aquinnah Wampanoag man, Frank James, also known as Wamsutta, to speak at the banquet. However, when they learned what he was planning to say, the true history, they forbade his speech. Frank James would not give a speech that they rewrote, and instead he planned the first National Day of Mourning on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth. Fifty one years later the United American Indians of New England still meet at noon on Cole’s Hill on the US Thanksgiving Holiday to remember the genocide of Native people and the theft of Native lands and erasure of Native culture. Joining me to help us learn more about the Wampanoag and the dangers of the Thanksgiving myth is Kisha James, enrolled Aquinnah Wampanoag, one of the organizers of the National Day of Mourning, and granddaughter of Frank James. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Massasoit and His Warriors,” 1857. Photograph in the LIbrary of Congress. Buy Indigenous: Kisha’s thread of Indigenous businesses Information about the The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 Suggested Organization for Donations: North American Indian Center of Boston United American Indians of New England Lakota Kidz   Selected Sources: “Wampanoag History,” Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) “The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue” by Claire Bugos, Smithsonian Magazine, November 26, 2019 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving by Catherine Grace This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman  “Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong By Maya Salam, The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2017 “History of King Philip’s War,” by Rebecca Beatrice Books, History of Massachusetts Blog, May 31, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Ojibwe nation occupied much of the Lake Superior region, including what is now Ontario in Canada and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States. In 1850, President Zachary Taylor’s administration, in response to demands from European Americans, planned to force the Ojibwe of Wisconsin west of the Mississippi in violation of signed treaties. They planned to bring the Ojibwe to Minnesota from Wisconsin in late fall so that they would have to stay for the winter, wearing down their resistance to relocation. Nearly 3000 Ojibwe men made the long journey to Sandy Lake, Minnesota, where they waited for weeks for a government agent to arrive and even longer for what turned out to be spoiled food and only a small portion of the payment and goods they were due. The conditions were so poor that 150 men died of disease, starvation, or freezing. On the treacherous return journey to Wisconsin another 200 men died. In 1852, Chief Buffalo, the principal chief of the Lake Superior Ojibwe, traveled to Washington, DC, by birchbark canoe with three other men, to press President Millard Fillmore to cancel the removal order. They managed to find an audience with Fillmore, who upon hearing about the broken treaty promises and the tragedy at Sandy Lake, agreed to cancel the removal order and work on a new treaty. The 1854 Treaty of LaPointe allowed the Ojibwe to stay in their traditional territories and created permanent reservations of land for many of the bands, including the Red Cliff. Under the treaties, the tribes reserved certain rights, including rights to hunt, fish, and gather on the lands that they ceded. In the more than 150 years since the 1854 Treaty of LaPointe, the sovereignty of the Ojibwe people has been threatened time and time again, and it’s taken Ojibwe activism to protect the rights. Joining me to help us learn more about the Red Cliff Ojibwe, the importance of treaties, and the Native activism needed to defend them is Dr. Katrina Phillips, an enrolled member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, Assistant Professor of Native American History at Macalester College, and author of Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and the Performance of Native American History. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Mitaawangaa, or Sandy Beach, on the shores of Frog Bay Tribal National Park. Photo by Katrina Phillips. Suggested Organization for Donations: Dream of Wild Health The Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) MIGIZI Recommended Kids’ Books: Indigenous Peoples’ Day by Katrina Phillips The Disastrous Wrangel Island Expedition by Katrina Phillips Fry Bread by by Kevin Noble Maillard We are Grateful by Traci Sorell Bowwow Powwow by Brenda J. Child Johnny’s Pheasant by Cheryl Minnema Selected Sources: "When Grandma Went to Washington: Ojibwe Activism and the Battle over the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore," by Phillips, Katrina. Native American and Indigenous Studies, vol. 8 no. 2, 2021, p. 29-61. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/804026. “Miskwaabekong History,” Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa “Origins and History, Tribal Government,” Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa “Ojibwe Treaty Rights,” Milwaukee Public Museum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prior to World War II, most of the US military deemed the territory of Alaska as militarily unimportant, to the point where the Alaska National Guard units were stationed instead in Washington state in August of 1941. That changed when the Japanese invaded and occupied two Alaskan islands in June of 1942.  The US government responded first by evacuating Unangax̂ villagers and forcibly interning them in Southeast Alaska in facilities without plumbing or electricity for two years where many died of disease. To protect the Alaskan territory from further invasion, Major Marvin R. “Muktuk” conceived of a plan to defend the Alaskan coast with local citizens. The more than 6,300 members of the Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG) were as young as 12 and as old as 80 and represented 107 Alaskan communities and many different ethnic groups, including Unangax̂ , Inupiaq, Tlingit, and, Yup'ik, among others. Without the ATG serving as the eyes and ears of the US military in Alaska, the Japanese may well have invaded the mainland of the territory, setting up an ideal location from which to invade the United States.  To help us learn more about the Alaska Territorial Guard I’m joined by Dr. Holly Guise, who is Iñupiaq and an Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on gender, Unangax̂ (Aleut) relocation and internment camps, Native activism/resistance, and Indigenous military service during the war. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image shows four Alaska Territorial Guardsmen being sworn in for an assignment in Barrow, Alaska, from the Ernest H. Gruening Papers, Alaska & Polar Regions Collections, Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks. We ask that you consider supporting the efforts of Atuxforever, a nonprofit with the goal of raising funds for Attuans to travel back to their home island of Attu for pilgrimages and cultural revitalization.  Sources and Links: World War II Alaska “Sens. Murkowski and Begich Gain Victory for Alaska Territorial Guard,” July 23, 2009 “Under threat of invasion 75 years ago, Alaskan natives joined the Army to defend homeland,” by Sean Kimmons, Army News Service, November 16, 2017. “Searching Alaska for the Alaska Territorial Guard,” State of Alaska Website “Alaska Territorial Guard,” National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Alaska’s Digital Archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Stockbridge-Munsee Community, the People of the Waters that Are Never Still, were forced to move many times after they first encountered Europeans. In 1609, Dutch trader Henry Hudson sailed up the Mahicannituck, the River that Flows Both Ways, into Mohican land. By 1614 there was a Dutch trading post established on a nearby island to take advantage of the beaver and otter availability. The arrival of the Europeans changed the economic pattern of the Mohicans, and brought both disease and religion into their land. The Mohican people, part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, originally occupied large areas of land in what is now New England and the Hudson River Valley, including parts of what is now Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and were neighbors to the Lenape, to whom they are related. Over time, the Mohican people and the Munsees, who were also Lenape, and whose language and lifestyles were similar, affiliated with each other.  After the arrival of the Europeans, the Mohicans were driven out of their land, into what would become Massachusetts and Connecticut, where they were introduced to Christianity and became known as the Stockbridge Moohicans. Then they were driven into New York, then to Indiana, then to Wisconsin and then further into Wisconsin. By the late 19th century, the Stockbridge-Munsee, like nearly every Native nation within the United States, was assigned to a reservation. Theirs was largely pine forest that was difficult to farm. Reservation land was portioned and allotted to individuals and families. Much of the land was sold to lumber companies or lost when the taxes couldn’t be paid. By the 1920s the Stockbridge Munsee were virtually landless and living in poverty. When Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, Native communities were able to obtain funds from the federal government to reorganize their tribal governments and recover some of their land. By the end of 1937, the Stockbridge-Munsee had a new Constitution. The Stockbridge-Munsee Community is still located on the reservation in Wisconsin, which currently includes a little over 17,000 acres of trust land and around 7,500 acres of non-trust land. Around half of the tribe’s population of 1500 people live on or near the reservation. In 1999, they established a Tribal Historic Preservation office to formalize the work of protecting burial sites and other cultural areas in its Eastern homelands. I’m joined in this episode by Heather Bruegl, who is enrolled Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and first line descendant Stockbridge Munsee and who is the Director of Education at the Forge Project. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Papscanee Island Nature Preserve,” by Andy Arthur, May 12, 2013. (CC BY 2.0) We ask that you consider supporting the efforts of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community's Historic Preservation program with a donation.  Sources and links: Brief History, Stockbridge Munsee Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican History, PBS Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction “'It's Been Erased': Stockbridge Mohicans Retell, Reclaim Their Story In Berkshires,” by Nancy Eve Cohen, New England Public Media, January 16, 2021 “Mohicans, forced from their ancestral lands, still connect to their heritage here,” The Altamont Enterprise Bethlehem, Thursday, September 27, 2018 “Native American and Indigenous Studies: Stockbridge Munsee Community,” Library Guide, Williams College Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The late 19th Century ushered in an evolution in women’s fashion from the Victorian “True Woman” whose femininity was displayed in wide skirts and petticoats, the “New Woman” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was modern and youthful in a shirtwaist and bell-shaped skirt. Earlier fashion experimentation by feminists in the mid-19th Century had failed to catch on and had interfered with their ability to inspire change as they were labeled radical for their sartorial choices. Feminists in the late 19th Century chose a different path, using the popular fashions of the day to appear respectable as they pushed for rights for women. The mass availability of the shirtwaist also helped to democratize fashion so that working class, immigrant, and African-American women were all able to adopt the costume of the day as they made their demands for better working conditions and increased rights and access. In this episode I’m joined by Dr. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, author of the upcoming book, Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, as we discuss the uses of fashion by feminists at the turn of the 20th Century. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image is: “Four African American women seated on steps of building at Atlanta University, Georgia.“ Atlanta, Georgia, ca. 1899. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/95507126. Additional sources and links: “Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Calls for 'Equal Rights for Women' with Suffragette-Themed Met Gala Dress” by Virginia Chamlee, People Magazine, September 14, 2021. “Schools enforce dress codes all the time. So why not masks?” by By Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, The Washington Post, August 30, 2021. Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915 by Martha H. Patterson, 2005. “The Gibson Girl’s America: Drawings by Charles Dana Gibson,” Library of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, enfranchising (some) women, lots of questions remained. If women could vote, could they serve on juries? Could they hold public office? What about the array of state-laws that still privileged husbands and fathers over wives and daughters in regard to property and earnings rights?  In February 1921, Alice Paul, head of the National Woman’s Party declared: “Now that political freedom has been won, we hope to wipe out sex discrimination in law, so that the legal status of women will be self-respecting.” Their strategy to accomplish this, on the advice of legal scholar Professor Albert Levitt of George Washington University was to push for a new constitutional amendment, which became known as the Equal Rights Amendment. Between 1923 and 1932, Congress held six hearings on the ERA, but it faced fierce opposition until the mid-1930s. By the mid-1930s, support for the ERA began to increase dramatically, as congressional subcommittees started to report the amendment favorably nearly every year after 1936.  In 1940 the Republican Party added the ERA to its party platform. Four years later the Democratic party did the same.  On October 12, 1971, the House of Representatives finally voted on the ERA, introduced by Michigan Democrat Martha Griffiths. The vote passed 354 to 24, with 51 not voting. On March 22, 1972, the Senate also passed the bill, 84-8, with 8 not voting. Then the fight moved to the states. As of October 2021, 38 states have ratified the amendment, the final three states coming long after the original deadline, but the amendment has not been added to the Constitution. I’m joined in this episode by Dr. Rebecca DeWolf, author of the new book: Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920–1963, who also graciously fact checked the introduction to the episode. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image is: “A group of young members of the National Woman's Party before the Capitol. They are about to invade the offices of the senators and congressmen from their states, to ask them to vote for Equal Rights.“ Washington D.C, ca. 1923. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/mnwp000193/. Additional Sources and Links: Equal Rights Amendment, Alice Paul Institute The Equal Rights Amendment Explained, The Brennan Center for Justice “Why the Equal Rights Amendment Is Still Not Part of the Constitution: A brief history of the long battle to pass what would now be the 28th Amendment” by Lila Thulin, Smithsonian Magazine “The Long Road to Equality: What Women Won from the ERA Ratification Effort,” Library of Congress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer, musician, and political activist Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was born on February 22, 1876, on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where she lived until she was eight. When Zitkála-Šá was eight years old, missionaries came to the reservation to recruit children to go to White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute. Despite her mother’s pleading, Zitkála-Šá begged to go to the school with her older brother. She later wrote that she regretted the decision almost immediately, but after three years in the boarding school she no longer felt at home on the reservation either. Throughout her life Zitkála-Šá continued to live in two worlds, using her writing and speaking to advocate for the rights of Native Americans. She taught at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, the most well-known of the off reservation boarding schools, where she came into conflict with the school’s founder and headmaster Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, whose motto was “Kill the Indian, save the man.” She studied violin and wrote articles in Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Monthly, critical of the boarding schools and the trauma the children experienced. Prof. William F. Hanson of Brigham Young University she wrote an opera, the Sun Dance Opera, based on the sacred Sioux ritual that had been banned by the federal government.  In 1926, Zitkála-Šá and her husband, Captain Raymond Bonnin, who was also Yankton Dakota, co-founded the National Council of American Indians to "help Indians help themselves" in government relations. Many conflicts had to be resolved by Congress and the Bonnins were instrumental in representing tribal interests. Zitkála-Šá was the council’s president, public speaker, and major fundraiser, until her death in 1938. To help us learn more, I’m joined by Dr. P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo), Professor Emerita of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the editor of two books of Zitkála-Šá’s writings: ​​Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and the Sun Dance Opera and "Help Indians Help Themselves": The Later Writings of Gertrude Simmons-Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa), who graciously assisted in fact checking the introduction to this episode. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Zitkala Sa, Sioux Indian and activist, c. 1898,” by Gertrude Kasebier, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Recommended Organization for Donation: Native American Rights Fund Additional Sources and Links: American Indian Stories, Zitkála-Šá Impressions of an Indian Childhood by Zitkála-Šá Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery by Zitkala-S̈a, Charles H. Fabens, and Matthew K. Sniffen. Office of the Indian Rights Association, 1924.  Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Sa, Native American Author, Musician, and Activist by Gina Capaldi (Author) and Q. L. Pearce (Author) Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird / Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), National Park Service “Zitkála-Šá: Trailblazing American Indian Composer and Writer” [video], UNLADYLIKE2020: THE CHANGEMAKERS, PBS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly 350,000 American women served in the US military during World War II. Although the women in the military didn’t engage in combat their presence was vital to the American effort, in clerical work as well as in driving trucks, operating radios and telephones, repairing and flying planes, and of course, in nursing. Women’s active duty was a temporary wartime measure, but when the war ended, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and General Omar Bradley, among others, argued for the continued presence of women in the military. Rep. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine introduced the Women's Armed Services Integration Act to Congress in January 1948, and President Truman signed the bill into law on June 12, 1948. From the end of World War II through the Cold War, women in the United States military navigated a space that welcomed and needed their service but put limits on their participation. To help us learn more, I’m joined by Dr. Tanya Roth, author of the new book, Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945–1980. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “WAF Officer candidate salutes in front of US flag. Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. November 1952.” The image source is the U.S. Air Force, and it is in the Public Domain. Additional Sources: “Pregnant Women to Be Allowed To Stay in the Military Forces,” New York Times, July 8, 1975 “Over 200 Years of Service: The History of Women in the U.S. Military,” uso.org. “Women in the Army,” U.S. Army. “Truman and Women’s Rights,” Truman Library Institute. “Women in the Military Academies: 40 Years Later,” Department of Defense. “Women in the Vietnam War,” History.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slavery was legal in Maryland until November 1, 1864, when a new state constitution prohibited the practice of slavery. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation the year before had declared slaves in the Confederate states to be free, but Maryland was in the union and not included in the proclamation. From the late 18th Century until the Civil War, enslaved families in Prince George’s County, Maryland, brought over a thousand legal suits against hundreds of slaveholding families, arguing for their freedom. In these freedom suits, enslaved individuals sued for their freedom based on issues of breach of contract or unjust detainment. When an enslaved person won a freedom suit the individual would be granted their freedom, and it could sometimes provide the basis for future lawsuits by family members, but the institution of slavery persisted. In 1791, Edward Queen, an enslaved man at the White Marsh Plantation in Prince George's County, sued Rev. John Ashton, a Jesuit slaveholder, for his freedom in the Maryland General Court. In Edward Queen’s petition he said he was “descended from a freewoman,” his grandmother, Mary Queen, and thus was being illegally held in bondage. In May 1794 the all-white jury decided that Mary Queen was not a slave, and thus Edward Queen should be freed and awarded 1997 pounds of tobacco, at least a third of which went to Queen’s lawyers. Despite legal maneuvering by slaveholders to make freedom suits more difficult for the enslaved, as many as 50 of Edward Queen’s enslaved relatives won their own freedom suits on the argument that Mary Queen was not a slave, and thus her descendants should not be enslaved. Joining me to help us learn more about freedom suits is William G. Thomas III, the Angle Chair in the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, and author of A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: "Twenty-eight fugitives escaping from the Eastern Shore of Maryland," Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. The image is in the public domain. Additional Sources: O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family. William G. Thomas III, Kaci Nash, Laura Weakly, Karin Dalziel, and Jessica Dussault. University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  “Anna: One woman's quest for freedom in early Washington, D.C.,” Animating History, Michael Burton, Kwakiutl Dreher, William G. Thomas III. 2018. The Georgetown Slavery Archive “Rev. John Ashton,” Archives of Maryland. “Missouri’s Dred Scott Case, 1846-1857,” Missouri State Archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over a decade before Julia Child’s The French Chef appeared on TV, a Black woman chef hosted her own, very popular cooking show on WDSU-TV in New Orleans. At a time when families were just beginning to own televisions, Chef Lena Richard’s show was so popular that it aired twice a week. Richard started working as a cook as a teenager for the wealthy Vairin family who employed her mom as a domestic servant. When their cook left, Alice Vairin gave Richard a trial run as cook and was so impressed that she hired her on the spot. Vairin later sent Richard to cooking schools, first locally and then at the prestigious eight-week Fannie Farmer Cooking School in Boston. In addition to her television show, Richard’s storied career included launching a catering business; stints as head chef at the Bird and Bottle Inn in Garrison, New York, and the Travis House Restaurant and Inn, in Colonial Williamsburg; two of her own restaurants in New Orleans, Lena’s Eatery and Lena Richard’s Gumbo House; a cooking school; a frozen food business; and a best-selling Creole cookbook, New Orleans Cookbook. Joining me to help us learn more about Chef Lena Richard are two guests: Chef Dee Lavigne of New Orleans, owner of Deelightful Cupcakes and Assistant Production Producer for the Sunday Morning News Food Segment on WWL-TV4; and Dr. Ashley Rose Young, Historian of the American Food History Project at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode images Courtesy of Newcomb Archive, Vorhoff Library Special Collections, Tulane University. Sources: “Meet Lena Richard, the Celebrity Chef Who Broke Barriers in the Jim Crow South,” by Lily Katzman, Smithsonian Magazine, June 12, 2020 “The Story of Lena Richard,” by Sarah Nerney, Colonial Williamsburg, August 22, 2020. “Creole Cuisine: Lena Richard,” Google Arts & Culture, based on the exhibit in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. “Learning from the best: Lena Richard’s Creole Cookbook,” Rachael Garder-Stephen, Adam Matthew: A SAGE Publishing Company Blog, March 12, 2021. “America's Unknown Celebrity Chef,” Sidedoor Podcast, June 9, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC), in 2018, 13% of the US population was Black and African American, but 42% of new HIV diagnoses in the US were from Black and African American people. This discrepancy is not new.  On June 5, 1981, the CDC first published an article in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) titled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia” that suggested that there might be “a cellular-immune dysfunction related to a common exposure that predisposes individuals to opportunistic infections such as pneumocystosis and candidiasis” to explain a number of infections they were seeing among gay men. This early identification of HIV/AIDS as a disease of white gay men colored the response to the epidemic. As gay men organized AIDS education and support networks they built organizations staffed by white volunteers and situated in gay neighborhoods in major urban centers. Because of racism and segregation many of those gay neighborhoods were largely white, and the education and support campaigns didn’t reach the Black and brown communities that were also affected by the disease. In response, African American AIDS activists formed their own organizations from the beginning of the crisis. African American AIDS activism was diverse and creative from the early days of the pandemic, and it continues today, but it’s often been missing from popular media and historical writing about AIDS. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the background of African American AIDS activism and interviews Dan Royles, Assistant Professor of History at Florida International University and author of To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS, which was recently named a Finalist in the 2021 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image by Tobe Mokolo on Unsplash. Sources: To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle Against Hiv/AIDS, by Dan Royles, 2020. “Forty years after first documented AIDS cases, survivors reckon with 'dichotomy of feelings,'” by Alex Berg, NBC News, June 5, 2021. “Pneumocystis Pneumonia --- Los Angeles,” MMWR, Reported by MS Gottlieb, MD, HM Schanker, MD, PT Fan, MD, A Saxon, MD, JD Weisman, DO, Div of Clinical Immunology-Allergy; Dept of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine; I Pozalski, MD, Cedars-Mt. Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles; Field services Div, Epidemiology Program Office, CDC. June 5, 1981 “HIV and African American People,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the mid-1960s, to protest discriminatory hiring practices, Chicano groups in Colorado called for a boycott of the Coors Brewing Company, launching what would become a decades-long boycott that brought together a coalition of activists that would include not just Chicano and Latino groups, but also African American groups, union organizers, LGBT activists, students, environmentalists and feminists. These groups had a variety of motivations for their involvement in the boycott and varied success in achieving their goals. Although the formal boycott ended by the late 1980s, some activists continue to boycott Coors beer to today. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of the Coors boycott and interviews Allyson P. Brantley, Assistant Professor of History & Director of Honors and Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the University of La Verne in Southern California, and author of the 2021 book Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors & Remade American Consumer Activism. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: 1970s-era “Boycott Coors Beer” broadside. Printed by the Howard Quinn Co. Sources: Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors & Remade American Consumer Activism by Allyson P. Brantley. “The Coors Boycott: When A Beer Can Signaled Your Politics,” by B. Erin Cole & Allyson Brantley, Colorado Public Radio, October 3, 2014, “‘A Political Fight Over Beer’: The 1977 Coors Beer Boycott, and the Relationship Between Labour–Gay Alliances and LGBT Social Mobility,” by Kieran Blake, Midland Historical Review, January 24, 2020. “TEAMSTERS PRIDE AT WORK: A LOOK BACK AT THE COORS BOYCOTT,” International Brotherhood of Teamster, June 2, 2017. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Nineteenth Century America there was a strong reformist push to know and improve the self. One key tactic Americans used to learn more about themselves was phrenological readings. They would pay practical phrenologists, like Orson Squire Fowler and his younger brother, Lorenzo Niles Fowler for readings of their skulls or their children’s skulls.  In Lorenzo Fowler’s reading of Emily Sawyer, he concluded a thirteen-page analysis by saying: “Cultivate as much as you can the organs marked smallest in your Chart + properly guide and exercise the stronger ones + thus produce a harmony of mental and physical action.” By using the phrenological readings of themselves or their children, Nineteenth Century Americans could apply the advice to become the best version of themselves. Practical phrenologists weren’t interested only in reform of the self, but in larger societal reform as well. For practical phrenologists, prisons were the site of both research and reform; they argued for the elimination of capital punishment and the reform of prisons to include re-education instead of punishment.  Despite the reform impulse of phrenologists, phrenology was also used as a scientific reason to justify racism and gender stereotyping. American phrenologists were sympathetic to liberal causes including the antislavery movement, even while claiming the superiority of the European brain. By the early 20th century phrenology had been largely discredited in the public, but some of the concepts of phrenology, including propensities and physical localization in the brain of different characteristics have persisted. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of phrenology in 19th Century America and interviews Courtney Thompson, Assistant Professor of History at Mississippi State University, and author of the February 2021 book, An Organ of Murder: Crime, Violence, and Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “A head marked with images representing the phrenological faculties, with a key below. Coloured wood engraving, ca. 1845, after H. Bushea and O.S. Fowler.” Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-13. Sources: An Organ of Murder: Crime, Violence, and Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century America by Courtney E. Thompson "Facing a Bumpy History: The much-maligned theory of phrenology gets a tip of the hat from modern neuroscience," by Minna Scherlinder Morse, Smithsonian Magazine, October 1997. "Mesmerism and Phrenology in Antebellum Charleston: 'Enough of the Marvellous'" by Peter McCandless. The Journal of Southern History, 58(2), 199-230. doi:10.2307/2210860. The History of Phrenology on the Web by John van Wyhe Encyclopedia of medical history by Roderick E. McGrew and Margaret P. McGrew, 1985. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Chesapeake Bay in the late 19th century, oyster harvesting was a big business. There were so many oyster harvesters harvesting so many oysters that the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia had to start regulating who could harvest oysters and how they could do so. Creating the regulations was the easy part; enforcing them was much harder. The illegal harvesting of oysters by oyster pirates continued, even after the creation of the Maryland State Oyster Police Force in 1868 and a similar force in Virginia in 1884.  The first of the Oyster Wars was in Virginia in 1882 when Governor William E. Cameron himself joined the expedition to raid the pirates. The first raid was a success, but Cameron quickly learned that pirates wouldn’t stay defeated for long, and the oyster wars continued. By the late 1880s the Oyster Wars turned deadly. The Oyster Wars remained an important part of Chesapeake Bay history all the way until the “official” end of the Oyster Wars in 1959, although even that may have not truly been the end. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of the Oyster Wars and (with a little help from her son, Arthur, interviews Jamie Goodall, author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “The oyster war in Chesapeake Bay,” Drawing by Schell and Hogan. Harper's Weekly, Mar. 1, 1884, p. 136. Library of Congress.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-12. Sources: Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars by Jamie L. H. Goodall National Geographic Pirates: Shipwrecks, Conquests & Legacy by Jamie L. H. Goodall The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay by John R Wennersten The daily dispatch. (Richmond, VA), 04 March 1883. Library of Congress. "Oyster Wars," Baltimore Sun, February 10, 2015. Oyster Question: Scientists, Watermen, and the Maryland Chesapeake Bay Since 1880 by Christine Keiner "An Evolving Force: Natural Resources Police Celebrates 150th Anniversary," Maryland Department of Natural Resources, March 30, 2018. “Landscapes of Resistance: A View of the Nineteenth-Century Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery” by Bradford Botwick and Debra A. McClane. Historical Archaeology, vol. 39, no. 3, 2005, pp. 94–112. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Popular depictions of prohibition in the United States usually show the speakeasies, bootleggers, flappers, and bathtub gin of the Roaring Twenties, but earlier attempts at prohibition stretch back far into the 19th century. In 1851, Maine passed the first statewide prohibition law, and 12 other states quickly followed as temperance societies preached the evils of alcohol. Anti-prohibitionists, especially liquor dealers and hotel owners, decried the “tyranny of the majority” and fought back with their own PR campaigns and legal challenges. Many of the methods that the anti-prohibitionists used and that were used by other moral minorities of the day (such as those fighting against Sunday Laws and those working toward racial equality) were precursors to the methods used in the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of the 1850s Maine Laws and interviews Kyle Volk,  Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of HIstory at the University of Montana, and author of Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy, which discusses these early attempts at prohibition. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “The drunkard's children. A sequel to The bottle” by George Cruikshank, 1848, Wellcome Collection.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-11. Sources: Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy by Kyle Volk, 2017 “When Maine went dry,” by Kelly Bouchard, Portland Press Herald, October 2, 2011 The Maine Liquor Law: Its Origin, History, and Results, Including a Life of Hon. Neal Dow by Henry Stephen Clubb, 1856. “Throwback Thursday: Maine Becomes the First State to Outlaw Alcohol,” by Madline Bilis, Boston Magazine, June 2, 2016 “What if the Fourth of July were dry?” by Kyle Volk, Oxford University Press Blog, July 4, 2014 An inquiry into the effects of ardent spirits upon the human body and mind: with an account of the means of preventing, and of the remedies for curing them by Benjamin Rush, 1784. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In May of 1844, growing tensions between nativists and Irish Catholic immigrants in Philadelphia erupted into violence in the streets of the Irish Catholic Kensington district, prompted in part by a disagreement over whether the King James Bible should be read in public schools. A citizen posse called by county sheriff Morton McMichael was unable to quell the violence, and the local state militia, under the command of General George Cadwalader stepped in to help, as homes and churches were destroyed, $150,000 in damages (equivalent to over $4 million today). Fourteen people were killed and as many as 50 were injured. After two months of uneasy peace, the violence re-ignited, this time in the nativist district of Southwark where a Catholic church had been stockpiling weapons in anticipation of trouble. After a long stand-off, an hours-long battle between the military presence that arrived and the local nativists took over the streets of Southwark, as they fired at each other with guns and cannons. Another 15 people died, with fifty or more injuries. The riots, which got national attention, had lasting effects in politics and city planning and in the development of the Catholic school system in Philadelphia. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of the Philadelphia riots and interviews George Mason University History Professor Zachary Schrag, author of The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Riot in Philadelphia. July 7th 1844. by H. Bucholzer, ca. 1844. New York: James Baillie, July 23.  https://www.loc.gov/item/2003654121/Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-10. Sources: The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation by Zachary M. Schrag  "Nativist Riots of 1844," Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia by Zachary M. Schrag "The Kensington Riots of 1844" by Melissa Mandell of Historical Society of Pennsylvania "Chaos in the Streets: The Philadelphia Riots of 1844," Villanova University A full and complete account of the late awful riots in Philadelphia (1844) by John Perry Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Packard was born in Massachusetts in 1816 into a comfortable home where her parents were able to provide for her education. She taught briefly at a girls’ school before at age 23 agreeing at her parents’ urging to marry 37-year-old Calvinist minister Theophilus Packard. Over the next 20 years Elizabeth was a devoted mother and housewife who grew the family’s vegetables and sewed clothes for their six children. To the outside world, it appeared to be a contented marriage, until Elizabeth started to publicly express her religious beliefs, which were at odds with her husband’s. Theophilus questioned her sanity and threatened to have her committed if she continued. Elizabeth continued, and Theophilus kept his promise, taking advantage of the law, which allowed a husband to have his wife committed, without either public hearing or her consent. After three years in the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital for the Insane in Jacksonville, Illinois, Elizabeth was deemed incurable and released. Then, after getting the jury trial she’d been requesting for three years, Elizabeth was finally able to share her story with the world, and she began her remarkable career as a writer and social reformer. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of Elizabeth Packard’s life and interviews New York Times bestselling author Kate Moore, who has recently published a wonderfully detailed narrative account of Elizabeth Packard’s life, titled: The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image:  from Elizabeth Packard's 1866 book, Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard’s Trial. Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-9. Sources:  The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore "Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry," by Kate Moore. Time Magazine, June 22, 2021. "Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity" by Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard "Elizabeth Packard: Nineteenth-Century Crusader for the Rights of Mental Patients," by Myra Samuels Himelhoch and Arthur H. Shaffer, Journal of American Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Dec., 1979), pp. 343-375. "Badass Elizabeth Series," Packed with Packards Blog. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Mallon, known to history as Typhoid Mary, immigrated from Northern Ireland to New York City at age 15, around 1883. She found work as a cook, a well paying job for an immigrant woman and worked for number of different families in the early 20th Century. In March 1907, civil engineer George Soper burst into the kitchen of the home where she was cooking and told her that she was spreading typhoid via her cooking. He demanded samples of her feces, urine, and blood to test. Mallon, who believed she was in perfect health, chased him away with a carving fork. Mallon spent most of the rest of her life in quarantine, on North Brother Island, forced to give regular stool and urine samples. She was briefly released, but knowing no other skills, cooked again and was forced back into quarantine. Although Mallon was the first person in the US identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid, by the time of her second quarantine in 1915, many healthy carriers had been identified, more than 400 in New York alone.  None of the other healthy carriers was forcibly confined, even the other cooks or those who caused more cases and more deaths than Mallon did. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the history of Mary Mallon’s quarantines, and interviews Kari Nixon, an assistant professor of English at Whitworth University, who teaches medical humanities and Victorian literature. Dr. Nixon is author of the 2021 book Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19: What Pandemics Teach Us about Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image from The New York American (June 20, 1909 issue).Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-8. Sources: Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19: What Pandemics Teach Us about Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today, by Kari Nixon, 2021. Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, by Judith Walzer Leavitt, 1997. Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative, by Priscilla Wald, 2008. "The Work of a Chronic Typhoid Germ Distributor," by George Soper, JAMA. 1907; XLVIII(24):2019–2022. "The sad and tragic life of Typhoid Mary," by J. Brooks, CMAJ. 1996;154(6):915-916. "The Most Dangerous Woman in America," NOVA. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1945, United States immigration officials opened the El Centro Immigration Detention Camp in El Centro, California, to be an administrative holding center for unauthorized Mexican migrants, many of whom had been working on local farms and ranches. From the beginning, migrants were often detained for long periods of time while they served as the unpaid labor force of the center. Conditions were poor in the facility in the decades that followed, and in 1985 the incarcerated migrants (by this time a multinational group) decided to strike. On May 27, 1985, fifteen detained men stormed the mess hall, inspiring somewhere between 175-300 more men to join them. The group refused to work, to go inside, or to eat until their grievances were met. Their complaints included inhumane conditions in the 120-degree heat of the Imperial Valley, poor food quality, inadequate medical treatment, lack of entertainment, physical abuse, psychological intimidation, solitary confinement, and threats of violence. The strike was put down forcefully by the El Centro Tactical Intervention and Control Unit, in full riot gear. Although some of the conditions that led to the strike improved, rampant violence and inhumane treatment continued. In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the history of the El Centro facility and the 1985 Hunger Strike, and interviews Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Jessica Ordaz, author of The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-7. Sources: The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz. University of North Carolina Press, 2021. "ICE immigration center in El Centro closes," by Tatiana Sanchez. The Desert Sun, October 1, 2014.  "Aliens Staging Hunger Strike at Detention Camp," By Judith Cummings, Special To the New York Times, June 4, 1985. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decided unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas that that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Although the process was slow and contentious, the SCOTUS decisions in Brown and Brown II required that desegregation must occur "with all deliberate speed" to provide Black students with the equal protection under the law required by the 14th Amendment.  Black teachers had no protections or guarantees under the Brown ruling. As Southern states tried to destroy the NAACP using legislatures and courts, they targeted teachers with the belief that, as Candace Cunningham writes, “to dispense with Black teachers was to weaken the NAACP.  To dispose of Black teachers was to destabilize the civil rights movement.” In March 1956, the South Carolina general assembly passed a series of anti-NAACP statutes, including the anti-NAACP oath, which made it illegal for local, county, or state government employees to be NAACP members. In May 1956, in Elloree, South Carolina, 21 Black teachers refused to distance themselves from the NAACP, and the white school officials did not rehire them for the following year. The Elloree teachers, with NAACP lawyers, took their case to court in Bryan v. Austin in September 1956.  In this episode, Kelly tells the story of what happened with Black teachers in Elloree, South Carolina, in aftermath of Brown v. Board, and interviews Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, Candace Cunningham. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Civil rights march on Washington, D.C. Warren K. Leffler. 1963. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003654393/Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-6. Sources: “Hell Is Popping Here in South Carolina”: Orangeburg County Black Teachers and Their Community in the Immediate Post-Brown Era," by Candace Cunningham, History of Education Quarterly, February 3, 2021. "A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color," by Cindy Long, NEA Today, March 11, 2020 "School Desegregation and Black Teacher Employment," Working Paper by Owen Thompson, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2019. "65 Years After ‘Brown v. Board,’ Where Are All the Black Educators?" by Madeline Will, EdWeek, May 14, 2019. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political activism of queer people in the United States started long before the Stonewall riots in 1969. One surprising place that queer people found a home for their activism was in the Communist Party. The Communist Party of the United States was established in 1919, and from the 1920s to the 1940s the Party was influential in American politics, at the forefront of labor organizing and opposition to racism. It was the first political party in the US to be racially integrated. Some queer folks embraced the radical politics of the Party and found it to be a place where they could agitate for radical sexual politics as well.  One of the first national gay rights organizations in the United States, The Mattachine Society, was founded in 1950 by prominent Communist Harry Hay and a group of friends in Los Angeles. However, in the early 1950s as Joseph McCarthy and others publicly linked homosexuality and Communism as threats to the 'American way of life,' homosexuals began to distance themselves from the Left to gain acceptance, and the previous links between homosexuals and the Communist Party were lost or suppressed. In 1953 Harry Hay was ousted from the Mattachine Society in part because of his Communist affiliation, which by then was considered a liability. In this episode, Kelly  tells the history of homosexuality and the Communist Party in America in the early 20th Century and interviews Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston Aaron Lecklider, author of Love’s Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons.  Episode image: Members of Marine Cooks and Stewards Union. Courtesy Black Heritage Society of Washington State. Public domain.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-5Sources: Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture, by Aaron Lecklider, 2021 "Despite Everything, Queer Leftists Survived," by Scott W. Stern, Jacobin Magazine, June 2021. "Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement," PBS "Communist Party USA History and Geography," Mapping American Social Movements Project, University of Washington "Homophiles': The LGBTQ rights movement began long before Stonewall," by Ben Kesslen, NBC News, June 10, 2019 Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sophonisba “Nisba” Preston Breckinridge, born April 1, 1866, was a woman of firsts. Breckinridge was the first woman admitted to the Kentucky bar to practice law in 1895; the first woman to earn a PhD in Political Science at the University of Chicago in 1901; the first woman to earn a JD at the University of Chicago Law School in 1904; the first woman professor granted a named professorship at the University of Chicago in 1929; and the first woman to serve as U.S. representative to a high-level international conference in 1933. Along the way, Breckinridge co-founded the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Service Administration (now the The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice), was instrumental in the creation and promotion of The Social Security Act of 1935 and The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and published extensively in the fields of  family, public welfare, and children. Kelly briefly tells Breckinridge’s story and interviews Anya Jabour, Regents Professor of History at the University of Montana, and author of  Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: By Bain News Service - Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.07524. Public Domain.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-4 Sources: Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America by Anya Jabour, University of Illinois Press, 2019 "Sophonisba Breckinridge," The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice "Reclaiming Sophonisba," University of Chicago Law School, by Becky Beaupre Gillespie, January 6, 2020 "‘Forgotten Feminist’ Sophonisba Breckinridge was a Woman of Many Firsts" by Meredith Francis, WTTW, October 7, 2020 "When lesbians led the women’s suffrage movement," The Conversation, by Anya Jabour, January 24, 2020 Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in Georgia in 1848. With the help of family members, she was educated and escaped, joining the Union army at the age of 14, to serve ostensibly as a laundress, but in reality as a nurse, teacher, and even musket preparer. In 1902, Taylor published Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, an autobiography that covers not just her experiences during the Civil War, but also her childhood and her later years. Taylor includes in the work her powerful analysis of race relations at the beginning of 20th Century. Kelly briefly tells Taylor’s remarkable story and interviews Ben Railton, Professor of American literature and American Studies at Fitchburg State University, and author of Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Susie King Taylor,  Published by the subject, 1902 [from a photograph taken earlier]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Public Domain. Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-3.Sources: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops by Susie King Taylor "Susie King Taylor: An African American Nurse and Teacher in the Civil," Library of Congress  The Susie King Taylor Women's Institute and Ecology Center Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just after midnight on May 15, 1970, officers opened fire on a group of unarmed students milling in front of a dorm on the campus of Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing two and wounding twelve. Although the shootings took place just a week and a half after the shootings at Kent State University, the Jackson State shootings never got the attention of those at Kent State, and when they did they were often described as a second Kent State, erasing the context of white supremacy and state-based violence that inform what happened in Jackson.  Kelly tells the tragic story of the Jackson State shootings and interviews Nancy Bristow, Professor of History at the University of Puget Sound, and author of Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College to find out more. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Alexander Hall, viewed from across Lynch Street, National Archives. Public Domain.Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-2Sources: Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College by Nancy K. Bristow "The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest." Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, 1970. “Program about the Jackson State Killings, Jackson, Mississippi,” WYSO, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. "50 Years After the Jackson State Killings, America's Crisis of Racial Injustice Continues—and Shows the Danger of Forgetting," Time Magazine, by Nancy K. Bristow, May 14, 2020 "The Jackson State shootings are often overlooked. But Rich Caster still remembers." The Washington Post, by Kevin B. Blackstone, May 14, 2020. "GIBBS/GREEN 51st COMMEMORATION 2021," Jackson State University, May 15, 2021. [Facebook Video] Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between America’s entry into World War I and the end of the war less than two years later, Americans knit 23 million articles of clothing and bandages for soldiers overseas, directed by the American Red Cross. How was this knitting organized? Who did the knitting? And why don’t more people know about this impressive feat? Kelly digs into the story of World War I knitting efforts and interviews Holly Korda, author of The Knitting Brigades of World War I: Volunteers for Victory in America and Abroad to find out more. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode Image: Women knit at the Red Cross Knitting Booth while waiting for their trains at New York’s Grand Central Station, 1918. NATIONAL ARCHIVES/ 20802094. Episode Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-1Sources: The Knitting Brigades of World War I by Holly Korda. "The Wool Brigades of World War I, When Knitting was a Patriotic Duty," Atlas Obscura. "Knitting for Victory — World War I," History Link. "Showing support for the Great War with knitting needles," Smithsonian. "'Knit Your Bit': The American Red Cross Knitting Program," Center for Knit and Crochet. "Wilson's Sheep," The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum. "Knitted Articles for the American Red Cross," The Delineator, V.91 1917. [Knitting Patterns] Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A podcast about the people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet. With host Kelly Therese Pollock.In each episode of Unsung History I’ll start us out with a short narrative answering the Who, What, When, and Where to introduce you to the topic, and then I’ll talk to someone who can help us learn the Why and How: a historian or other academic, a journalist or researcher, or someone who was there when history as history unfolded.  Launching June 7, 2021. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UnsungHistory) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices