What'sHerName

THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE Catherine Jemmat

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:30:00 -0000

After a lifetime of betrayal and abuse as an 18th century sex worker, Catherine Jemmat broke the ultimate social taboo: she wrote the truth about her life. Her "scandalous memoir" helped change the way English society thought about women's lives, and her second book introduced a radical new idea - that the true 'perpetrator' driving women into lives of so-called sin and degradation was, in fact, society itself.

Returning guest Miranda Garno Rossa of Marginalia Rare Books is back to introduce Olivia to this courageous, unexpected heroine.

Music featured in this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, The Herschel Ensemble, Kevin MacLeod, and Pablo Casals

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THE GIRL SCOUT Juliette Gordon Low

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0000

Juliette Gordon Low was a classic Southern Belle when she married her handsome prince. But she learned the hard way that "happily ever after" is a harmful fantasy.

We can do better for girls, she said: and we must.

Rallying all the women around her, she founded Girl Scouts of America, empowering girls to build strength and character, and blaze new trails. Her global impact today is immeasurable.

Join us on location at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Museum in Savannah, Georgia for this inspiring story of how women change the world.

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GET INVOLVED!

Check out the World Association of Girl Scouts & Girl Guides and Girl Scouts of America.
Buy cookies from your local girl scouts!
Get the delightful 1913 Girl Scout Handbook ⁠HERE⁠, or read a free digital copy ⁠HERE⁠.
Join us on our next adventure! ⁠⁠What'sHerName TOURS⁠⁠.

This episode was recorded by Marc Nelson on location at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Museum in Savannah, Georgia. Special thanks to Shannon Browning-Mullis, Kate Walker, and Kristin Mikels, and to the participants of our 2025 What'sHerName Savannah Tour who joined in the fun!

Music featured in this episode: Serenade Op. 6 by Josef Suk, Monumental Journey by Jesse Gallagher, William Tell Overture b Rossini, Blue Danube Waltz and Vienna Blood Waltz by Strauss, Serenade by Schubert, Remembering Her by Esther Abrami, songs from 1956 Sing Together, Songs Girl Scouts Sing, and Annie Laurie by the 1924 National Quartet at the Library of Congress. Civil War sounds effects by Richard E Moore.

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THE PREACHER Jarena Lee

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 06:16:00 -0000

In 1819 an itinerant Methodist preacher set off across a brand-new nation to spread the gospel to its people. Over the decades of her unique ministry, Jarena Lee would witness both incredible progress and maddening injustice - and publish the first spiritual autobiography ever written by an African American woman. But what message was her book actually meant to send?

Discover the incredible life of this forgotten spiritual powerhouse with our guests, Lisa Gring-Pemble and Martha Watson, authors of the fascinating new book Your Daughters Will Prophesy.

Music featured in this episode by: Marian Anderson, Alfred Hamilton, Ed Jones, The Tuskegee Institute Singers, The Georgia Singers and The Heavenly Gate Quartet.

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THE KLONDIKE QUEEN Shaaw Tláa (Kate Carmack)

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0000

On a day like any other in 1896, Shaaw Tláa was washing dishes in a Yukon creek. But something shiny caught her eye... and the Klondike Gold Rush began. It's an insane chapter of world history: 100,000 ill-prepared dreamers from all over the world trekked into the subarctic. But what would become of the indigenous woman who started it all? Shaaw Tláa, known to the world as Kate Carmack, was suddenly one the richest people in the world, and she was married to a man called Lying George...

Join Katie on location at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park for this larger-than-life story of gold, greed, and destiny.

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Become a Patron to help make more episodes happen, and to get episodes ad-free! Or join our next What'sHerName TOUR for a great women's history adventure!

Want to lean more about Shaaw Tlaa? We've got you covered:

Read Wealth Woman by Deb Vanasse
Learn more about Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Alaska and in Seattle
Read about more Women of the Gold Rush
Visit the US Postal Museum exhibit Stories from the Gold Rush
Read the delightful 1897 Klondike: A Manual for Goldseekers

Music featured in this episode: "Gold Rush" and "Five Card Shuffle" by Kevin MacLeod; "Roundup in the Prairie" by Aaron Kenny; "A Ghost Town" by Quincas Moreira; "Over the Mountain" and "Inconsciousness" by Mini Vandals; "The Quiet Aftermath" by Sir Cubworth; "Horses and Trains" by Jesse Gallagher; historical recordings of the US Marine Band; "Honky Tonkin'" by Doug Maxwell; "Through and Through" by Amulets.

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THE SCANDALOUS WOMAN Uno Chiyo

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:38:00 -0000

Uno Chiyo rose to fame in 20th century Japan as a writer, designer, domestic goddess, and fashion icon - mostly by marketing herself as just a scandalous woman. But this "Bad Girl of Good Housekeeping" was so much more than just a writer of sexy stories. Guest Rebecca Copeland helps us uncover the secrets of this enigmatic, fascinating woman.

Music featured in this episode provided by Hirano Aiko, JackJack9, Zac Zinger, Doug Maxwell, the Mini Vandals, Bounce Bay Records, and Kumi.

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A WINTER OF CONTENT Laura Lee Davidson

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 06:04:00 -0000

To snowy Ontario, Canada for our 2026 Christmas Special!

Living out the dream of countless exhausted women, Laura Lee Davidson retreated to an island in the middle of a lake, and lived there alone through a long Canadian winter.

But she wasn't really alone. Wild creatures became her friends, and she was constantly the recipient of neighborly kindness from folks on the mainland.

Laura Lee's 1922 book about her winter on the island is now considered a classic of Canadian literature, and a vivid portrait of time gone by.

Katie reads some of her favorite excerpts from the book, and we all tag along with Laura Lee Davidson, retreating into a remote winter solitude, and marveling at the wonders of nature.

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Find Laura Lee Davidson's A Winter of Content HERE, or read a digital copy HERE. The What'sHerName SHOP is open, and check out our TOURS to join us on our next women's history adventure!

Music in this episode:

Deck the Halls, Air Prelude, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, and Angels We Have Heard on High by Kevin MacLeod; The First Noel by Quincas Moreira; I Saw Three Ships by Audionautix; The Friendly Beasts by Marc Nelson; Unrequited by Asher Fulero; In the Bleak Midwinter by The Whalens; Growing Up by Nate Blaze; Auld Lang Syne by DJ Williams; The Anunnaki Return by Jesse Gallagher; When We Found the Horizon by Late Night Feeler.

With additional sounds from freesound.org including "St Marys River Dawn Chorus" and "Midnight Nature On The St. Marys River" by Ambient-X; and "Canadian loons" by Chance Media.

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BONUS EPISODE Voices of Women Festival

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0000

At the recent Voices of Women Festival, we invited folks to pop into our ad-hoc recording box to record the 60-second story of their favorite historical woman. The results are a delight - and include some cast and crew members from Broadway's SUFFS!

The Voices of Women Festival was held in Salt Lake City, UT, in tandem with Broadway's SUFFS on tour. Thanks to Victor Hamburger and the Utah Women's History Initiative for making this happen!

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The What'sHerName SHOP is open! Also check out our TOURS to join us on upcoming women's history adventures.

Music in this episode: "Please" by Wayne Jones; "Yoga Style" and "Western Spaghetti" by Chris Haugen; "Cowboy Sting" by Kevin MacLeod; "Lao Tzu Erhu" by Doug Maxwell.

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THE BLACK NATIONALIST Queen Mother Audley Moore

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:05:00 -0000

Queen Mother Audley Moore was one of the most respected, most influential, longest-lasting influences on the US Black Nationalist movement, the Pan-African movement, the movement for Reparations, and the Black American organizing community in general across almost the entire 20th century.

So why have most of us never even heard her name?

Returning guest Ashley Farmer introduces Olivia to the incredible, unexpected force that was Queen Mother Audley Moore.

Music featured in this episode provided by Daniel Henderson and his Big Band, The New Hot 5, Cynthia Meng and Kim Onah, TrackTribe, Kevin Macleod, and Emmit Fenn.

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THE EXECUTIVE Katharine Gibbs

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0000

In 1917, Katharine Gibbs rebounded from personal tragedy in an unusual way: she decided to train a subversive, feminist army. Nearly broke and with just a high school education, Gibbs trained women as executive secretaries, building a famous school in just a few years.

"Gibbs Girls" were so intelligent, competent, and polite, that no one could justify the dusty old notions that women belonged at home. The American workplace was changed forever.

Our guest is Vanda Krefft, author of Expect Great Things! How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women.

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Check out our upcoming TOURS: witness women's history with What'sHerName and find your people!

Music in this episode: Irving Aaronson & His Commanders, "If I Had You" and "All By Yourself in the Moonlight"; Nat Shikret & The Victor Orchestra, "The Things That Were Made for Love"; Johnny Marvin, "True Blue Lou"; Arden & Ohman, "We'll Be the Same"; Paul Whiteman Orchestra, "Love Me"; Fred Rich & His Orchestra, "Nobody But You"; Leo Reisman & His Orchestra, "I Kiss Your Hand Madame"; Amulets, "Resolver"; JVNA, "Athena".

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THE BIRD OF ILL OMEN Catherine Crowe: 2025 Halloween Special

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 11:30:00 -0000

Catherine Crowe was a wildly acclaimed Victorian novelist, playwright, social critic and …ghost hunter? Her novels were as popular as Charles Dickens,’ and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Martineau, and George Eliot were her ardent fans. And her pioneering catalog of ghosts and the supernatural, The Night Side of Nature, was one of the first and most influential works to be adopted by the up-and-coming Spiritualist movement. So how did this incredibly talented, incredibly famous woman disappear from our collective memory? The answer involves a few misbehaving spirits, a little bit of nudity, and a whole lot of mean-spirited gossip by one very famous frenemy.

For this year’s Halloween Special, Professor Ruth Heholt helps Olivia resurrect the wildly famous, wildly fascinating, wildly under-appreciated Catherine Crowe.

Selections from Catherine Crowe’s works read for us by Matthew Meikle and Emma Porter.

Music featured in this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Kevin MacLeod, Doug Maxwell, Myuu, Brian Bolger, Jesse Gallagher, and the Weber State University Choirs and Orchestra.

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THE MYSTERY The Ivory Lady

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 03:45:00 -0000

When a history-making Copper Age burial was unearthed in southern Spain in 2008, the world was stunned by the incredibly beautiful - and utterly unprecedented - artifacts found in the tomb of the so-called 'Ivory Man.' But fifteen years later, the archaeology world would be rocked by an even more astonishing discovery - that 5,000-year-old Ivory Man was actually an Ivory Lady! Archaeologist Marta Cintas Peña helps Olivia dig into this remarkable 'prehistorical mystery.'

Music featured in this episode provided by: Doug Maxwell, Emmet Fenn, I Think I Can Help You, Chris Haugen and the Mini Vandals

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THE FOLKLORISTA Violeta Parra

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 04:01:00 -0000

Violeta Parra needs no introduction in Latin America: not only did she record the greatest album in Chilean history, she also collected two thousand folk songs, danced in the Poor Circus, sang in the streets, and --incredibly-- exhibited at the Louvre. Over the years she also broke ...*checks notes*... 48 guitars over people's heads.

Discover the larger than life story of Violeta Parra with our guest Ericka Verba, author of Thanks to Life, A Biography of Violeta Parra.

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Travel with us! What'sHerName TOURS are open for registration. Or check out the What'sHerName SHOP! Every bit helps us make more episodes.

Music featured in this episode:

Violeta Parra recorded by Alan Lomax in 1953 in the Lomax Digital Archive; Puerto Montt is Trembling, and Gracias a la Vida by Violeta Parra; Las Hermanas Parra recored for RCA Victor in 1952; Corazon Maldito and El Guilatun by Desborde; Pink Flamenco by Doug Maxwell; Sus Remedios by Casa Rosa; Cha Cha Chango by Quincas Moreira; Despair and Triumph by Kevin MacLeod; Spirit of Fire by Jesse Gallagher.

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THE WITNESS Leonora Sansay

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 04:27:00 -0000

Leonora Sansay lived through the last chaotic years of the Haitian Revolution - but the book she wrote about it would tell an entirely unexpected story.

Join returning guest Dr. Maria Windell as we explore the fascinatingly "messy-complicated" life of novelist Leonora Sansay - and uncover a fascinating link with "almost-Founding Father" (and 21st century Broadway icon) ...Vice President Aaron Burr?

Music featured in this episode provided by The Global Jukebox, the US Marine Band, Aaron Kenny, and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE TUGBOAT PIONEER Thea Foss

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 04:00:00 -0000

135 years ago, Norwegian immigrant Thea Foss lived in a ramshackle driftwood houseboat on the coast of Tacoma Washington. Kind, capable, and hard-working, she was an anchor for hundreds more immigrants during America's Gilded Age. Thea built the largest maritime company west of the Mississippi- but more than that, she was the heart of the community. (Plus there's a boat parade, a catastrophic fire, and a truly delightful cow.)

Join Katie on location in Tacoma Washington as we explore the question of how to build community.

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Fancy a Thea Foss MUG featuring her inspiring motto ALWAYS READY? The What'sHerName SHOP is open!

Join us for our next adventure on a What'sHerName TOUR!

If you're local to Tacoma, check out all the cool stuff Jennifer Trahan and Parks Tacoma are doing!

Music featured in this episode: Lift Up by the Mini Vandals; Density & Time by Travelator; The Royal Vagabond by Jockers Dance Orchestra; Meditation Impromptu 1 by Kevin MacLeod; traditional Norwegian songs in the National Jukebox Collection at the Library of Congress. Sound effects were kindly shared by Kevin Luce and Klankbeeld.

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THE SHAMAN QUEEN Himiko

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 04:01:00 -0000

In the 3rd century, a mysterious queen ruled the Kingdom of Yamatai (modern-day Japan) with a wise and steady hand. Her reign lasted almost 70 years - but what can we really know about her, when her people never wrote anything down? Anthropologist Laura Miller introduces Olivia to this elusive ancient queen.

Read more about Queen Himiko's continuing "rebirth" as a powerful cultural icon in Laura Miller's fascinating articles "Searching for Charisma: Queen Himiko" and "Rebranding Himiko: The Shaman Queen of Ancient History."

Music featured in this episode provided by Sotetsu Tanabe, Shigeo Fujino, Yasuda Shinpu, Gordon Inoue, and Nexus.

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THE PEACE WEAVER Eva Palmer Sikelianos

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 04:00:00 -0000

What if we could reopen a primordial spiritual portal, and summon peace on earth? For Eva Palmer Sikelianos in 1920s Greece, world peace wasn't a lofty dream-- it was an achievable goal. The key, Eva believed, was ancient Greek art, returned to Delphi. She had a bold plan, and if she could pull it off, she just might save the world.

Join Katie on location at the Benaki Museum in Athens, with Maria Dimitriadou, Historical Archives Curator.

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Check out our upcoming TOURS and maybe you'll sit in on the next recording!

To read more about Eva, check out A Life in Ruins by Artemis Leontis.

Music featured in this episode includes: Ischia, To Loom is to Love, and Lace Tablecloths by The Mini Vandals; Tomorrow Never Comes, Sad French Accordion, Accordion Dirge, and Rainy Night Accordion by Dana Boule; The Anunaki Return and The Sleeping Prophet by Jesse Gallagher; Alone by Emmit Fenn; Byzantine Chant by RTB45 at free sound.org; Lockers Dance Orchestra, Wedding March, and Melody in F from the Library of Congress National Jukebox.

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THE VAGABOND PRINCESS Gulbadan Begum

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 04:01:00 -0000

At the dawn of the Mughal Empire, a bold and brilliant Princess outlived three Emperors, and managed to create an adventurous, wildly unexpected life for herself during one of the most tumultuous eras in history. And luckily for the rest of us - she wrote it all down!

Award-winning historian Dr. Ruby Lal returns to the podcast to introduce us to the Vagabond Princess, Gulbadan Begum.

Music for this episode provided by Farya Faraji, Doug Maxwell, E's Jammy Jams, and Aashish Khan, Pranesh Khan, and Shiraz Ali Khan.

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THE DOER Fulvia

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 04:00:00 -0000

The Roman Republic is collapsing and everything hangs in the balance. It's a political game of kill-or-be-killed, and Fulvia did not come to play.

You've heard of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra. But have you heard of Fulvia, who was in the eye of that infamous ancient Roman storm?

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Travel with us to ITALY, to walk in Fulvia's footsteps! Our new LOST WOMEN OF ITALY Tour is open for registration!

Daisy Dunn is an award-winning classicist and author of The Missing Thread, A Women's History of the Ancient World.

Music featured in this episode:

Michael Levy "Cogitatio," "Sacred Flame of Vesta," "Amatores"

Jesse Gallagher: "The Anunnaki Return," "Spirit of Fire"

Jimena Contreras: "Cosmic Nightmares"

I Think I Can Help You: "Crab Nebula"

M Murray: "Viking Medieval Theme"

Plus sound effects from YleArkisto and LilMati

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THE CLAIRVOYANT QUEEN Seondeok

Mon, 19 May 2025 05:06:00 -0000

Queen Seondeok of Silla was revered for her wisdom, her compassion, and most importantly - her ability to use nature's signs to foretell the future! And with some truly audacious international diplomacy (and a resolute refusal to bend to patriarchal bullying) she would lay the foundations for the unification of The Three Kingdoms - now known as Korea. Karen Wang Diggs, author of The Book of Awesome Asian Women, helps us uncover the life of this elusive and fascinating queen.

Huge thanks to the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago for providing some of the music featured in this episode.

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THE SAUSAGE MAKER Johanna O'Brien

Mon, 05 May 2025 04:00:00 -0000

150 years ago, Irish farmer Johanna O'Brien created a secret recipe for black pudding. Today, her sausage is beloved by Michelin-star chefs across the world (and the recipe is still secret!).

Join Katie on location with Rory Copplestone at Clonakilty Blackpudding in Cork, to hear about a penniless girl who survived the Great Famine, built a thriving farm, and in her sunset years, created one of Ireland's iconic flavors.

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Travel with us: What'sHerName TOURS are open now!

Music for this episode is from Andy Reiner and Jon Sousa's Canyon Sunrise; Halfpelican; The Parting Glass by Audionautix; Kevin MacLeod; Jesse Gallagher.

Here is the charming vintage documentary on Irish farming life.

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THE FREE AND INDEPENDENT WOMAN Sayyida al Hurra

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:53:00 -0000

Nobody knows her real name. But this "Uncontested Pirate Queen of the Western Mediterranean" certainly earned her title: the Sayyida al Hurra, the Free and Independent Woman. From child refugee fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, to ruling Governor of Tetouan, to the Sultana of Morocco - Sayyida was never one to follow the path society had laid out for her.

Author Laura Sook Duncome helps us uncover the mystery of the one and only actual Pirate Queen.

Music featured in this episode provided by Farya Faraji, Astron, The Tides, Doug Maxwell, The Mini Vandals, and Patrick Patrikios.

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THE ANCHORITE Julian of Norwich

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 04:00:00 -0000

She lived through the worst century in human history: the Black Death, famine, war, death and despair. So it was all the more surprising when Julian of Norwich rose from her deathbed saying she'd received a vision from God: All shall be well. How could that be true when the whole world seems to be falling apart?

Travel with us to 14th century England, to visit famed mystic Julian of Norwich. I know it sounds crazy, she says, but trust me: everything is love.

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Fancy a Julian of Norwich mug reminding you All Shall Be Well? What'sHerName SHOP is open! Or travel with us on upcoming TOURS.

Music for this episode featured St. Stanislav Girl's Choir singing compositions by Hildegard of Bingen; plus additional music by Doug Maxwell; Jesse Gallagher; and Jimena Contreras.

Simon Critchley's new book is Mysticism; or check out the Showings of Julian of Norwich

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THE IDEALIST Mary Ware Dennett

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 06:55:00 -0000

Mary Ware Dennett was one of the most important and influential activist for women's rights, contraception, free speech and sex education in early 20th century America. So why does her nemesis Margaret Sanger get all the attention?

Returning guest Stephanie Gorton helps Olivia unravel the mystery of this fascinating, forward-thinking woman.

Music featured in this episode provided by Asher Fulero, Kevin Macleod, The Mini Vandals, Late Night Feeler, Jeff Cuno, Cooper Cannell, Dan Bodan, and the American Quartet.

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THE RELUCTANT EMPRESS Sisi

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0000

She prevented war and death on an immense scale, in acts that could earn the Nobel Peace Prize today. But History enshrined Sisi, Empress of Austria, as a vain beauty queen. The smear campaign was personal, not political: it started with her own tyrannical mother-in-law. Can Sisi conquer her own self-doubt, and drag draconian Austria into the modern world?

Our guest is Nancy Goldstone, author of The Rebel Empresses: Elisabeth of Austria and Eugenie of France, Power and Glamor in the Struggle for Europe.

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Music in the episode includes works by Johann Strauss, Joseph Suk, Giuseppe Verdi, Bedrich Smetana, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, and Kevin MacLeod.

Join us on our women's history tours! What'sHerName listeners make the best travel buddies.

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THE STRONGWOMAN Katie Sandwina

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 05:14:00 -0000

When world-famous strongman Eugen Sandow finally met his match, nobody expected it to be at the hands of an 18 year old girl. But whether it was bending metal bars, beating horses in a tug-of-war, or hefting her own husband over her head with one arm, German strongwoman Katie Sandwina would continue to shatter records (and Victorian gender norms) for another forty years. Guest Haley Shapley, author of Strong Like Her, introduces Olivia to this astonishing, unexpected heroine.

Your wish is our command! THE GREAT SANDWINA hoodies and tanks are HERE!

Voiceovers for this episode provided by Marion Lamm, Anica Bell, Mark Henderson, and Matthew Meikle.

Music featured in this episode provided by Jeremy Korpas, The United States Marine Band, Asher Fulero, Quincas Moreira, and Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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THE WITCH OF WELLFLEET Maria Hallett

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0000

A pirate ship jammed with treasure. The worst storm to ever hit Cape Cod. The mythical shipwreck-- 280 years later, found. Everything in this swashbuckling tale (full of impossible things that really did happen) occurred because of Maria Hallett. Did she turn witch, to curse her lover's ship, or to save it?

Join us on location at Real Pirates Museum in Salem, MA.

Music featured in this episode includes: Blow the Wind Southerly by Anne Norman; Blow Boys Blow and Goodbye Fare You Well from the Library of Congress; and compositions generously shared by Cooper Cannell, Brian Bolger, Patrick Patrikios, Wayne Jones, Jesse Gallagher, and Jimena Contreras.

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THE ADVENTURERS The Wilmot Sisters

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 04:03:00 -0000

How did two ordinary 18th century Anglo-Irish sisters end up gallivanting around the European continent, fraternizing with all the most radical and revolutionary minds of the Enlightenment, and becoming BFFs with a Russian Princess? Guest Dr. Alexis Wolf introduces Olivia to the astonishing lives of Katherine and Martha Wilmot.

Music for this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Killarney, and Tatyana Kalmokova.

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CHRISTMAS IN MAINE Sarah Orne Jewett

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0000

Travel to snowy Victorian Maine in this year's Christmas Special, as Katie reads from the memoirs of Sarah Orne Jewett. An immensely famous and beloved novelist in her day, Sarah wrote wholesome tales of the country folk of Maine, where as a child she had accompanied her physician father on his rounds.

Find a massive collection of Sarah Orne Jewett's works collected by the Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project HERE.

Our What'sHerName SHOP is open! Every purchase supports our mission to get these women's stories out into the world. Thank you for your support!

Music in this episode includes: Fiddlesticks, from their album Cold Fusion; Wexford Carol by Rob Whalen on SoundCloud; Twin Musicom; Cooper Cannell; Kevin MacLeod; Esther Abrami; The Midshipmen Glee Club; Quincas Moreira; Asher Fulero.

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THE LEGEND Zainab Pasha

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 04:50:00 -0000

Zeynab Pasha was one of the most influential voices during several crises of 19th century Iranian history. From the Bread Crisis to the Tobacco Protests and the lead up to Iran's Constitutional Revolution, she led the way in taking back the power of the people. She was legendary, and then she disappeared - literally and figuratively.

Author Afarin Bellisario helps us rediscover the life of this incredible woman.

Music featured in this episode provided by Farya Faraji and selections from the Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran collection at Harvard University.

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THE APOTHECARY Giulia Tofana

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 04:18:00 -0000

If you knew the recipe for an undetectable poison, would you use it? What about giving it to women with abusive husbands? Giulia Tofana's legendary poison Aqua Tofana was famed and feared in 17th-century Rome. But just how many terrible husbands can drop dead, before the Pope gets suspicious?

In this year's Halloween Special, our guests are Gaia Aloisi and Ted Blackburn, the creators of Aqua Tofana, a new electronic opera about the life of Giulia Tofana.

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Travel with us in the footsteps of Giulia Tofana's poisoning ring! Our LOST WOMEN OF ITALY TOUR is open for registration!

Find out more about Aqua Tofana the opera (and watch the Act 1 Preview) HERE

The Black Widows of the Eternal City by Craig Monson is HERE from Indie booksellers

You may also enjoy reading Mike Dash's history of Aqua Tofana - a lively summary of the Magical Underworld of Rome, though lacking the primary sources of the trial

Music featured: Halloween Midnight by Roman Cano; Ghost Story and Ghost Processional by Kevin MacLeod

Episode cover image is from The Love Potion by Evelyn De Morgan, 1903

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THE DRAGON FROM CHICAGO Sigrid Schultz

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:32:00 -0000

When Sigrid Schultz was offered a job as a reporter in Berlin, Germany in 1919, she had no idea how her life was about to change - or how her work would change the world.

Returning guest Pamela Toler introduces us to this indomitable woman, who was one of the first to raise the alarm about the Nazis, one of the last to leave as WWII made reporting impossible, and the first woman in history to head an American News Bureau.

Music in this episode provided by Andy Reiner, Peak Duo, Amanda Setlik Wilson, Jeff Cuno, Esther Abrami, Sir Cubworth, The New Hot 5, and Emmit Fenn.

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THE SWORN SPINSTER Fanny Law

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0000

Whenever Teresa Lim asked about a striking woman she saw in old family photos, she was told 'That's Aunt Fanny; she was unfortunate.' So naturally, Teresa Lim spent years excavating Aunt Fanny's life in 1920s Singapore. It's a story of three devoted sisters, ghost husbands, working-class Chinese feminists, and sworn spinsters.

Turns out, Fanny was very fortunate indeed...until History arrived at her front door.

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You can buy Teresa Lim's The Interpreter's Daughter and benefit a local indie bookshop HERE

Music in this episode was by:

The Butterfly Lovers Concerto for violin performed by Takako Nishizaki

Doug Maxwell: Honky Tonkin'; Lao Tsu Erhu

Gene Kardos' Orchestra: My Extraordinary Gal, 1932

Yao Lie: Rose Rose I Love You

Kevin MacLeod: Medusa; March of the Mind; Despair and Triumph

Jesse Gallagher: Thin Places

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THE FILMMAKERS The McDonagh Sisters

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:13:00 -0000

Throughout the 1920s, three sisters dominated the Australian film scene. The phenomenal filmmaking team of Isabel, Phyllis, and Paulette McDonagh reigned supreme as the undisputed Queens of Silent Cinema... until the talkies arrived to turn everything upside down.

Award-winning author Mandy Sayer tells Olivia all about Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, whose lives were every bit as dramatic (and as complicated) as any Hollywood film.

Music featured in this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Aaron Kenny, and E's Jammy Jams.

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THE TANK COMMANDER Aleksandra Samusenko

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 04:00:00 -0000

Aleksandra Samusenko commanded a unit of Soviet tanks through some of the most brutal battles in human history. The Soviet Union never told her story. But an American paratrooper who'd escaped a Nazi POW camp never forgot her. In the final months of World War II, he joined her unit, and together they made the final push to Berlin.

Guest Hayley Noble shares the story of THE TANK COMMANDER Aleksandra Samusenko.

Haley Noble's website on Soviet Women in Combat is HERE, with social media links HERE.

Soviet WWII Music used in this episode can be found HERE. The Russian State History page on Samusenko (with lots of photos and documents) is HERE.

Additional music was composed by Exra Lipp, Amulets, Jimena Contreras, Wayne Jones, Esther Abrami, and Quincas Moreira.

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THE FIRST LADY Pat Nixon

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 03:31:00 -0000

For decades, her remarkable achievements as United States First Lady have been overshadowed by her husband's big mistakes. Returning guest Heath Hardage Lee is back to help change that! Olivia introduces us to the remarkable and unfairly forgotten Pat Nixon.

Music in this episode provided by The Westerlies, Aaron Kenny, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, The Mini Vandals, Cooper Cannell, Doug Maxwell, Quincas Moereira, and the US Marine Corps Band.

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THE IRISH JOAN OF ARC Maud Gonne

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 04:00:00 -0000

She was one of the key figures of Irish Independence, known in her lifetime as The Irish Joan of Arc. But somehow, history only remembers her as the woman who wouldn't marry WB Yeats. More recently, a BBC headline called her "Ireland's heroine who had sex in her baby's tomb." Both those things are true, but... her real story is even more bonkers - and of course, so much more amazing.

Join us with guest Orna Ross to put Maud Gonne back in her rightful place, among the founders of modern Ireland.

Join the Kickstarter Campaign for a special edition of A Life Before benefitting the movement to memorialize Maud Gonne in Dublin!

Music in this episode was generously shared by Andy Reiner and Jon Sousa from their album Canyon Sunrise. Plus music from E's Jammy Jams, Jesse Gallagher, Doug Maxwell, Wayne Jones, Kevin MacLeod, and Audionautix.

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THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT Artemisia Gentileschi

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0000

Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most famed and respected painters in 17th century Europe, but after she died, her story - and many of her works - were lost, and over the years, Artemisia has become better known for what was done to her than for what she did. Award-winning artist Lindsay Huss helps us try to change that.

(Content warning: discussions of physical and sexual violence)

Music for this episode provided by Marc Nelson, Advent Chamber Orchestra, Catrin Finch, John Harrison, and the Wichita State University Chamber Players

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BONUS: A Night of Celebration Live

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 05:24:00 -0000

What'sHerName goes live!

To launch our new book, What's Her Name, A History of the World in 80 Lost Women, former episode guests convene in London from all over the world for a Night of Celebration! In rapid-fire succession, brilliant 3-minute performances of poetry, song, story and dance take us chronologically through the history of the world. The magic is punctuated throughout with short readings by Katie and Olivia from the new book. The packed house at the Vagina Museum, with the most enthusiastic audience, made for a heartwarming night we'll never forget!

Guest Performers in order of appearance:

Introduction and reading by GABBY NEMETH, Senior Editor at Michael O’Mara Books

Musician and composer SAM HENDERSON (our little brother!) performing the world's oldest written song, the Seikolos Epitaph

Chemist and poet KIRK STAPLEY, reading his poem "Naia"

SISTER RITA MINEHAN, Brigidine Sister and founding member of the Solas Bhríde Centre, reading St. Brigid's Lake of Beer Prayer

GABO CEMÉ, founder of Eco Maya Travel and Wild Animal Sanctuary, telling the story of Zazil-Ha

Westminster Abbey's AARON PATERSON, reading the 17th century petitions and receipts of Elizabeth Gregory, Head Carpenter of the Abbey

Award-winning Pakistani singer-songwriter and Bollywood music director ZEB BANGASH performing Roshe, a love poem by 16th century Persian mystic Habba Khatun

Professor WALEED ZIAD of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, telling the story of 19th century Sufi mystic Dadi Mithan

IAN MORTIMER, bestselling author of more than twenty books on the history of England, reflects on the life of Harriot Mellon

Composer JESSICA WADLEY performing her original song "Mount Florence" about Yosemite adventurer Florence Hutchings

Dancer and choreographer JANET COLLARD performing her interpretation of 1920s cabaret dancer Valeska Gert's infamous "prostitute dance," Canaille.

KIP WILSON reading from her novel-in-verse One Last Shot, about Spanish Civil War photojournalist Gerda Taro

NIKKI DRUCE, host of the Macabre London podcast, recreates the final seance of Helen Duncan, Britain's last convicted witch

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter NEYLA PEKAREK, formerly of The Lumineers, performs "I Want Everything" from her 2022 musical Rattlesnake Kate

SOPHIE POLDERMANS, author of Seducing and Killing Nazis, telling the story of Truus and Freddie Oversteegen and Hannie Schaft

Composer and musician Erica Glenn, Director of Choral Activities at BYU - Hawaii, performing an Art Song by Ukranian composer Stefania Turkevych

Historian PAM TOLER tells the story of anti-fascist war correspondent Sigrid Schultz, from her forthcoming book The Dragon from Chicago

Art Historian MONICA WALKER, Events Manager at the Old Operating Theater Museum, performs a bellydance in honor of Samia Gamal of Egypt

Artist, designer, and illustrator ELLA KASPEROWICZ, illustrator of our second book A Stinky History of Toilets, whose whimsical illustrations brighten the future of the world

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THE ABOLITIONIST Ellen Garrison

Wed, 29 May 2024 04:19:00 -0000

The story goes that the American Civil Rights movement started when Rosa Parks refused to leave her bus seat in 1955. But 89 years before that, Ellen Garrison refused to leave the waiting room at a Baltimore train station. When she was thrown out, she sued, in one of the first court cases to test African American civil rights. Criss-crossing America to teach former slaves wherever needed, Ellen Garrison devoted her life to lifting those who had been held down.

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THE BYZANTINE Irene of Athens

Thu, 16 May 2024 09:20:00 -0000

From arriving at the port of Constantinople as a teenage bride to the heir to the Byzantine Throne, to exiling - and blinding - her own son, Constantine IV, to boldly crowning herself the first Empress Regnant of the Byzantine Empire, Irene of Athens' life was a wildly unpredictable ride through one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods of medieval history.

Olivia interviews archaeologist and historian Judith Herrin, author of Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium and Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium.

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THE BUTTERFLY IN THE SUN Mata Hari

Wed, 01 May 2024 04:00:00 -0000

A charming Indonesian orphan danced her way to fame and fortune... except literally everything about Mata Hari was a lie. She said she wanted to live like a butterfly in the sun. So could she really have been guilty of espionage?

Katie takes us to Leiden to marvel at the incredible life of Mata Hari.

Music featured in this episode provided by Doug Maxwell, Jesse Gallagher, Patrick Patrikios, Amulets, Offenbach, Jimena Contreras, BizBaz Studio, Wayne Jones, Quincas Moreira, ELPHNT and E’s Jammy Jams.

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THE COUNTERFEIT COUNTESS Janina Mehlberg

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0000

When Jewish mathematician Pepi Mehlberg was offered a new identity as Countess Janina Suchodolska in Nazi-occupied Poland, she took that chance and used it - to join the underground resistance, feed thousands of Nazi prisoners every week, and eventually rescue over 10,000 Poles from Majdanek concentration camp. And she was just getting started.

Our guests are Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, authors of the new book The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust.

Music featured in this episode provided by: Trialogo, Amanda Setlik Wilson, Kevin MacLeod, Esther Abrami, Myuu, Nico deNapoli, E's Jammy Jams, Adam Aston and Michael Levy.

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THE VOYAGER Hannah Masury Howe

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 04:00:00 -0000

In 1867, a ship bound for California with 400 Chinese passengers signaled distress as it drifted in the Pacific Ocean. The ship's captain was a woman, and her mutinous crew had refused to sail the ship even though they were running out of water. How did Captain Hannah Masury Howe come to be in such a predicament, and how could she possibly save herself and the ship?

Our guest is NYT bestselling author Katherine Howe, in this real-life high seas adventure.

Music featured in this episode by provided by: Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval, Jeff Cuno, Elphnt, Emmit Fenn, Jesse Gallagher, Chris Haugen, Kevin MacLeod and Doug Maxwell.

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THE SOLID CITIZEN Frances Perkins

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 18:41:00 -0000

Frances Perkins, first female cabinet secretary in US history, was the mind (and the will) behind nearly every landmark policy of the Roosevelt administration's New Deal - so why doesn't anyone know her name? Bestselling author Stephanie Dray introduces us to this remarkable woman whose vision and relentless hard work would touch the life of every American for nearly a century.

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THE EQUESTRIAN Anna Sewell

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 06:33:00 -0000

"This was one woman with a very little life, who made the most enormous difference." Celia Brayfield shares with Katie the story of Anna Sewell who, on her death bed, wrote a story and changed the world.

Black Beauty was no mere "horse book." It catapulted the cause of animal rights and became one of the bestselling books of all time. But Anna Sewell -a quiet, humble Quaker- didn't change the world by preaching: she changed the world by listening.

You can find Celia Brayfield's new book, Writing Black Beauty, in our bookshop and support local indie sellers.

Excerpts from Black Beauty were read by Cori Samuel and the whole book is free to download at Librivox.org.

Music for this episode was composed and performed by: The Mini Vandals, Asher Fulero, Aakash Gandhi, Kevin MacLeod, Josef Suk, and Esther Abrami.

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THE GUNG-HO ORIGINAL Helen Foster Snow

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0000

In 1931, a young American aspiring writer set off for what she thought would be a one-year adventure in China. Hoping to gain life experience so she could eventually write the Great American Novel - she would instead become famous as the "Voice of China" to the west, and improve the lives of millions of people in the process. Olivia talks with Helen Foster Snow's great-nephew Adam Foster and her friend and translator Professor An Wei in this unexpected and inspiring episode.

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CHRISTMAS IN SWEDEN Selma Lagerlöf

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0000

Selma Lagerlöf poetically recorded old Norse fairytales and profoundly influenced Swedish identity. Her work was so brilliant, she was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. In old age, she turned her poetic pen to her own life, recalling winters in the 1860s at her beloved Varmland farmhouse, Mårbaka.

For our annual Christmas Special, we bring her poignant memoirs to life, accompanied by an audio feast of traditional Swedish music. God Jul!

Music featured in this episode was generously shared by Blås, Balg & Tagel, Haga Vokalensemble, MrsBean 1987, Kevin MacLeod, Aaron Kenny, DJ Williams, The Westerlies, and Wayne Jones.

You can find a digital copy of Mårbaka and all Selma Lagerlöf's books at Gutenberg Project.

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THE WILD CHILD Alice Roosevelt

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 02:15:00 -0000

When Alice Roosevelt's dad became President of the United States, her family became the center of attention for the entire country (and the world) - and that was just how she liked it. Whether smoking on the White House roof, racing her bright red motorcar through the streets of Washington DC, or wearing her snake Emily Spinach as jewelry while attending Congressional Balls - Alice scandalized her parents and delighted the nation. But that was just the beginning.

Olivia interviews Shelley Fraser Mickle, author of the new book White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America.

Music for this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Aaron Kenny, The New Hot 5, Peak Duo, Victor Dance Orchestra, Esther Abrami, The Melody Weavers and the US Marine Corps Band.

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THE BOSTON BRAHMIN Ethel Gibson Allen

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0000

Come with us to peak Gilded Age America! We'll watch a charmingly unconventional love story unfold, cure yellow fever, stare at some incredible wallpaper and explore fascinating reasons why women should NOT vote. Katie takes us on location to Ethel Gibson Allen's Boston mansion, now the Gibson House Museum.

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THE BLOOD COUNTESS Elizabeth Báthory

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 01:34:15 -0000

Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a monster - a sadistic, murderous, vampire-witch who, in her castle in Hungary in the early 1600s, tortured and murdered over 600 young girls, then bathed in the blood of her victims.

Or did she? Was she truly the supreme supernatural evil of 500 years of legend? Or was she an innocent victim of witch-hunt hysteria and political scheming?

Or was she something else entirely?

Dig into the mysteries of this gruesome, complicated tale with our guest, legal historian Kimberly Craft, in our 2023 Halloween Special.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Kevin Macleod, Doug Maxwell, Esther Abrami, Aaron Kenny, Brian Bolger, Jimena Contreras, Quincas Moreira, Twin Musicom, Myuu and John Patitucci.

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THE MONGOL KHATUN Genghis Khan's Daughters

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

Without the daughters of Genghis Khan, there would have been no Mongol Empire. Four women ruled over North, South, East, and West, in what would become the largest land empire in the history of the world. It's a story you've never heard, because the sisters were literally cut out of the Mongol records. Join us with eminent Mongol scholar Jack Weatherford, who went searching for the missing story... and found it.

Illustrations by Brooke Smart.

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THE QUEEN OF HAITI Marie-Louise Christophe

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

Say you join a revolution in the name of liberty and equality. Then someone hands you a crown. Could you do more good, with that power? Or will everything fall apart? Come with us to Haiti and across Europe in the twisty-turny tale of THE QUEEN OF HAITI, Marie-Louise Christophe.

Katie's guest is Vanessa Riley, author of Queen of Exiles.

To learn more about the sound recordings by anthropologist Alan Lomax, check out CulturalEquity.org, and the American Folklife Center. We featured "Valtz Creole" by Musique Creole Group, and a number of voodoo ceremony recordings.

Additional music was composed by ELPHNT, Kevin Macleod, Jimena Contreras, Quincas Moreira, Sir Cubworth, Aaron Kenny, Brian Bolger, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.

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THE ANTI-FASCIST Gerda Taro

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 21:12:00 -0000

How did a 25-year-old German Jewish refugee with no formal photography training become 'half of' the most celebrated war photographer in history? Returning guest Kip Wilson takes us right into the heart of the Spanish Civil War to meet Gerda Taro - subject of Wilson's newest novel One Last Shot and the most famous photojournalist you've never heard of.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Trialogo, The Mini Vandals, Sir Cubworth, Doug Maxwell, Aaron Kenny, and Esther Abrami.

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THE CLEANING LADY Seraphine of Senlis

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0000

How did a lifelong cleaning lady become one of the most beloved painters in French history? In 1905, the voice of the Virgin Mary told orphaned, uneducated maid Seraphine to paint, and she obeyed. Her small French town was on the front line of both world wars, and through it all she painted her kaleidoscopic view. She gave her paintings to everyone in town...who promptly tossed them in the fireplace. She died penniless and unknown, but when a film about her aired on French television a couple years ago, everything changed. Travel with Katie in Senlis for a vivid soundscape of turn-of-the-century France and meet "France's Mona Lisa."

Katie's guest is Alicia Basso Boccabella at the Museums of Senlis.

Music featured in this episode was recorded by Thierry Callen, Kevin MacLeod, and Andrew Huang.

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THE WESTERN WOMAN Rattlesnake Kate Slaughterback

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 08:14:00 -0000

The day "Rattlesnake Kate" Slaughterback (armed with only a rifle, 4 bullets, and a "No Hunting" sign) successfully shot, slashed and smashed her way through hundreds of rattlesnakes to save herself and her son, a legend was born. But that's just the beginning of her story...

Olivia is on location at the Greeley History Museum with Grammy-nominated musician and composer Neyla Pekarek (formerly of The Lumineers), whose musical Rattlesnake Kate premiered in 2022 at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Kate Slaughterback's letters were read by Emma Porter, and "Rattlesnake Kate's Passionate Love" was performed by Mark Henderson.

Music featured in this episode by Neyla Pekarek, Quincas Moreira, Nat Keefe and The Bow Ties, Zachariah Hickman.

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THE WOMAN KING Hatshepsut

Fri, 26 May 2023 20:21:00 -0000

The Pharaoh Hatshepsut is probably the most successful woman king Egypt ever had - so why doesn't anyone know how to say her name? Discover this enigmatic, fascinating woman with returning guest and fan-favorite Egyptologist Kara Cooney.

Music featured in this episode used by kind permission of Michael Levy, Remon Sakr, Kevin MacLeod and Quincas Moreira.

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THE PUNA HELE Mary Kawena Puku'i

Wed, 10 May 2023 15:11:00 -0000

“I have only one favor to ask of people: to take care of their stories.” When Mary Kawena Puku’i was born, her grandmother named her the PUNA HELE, the one who would carry their Hawaiian tradition and culture into the future. Not an easy task, since she was born in 1895-- the year Hawaii was overthrown and annexed by the United States! But she rose to the task, working tirelessly her entire life to record Hawaiian language and culture...with magnificent and inspiring results!

Guest Dr. Eve Okura Koller holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Her research has taken her to places such as New Zealand, the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, and Finland. Her publications include the Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management (MIT Press) and Language Nests (Oxford University Press). She is from Hilo, Hawai'i.

Music featured in this episode from the Library of Congress, Doug Maxwell, and Chris Haugen.

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THE ACCUSED Clara Ford

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 22:10:00 -0000

When Clara Ford - a poor, Black, cross-dressing, pipe smoking, single mother - was arrested for the murder of dashing, young, white Frank Westwood, nobody expected her to avoid the noose. So how did this unexpected heroine talk her way out of the death sentence - even after she confessed?

Olivia takes us to 19th century Toronto for a wild True Crime adventure with Carolyn Whitzman, author of the fascinating new book Clara at the Door With a Revolver. Join us as we uncover the truth (or do we?) of this unexpected and unbelievable trial.

Music featured in this episode by Zachariah Hickman, Aaron Kenny, E's Jammy Jams, Biz Baz, Vess Ossman, Libby Dees and Adam Roberts.

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THE DISCOVERY Naia

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0000

In a deep dark underwater cave, Mexican divers in 2007 found a mountain of prehistoric animal bones…and one human skeleton. It was Naia– the oldest skeleton ever discovered in the Americas. What can her bones tell us about our human origins? And more than that, what do they tell us about what it means to be human? Come with us on location to Dos Palmas cenote in Mexico, as Katie interviews returning guest Gabo Cemé.

Music featured in this episode by Kevin McLeod, ELPHNT, Jimena Contreras, Patrick Patrikios, and Amulets.

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THE SUN QUEEN Maria Telkes

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 06:16:00 -0000

Her pioneering work on solar heat and solar energy would change science forever – but it was her passionate dedication to humanity that made her a true visionary. Meet the remarkable Maria Telkes, subject of the amazing American Experience documentary The Sun Queen, with Olivia’s guests: Writer/Producer Gene Tempest and Director Amanda Pollack.

Music featured in this episode provided by: Amanda Setlik Wilson, The Mini Vandals, Esther Abrami, I Think I Can Help You, and Joel Cummins.

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THE PIRATE QUEEN OF CONNACHT Grace O'Malley

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0000

Her story was long consigned to legend and fantasy. An Irish pirate queen who commanded a fleet of ships from Spain to Scotland…in the 1500s?! Not likely. But in the 1990s, historian Anne Chambers found a trove of documents in a dusty old chest at Westport House, and the tales of Grace O’Malley were proven to be marvelously, fantastically, true. Join Katie on location in Ireland for a swashbuckling tale like no other!

Music featured in this episode included Kevin MacLeod, Doug Maxwell, David Lim, Half Pelican, and Fiddlesticks.

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THE USELESS HOUSEWIFE SCIENTIST Beverly Paigen

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 05:26:00 -0000

When the mothers of Love Canal learned that their neighborhood was built on a chemical dump, they began the fight of their lives. First for information, and then to escape their own homes. But without biologist Beverly Paigen - who put her reputation, her career, and maybe even her own safety on the line - it would never have happened.

Discover this remarkable and infuriating story with returning guest Keith O'Brien, New York Times bestselling author of author of Paradise Falls.

Music featured in this episode by Kevin MacLeod, Aaron Kenny, TrackTribe, Mini Vandals, Asher Fulero, Myuu, and Doug Maxwell.

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THE WARDEN Maria van Nispen

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 05:23:00 -0000

We often hear about history’s various Golden Ages, but what about when good times were over? Maria van Nispen, a bricklayer’s daughter, came of age during the Dutch “Disaster Year,” 1672. Justice, stability, even the Republic itself seemed lost. If you can’t change the world, change yourself…

Travel with Katie to Leiden archives to unearth this remarkable tale with guest Susan Suer.

Music featured in this episode includes Jimena Contreras, Doug Maxwell, Sir Cubworth, Emmit Fenn, Wahneta Meixsell and Hanu Dixit.

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THE INAUGURAL BALLER Lusia Harris

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 05:02:00 -0000

When Lusia Harris convinced her parents to let her try out for High School basketball, she never could've anticipated she'd end up scoring the first basket in Olympic Women’s Basketball history. Facing unprecedented hurdles at every step of her career, she broke records, made history, and changed women’s sports forever... and that’s just the beginning!

Olivia interviews guest Andrew Maraniss, author of Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First Us Women's Olympic Basketball Team (a 2002 Book of the Year by Kirkus. Andrew Maraniss is a New York Times bestselling author of sports and social justice nonfiction for teens and adults. His other books include Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South (winner of the RFK Book Awards Special Recognition Prize and the Lillian Smith Book Award), Games of Deception (winner of the Sydney Taylor Honor Award), and Singled Out (named one of Esquire Magazine's "Top 100 Baseball Books Ever Written"). Andrew is director of special projects at the Vanderbilt University Athletic Department and lives in Nashville. Follow him on Twitter @trublu24.

Music featured in this episode by Chris Haugen, Wayne Jones, King Canyon, Unicorn Heads, Kevin MacLeod, Tower of Light, and An Jone.

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A COUNTRY HOUSE CHRISTMAS Phyllis Sandeman - 2022 Christmas Special

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 05:01:00 -0000

The darkest time of year inspires us all to reflect on the meaning and power of Home. Experience Christmas in a grand country house through the eyes of an Edwardian child in this charming reading of Phyllis Elinor Sandeman’s memoir, A Country House Christmas performed by returning What'sHerName favorite Jay Stelling.

Guest Jay Stelling is an illustrator, doll maker and storyteller from North Yorkshire, England, and an assistant at Mother Shipton’s Cave. She graduated in 2018 from Leeds Arts University where she received a First in BA(hons) Illustration. You can often find her making tiny dolls in her little attic studio with her partner and their two fluffy cats. Jay is fascinated by fairies and folklore, with most of her work centred around charming character and children’s stories, such as fairy tales and Yorkshire legends. Jay’s first children’s book Whistle-Stop Thistle is a story about recycling and reusing scrap materials. You can purchase her dolls, books, and more on her website.

Music for this episode provided by: Fiddlesticks, Nate Blaze, Random Canadian, Brian Bolger, Sir Cubworth, Aaron Kenny, and Esther Abrami. We are especially grateful for this exclusive new recording of “Christians Awake," arranged and performed especially for us by the wonderful Kira Zeeman Rugen.

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THE QUEEN OF THE WEST Dale Evans

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 12:11:00 -0000

She always wanted to make it to Broadway. Instead she became Hollywood’s most iconic cowgirl, roping and riding (and most importantly – singing!) her way into the hearts of millions of fans. So when your life is one giant triumph – but not the triumph you aimed for – what do you do? Olivia interviews Theresa Kaminski, author of the wonderful new biography Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans.

Music featured in this episode included: Aaron Kenny, Jesse Gallagher, Zacharaiah Hickman, Chris Haugen, E's Jammy Jams, Dan Leibowitz, and selections from songs by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans used by Educational Fair Use License.

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THE BRIDGE Brigid of Kildare

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 07:00:00 -0000

St. Brigid tended an eternal flame in Kildare, Ireland, while caring for people, animals, and the earth. And though she lived 1500 years ago, her story is seeing a huge resurgence in the 21st century.

Come on location with Katie to the Solas Bhride Centre in Kildare to meet Brigidine nun, Sister Rita Minehan. We promise a balm for your weary soul!

_________________________

We're going back to Kildare for St. Brigid's Day 2026 and YOU'RE INVITED!

Music featured in this episode included: “Karitas” by Maria Jonas; and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” “Love is Little,” and “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” by Fiddlesticks.

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THE NURSE Mary Seacole

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 09:06:00 -0000

What would it look like to live a life without fear? Mary Seacole’s story may hold the answer! She spent her life rushing from one catastrophe to the next, doing anything she could to ease human suffering – without a single thought for her own safety. From disease-infested Panamanian goldmines to the horrific battlefield hospitals of Crimea – Mary spent her life being “relentlessly useful” …but how on earth did she do it?

Olivia interviews historian Helen Rappaport, author of the fascinating new book In Search of Mary Seacole. Thank you to Penguin Audio for allowing us to use selections from their delightful audiobook production of Mary’s memoir, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, which was performed by Yasmin Mwanza. You can also find the full text of Mary’s memoir online here.

Guest Helen Rappaport is the author of In Search of Mary Seacole, The Romanov Sisters, The Last Days of the Romanovs, and many other critically acclaimed titles. She has been a full-time writer for more than twenty-three years, and in 2003 discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Mary Seacole that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, sparking a long investigation into Seacole’s life and career.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Minivandal, The Tides, Quincas Moreira, Aaron Kenny, the USMC Band, and Jeff Cuno.

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THE POISONER Goeie Mie

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 04:01:00 -0000

The most prolific poisoner of all time couldn’t possibly have been a woman. Right??! Goeie Mie, “Good Maria,” was such a kindly nurse that desperate folks in 19th-century Leiden called her when they were sick, knowing she’d come even if they couldn’t pay. But they got worse, and worse, and usually died in misery.

Goeie Mie had life insurance on all of them.

Travel on location to Leiden, The Netherlands with Katie in this spooky Halloween Special!

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Goeie Mie Gin has branched out to more drinks is now called True Tales Distillery. Check out THE BUTTERFLY IN THE SUN for another episode recorded with Josine Heijnen about notorious spy Mata Hari!

Music featured in this episode by Esther Abrami, Aaron Kenny, Román Cano, Kevin MacLeod, and Camille Saint-Saens.

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THE GRATEFUL DUCHESS Harriot Mellon

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 06:51:00 -0000

The richest, most famous person you’ve never heard of is Harriot Mellon. An icon of the stage in Regency England, she rose from abject poverty and abuse to become the wealthiest woman in the country. More surprising still: she was the sweetest, most wholesome soul you’ll ever meet.

Guest Dr Ian Mortimer is the author of over twenty books on the history of England, which have sold more than a million copies and been translated into fifteen languages. He’s been described by The Times as ‘the most remarkable medieval historian of our time,’ and is best known as the author of the four Time Traveller’s Guides – to Medieval England (2008), Elizabethan England (2012), Restoration Britain (2017) and Regency Britain (2020). He is currently the president of the Moretonhampstead History Society and vice president of the Mortimer History Society. He lives in Dartmoor (Devon), with his wife Sophie and enjoys visiting historical sites and museums, studying local history, playing guitars, walking in the country and running.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Asher Fulero, Sir Cubworth, Esther Abrami, Joel Cummins, Wayne Jones, and Emmit Fenn.

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THE CARPENTER Elizabeth Gregory

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 01:55:00 -0000

When Sir Christopher Wren was tasked with redesigning Westminster Abbey in 1697, his extravagant vision was brought to life by Head Abbey Carpenter Elizabeth Gregory. In an era when men ruled supreme, this remarkable woman oversaw every one of the hundreds of carpenters working for the Abbey – for over fifteen years. Discover the mysterious life of Elizabeth Gregory, on-location with Westminster Abbey Community Learning Officer Aaron Paterson.

Take a virtual tour of the Queen’s Gallery at Westminster Abbey’s website.

Hear more behind-the-scenes fun from our 2021 Lost Women of England Tour here, or find more information about upcoming tours here.

Guest Aaron Paterson leads the Community Engagement programme at Westminster Abbey and runs a small media company supporting cultural organisations to deliver quality digital content. Alongside these roles Aaron is a trustee for SouthWestFest, a health and culture festival in Westminster, and sits on the working group for the Families in Museums Network. All of these roles are underpinned by a passion for the undervalued and overlooked stories that highlight marginalised people.

Music featured in this episode provided by Solis, Choir of the Sun, Kira Zeeman Rugen, and the Archive of Recorded Church Music.

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THE ONE WHO STAYED Caty Taylor

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 16:58:00 -0000

What really matters in life? Family, love, kindness, freedom…? And if you had to pick just one, which would it be? Caty Taylor, enslaved at Montpelier Plantation, had to choose. Her brother was sold, her sister joined the largest escape attempt in American history… but Caty stayed. They all took different paths but – miracle of miracles – found a happy ending.

Learn more about Caty and many of the plantation’s other enslaved residents at Montpelier’s wonderful Naming Project. Discover more amazing art by Mera MacKendrick, who created our incredible Caty Taylor illustration, on her website or her Instagram. Read the full text of “Fugitives of the Pearl" here (read for us by James Henderson). Special thanks to Kate Stewart and Caleb Slama.

Guest Hilarie M. Hicks is the Director of Museum Programs at James Madison’s Montpelier. She served on the research and writing team for the award-winning exhibition The Mere Distinction of Colour, and is currently writing biographies of the enslaved for The Naming Project on Montpelier’s Digital Doorway website. Hilarie previously served as Curator of Interpretation at Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens (New Bern, NC) and Executive Director of the Rosewell Foundation (Gloucester, VA). She is an alum of the College of William and Mary (B.A.), the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies (M.A.), and the Seminar for Historical Administration.

Music for this episode was provided by Emmit Fenn, I Think I Can Help You, and the Library of Congress.

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THE QUEEN OF CHOCOLATE Luisa Spagnoli

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 07:22:00 -0000

Luisa Spagnoli overcame childhood poverty – and the infamously misogynistic fascism of Mussolini’s Italy – to become one of the most famous and influential chocolatiers (and fashion designers!) in European history. But how did she do it?!

Olivia interviews Dr. Diana Garvin, author of Feeding Fascism.

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Travel with us in the footsteps of Luisa Spagnoli! We're headed to the Perugina chocolate factory and so much more on our LOST WOMEN OF ITALY TOUR -- now open for registration!

Diana Garvin is an Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Oregon. Her first book, Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work, came out in February 2022.

Music featured in this episode provided by The Green Orbs, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, the Mini Vandals and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 WOMEN: 100th Episode Special

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 04:01:00 -0000

For too long, the story of human history has been a story of men. But how would the story change if we put the ‘lost women’ center stage? In our 100th Episode Special, we tell the whole history of the world, in one sweeping narrative, through all 100 What’sHerName women!

Find links to every episode of What'sHerName on our website, or order Katie and Olivia's new book The Book of Sisters from our Bookshop or anywhere books are sold.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Tower of Light, Aaron Kenny, ELFNT, Savfk, Kevin MacLeod, Radio Jarocho and Zenen Zeferino, Sir Cubworth, Chris Haugen, and Daniel Foster Smith.

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THE TEACHER Lois Meek Stolz

Tue, 31 May 2022 04:01:00 -0000

When Lois Meek Stolz became a teacher, “children as small silent robots”-style education ruled the day. But her innovative vision, empathy for her students, and bold refusal to “do what had always been done” helped change American education forever – but that was only the beginning! Meet the “model teacher” who became one of the most influential Child Development experts in a century… and then was completely forgotten. Olivia interviews Elizabeth More, Historian and Director of Programs at the Jewish Women’s Archive.

Guest Betsy More is a historian and Director of Programs at the Jewish Women’s Archive, a national organization dedicated to collecting and promoting the extraordinary stories of Jewish women. She earned her PhD in American history from Harvard University, where her research focused on the history of work and motherhood in the United States. She lives outside Boston, MA, with her husband and daughter.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Aaron Kenny, Esther Abrami, and the United States Marine Band.

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THE GLEANER Judith Sargent Murray

Tue, 17 May 2022 04:17:00 -0000

In 1790, Judith Sargent Murray became the first American to publicly argue that men and women were equal. Hailing from seafaring Gloucester Massachusetts, she educated herself, weathered some of life’s cruelest storms, and published hundreds of bold, brave essays. She expected to rock the boat, steering her new American nation toward equality. And America went…meh. Why? Join Katie on location at Sargent House Museum in Gloucester.

Guest Jen Turner is a doctoral candidate in history at UMass Amherst and a long time adjunct faculty member in the history department at Bridgewater State University. She is also a museum professional and has worked at various museums throughout Massachusetts, including the Paul Revere House and Plimoth Patuxet Museums. Currently, she is the part-time Museum Educator at the Buttonwoods Museum in Haverhill, Mass and the Lead Tour Guide, Curatorial Associate, and Site Manager of the Sargent House Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She is the harried mother of a toddler son born in the middle of a global pandemic and a first grader who may or may not like history as much as her mother.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Doug Maxwell, Aaron Kenny, Amulets, Advent Chamber Orchestra, the United States Army Field Band, and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE CONSTANT SCANDAL Valeska Gert

Tue, 03 May 2022 05:31:00 -0000

Even in the wildly eccentric cabaret culture of 1920s Berlin,Valeska Gert stood out. And though it would take nearly fifty years for society to “catch up” with Valeska’s vision – this unique and irrepressible dancer would eventually (and against all odds) become revered as the “Mother of Punk”! Olivia interviews dancer and dance historian Janet Collard.

Watch Janet Collard’s show Performing Valeska here, and see newly-discovered footage of Valeska Gert performing “Tanz in Orange” here.

Guest Janet Collard (she/her/hers) is a dancer, actor, singer, and choreographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a BFA in dance from CalArts and an MFA in dance performance and choreography from Mills College, and is currently pursuing an MA in Dance Philosophy and History at Roehampton University in London. As a dancer, Janet has performed for many choreographers and companies in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Janet was a member of AXIS Dance Company from 2008-2011 where she toured the country performing in the works of many renowned choreographers. As a choreographer, Janet has created dance works for youth through adults, and choreographs for theatrical productions. Janet Collard Dance Theater is interested in highlighting historical feminist themes and the performance of lost history through re-creation and re-interpretation.

Music featured in this episode included: Jelly Roll Morton, Audionautix, Clara Schumann, Claire Waldoff, Aaron Kenny and the Corona Dance Orchestra.

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THE GOOD WIFE Elizabeth Bray Allen

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 04:01:00 -0000

What makes a good wife? In 1700s Virginia, there was one clear path for colonial women: Marry. Have children. Preserve the family wealth. Fail at this, and you’ve failed at life. But what if the family wealth you were tasked to preserve was an old mansion…and a slave plantation? Katie takes us on location to Bacon’s Castle, one of America’s oldest houses.

You can read Elizabeth Bray Allen’s will here, and take a 3D tour of the entire house here! You can also see more photos and information about the house and the family here.

Guest Carol Wiedel is the site coordinator at Preservation Virginia’s Bacon’s Castle in Surry County where she has worked for 9 years. She is a strong member of the community, serving on the Chamber of Commerce as well as the Tourism Advisory Group. She lives in Surry with her husband and their chickens and has 4 grown children and 7 grandchildren. Carol loves Bacon’s Castle and all of its many years of history and works to make more people aware of its importance and place in the greater community. She enjoys introducing new guests to the castle as well as building relationships with those who have family or other connections to the site.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Kevin MacLeod, Brian Bolger, Late Night Feeler and Cooper Cannell.

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THE PHOTOJOURNALIST Catherine Leroy

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 05:07:00 -0000

When 21 year-old Catherine Leroy hopped on a plane in Paris, headed for Vietnam, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Despite having no experience of either war or photography, Leroy was determined to make her mark as a world-class combat photojournalist. And somehow, against all odds – and against massive opposition from most of her male colleagues, top-ranking military officers, and the press itself – she did it. But at what cost? Olivia brings us the story of this incredible, indomitable woman with guest Elizabeth Becker, author of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War.

View Catherine Leroy’s photos on the website of the Catherine Leroy foundation.

Guest Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and author, most recently of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War. She began her career as a war correspondent for the Washington Post in Cambodia. She later became the Senior Foreign Editor of National Public Radio. As a New York Times correspondent she covered national security and international economics and was a member of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 9/11. Her earlier books include Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism and When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. In 2015 she testified as an expert witness at the international war crimes tribunal of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders. She was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, holds a degree from the University of Washington and studied language at the Kendriya Hindi Sansthaan in Agra, India. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the board of the Oxfam America Advocacy Fund.

Music for this episode was provided by Aaron Kenny, Doug Maxwell, Jeff Cuno, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, Esther Abrami, Kevin Macleod, Dan Lebowitz and Quincas Moreira.

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THE NATURALIST Maria Sibylla Merian

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 05:01:00 -0000

Germany was still burning witches when Maria Sibylla Merian daringly filled her 17th-century home with spiders, moths, and all kinds of toxic plants. Bold choices saved her from accusations of witchcraft–and from a mundane life. Merian’s fascination with metamorphosis led her all the way to the rainforests of South America, where she recorded countless new species, 130 years before Darwin!

Guest Kim Todd is the author of four books of literary nonfiction, including Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis, Tinkering with Eden: a Natural History of Exotic Species in America, Sparrow, and her newest work, Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters,” which dives into the lives of undercover journalists who exposed societal ills in the 1880s and 1890s. Todd was raised in California, educated in Montana, and after moving from coast to coast and landing many places in between, now lives in Minneapolis. She is on the faculty at the MFA program at the University of Minnesota.

Music for this episode was provided by Aaron Kenny, Kevin MacLeod, Emmit Fenn, Daniel Foster Smith, Sir Cubworth, and Doug Maxwell.

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THE MOTHER OF FORENSIC SCIENCE Frances Glessner Lee

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 18:24:00 -0000

Frances Glessner Lee was 52 years old when she discovered the mission that would become her legacy – to “convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth.” After five decades as a prominent social hostess (and innovative part-time artist) this indomitable woman took on centuries of entrenched medical and legal tradition to become the Mother of Forensic Science. And she did it – at least partially – with dollhouses?! Olivia speaks to guest Bruce Goldfarb, author of 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Invented Modern Forensics.

Experience a 360 degree virtual tour of the Nutshell Studies courtesy of the Smithsonian’s 2017 exhibition, or plan a visit to the Glessner House Museum in Chicago or The Rocks in New Hampshire.

Guest Bruce Goldfarb is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, USA Today, Baltimore magazine, American Archaeology, American Health and many other publications. Since 2012 Bruce has served as executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland. He is public information officer for the OCME and curator of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. His first book of popular nonfiction is 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics.

Music for this episode was provided by Esther Abrami, Kevin MacLeod, Brian Bolger, Amanda Setlik Wilson, and the MIT Symphony Orchestra.

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THE UNVEILED Huda Shaarawi

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 05:01:00 -0000

An Egyptian child bride awakens to the reality of life in a harem, and dreams of revolution. And that’s just the beginning! Huda Shaarawi led thousands of women in a movement to liberate themselves from the harem, the veil, and all inequality. But in 1920s Egypt, how far could they get?

Our guest Professor Ayfer Karakaya-Stump was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. An Associate Professor of History at the College Of William and Mary, she received her Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. Her scholarly interests include medieval and early modern Middle East, social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman-Safavid borderlands, Sufism, nonconformist religious movements, Alevi/Bektashi communities, and women and gender in Islamic(ate) societies.

Music for this episode was provided by kind permission of Frank Turner, The William & Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, Brian Bolger, Aaron Kenny, and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE WARRIOR QUEEN Chand Bibi

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:22:00 -0000

Chand Bibi served as regent of two different Sultanates in the 16th century Deccan peninsula, and ruled over some of the most important – and tumultuous – years in the region’s history. Versions of her story have been told and retold in India for generations – but what really happened to this enigmatic queen? Our guest Dr. Sarah Waheed helps us unravel this fascinating mystery.

Learn more about the important ways that ‘rediscovering’ Chand Bibi’s story could impact modern-day India in this wonderful short article by Dr. Waheed.

Guest Sarah Waheed is Research Affiliate of Davidson College, North Carolina, where she has previously taught numerous courses in History and Gender Studies and served as Director of the Semester in India Program. She holds a PhD in South Asian History from Tufts University, and an MA from University of Chicago. Her first book, Hidden Histories of Pakistan: Censorship, Literature, and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press this January 2022. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar carrying out research towards her second book, The Warrior Queen Who Died Thrice: Gender, Sovereignty and Islam in Premodern India.

Music featured in this episode was provided by the Navatman Music Collective, Doug Maxwell, Chris Haugen, Siddhartha Corsus, and field recordings by Sarah Waheed and Bruce Miller.

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VERSAILLES CHRISTMASTIDE Mary Stuart Boyd

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 05:01:00 -0000

Mary Stuart Boyd spent Christmas 1900 in Versailles, not on a festive tour of the grand palace, but to stay with her 13-year-old son, quarantined there with scarlet fever. Her Versailles experience seems worlds away from today’s tourist mobs. The author of eight novels and three travel narratives, her delightful insights leave us amazed that no one’s ever heard of her. This year’s Christmas Special is read by Sophie Greenhalgh-Cook from Not For the Dinner Table.

Music featured in this episode provided by Aaron Kenny, Esther Abrami, and Marc Nelson.

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THE SCREENWRITER Frances Marion

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:54:00 -0000

Frances Marion was one of the most important, influential, and well-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. Her films moved audiences to tears and brought out the best in every actor for whom she ever wrote. And when the switch to ‘talking pictures’ left most other silent film writers in the dust, Frances continued to astonish, creating dozens of the most famous and beloved films of the first half of the 20th century. So how come nobody remembers her name? Author Pam Munter takes Olivia on a whirlwind tour of the dramatic, cinema-worthy life of this remarkable woman.

Guest Pam Munter is the author of Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood and many other books. She is a former clinical psychologist, a performer and a writer.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Daniel Henderson, the Mini Vandals, Aaron Kenny, Kevin Macleod, and Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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THE ORGANIZER Celia Sánchez

Mon, 08 Nov 2021 05:23:00 -0000

Celia Sánchez Manduley was probably the most important woman in the Cuban Revolution – yet outside of Cuba, almost nobody knows her name. The first woman to fire a shot in the revolution, and the brains behind the revolution’s complex logistics, she is known in Cuba as the powerful heart of a movement to “make people’s lives better.”

Discover this astonishing story with our guest, Tiffany Sippial. Director of the Honors College and Professor of History at Auburn University, Tiffany Sippial published an award-winning book on Cuba in 2013 with the University of North Carolina Press and published a second book on Cuban revolutionary leader Celia Sanchez Manduley with that press in January 2020. Sippial also served as president of the Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association in 2018-2019.

Music featured in this episode provided by Marc Nelson, Jimmy Fontanez, Doug Maxwell, Rene Touzet, Quincas Moreira and Daniel Henderson and his Big Band.

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THE FIRST ACCUSED Tituba

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 20:13:00 -0000

Some say Tituba was the easy target in 1692, as an enslaved woman of color. But surprise! She confessed to witchcraft, offering elaborate descriptions of a widespread Satanic conspiracy. Her tales launched Salem, Massachusetts into an unparalleled witch mania. No one was safe…except Tituba herself. How did she start it all, and how did she escape? Join Katie on location in Salem, Massachusetts for this year’s Halloween special.

Our guest, army vet, playwright, and military historian David Tullis guides off-the-beaten-track tours of Salem and works as a historical pewtersmith.

Music featured in this episode by Aaron Kenny, Esther Abrami, Kevin MacLeod, and Elena Naumova, used by permission.

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THE PIRATE Ching Shih

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 05:33:00 -0000

She was the most powerful pirate in the history of the world – and you’ve probably never heard her name. How did this brilliant, ruthless, utterly unstoppable woman manage to dodge the Chinese, British and Portuguese navies for a decade, and still end up left out of the history books?

Guest Dr. Jamie Goodall, author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay, introduces us to this enigmatic and fascinating figure. Dr. Jamie Goodall is a staff historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. She is the author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars and National Geographic’s Pirates: Shipwrecks, Conquests, and their Lasting Legacy. She received her B.A. in Archaeology and my M.A. in Public History-Museum Studies from Appalachian State University (Boone, North Carolina) and her PhD from Ohio State. You’ll often find her presenting her work at regional, national, and international conferences, and at the Maryland and Virginia Renaissance Festival dressed as her alter ego: Torienne, Ship’s Scholar of the crew Mare Nostrum!

Music featured in this episode provided by Doug Maxwell, Aaron Kenny, Kevin MacLeod, and I Think I Can Help You.

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BONUS EPISODE: Lost Women of England Tour 2021

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 21:51:00 -0000

Come along with us on a virtual version of our September 2021 “Lost Women of England” Tour! Hear highlights from the trip, with context, commentary and other fun bonus content from Katie and Olivia, and “armchair travel” your way around the history of England with us in this special bonus episode.

(Watch a video version of this episode with photos and visuals of the locations we’re discussing on our YouTube channel.) To join our next Women’s History Tour, watch this space for announcements on our upcoming Tours!

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THE RANI OF JHANSI Lakshmibai

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 04:01:00 -0000

Rani (Queen) Lakshmibai of Jhansi never wanted to be a rebel. She did everything she could to stay on the right side of the law. But when the British East India Company finally pushed her too far, she took up the sword – literally – to fight for her kingdom, her son, and her life!

Return guest Pamela Toler is back to tell us about this incredible, unexpected “heroine of Indian Independence.” Armed with a PhD in history, a well-thumbed deck of library cards, and a large bump of curiosity, author, speaker, and historian, Pamela D. Toler translates history for a popular audience. She goes beyond the familiar boundaries of American history to tell stories from other parts of the world as well as history from the other side of the battlefield, the gender line, or the color bar. Toler is the author of eight books of popular history for children and adults. Her most recent books are Women Warriors: An Unexpected History and Across the Minefields.

Music featured in this episode provided by Soumitra Lahiri, Shailendra Mishra, Doug Maxwell, and Kevin MacLeod.

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GONE TO THE ENEMY Eve

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 04:01:00 -0000

What if you got to witness the birth of the American Revolution personally? If you got to hear the founding fathers debating liberty, rights, and the pursuit of happiness around the dining table? Eve heard and saw it all…because she was enslaved by one of the founding fathers. Eve kept her ears open, her eyes down, and then, she made her move. Join Katie on location in Williamsburg, Virginia for the astonishing story of Eve, GONE TO THE ENEMY.

You can take an amazing virtual tour of the entire site complete with re-enactors!

Illustration of "Eve" created for us by artist Mera MacKendrick.

Guest Julie Richter received her Ph.D. in American History from the College of William & Mary in 1992. Richter has worked as a Historian for the Historical Research and Architectural Research Departments at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in addition to working as the Project Manager for Virtual Jamestown. She teaches courses on colonial and Revolutionary Williamsburg as part of the National Institute of American History and Democracy. Richter’s interest in studying historic sites can be seen in her work as the Project Manager for the American Colonial Experiences, a forthcoming National Park Service website that links colonial history with the places where it happened. She is a consultant for “‘Full of Slime and Filth’: A Historical and Geologic Analysis of The Link between Water Quality and Death in Early America,” and has received two NEH Fellowships in African and African American History and Culture from the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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THE UNBOWED Wangari Maathai

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 04:36:00 -0000

Wangari Maathai was the first woman in Central Africa to earn a PhD, the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the mother of the Ecofeminist movement — and that’s just the beginning! Discover the life of this remarkable, brilliant, world-changing woman with our guest - author activist and environmentalist Virginia Phiri.

Music featured in this episode provided by Winyo, and the Friends Church Kaimosi - used by permission.

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THE QUEEN OF THE COMSTOCK Eilley Bowers

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 04:07:00 -0000

You’ve heard of the Gold Rush. You’ve maybe even heard of the Comstock Lode. But have you heard of the penniless Scottish lass who headed west, and while running a boarding house, struck the richest silver mine in American history? Eilley Bowers became one of the country’s wealthiest women. But Fortune is fickle, and the West was Wild! Join Katie on location with Tammy Buzick at Bowers Mansion near Carson City, Nevada for this surprising, cinematic tale.

Music for this episode was provided by Half Pelican, Andy Reiner and Jon Sousa, and Chris Haugen. Used by permission.

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THE EXILE Stefania Turkevych

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 04:01:00 -0000

Stefania Turkevych was one of Galicia’s most talented and prolific classical composers – and then the Russian Revolution turned her world upside down. When she fled the USSR to find a new home, through Italy, Ireland, and to her final home in England, her work was lauded all across the continent.

But fame is fickle when nobody speaks your language! Discover this forgotten star – Ukraine’s first female classical composer – with our guest Dr. Erica Glenn.

Erica Glenn is a current Fulbright Scholar and Director of Choral Activities at Brigham Young University – Hawaii. Previously, she worked at Arizona State University, conducting the Women’s Chorus, teaching Beginning Conducting (Teaching Excellence Award), and serving as chorus master for operas. She also co-founded the Arizona Women’s Collaborative and Phoenix Singing. Glenn holds a BM/MM in Music Composition and an Ed.M. in The Arts in Education (Harvard). She is the 2020 recipient of an American Councils Grant, a Knowledge Mobilization Award, a Creative Constellation Grant, and Melikian Center funding for her research into Stefania Turkevych, Ukraine’s first female composer. Glenn recently presented at the Ukrainian Institute of America and the Longy New Music Festival, and she has led interest sessions at ACDA and AATSEEL. Her original opera Dreamweaver won the International VocalWorks Competition, and her musical The Weaver of Raveloe was performed at both the NY Musical Theatre Festival and the American Repertory Theatre.

All music for this episode was composed by Stefania Turkevych and is used by kind permission of Erica Glenn.

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THE ROUND-THE-WORLD CYCLIST Annie Londonderry

Mon, 03 May 2021 04:01:00 -0000

In 1895, Annie Cohen embarked on a quest to become the first woman ever to cycle around the world. Did she make it? Yes! Were the newspapers engrossed in her story? Yes! Did she actually… um, cycle? Sometimes! By sheer grit, Annie made her life into something (literally) unbelievable. Peter Zheutlin, author of two books about Annie, tells Katie the tale of a woman who “didn’t run away to join the circus; she became the circus.”

Newsreel and newspaper footage performed by James Henderson, Marc Nelson, and Sam Henderson.

Guest Peter Zheutlin is a freelance journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Parade Magazine, AARP Magazine and numerous other publications. He’s the author of the New York Times best-seller, Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs, and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway and Rescued: What Second-Chance Dogs Teach Us About Living With Purpose, Loving With Abandon, and Finding Joy in the Little Things and The Dog Went Over the Mountain: Travels with Albie: An American Journey. He previously practiced law and taught legal research and writing at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School.

Music featured in this episode included: “Just Like a Rainbow” by the Columbians, “The Royal Vagabond” by Jockers Dance Orchestra, "The Entertainer," "Pine Apple Rag," and "Frog Legs Roll" by Scott Joplin, “Kletzklachka," “Tsigane,” “Polish Jokes are Funny,” and “Drunk in Paris” by Harry Fishpye and the Brown Sound, "Maple Leaf Rag" by Vess Ossman, and “Awen” by The Mind Orchestra.

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THE MYSTIC Margery Kempe

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 04:02:00 -0000

When most medieval Englishwomen wouldn’t travel more than five miles from home in their lifetime, Margery Kempe left behind her abusive husband and fourteen children to walk from France to Jerusalem and back – in the 1400s! Discover the amazing story of the mysterious “Weeping Mystic” who traveled the world, broke all the rules, and – luckily for us – recorded it all for history! Returning guest Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history.

Music featured in this episode by Solis, Choir of the Sun, Aaron Kenny, and Yanma Ensemble.

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THE ROADBUILDER K’awiil

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 04:01:00 -0000

1400 years ago, traveling through the Maya rainforest was terrifying and deadly (think snakes, jaguars, and crocodiles). Now, new LiDAR scans have revealed a network of elevated ancient roads so sophisticated, some folks give aliens the credit. But the truth is much more interesting! K’awiil, visionary ruler of Coba, one of the great cities of the Maya Golden Age, built the first roads in the Americas. But did she do it to conquer her neighbors, or to help them? Join Katie on location in Coba, Mexico, with our guest Ezequiel May.

Want to learn more? Here's an informative article on K’awiil from the Yucatan Times, an authoritative article on the stelae at Coba, and an article on how the people of Coba built the road.

Illustration of K'awiil created for us by artist Mera MacKendrick.

Guest Ezequiel May lives in the community of Coba Quintana Roo Mexico. He was born in 1989 and has spent his entire life here in this beautiful town. He has been working as a tourist guide for 9 years. He feels it has been an honor to share the different archaeological investigations and the important dates that they have raised during their discovery.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Dan Bodan, Amulets, Quincas Moriera, Joey Pecorano, and ELPHNT. Portrait of K'awiil by Mera Mackendrick.

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THE MEDIUM Helen Duncan

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:01:00 -0000

Helen Duncan was the last person in the UK ever to be convicted of witchcraft… in the mid-20th-century! Her story is one of fraud, fakery and – just possibly – actual communications with the dead!?

Guest Nikki Druce is the creator and host of Macabre London, the original podcast about London’s gruesome history. Created in 2016, combines the intrigue of horror and history and turns it into a unique storytelling podcast. Nikki’s stories on the show are inspired by a lifelong love of anything dark, gothic, creepy and unsettling. Through Macabre London, Nikki has dedicated herself to making sure the stories from the capital’s past are not forgotten forever and to bring them to a new generation of podcast listeners and YouTube viewers. Check out the Macabre London podcast, YouTube show, and make sure to follow Nikki on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Music featured in this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Jeremy Dittus, Doug Maxwell, Half Pelican, and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE PAINTER Victorine Meurent

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:01:00 -0000

Chances are, every one of us has seen Victorine Meurent. Her delicate, red-headed form appears in at least thirty paintings by the famous Parisian masters of La Belle Époque. It was long assumed that Victorine was a prostitute, who died young in some tragically romantic way. But when our guest Drēma Drudge saw Victorine staring out from Manet’s famous painting Olympia, she felt called to uncover the woman’s story. And now we know that none of the assumptions were true — her life was far more marvelous!

Guest Drēma Drudge suffers from Stendhal’s Syndrome, the condition in which one becomes overwhelmed in the presence of great art. She attended Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program where she learned to transform that intensity into fiction. Her first novel, Victorine, was written in six countries while she and her husband wandered the globe. Drēma’s always happy to connect with readers in her Facebook group, The Painted Word Salon, or on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Music for this episode by Dana Boulé, Brent Hugh, and much of the music featured in this episode is from the album The Many Faces of Victorine, which was written and performed by Barry Drudge to accompany Drema Drudge’s novel, Victorine.

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THE GUIDE Bibi Sahiba

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 07:01:00 -0000

In the late 18th century, Bibi Sahiba was one of the most important and influential people in the entire Afghan Empire. Honored as “the first and the most perfect” Sufi guide, Bibi Sahiba the Great’s spiritual and cultural influence can hardly be overstated. So how is it possible that she’s now as unknown in modern Kabul and Kandahar as she is anywhere else?

Bibi Sahiba’s story is astonishing enough on its own — but mind-blowing context from guest Professor Waleed Ziad, along with special musical guests Zeb Bangash and Shamali Afghan, helps us uncover why pretty much everything you know about Afghanistan is wrong.

Guest Waleed Ziad is Assistant Professor and Ali Jerrahi Fellow in Persian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to this, he was an Islamic Law and Civilization Research Fellow at Yale Law School. He completed his PhD in the Department of History at Yale University, where his dissertation won the university-wide Theron Rockwell Field Prize, one of two most prestigious awards across disciplines. In the last decade, Ziad has conducted fieldwork on historical and contemporary religious revivalism and Sufism in over 120 towns across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. His forthcoming books include Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus, In the Treasure Room of the Sakra King: The Native Copper Coinage of Northern Gandhara, Beyond the Khutba and Sikka: Sovereignty and Coinage in Sindh, and The Arch-Saint of the Afghan Empire, Her Teacher, and Her Son (in progress). His articles on historical and ideological trends in the Muslim world have appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, The Hill and major dailies internationally.

All music for this episode provided by special permission of Zeb Bangash, Shamali Afghan and Zain Ali.

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THE SUFFRAGIST SENATOR Martha Hughes Cannon

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 07:02:00 -0000

In 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon ran for state senate against her polygamist husband, and won! But becoming America’s first female state senator was only one chapter of Cannon’s story. A whirlwind of triumph and heartbreak dominated her life: wagon trains, Victorian medicine, the suffrage movement, evading federal prosecution, she lived it all!

Read Martha Hughes Cannon’s Speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee, or her Senate Health Bill (including rules on quarantine and school safety!) Or read her 1885 letter to a friend which discusses her fears of being forced to testify before a grand jury about her knowledge of polygamous marriages.

Visit the Better Days 2020 website for more information on women’s suffrage in Utah. There you can also download a free Martha Hughes Cannon coloring page! The Exponent II Magazine continues the work of the original Women’s Exponent today.

Guest Rebekah Clark is co-author of the recently-released book Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and studied as a visiting student at Harvard Law School. She graduated with a degree in American History and Literature from Harvard University, where her honors thesis focused on Utah women’s activism in the national suffrage movement. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Utah State Historical Quarterly, Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies, Pioneer Magazine, and BYU Law Review and in podcasts by the National Conference of State Legislatures, Zion Art Society, Church News, and the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. She serves on the board of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team and currently works as the Historical Research Associate at Better Days, a nonprofit public history organization dedicated to expanding education about Utah women’s history.

Music featured in this episode was used by permission of the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir and the Smithsonian.

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THE CAGED BIRD Florence Price

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 07:02:00 -0000

In an abandoned house in Illinois, an astonishing treasure trove of handwritten sheet music was discovered in 2009. That cache was the life’s work of composer Florence Price, the first African-American woman to have her work performed by major orchestras. But Price’s story is so much bigger – and so much wilder! – than even that headline-grabbing discovery could show. Her astonishing contributions to classical music are finally getting the attention – and the praise – they deserve.

Our guests are Dr. Guthrie Ramsey and Dr. Karen Walwyn, with music by Chineke! Orchestra, Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, Dr. Casey Robards, The Women’s Philharmonic, and Karen Walwyn.

A complete transcript of this episode can be found here.

Guest Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is a music historian, pianist, composer, and the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s the author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop, and The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History and the Challenge of Bebop and recently edited and wrote a foreword for Rae Linda Brown’s The Heart of A Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price. As a producer, label head, and bandleader, he’s released five recording projects, including A Spiritual Vibe, vol. 1 and has performed at The Blue Note, The Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and Harlem Stage. He recently scored the 2019 prize-winning documentary Making Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South and his documentary Amazing: The Tests and Triumph of Bud Powell was a selection of the BlackStar Film Festival. He co-curated the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s 2009 exhibition Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment and was a consultant and narrator in the 2020 Emmy Award winning HBO documentary Apollo: The Soul of American Culture.

Guest Karen Walwyn, Concert Pianist, Composer and an Albany Recording Artist, is the first female African American pianist/ composer to receive the Steinway Artist Award. As a Composer, she received the Global Award: Gold Medal -Award of Excellence for her recording of her composition entitled Reflections on 9/11, which was first premiered in full at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. As a Mellon Faculty Fellow at the John Hope Franklin Institute, Duke University, Walwyn composed her debut choral work entitled Of Dance & Struggle: A Musical Tribute on the Life of Nelson Mandela. She is Area Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Howard University, and has performed throughout the contiguous United States, Hawaii, West Indies and the Virgin Islands.

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THE ILLUSTRATOR Tasha Tudor – 2020 Christmas Special

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 05:02:00 -0000

Tasha Tudor’s charming and warm-hearted illustrations of over 100 books, plus her nostalgic advent calendars and Christmas cards, earned her devoted fans around the world. But her way of life fascinated people as much as her illustrations. Even though she lived to 2008, she lived with conscious intention as if it were 1830. Her life was rooted in simplicity, creativity, and taking it slow. In this Christmas Special, we read from her Christmas classic, Take Joy! – joining her family in a nostalgic month-long celebration of her favorite time of year.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Marc Nelson, Kevin MacLeod, Wayne Jones and Aaron Kenny.

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THE FULTON FLASH Helen Stephens

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 07:02:00 -0000

When Helen Stephens was fifteen years old, a track coach saw her playing pickup basketball and asked her to run a time trial in the school driveway. In that first-ever 50-yard dash, Stephens tied the world record. Only a year later at the 1936 Olympics, she would win two gold medals and her record would stand for twenty-four years. Meet this “forgotten legend” of US track with Fast Girls author Elise Hooper.

[Note: Helen Stephens’ world-record breaking time for the 100m at the 1936 Olympics was 11.5 seconds. She would never lose a race in her lifetime.]

A native New Englander, Guest Elise Hooper spent several years writing for television and online news outlets before getting a MA and teaching high-school literature and history. She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters and is the author of The Other Alcott, Learning to See, and Fast Girls.

Music in this episode provided by The New Hot 5, The Westerlies, Doug Maxwell, Chris Haugen, Late Night Feeler and Cooper Cannell.

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THE LITTLE WOMAN May Alcott Nieriker

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 07:05:00 -0000

May Alcott failed spectacularly countless times before becoming a great artist. Immortalized by her sister as the vain, vivacious Amy in Little Women, the real youngest “March” sister, May, was a conscientious, creative, and courageous artist whose enthusiastic energy lifted everyone around her. Travel with Katie to Orchard House, where the Alcotts lived 175 years ago, and see the world as May saw it: beautiful, joyful, and full of possibility.

Guest Jan Turnquist is the executive director of Orchard House, and director and co-executive producer of the Emmy award-winning documentary Orchard House: Home of the Little Women.

Music featured in this episode includes music by Wayne Jones, Late Night Feeler, Esther Abrami, Aaron Kenny, and Sir Cubworth.

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THE CITIZEN SCIENTIST Jane Marcet

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Jane Marcet wasn’t a chemist. She wasn’t a physicist or a biologist or an astronomer – but she probably made a bigger contribution to science than anyone else in the 19th century. So why do none of us know her name? Guest Miranda Garno Nesler explains what made Jane Marcet’s contributions so unique and so important, and why so many of us might be thinking about science – and scientists – all wrong.

Guest Miranda Garno Nesler earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University and serves as the Director of Women’s Literature & History for Whitmore Rare Books. At WRB, she researches manuscript and print materials through which women and other marginalized people told their own stories; and she places them with institutional clients around the globe to ensure that students and researchers can access a more diverse swath of history.

Music featured in this episode by John Michel, Nico de Napoli and Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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THE SPIRIT Xtabay

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 13:17:00 -0000

Once upon a time in the Maya Yucatan, a kind, beautiful lady was murdered and left at the base of a tree. But that was just the beginning! Join Katie on-location in Valladolid, Mexico, as her guest Jesus Cetzal recounts the age-old story of Xtabay, who has been exacting her revenge in the Yucatan for centuries. Late at night, she lures drunken men to her ceiba tree, then drags them down into the Underworld!

Guest Jesus Antonio Cupul Cetzal is native Maya from the little town of Yalcoba, Mexico. He studies in Valladolid, Yucatan, but everything he knows about his proud Mayan heritage, he learned from his parents and grandparents. Everyday, he aims to learn something new.

Music featured in this episode by Esther Abrami, Musica Maya, Kevin MacLeod, Dan Bodan and Ricardo Tlalli Lozano.

The illustration of Xtabay was created for us by Michelle Franzoni Thorley. No other use allowed without the artist's permission.

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THE LAST QUEEN OF JUDEA Shelamzion

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 16:02:00 -0000

It’s often assumed that women are scarce in the Hebrew Bible because they simply weren’t allowed to be major players back then. But the life of Shelamzion (aka Salome Alexandra) proves that wrong. She ruled ancient Judea in a period of extreme ideological polarization (um, hello). She stood up to her brutal husband to protect her people; then she stood up to her people to protect her enemies. Her reign was a Golden Age in Judea, so how come nobody’s ever heard of her?

Our guest is Lauren Jacobs, a multi – award winning author, whose historical fiction books, focus on the forgotten, marginalised women of the Ancient Near East. When she’s not writing books, she is speaking across stages and nations, on social injustices facing women globally. She hosts her own journalism show on national radio in South Africa.

Music for this episode used by kind permission of Yamma Ensemble and Michael Levy.

Our portrait of Shelamzion by Know Your Mothers - no other use permitted without written permission from the artist.

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THE MUCKRAKER Ida Tarbell

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Before Ida Tarbell took on John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, the idea of a journalist bringing down the largest monopoly in the US would have been laughable. But her relentless investigation, passion for the truth, and innovative code of journalistic ethics wouldn’t just change the country’s businesses — it would revolutionize American journalism forever. Meet the original “Muckraker.”

Our guest is Stephanie Gorton, author of Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell and the Magazine That Rewrote America. Stephanie Gorton has written for NewYorker.com, Smithsonian.com, The Paris Review Daily, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Toast, The Millions, and other publications. Previously, she held editorial roles at Canongate Books, The Overlook Press, and Open Road. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and Goucher College’s MFA program in Creative Nonfiction, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her family. Citizen Reporters is her first book; she is currently working on a new book about the legalization of birth control.

Music featured in this episode by Dana Boule, Esther Abrami, E's Jammy Jams, Andy Reiner, Jon Souza, and Jeff Cuno - used with the artists' permission.

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THE FLOWER IN THE WATER Zazil-ha

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 04:05:00 -0000

Did Zazil-Ha know that her rebellious love affair would save not just her kingdom, but the entire Yucatec Maya for a generation? Together with her shipwrecked Spanish husband, Zazil-Ha built a life beyond anything the 16th-century world could imagine. Preparing her people for a Spanish invasion, she created a future for the Maya that was radically new. And in the process, she became the brave, strong mother of the mestizo race. Katie interviews Gabriel Cemé, on location in Yucatan, Mexico.

A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Gabriel Cemé is native Maya of Akumal, Mexico with a passion for history. Gabo traveled the globe for years before returning to the Yucatan to cultivate his deep relationship with the land. With his company, Eco Maya’s Animal Sanctuary, he works to rehabilitate wild animals for their release back into the wild. Eco Maya aims to foster ecologically sustainable tourism to the Yucatan.

Music for this episode by permission of Musica Maya, Jeff Cuno, Chris Haugen, Ricardo Lozano, Jorge Ramos, Savik, and the Mini Vandals.

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THE RESISTANCE Truus and Freddie Oversteegen

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Freddie and Truus Oversteegen were just 14 and 16 years old when the Nazis invaded their hometown of Haarlem. Determined to do their part, the sisters joined the Dutch Resistance and began bombing trains, smuggling out Jewish children, and running refugee safehouses. But their most dangerous work by far was also the most unlikely for two young girls to ever take on: assassinating Nazi officers in broad daylight.

Olivia interviews guest Sophie Poldermans, author of Seducing and Killing Nazis, to discover this astounding true story of courage, camaraderie, and the fight to stay human in inhuman times.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Sophie Poldermans is the author of the New York Post & Amazon best seller Seducing and Killing Nazis. Hannie, Truus and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII (USA, 2019). She personally knew Truus and Freddie Oversteegen for 20 years and worked closely with them for over a decade as a board member of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation. Poldermans is the founder of “Sophie’s Women of War,” shedding light on women leaders in times of conflict, and a Dutch women’s rights advocate, author, public speaker, lecturer and consultant on women and war, human rights-related issues from a legal, historical and sociological perspective and women’s leadership.

Music featured in this episode provided by: Amanda Setlik Wilson, Paula Robison, Mariko Anraku, Brent Hugh, Emmit Fenn, Irén Marik and Esther Abrami.

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THE REBORN Jemima Wilkinson & Publick Universal Friend

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Jemima Wilkinson, born in 1752, was a devout Quaker and skilled medical practitioner in colonial Rhode Island. When a typhus outbreak in 1776 left her feverish and near death, she experienced a series of dramatic religious visions. When the fever finally cleared, the person who rose from Wilkinson’s sickbed declared that Jemima Wilkinson was gone (dead?) and had been replaced by Publick Universal Friend, a genderless evangelist who would become a wildly influential and popular preacher throughout New England. Publick Universal Friend would launch a completely unique (and distinctly American) religious movement, and Friend’s teachings and social influence would permanently shift American views on religion, slavery, race, gender and colonialism. Yet somehow Wilkinson and Friend were nearly forgotten to history until our guest Michael Bronski “reintroduced” the world to this fascinating enigma of a story.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Michael Bronski is an independent scholar, journalist, writer and long time activist. He is Professor of the Practice in Activism and Media in the Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University. His Queer History of the United States won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Best Non-Fiction as well as the 2011 American Library Association Stonewall Israel Fishman Award for Best Non-Fiction. In 2017 he was awarded the awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle. Past recipients include Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Martin Duberman, Samuel R. Delany, and Alison Bechdel. His A Queer History of the United States for Young People was published in 2019.

Music for this episode was provided by Andy Reiner, Robert Stoddard and Boston Sing.

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THE PEACEMAKER Queen Matilda

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 06:05:00 -0000

For a thousand years, March 14th has been celebrated as St. Matilda’s Day in Quedlinburg, Germany. She was celebrated as a Peacemaker in her time, and has been a unifying figure ever since. Discover with us the remarkable story of Queen Matilda, who inspires Protestants and Catholics to gather together to celebrate her, even today. (Hint: she wielded words to end violence, and once talked a deer into puking up a wine bottle.)

Our guest Dr Thomas Wozniak was born in Quedlinburg and grew up as an active Catholic under the communist regime of the GDR. When the Wall came down he did his civil service instead of joining the army and worked with disabled people in Tabgha/Israel. After returning overland by bike tracing the crusaders he studied history. For the analysis of three late medieval taxation lists, which came to light during renovation work in his father‘s house an old half-timbered building, he earned his M.S. After completing his dissertation Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th Century at the University of Cologne, he worked for several years at the University Marburg. His habilitation deals with Extreme Natural Events in the Middle Ages. He currently works in Tuebingen and Munich.

Our portrait of Queen Matilda by Know Your Mothers - no other use permitted without written permission from the artist.

Music featured in this episode provided by kind permission of Emily van Evera, Maria Jonas, Kevin MacLeod and Silverman Sound Studios.

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THE ABSENCE Maria Branwell Brontë

Mon, 25 May 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Maria Branwell Brontë most famously exists as an absence — the mother whose biggest, or only, influence resides in her “not being there there” during the lives of her famous daughters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. For 200 years scholars believed there wasn’t enough material for a biography of Maria. But author Sharon Wright believed there had to be more to find, if only she “went looking properly.” And what she found is truly remarkable.

Olivia interviews returning guest Sharon Wright as we meet The Mother of the Brontës.

Guest Sharon Wright is a British journalist, playwright and author of the critically-acclaimed biography Mother of the Brontës: When Maria Met Patrick. She was born in Yorkshire and lives in South West London. She has worked as a writer, editor and columnist for leading magazines, newspapers and websites including the BBC, The Guardian, Daily Express, Disney, Glamour and Red. She is also the author of critically acclaimed plays performed in Yorkshire and London. Her first book Balloonomania Belles: Daredevil Divas Who First Took To The Sky was serialized in the Mail on Sunday and received widespread coverage, including on BBC Woman’s Hour and in the New York Post.

Music featured in this episode by Amanda Setlik Wilson and Half Pelican.

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THE STORYTELLER Mae Timbimboo Parry

Mon, 11 May 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Mae Timbimboo was just eight years old when she entered a US federal boarding school designed to “kill the Indian to save the child.” The government hoped Native children like Mae would “assimilate” into Euro-American culture, but that certainly didn’t work on Mae. Instead, she harnessed her education to give voice to her people’s history. She told the world that they had the 1863 “Battle of Bear River” all wrong: it was a massacre. Our guest Darren Parry, Chairman of the Northwest Shoshone Nation, explores the power of storytelling in the life of his ancestor.

Mae Timbimboo Parry’s oral history is here and her obituary can be read here. Better Days 2020 has created a wonderful profile of Mae Timbimboo Parry here. Learn more about the Bear River Massacre here.

Guest Darren Parry is the grandson of Mae Timbimboo Parry, and serves as the Councilman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, on the Board of Directors for the American West Heritage Center, The Utah State Museum Board, and the American Indian Services Board. He is the author of The Bear River Massacre; A Shoshone History and teaches Native American History at Utah State University. He is currently running for Congress in Utah.

Music featured in this episode included works by Doug Maxwell, Kevin Macleod, Roljui, The Great North Sound Society, and audio from the 2013 Nevada Shoshone-Paiute Powwow, the 2013 Fort Wakashie Eastern Shoshone Powwow, and the 2019 Shoshone Bannock Powwow, used by kind permission.

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THE ANCESTORS Mother’s Day Special

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 04:05:00 -0000

What’sHerName presents our very first Mother’s Day Special! Come “meet the ancestors” as six What’sHerName listeners introduce some truly remarkable women from their own family history!

From Ukraine to Japan, Uzbekistan to Mexico, we’re traveling around the world, and through 275 years, to discover these amazing ancestors in this special double episode. Our guests are What’sHerName listeners Irit Namatinya, Susan Stone, Lisa Williamson, Adrienne, Sachiko Burton, and Michelle Thorley.

Rosalia and her daughter Sophia survived Nazi invasion, a train explosion, a month in a swamp, and famine and disease in a rural Russian village. Sophia’s granddaughter Adrienne, the cohost of the Dear World, Love History podcast, tells their story. All photos by permission of Adrienne.

In 18th century colonial Connecticut, Prudence Punderson was ignoring all the “rules” of needlework to create astonishing works of art. Lisa Williamson brings us the story of this truly remarkable “noted needlewoman.” [Correction: The man who brought Punderson’s embroidery to the State Fair after her death was her grandson, not her son-in-law as we mistakenly said.]

Young Highland Dancer Margaret Stewart Haldane could never have imagined that her life would lead her from urban Glasgow to a career as the Postmaster of Rattlesnake, Florida, USA. Her granddaughter Susan Stone, producer of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, brings us her story. All photos courtesy of Susan Stone.

Michelle Thorley is an artist and family history researcher. Her instagram is FloraFamiliar.

Irit Namatinya is a Bollywood dance teacher in Thailand. She brings us the story of her grandmother Sarah Chaminov’s escape from Uzbekistan to Israel, and the unusual solution she discovered to an unusual and frightening problem.

Rebecca Sachiko Suzuki is a writer in Washington state. She shares with us the ways her grandmother Fumie Suzuki Swenson and great-grandmother Hisa Shitagaki Suzuki gave her a legacy of courage and resilience, “even if you have to walk through fire.” All photos courtesy of Sachiko Suzuki.

Music used by permission in this episode performed by Cindy Henderson, Trialogo, Doug Maxwell and Zac Zinger, Nat Keefe and Hot Buttered Rum, Sláinte, Boston Sing and Robert Stoddard, Audionautix, Sir Cubworth, Radio Jarocho and Zenen Zeferino Huervo, Jeff Cuno, Aaron Kenny, and Son Jarocho.

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THE SURGEON James Barry

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 06:05:00 -0000

What would you sacrifice for a chance to chase your dream? Two hundred years ago in Ireland, penniless Margaret Bulkley shed her identity to live a big, bold, loud life as army surgeon James Barry, and took that secret (almost) to the grave. And by keeping his secret, Barry helped — even saved — suffering people across the world.

Hear this incredible story recorded on location at the Old Operating Theater Museum and Herb Garret in London with our guest, Dr. Monica A Walker.

Guest Monica A. Walker has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, and she is a part-time tutor at the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. In addition, she is the Marketing, Events and Retail Manager at the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret in London. It was here where she developed an interest in the history of medicine and the history of Old St Thomans’ Hospital. It was in the museum where she first heard the name of James Miranda Barry, since he briefly trained at Old St Thomas’ Hospital, and developed a curious interest in him.

Music featured in this episode includes recordings by Doug Maxwell, Aaron Kenny, Kevin Macleod and Cooper Cannell. Find more info and links to our musicians on our website.

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THE WOMAN IN RED Anita Garibaldi

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 06:05:00 -0000

Anita Garibaldi is celebrated as a national heroine in three countries and on two continents. Yet the true stories of her remarkable, almost unbelievable life have seldom been told, and her legacy has been claimed, and used, by generations of men since her death in 1849. Hear the astonishing life of the “mother of Italy,” Brazilian gaucho revolutionary Anita Garibaldi.

Our guest is Diana Giovinazzo, author of the forthcoming novel The Woman in Red and co-creator of Wine, Women and Words, a weekly literary podcast featuring interviews with authors over a glass of wine. Diana is active within her local literary community as the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Women’s National Book Association. The Woman in Red is her debut novel.

Music featured in this episode included recordings by Marc Nelson, La Tabu, Amanda Setlik Wilson, Alejandro Cremaschi, Jeff Cuno and Doug Maxwell, all used by kind permission.

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THE VIKING Coppergate Woman

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 07:05:00 -0000

Dive into the stinky filth of everyday Viking life as Katie presents Olivia with a mystery. It’s not so much a Whodunnit as a WhoWASit: the skeleton of a woman found in a shallow grave on the banks of York’s River Foss. What can her bones, and all the other delightfully disgusting bits of evidence from Viking York, tell us about the mysterious Coppergate Woman?

Katie is on location at the Jorvik Viking Center in York, England, with guest Dr. Chris Tuckley. Chris Tuckley received his PhD at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds, in 2009. He has worked for York Archaeological Trust since 2004, and is currently YAT’s Head of Interpretation and Engagement, based at the JORVIK Viking Centre.

Music generously provided by Resmiranda, Duivelspack, and Daniel Foster Smith.

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THE MOTHER Olympias

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 07:05:00 -0000

If you’ve heard anything at all about the Ancient Macedonian Queen Olympias, it’s probably that she’s the mother of Alexander the Great. If you’ve heard anything else about her, it’s probably about her, uh…fondness…for snakes. But there’s so much more to this remarkable woman than just sons and snake cults! Join us for the story of Olympias, a woman of remarkable courage, brilliance, loyalty, innovation, and confidence as we travel back in time with guest Kate Armstrong, host of the wonderful women’s history podcast The Exploress.

Guest Kate J. Armstrong is a writer, teacher, and nonfiction book editor who’s worked on beautiful books about everything from food to space to climbing Mount Everest. She’s also the producer of The Exploress, a podcast that time travels back through history to find out what life was like for women of the past. Season 1 explores mid-19th century Civil War era America, while Season 2 dives into the ancient world. An adventurer at heart, she hails from Virginia but currently calls Melbourne, Australia home. View Kate’s fantastic “ladycentric” maps, timelines, and more on her website, and check out her Patreon page here!

Music generously provided by Michael Levy and Tyler Cunningham.

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THE SORCERER Gunnhild

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 07:05:00 -0000

Long ago, in the far north of Lapland, a young woman learned the secrets of sorcery from two warlocks. At least that’s what the Icelandic sagas say. The woman would become Gunnhild, infamous Viking sorcerer whose dark magic served her lifelong pursuit of vengeance and power. Viking burials have been found that contain all the trappings of magic, so we know that the Vikings believed her immense power was real. But Gunnhild never got her own saga: she only appears in supporting roles, in sagas about men. What can we extract from the sagas about Gunnhild’s life, and was she really evil?

Music for this episode by Åsa Larsson (aka Resmiranda) and Duivelspack, used by their kind permission.

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THE FREE WOMAN Harriet Jacobs

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 05:05:00 -0000

When Harriet Jacobs’ enslaver threatened to sell her children away to the plantation unless she accepted his sexual abuse, she decided the only way to keep them safe was to run. But with no resources and no way to get north, where could she go instead? The answer is an astonishing one. Jacobs’ story is one of the most dramatic and remarkable ‘slave narratives’ in United States history, yet for over 100 years, everyone believed it was fiction. Discover the incredible life and astonishing history of Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and a powerful activist, abolitionist and educator in the ninteenth century United States.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Maria A. Windell is assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she teaches classes on ethnic and early US literatures. Her research focuses on intersections between the US and the Americas, and her book Transamerican Sentimentalism and Nineteenth-Century US Literary History is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She co-edited, with Jesse Alemán, a special issue of English Language Notes on “Latinx Lives in Hemispheric Context.” She is currently working on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary flirts and the classification of 'coquette hummingbirds' in Central America.

Music featured in this episode provided by Andy Reiner, Jon Souza, I Think I Can Help You, Doug Maxwell, and the Library of Congress.

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THE ROPEMAKER Mary Pattison Irwin

Mon, 30 Dec 2019 07:05:00 -0000

In the moment when Mary Pattison locked eyes with dashing American solider John Irwin across the ballroom at the St. Patrick’s Day Ball in 1784, her destiny was set. Married by the end of the gala and on a ship to the brand new nation of the USA two weeks later, she would set up the first “Rope Walk,” rope manufacturer in the small frontier town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her foresight, skill and ambition would assure her family’s place as one of the “pillars of the city” but history would erase her name and give her husband the credit. But Olivia's guest Gloria Forouzan is giving it back!

Guest Gloria Forouzan works in the office of Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto. In addition to her other duties, she is an unofficial historian, searching out the stories of unknown residents who have left a mark on the city. Her focus is on women of the region.

Music featured in this episode provided by Killarney, Andy Reiner, Jon Souza, and Half Pelican.

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WHITE HOUSE HOLIDAY Mary Donelson Wilcox: 2019 Christmas Special

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:05:00 -0000

Late in life, Mary Donelson Wilcox recalled a magical childhood Christmas she spent at the White House with her elderly uncle, President Andrew Jackson. Her captivating memoirs paint a picture of a surprisingly global White House, with servants from around the world, and a surprisingly warm and playful President Jackson. Mary offers us a rare glimpse at Christmas in the early 19th century–when stockings, Santa Claus, and focusing the holiday on children were all delightfully novel ideas.

A digitized copy of Wilcox’s memoir is available free here. Text for this broadcast has been edited for content.

Music featured in this episode included Fiddlesticks, Aaron Kenny, Twin Musicom, Doug Maxwell, Kevin MacLeod, and Henry Reed.

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THE WOMAN IN THE CHALK Cranborne Woman

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 07:05:00 -0000

Evidence of human life in the Stone Age is incredibly rare, so when Martin Green uncovered a Neolithic burial site on his Dorset farm, the whole world took notice. The skeletons inside were astonishingly well-preserved: one woman and three children were nestled in together. What can these bones tell us about life in Stone-Age Britain for the mysterious “Cranborne Woman”? Our guest Professor Janet Montgomery has developed lab techniques that reveal surprising biographical details, showing that even 5,000 years ago, this woman’s saga was a familiar human tale.

More information on the dig site and the discovery of Cranborne Woman can be found in this article by Martin Green.

Guest Janet Montgomery is Professor of Archaeology at Durham University. She was the first archaeologist to apply combined radiogenic lead and strontium isotope analysis to British archaeological humans and she is currently working on a wide range of archaeological projects of humans and animals ranging in date from the Neolithic to the 19th century. In addition to archaeological case studies, her research continues on the two main themes of her NERC fellowship which are fundamental to a better understanding of how isotope analysis can be applied to archaeological questions of diet and mobility.

Reconstruction Portrait of Cranborne Woman created for us by Mera MacKendrick - no other use permitted without written permission from the artist.

Music for this episode provided by Cindy Henderson, Andy Reiner, Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch.

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THE ACCIDENTAL ACTIVIST Sybil Stockdale

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 07:05:00 -0000

In 1965, Sybil Stockdale was a mild-mannered Navy wife in Southern California. But after her husband’s plane was shot down over Vietnam, she would become one of the most important and effective activists in American history. Her organization, The National League of Families, fought for nearly a decade to bring home nearly one thousand POWs who were being held by North Vietnam in conditions of extreme deprivation and torture. Throwing out their military handbooks’ useless advice on shrimp forks and hairstyles, these remarkable women used the powerful new medium of television to leverage their own position, became covert operatives who gathered more information on the POW camps than the entire U.S. military, and eventually defied the Government itself to bring their husbands home.

Our guest is historian and curator Heath Hardage Lee, author of the new book League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took On the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home and Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause. Heath was the 2017 Robert J. Dole Curatorial Fellow, and her exhibition entitled The League of Wives: Vietnam POW MIA Advocates & Allies about Vietnam POW MIA wives premiered at the Dole Institute of Politics in May of 2017. Reese Witherspoon and her production company have optioned The League of Wives for a feature film. Heath will be an executive producer and historical consultant for the project.

Music featured in this episode included Jeff Cuno, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, The US Naval Academy Band, Jeremy Dittus, Dan Lebowitz, Sir Cubworth and Everett Almond.

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THE WITCH Mother Shipton

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 04:05:00 -0000

It was a dark and stormy night, many centuries ago. In a cave on the edge of a haunted wood, a monstrous baby was born, and instead of crying, she cackled! No one would have expected the baby to thrive, but she grew to become Mother Shipton, England’s most famous witch. Hear the amazing story of the deformed, friendless child who took on the most powerful men in the kingdom, and won!

Travel with Katie on location at Mother Shipton’s Cave (with a pool that turns things to stone!) with guest Jay Stelling for our Halloween Special.

A full transcript of this episode is available here .

Guest Jay Stelling is an office assistant at Mother Shipton’s Cave as well as an illustrator, doll maker and storyteller from North Yorkshire, England. She graduated in 2018 from Leeds Arts University where she received a First in BA(hons) Illustration. You can often find her making tiny dolls in her little attic studio with her partner and their two fluffy cats. Jay is fascinated by fairies and folklore, with most of her work centred around charming character and children’s stories, such as fairy tales and Yorkshire legends. Jay’s first children’s book Whistle-Stop Thistle is a story about recycling and reusing scrap materials. You can purchase her dolls, her book, and more on her website.

Music featured in this episode provided by the Tudor Consort, Roman Cano, Ben Sound, Elena Naumova, and Kevin MacLeod.

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THE PHARAOH Tawosret

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 04:05:00 -0000

Her story might be one of ambition and regicide, or one of a woman manipulated by an evil puppetmaster. Or it might be both! Travel with us back in time three thousand years, where our guest, Egyptologist Kara Cooney, introduces us to that most enigmatic (and overlooked) New Kingdom pharaoh, Tawosret. [Audio remastered March 2026]

A complete transcript of this episode is available on our website.

Music featured in this episode used by kind permission of Michael Levy and Ramon Sakr.

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THE PAPER DAUGHTER How Jiu

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 06:05:00 -0000

How Jiu was never supposed to go to America. But in an incredible twist of fate during China’s Civil War in 1928, she set sail for San Francisco, never to return to her family again. Only 18 years old and traveling under a false identity, How Jiu had to pass a gueling test before she was allowed to enter the United States. Hear the surprising story of the Chinese immigration experience, recorded on location at Angel Island’s historic Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay.

Want to learn more about How Jiu’s experience and those of other immigrants on Angel Island? This wonderful article is based on her daughter’s narratives, this is a great photo essay of the dedication of the immigrant memorial wall on angel island with the descendants of many immigrants attending, and this is a fantastic archive of immigrant stories from the Pacific coast.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Casey Dexter-Lee is a State Park Interpreter II with California State Parks and the lead for the educational programs at Angel Island State Park. Starting as a seasonal employee conducting living history programs and guided tours for school groups, she has lived and worked at Angel Island State Park for nineteen years. Casey has a BA in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz, home of the fighting banana slugs.

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THE EMPEROR Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian)

Mon, 26 Aug 2019 06:05:00 -0000

Over 2000 years of history, China had exactly one female emperor. Wu Zhao (also known as Wu Zetian) rose from fifth-ranked concubine (a glorified maid) to supreme ruler, effectively governing China for over fifty years. Her reign was one of the most peaceful and productive periods of the Tang Dynasty, so why does history remember her as a bloodthirsty, sexually depraved tyrant? Learn about this enigmatic, fascinating woman with our guest, Wu Zhao biographer and Professor of Chinese History, N. Harry Rothschild.

Consultation and voiceovers for this episode provided by Dr. Xiao Jing Miao, Research Fellow at Oxford University.

Guest Dr. N. Harry Rothschild was a Professor of Chinese History at the University of North Florida and the author of The World of Wu Zhao, Wu Zhao: China’s Only Woman Emperor and Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers. Dr. Rothschild’s teaching career spanned nearly a quarter of a century, beginning as a K-12 substitute in the hills of western Maine after he graduated from Harvard University in 1992 with a B.A. in East Asian Language and Civilizations and cleverly decided to write a novel on bronzecasting and kingship in Shang China in his parents’ basement. From 1988 to 1990, he lived, studied Mandarin, and worked in Beijing. Dr. Rothschild died in Dec 2021.

Music featured in this episode provided by Cao Jianguo, Li Xiangting, Zhu Runfu, Tang Dai Li Yue Fu Yuan Zu, the Hubei Chime Bells Array, Charlie Huang, and the Shanxii Provincial Song and Dance Troupe.

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THE ADMIRAL Bouboulina

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 06:05:00 -0000

The first flag of the Greek Revolution was raised by Laskarina Bouboulina on the mast of her ship, The Agamemnon, in 1821. Commanding a fleet of ships from her island of Spetses, she blockaded the greatest strongholds of the Ottoman Empire in the name of liberty. She personally led her troops into battle, wielding a sword and ferocious will. Bouboulina’s story is legendary in Greece, on par with George Washington’s in America.

Our guest is Vassiliki Opsimouli who worked as tour guide at Bouboulina’s Museum on Spetses. They have generous provided our listeners with this brochure on Bouboulina and her history. Vassiliki Opsimouli runs the travel agency “Opsimoulis Travel” which is a family business. After studying political science and public administration at the National University of Athens, she earned a Master’s degree in cultural organizations management, specializing in cultural communication. As she is living between Epidavros and Spetses island in Greece, two places with amazing history, she is always interested in the myths and heroes of her country.

Music featured in this episode provided by Evanthia Reboutsika and Marika Papagika.

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THE FARMER Cherokee America Rogers

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 06:05:00 -0000

Margaret Verble ‘found’ Cherokee America Rogers in a cemetery while visiting her grandfather’s grave. This “jaw-dropping” name sparked a journey into her own family history, the neglected stories of the Civil War in Indian Territory, and her newest novel, Cherokee America. Discover the remarkable woman behind this remarkable name, and the under-told and misunderstood history of Cherokee women in the nineteenth century. Margaret Verble, author of Maud’s Line and Cherokee America, and enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, introduces Olivia to her story.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Margaret Verble is an enrolled and voting citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a member of a large Cherokee family that has, through generations, made many contributions to the tribe’s history and survival. Her first novel, Maud’s Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her newest novel, Cherokee America, is set in 1875 in the Arkansas River bottoms of the old Cherokee Nation West.

Music for this episode provided by the Cherokee National Youth Choir, Marc Nelson, River of Suck and Andy Reiner, and Jeff Cuno.

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THE ORACLE Pythia

Mon, 15 Jul 2019 06:05:00 -0000

Ancient kings and rulers from across the world traveled to the remote mountain town Delphi, Greece, to visit a nameless elderly peasant woman. They made the trek because she alone could see the future, and channeled the voice of god. Her words made world leaders change the course of their lives, but no one ever documented who she really was. Travel with us on location to Delphi, Greece, to reenact an ancient visit to Pythia, the oracle of Delphi.

Katie is on location with guest Dimitrios Georgaras, who has been “listening to the harmony” at Delphi for forty years. After a career in the Greek merchant navy, guest Dimitrios Georgaras began creating bronze pieces using the ancient method of sand-casting. He has been “listening to the harmony” at Delphi for forty years, having visited the site and archaeological museum over a thousand times.

Music featured in this episode generously provided by Michael Levy and Sam Henderson.

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THE PSYCHOANALYST Sabina Spielrein

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 06:05:00 -0000

Sabina Spielrein was one of the first female psychoanalysts, “invented” child psychology, and innovated some of the most famous concepts now attributed to Jung and Freud.So why don’t we know her name? Learn how an accident of translation (and some sexism and antisemitism on the side) erased this powerhouse from our bookshelves and our classrooms — and why it’s more than time to bring her back! Olivia interviews Angela Sells, author of Sabina Spielrein: The Woman and the Myth.

Dr Sells has generously shared her Timeline of Events in Spielrein’s life with our readers. A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Angela Sells, PhD, is a women’s studies professor at Sierra College and Meridian University in Northern California. She is the co-founder of the Open Book Press, Chair of Goddess Studies for the American Academy of Religion’s Western Region, and a book reviewer for the Journal of Popular Culture. Her book, Sabina Spielrein: The Woman and the Myth, was published by the State University of New York Press in 2017.

Music for this episode generously provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Nico de Napoli, Michael Levy, Trialogo, and Leon Lischner.

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THE POET Hester Pulter

Mon, 06 May 2019 06:05:00 -0000

In 1996, a graduate student working in a library in England discovered the manuscript of a novel and 120 poems by completely unknown 17th century woman writer. Hester Pulter had been hiding in plain sight for four centuries. Now a dedicated team of scholars is sharing her work with the world.

“Then being enfranchised, free as my verse,

I shall surround this spacious universe,

Until by other atoms thrust and hurled

We give a being to another world.”

Hear the story of this astonishing discovery, and the astonishing woman behind the words.

Our guest is Dr. Samantha Snively of the Pulter Project. Samantha Snively earned her PhD from the University of California, Davis, and currently works as a proposal writer for UC Davis’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations. Her dissertation focused on experimental knowledge-making in 17th-century England, particularly on the scientific work of female manuscript recipe collection authors and poets like Hester Pulter and Margaret Cavendish. She is the social media manager for The Pulter Project and has been a contributor for the site. Find her on twitter @snsnively where she’s always happy to talk about weird old recipes, lady scientists, or alternative academic careers.

Music for this episode provided by Marc Nelson, Solis Choir of the Sun, and John Michel.

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THE GIRL OF IRON Mary Peterson Ipsen

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 06:05:00 -0000

The story of America’s transcontinental railroad is a masculine saga. But today we present the story of Union Pacific’s most unlikely employee: a 12-year-old Mormon girl. Mary Peterson Ipsen was a Danish immigrant who walked across the plains to Utah territory and grew up in an isolated religious enclave. But when her father died and she had to find work, she found herself cooking for hundreds of men in the very center of “Hell-on-Wheels:” Jack Casement’s notorious Union Pacific railroad crew. To commemorate the Sesquicentennial of Golden Spike, experience America’s transcontinental railroad through a 12-year-old’s eyes, featuring archival recordings of railroad songs, train whistles, newspapers and more. (Thanks to Ogden’s Union Station for the sounds of historic train whistles heard in this episode.)

Think you know a lot about the railroad? Take this fun “test your railroad knowledge” quiz! We also love this website all about the transcontinental railroad! Are you a teacher looking for resources to teach about the transcontinental railroad? Check out the great lesson plans from Spike 150 and the Utah Education Network!

Guest Holly Andrew is an anthropologist, historical archaeologist, and museum professional. She currently serves as the Director of Museums and Education at the Ogden Union Station. An avid anthropologist, Andrew’s specialties and interests include cultural landscapes as expressions of community identity, public archaeology, heritage preservation, material culture, and participatory museums. Andrew has received a MA in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma in 2015 and has led heritage preservation and interpretive programs and projects since 2009. She enjoys working with small to mid-scale museums and has worked as a museum professional for over 10 years.

Guest Sarah Singh is the Head of Special Collections and Assistant Professor at Weber State University where she has worked since 1999. She has a MA in Russian History from Utah State University and a MLIS with a focus on archives from San Jose State University. She is the co-author of four books on the history of Ogden. Sarah’s research interests include the history of Ogden, 25th Street, women, crime and oral history. She is also a co-host of an upcoming podcast series called “Zion Gone Bad” that focuses on crimes in Utah’s history.

Music featured in this episode included historic recordings from the Library of Congress, as well as music by Andy Reiner and Jon Souza. And here’s a PDF of the sheet music for the 19C hit “Riding on a Rail” reflecting on railroad travel as an experience of equality.

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THE TRANSLATOR Malintzin

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 06:10:00 -0000

Malintzin has been one of Mexico’s greatest villains for 500 years. A native of Veracruz, she translated for Hernan Cortes, the conquistador who destroyed the Aztec Empire. But she did more than translate: she birthed his children, helped him win battles, and saved his life again and again as they trekked from the Maya coast to the heart of the empire. Through it all, she alone spoke for Cortes, and also for everyone he met. Exploring the incredible life of this powerful woman who facilitated the conquest of Mexico. With Dr. Jeffrey Richey, we ask ourselves whether anyone has a choice in how their path unfolds, and what is at the core of our identity.

A full transcript of this episode is available for download.

Guest Jeffrey Richey specializes in the social and cultural history of modern Latin America. His dissertation, “Playing at Nation: Soccer Competitions, Racial Ideology, and National Integration in Argentina, 1912-1931,” explored the impact of organized soccer and the popular sports press in nation formation and the dissemination of certain racial ideologies in early 20th century Argentina.

Music for this episode provided by Los Monaracas del Papaloapan, Border CrosSing, Marcus Rasseli, and Radio Jarocho and Zenen Zeferino Huervo.

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THE WHITE ROSE Sophie Scholl

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 04:05:00 -0000

In Nazi Germany, resistance was not just forbidden, it was deadly. But in 1942, a group of young college students went from enthusiastic supporters of the Third Reich to some of its most vocal opponents, publishing thousands of leaflets calling Hitler a criminal, and attempting to start a student revolt. Though their dream of a revolution never became reality, their courageous stance in the face of evil has become legendary in Germany, and their story continues to inspire and influence generations of young people around the world. Olivia interviews author Kip Wilson, whose wonderful new YA novel-in-verse White Rose tells the story through the eyes of 21-year-old Sophie Scholl.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Guest Kip Wilson is the author of White Rose and The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin, the Poetry Editor of the Young Adult Review Network, and has a Ph.D. in German Literature. In 2017, she won the PEN/New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award, and her work has appeared in several children’s literary magazines.

Music featured in this episode provided by the Weber State University Chamber Choir, Jeff Cuno, Mary Lou Williams and Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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THE WARRIOR Zenobia

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 06:05:00 -0000

In 3rd century Palmyra (modern-day Syria), the bold and brilliant queen Zenobia defied the Roman Empire and launched a wildly successful campaign of expansion, eventually ruling Arabia, Egypt, and parts of Asia Minor. But at her final defeat in 272, her story fragments into several curious and contradictory versions of “the end.” We take on this history “Choose Your Own Adventure” style –examining the sources that bring her story to life, and choosing which ending we believe is the best one.

Armed with a PhD in history, a well-thumbed deck of library cards, and a large bump of curiosity, author, speaker, and historian, guest Pamela D. Toler translates history for a popular audience. She goes beyond the familiar boundaries of American history to tell stories from other parts of the world as well as history from the other side of the battlefield, the gender line, or the color bar. Toler is the author of eight books of popular history for children and adults. Her newest book is Women Warriors: An Unexpected History.

Music featured in this episode included: “Incantations of Heka,” “Gloria Belli,” “Sacred Flame of Vesta,” “Dark Realms of Pluto," and “Hymn to Osiris” written and performed by Michael Levy, and “March of the Lizards” and “Gladiator Pitz” written and performed by Unstoppable Farmer.

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THE OPTIMIST Émilie du Châtelet

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 20:38:00 -0000

At the lavish court of Louis XIV, she stood out like a sore thumb: while the women around her were glamorous, graceful and illiterate, she was clunky, fierce, and bookish. The story of her world-changing contribution to science is as delightful as it is surprising: part frilly courtier, part mad-scientist, she fed her voracious appetite for books by sword-fighting and card-counting at Versailles. In this episode, visit the country chateau where she and her lover, Voltaire, became famous for living their best possible life.

Interview with guest Madame Contesse de Salignac Fenelon recorded on location at Chateau Cirey in Cirey-sur-Blaise, France. Émilie du Châtelet voiced by Emily Wadley.

Music featured in this episode included: “Cello Suite One in G Prelude” by JS Bach performed by John Michel, “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by the Wichita State University Chamber Players, “Monsieur’s Almain from the Manc” by Phillip Serna, “Brandenberg Concerto No 3 Allegro” by JS Bach performed by Advent Chamber Orchestra, “Andante from Italian Concerto, BWV 971″ by JS Bach performed by Catrin Finch.

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THE MUSE Carolyn Cassady

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 08:50:00 -0000

Carolyn Cassady was an artist, costume designer, writer, and critical influence on the members of the Beat Generation. Her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac and other prominent members of the Beats have long overshadowed her own life and accomplishments, but with the recent publication of new manuscripts discovered after her death that is finally beginning to change. An astonishingly talented and prolific creative force, Carolyn Cassady’s legacy of determination, strength, and uniquely creative work is finally being recognized as she emerges from the shadow of “the guys.” Our guests are Cathy Cassady, eldest daughter of Carolyn and Neal Cassady and editor of Carolyn’s posthumously-published book Travel Tips for the Timid, and Josette Lorig, PhD candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder.

[Correction: in this episode Olivia mistakenly says that Carolyn Cassady discovered Neal, Luanne Henderson and Jack Kerouac in bed together. It was actually Allen Ginsberg, not Kerouac.]

Guest Cathy Cassady was born in San Francisco and spent her childhood in the South Bay Area in Monte Sereno, CA. After high school, Cathy spent twenty years working as a medical assistant/transcriber before returning to college. Having spent most of her working years sitting down, she realized it was not a healthy way for folks to spend their working days. She thus earned a B.S. in Exercise Physiology, and an M.S. in Worksite Wellness Management. She spent the rest of her career as a health educator, helping employees stay healthy and fit. She is currently retired, writing, and living with her husband, George, and their loveable Labradoodle, Tula near their three kids and six grandchildren in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California.

Guest Josette Lorig is a PhD candidate in English, Instructor, and the manager of the Laboratory for Race & Popular Culture at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on mid-twentieth century literature and culture, popular novels, women’s life-writing, and gender sexuality studies.

Music featured in this episode included works by Mary Lou Williams, “I Can’t See You” written and performed by Jeff Cuno, and “Evening Glow” written by Daniel Henderson and performed by his Big Band.

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THE SCULPTOR Edmonia Lewis

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 07:05:00 -0000

What if you had a vision for your life, but absolutely everyone around you told you it was impossible? Edmonia Lewis lived a life so improbable, that if we didn’t have the actual evidence that she really existed, we’d never believe it! The orphaned daughter of a Native American mother and Caribbean father in mid 19th century America, she set out on the most unlikely path: to become a famed classical sculptor in Rome, all while people of her race were literally enslaved in her homeland. Her journey to gain the education that was denied her, to buy her own boat fare, and make her impossible way in the world, defied the expectations of everyone, and still does.

Guest Dr Charmaine Nelson is the author of The Color of Stone and Professor of Art History at McGill University in Montreal. Her ground-breaking scholarship, and her website Black Canadian Studies, examine Canadian, American, European, and Caribbean art and visual culture. She has made enormous contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, and African Canadian Art History, and is the author of seven books.

Music featured in this episode includes: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” performed by Julia Griffin, Johnny Mae Medlock and Clifford Reed at Raiford Penitentiary, selected songs from Songs For Paris by Dana Boulé, and “My Country Tis of Thee” performed by Arthur Middleton and His Orchestra.

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THE FLY GIRL Ruth Nichols

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 05:05:00 -0000

Ruth Rowland Nichols was a pioneer of early aviation, the only woman yet to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance, the first woman to attempt a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, the founder of the Relief Wings branch of the Civil Air Patrol and one of the most famous pilots of the 1930’s (even more famous than her friend and rival Amelia Earhart). Her courage and daring made her a national icon, but she is barely remembered now by the country that once praised her as its most famous “fly girl.”

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Thanks to Highbridge Audio for generously allowing us to use excerpts from the Fly Girls audiobook, read by Erin Bennett.

Our guest, New York Times Bestselling author Keith O’Brien, is a former reporter for the Boston Globe and a frequent contributor to National Public Radio. His work has appeared on shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and This American Life. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, Politico, and Slate, and is the author of Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County’s Quest for Basketball Greatness. He lives in New Hampshire.

Music for this episode was generously provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Jeremy Dittus, Jeff Cuno, The Melody Weavers, and the New Hot 5.

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CHRISTMAS IN WARWICKSHIRE Ursula Bloom

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 05:05:00 -0000

Ursula Bloom wrote over 560 books, earning her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most prolific female writer. Her memories of childhood Christmases at the turn of the 20th century recall parties at Warwick Castle, caroling, feasts and ghosts.

Ursula Bloom’s charming memoirs are read for us by Professor Judy Elsley.

Music featured in this episode by Fiddlesticks and the Georgia Boy Choir.

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THE AERONAUT Sophie Blanchard

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 07:22:00 -0000

On land, Sophie Blanchard was a timid, anxious woman who could hardly stand the noise and commotion of 18th century Paris. But after her first flight in a hot-air balloon, she was hooked, and would spend the rest of her life chasing the peace and freedom she found hundreds of feet in the air. The first woman in the world to fly solo in a hot-air balloon, she became so famous for her skill and daring in the sky that even Napoleon took notice, and tried to recruit her for a particularly unusual military maneuver. Her death in 1819 shook the continent, but her life story has been revived by Sharon Wright in her new book, Balloonomania Belles: Daredevil Divas who First Took to the Sky.

Guest Sharon Wright is a British author, journalist and playwright. She was born in Yorkshire and lives in South West London. She has worked as a writer, editor and columnist for leading magazines, newspapers and websites including the BBC, The Guardian, Daily Express, Disney, Glamour and Red. She is also the author of critically acclaimed plays performed in Yorkshire and London. Her first book Balloonomania Belles: Daredevil Divas Who First Took To The Sky was serialized in the Mail on Sunday and received widespread coverage, including on BBC Woman’s Hour and in the New York Post. Her new book on the Brontës will be published in summer 2019.

Music featured in this episode performed by Amanda Setlik Wilson and Nico de Napoli.

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THE EMPRESS Nur Jahan

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 07:05:00 -0000

Nur Jahan was the only Empress in the history of the Mughal Empire. Reigning as an equal with her husband Jahangir, she was the only woman to issue executive orders, mint coins, or lead an army — and her tiger-hunting skills were legendary. Though she was one of the most influential leaders in 17th century Asia, for centuries her legacy has been reduced to a love story that ends where her real adventure began–at her marriage to Emperor Jahangir. With our guest Dr. Ruby Lal, author of the new book Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, we discover the incredible life of this enigmatic and influential ruler.

Guest Ruby Lal is Professor of South Asian Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She holds a D.Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford, UK, and an M.Phil in History from the University of Delhi, India. Her narrative history Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, was published in 2018. Her first two books were Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World and Coming of Age in Nineteenth Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness, both from Cambridge University Press. Olivia’s interview with Ruby Lal was recorded on location at the 2018 Jaipur Literature Festival at the Boulder Public Library.

Music featured in this episode provided by Navatman Music Collective, Ashok Pathak, and Vinod Prasanna, Okey Szoke & Pompey.

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THE AMBULANCE DRIVER Maud Fitch

Mon, 05 Nov 2018 07:05:00 -0000

November 11, 2018 is the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War I. To mark this day, we bring you the story of one fearless woman and her ambulance. Maud Fitch, a cowgirl from the desert between Nevada and Utah, wanted to join up when America entered WWI. Unable to enlist as a soldier (she was a woman, after all!) she purchased an ambulance and shipped it at her own expense to France, where she reassembled it and drove it through the heart of the war zone. Cars had only recently been invented, but Maud Fitch drove and maintained the truck by herself, delivering the wounded to hospitals. For her courage and gallantry during one harrowing event, she was awarded the French Cross.

Guest Valerie Jacobson is Project Manager for the Utah Centennial World War I Commission. She earned her BA/BS in History/Geography from Weber State University and her MA in History from Utah State University. Her lesson plan on “World War I: Utahns at the Front” featuring Maud Fitch’s story is available from the Department of Heritage and Arts, and more lesson plans for teaching WWI can be found at the National History Day website.

Here you can join in the national fundraiser to build a WWI memorial in D.C.

Music featured in this episode provided by The Antique Phonograph Collection, Ars Sonor, and Parvus Decree.

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WITCHES & MEDIUMS & GHOSTS, OH MY! 2018 Halloween Special

Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:09:00 -0000

Our 2018 Halloween Special brings back four of our most popular guests with four new stories of hauntings, mysterious deaths, witch hunts, and seances to bring you many spooky returns of the season! [remastered 2025]

In 1612, ten people were hanged as witches in Lancashire, England, sentenced to death because of the testimony of a 9 year old girl. The eight women and two men Jennet Device accused included her mother, grandmother, sister and brother, and the trial of Old Demdike and her “coven” would become infamous around the world. Guest Mary Sharratt retold the story of the Pendle Witches in her novel Daughters of the Witching Hill. Thomas Potts voiced by Thaddeus Weiland.

Pearl DeVere was one of the most famous and successful madams in the history of the American West. Her incredible business acumen, as well as her famed beauty and charm, ensured that her legend endures to this day in the historic gold rush town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, but according to museum curator Charlotte Bumgarner, her legend isn’t the only thing that lives on in her house. Recorded on location at the Old Homestead House Museum in Cripple Creek, Colorado.

After her husband Harry Houdini’s death in 1926, Bess Houdini held regular seances to attempt to communicate with his spirit as part of a bargain the two had made while he was alive–he would contact her through a medium and give a secret code word that only the two of them knew to assure that it was really he. After ten years of attempts, she finally “turned out the light” on the Houdini seances, but her tireless efforts to keep his legacy alive assured that he is now the most famous magician in the world–more well-known than he was even in life. Guest Paul Draper shares Bess Houdini’s fascinating and compelling life. Bess Houdini voiced by Dena Brady.

Lily Cove was just 20 years old when she fell to her death during a parachute jump from her hot air balloon on June 11th, 1906. Her short career as a wildly popular aeronaut came to a tragic and mysterious end when she somehow became separated from her parachute and crashed into the field behind Ponden Hall in Haworth, England. Sharon Wright‘s book Balloonomania Belles brings her to life again.

Music featured in this episode included: “Ave Verum Corpus” and “Si le ne Vous” by the Weber State Univ. Chamber Choir, Puccini’s "Manon Lescaut, Intermezzo" by the MIT Symphony Orchestra and Concert Choir, Byrd's "Agnus Dei" by Solis, Choir of the Sun, "I Can't See You"by Jeff Cuno, “A Hot Time in the Old Town” by Daniel Henderson and Amanda Setlik Wilson, "A Hot Time in the Old Town” by Garrick and Anna Dunford Meacham, Elgar's “Salut d’Amor” by Peak Duo, “Aunt Hagar’s Blues” by The New Hot 5, “Goodbye, Liza Jane” by Marc Nelson, "Cripple Creek" by Half Pelican, and “Aquarium” from Saint-Saens’ Carvinal of the Animals performed by Jeremy Dittus.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY Mae Mallory

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Mae Mallory was a radical civil rights activist, Black Power movement leader, school desegregation organizer and strong proponent of Black armed self-defense. Her passionate dedication to “solving Black peoples’ problems” changed the world, but her name is mostly known because of her false arrest and conviction for kidnapping an elderly white couple in 1961. After the verdict was overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court, Mallory continued to work for freedom, autonomy and security for African Americans and was influential in the early foundations of the African nation of Tanzania.

Guest Dr Ashley Farmer is Assistant Professor of History and African and African-Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin and author of Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era. Farmer is also a co-editor of New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition (NUP Press, 2018) and an editor of the Black Power Series published with NYU Press.

Music for this episode provided by Jeff Cuno, Daniel Henderson and His Big Band, and Cynthia Meng & Kim Onah.

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THE TRUE LOVE Dorothy Osborne

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 06:05:00 -0000

In this episode, a 17th-century tale of true love and extreme patience. Dorothy Osborne and William Temple fell deeply in love, but her family forbade the match. For years, while Dorothy’s creepily overbearing brother presented her with suitor after suitor of his own choosing, Dorothy and William faithfully sent each other secret love letters. Dorothy’s letters survive, and reveal the story of her escape from the clutches of her possessive brother in pursuit of “happily ever after.” Katie interviews Professor Bernard Capp, foremost expert on 17th-century Britain and author of the new book, The Ties That Bind.

A digital archive of Dorothy Osborne’s letters can be found here, and free audio performances of her letters are at Librivox.

After completing his masters and doctorate at the University of Oxford, Guest Bernard Capp went on to teach at the University of Warwick for half a century. He has written books on a wide range of early modern English topics including the family, gender, radical movements in the English Revolution, the impact of puritan rule during the interregnum, astrological almanacs, popular literature, and the Cromwellian navy.

Music featured in this episode included: “Canarios” by Gaspar San, performed by Marc Nelson, and “Queen Marie’s Dumpe,” “The Nightingale,” “Franklin & Focky,” “Parthenia,” “Gerard’s Mistresse,” and “Fairwell Fair Armidia” by Dr. Phillip Serna.

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THE SINGLE LADY Marjorie Hillis

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Marjorie Hillis’ surprise bestseller Live Alone and Like It was a sensation when it was published in 1936. Determined to shift the narrative around singleness and encourage women to make active choices about their lives, Hillis used the insights gained in her decades as an editor for Vogue to empower single women to enjoy their single years instead of viewing them as an embarrassment. Her innovative ideas about relationships, female empowerment, friendship and career are still relevant today, and her witty, irresistible writing made her books mandatory reads for everyone in the 30s, men and women, married and single alike. Discover how one woman’s common-sense ideas about what singleness could look like took a country by storm, and how history’s changing narrative turned her story into something she never could have expected.

Olivia interviews guest Joanna Scutts, author of The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It. Joanna Scutts is a literary critic, cultural historian, and the author of The Extra Woman, the story of the 1930s lifestyle guru Marjorie Hillis and the lives of single women in midcentury America. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Guardian US, among many other venues. She was the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society, and holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Music for this episode provided by Vintage Vocal Quartet, Daniel Henderson and His Big Band, and the New Hot 5.

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THE MARTYRS Perpetua and Felicitas

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 06:05:00 -0000

When your heart tells you to do one thing, and your parents tell you to do another, what do you do? 22-year-old Perpetua faced this dilemma 1,800 years ago in ancient Carthage. She faced a grisly death in an ancient Roman arena with her slave, Felicitas, at her side. Their tale is full of bizarre twists, gladiators, preemie babies, religious visions, and even a “most ferocious cow.” Katie interviews Eliza Rosenberg, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies at Utah State University, where she teaches courses in world religions, biblical studies, Judaism, Christianity, and Greek.

Browse a truly comprehensive collection of all resources related to the story of Perpetua and Felicitas, and explore the mysterious world of Ancient Roman music with guest musician Michael Levy. We are fascinated by his explorations into what the ancient world might have sounded like.

Guest Eliza Rosenberg is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies at Utah State University, where she teaches courses in world religions, biblical studies, Judaism, Christianity, and Greek. She holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from McGill University. Her recent publications include “Weddings and the Return to Life in the Book of Revelation” in the volume Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by F.S. Tappenden and C. Daniel-Hughes (McGill University, 2016) and “‘As She Herself Has Rendered’: Resituating Gender Perspectives on Revelation’s ‘Babylon,'” in the volume New Perspectives on the Book of Revelation, edited by Adela Yarbro Collins (Peeters, 2017). She is currently completing a book manuscript on the book of Revelation and violent theodicy.

Icon of Perpetua and Felicitas by Élisabeth Lamour - no other use allowed without written permission from the artist.

Music featured in this episode included: “Nero’s Lyre" “Gloria Belli,” “Contemplationis,” “Sorrow” composed and performed by Michael Levy, and “March of the Lizards” composed and performed by Unstoppable Farmer.

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THE LADY NOVELIST Constance Fenimore Woolson

Mon, 13 Aug 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Constance Fenimore Woolson was one of the most popular writers of the 19th century. Though her life was full of drama, excitement and fame, for nearly a hundred years she’s been known only for the story of her death. Our guest, Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux, is changing that with her biography of Woolson, Portrait of a Lady Novelist. We join forces to help put this astonishingly brilliant writer “back in the canon.”

Olivia interviews Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist.

Guest Anne Boyd Rioux is the author or editor of six books about nineteenth-century American women writers, including Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, and Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist, named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune. She is a professor of English at the University of New Orleans and the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, one for public scholarship.

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THE ASTRONOMER Caroline Herschel

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Caroline Herschel lived a real-life Cinderella story. Except instead of marrying a handsome prince, she became a world-renowned astronomer! Her brutal childhood of servitude and misery stunted her growth, disfigured her face and blinded her in one eye. But Caroline Herschel’s story is an incredibly beautiful tale of triumph and achievement. Her astonishing work in Astronomy (she discovered a planet, for one!) led to international renown. And she lived happily ever after.

Join Katie with Joseph Middleton on location at the Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath, England. This episode also features excerpts from Caroline Herschel’s memoirs wonderfully performed by Kevin E Green for Librivox.

Guest Joseph Middleton is manager of the Herschel Museum of Astronomy and has worked in museums in Bath for over a decade, including at the famed No.1 Royal Crescent. He studied Fine Art at Falmouth University.

Music for this episode provided by the Herschel Ensemble.

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THE COMPOSER Alma Mahler

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Alma Schindler Mahler was a brilliant composer, pianist, and “influencer” who has largely been remembered only for the men with whom she had relationships. Her musical compositions are finally beginning to be recognized for their brilliance and performed on stage in the past few years, and her reputation as a “femme fatale” is long overdue for an overhaul. The “It Girl” of turn of the century Vienna, Alma Schindler was a famed wit, a renowned beauty, and a gifted pianist whose highest ambition, despite the restrictions put on her musical education, was to be a composer. After giving up her own work to marry “rock star” composer Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler supported his career for nearly a decade until a series of tragedies led her to reclaim her own identity and creative work. After Gustav’s death, Alma Mahler would have several relationships and two more marriages, and her life would span a dizzying breadth of world events from Golden Age Vienna to a Sound of Music-style escape from the invading Nazi forces in France to Hollywood at the height of its glamour.

Olivia interviews acclaimed author Mary Sharratt about her new novel Ecstasy, about the extraordinary life of Alma Mahler. This episode also includes excerpts from “Art Sung, a collaborative stage performance celebrating the life and works of Alma Mahler, featuring Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver.

Guest Mary Sharratt is the award-winning author of seven historical novels and is “on a mission to write women back into history.” Ecstasy, her book about the life of Alma Mahler, was published in April 2018. Born in Minnesota, Mary lives with her Belgian husband in Lancashire, England. Her books span women’s history from the medieval visionary Hildegard of Bingen to Elizabethan poet Emilia Lanier to the Pendle Witches. Mary’s articles and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, and Historical Novels Review. When she isn’t writing, she’s usually riding her spirited Welsh mare through the Lancashire countryside.

Music featured in this episode included: “Waldseligkeit,” “Ansturm,” “Bei dir ist es Traut,” “Hymne” and “Ich wandle unter Blumen” recorded live during a performance of Art Sung by Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver, and “Laue Sommernacht” performed by Dr. Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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THE BAKER Sally Lunn

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Sally Lunn was born in France, but moved to Bath, England in 1680 to escape religious persecution. She brought with her a special skill: baking delicious brioche-style bread. Developing her own unique recipe, she sold her buns in the streets of Bath, soon becoming famous for the “Sally Lunn Bun.”Fast-forward 350 years to the 1930s: a baker in Bath with a love of archaeology decided to excavate the ground beneath his own house. What he uncovered resurrected the story of Sally Lunn and revealed in microcosm the whole history of Britain! Come along on a tour of the oldest house in Bath and wander the streets of the historic town through our vivid soundscape.

Katie interviews guest Simon Lloyd-Williams, general manager of the Sally Lunn’s House restaurant and museum, on the site of her original bakery in Bath, England. Simon Lloyd-Williams has been the General Manager of Sally Lunn’s House in Bath for about a year. He has lived near Bath for the past eight years and previously worked as a chef.

You can find a modern recipe for a Sally Lunn bun here. If you’d like to dig deeper into the “did Sally Lunn really exist” debate, The Food Timeline is a great resource.

Music featured in this episode included “None Shall Plunder But I”, “The Merry Milkmaid,” “Blew Cap,” “Now the Fight’s Done” and “Amarillis” composed by John Playford and performed by Philip Serna. Dr Serna also runs the fantastic nonprofit Viols in our Schools which is dedicated to bringing Early Music to a wide audience.

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THE JOURNALIST Claudia Jones

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 18:56:00 -0000

Claudia Jones (born Claudia Cumberbatch) was a journalist, Black Nationalist and prominent member of the American Communist Party. Emigrating from Trinidad to NYC at eight years old, she was an extremely well-known peace activist and worked toward civil rights and women’s rights in America. Arrested for giving a speech promoting peace and women’s rights, in 1955 she was deported to England. There she founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, continued her work fighting racism and sexism, and founded the famous Notting Hill Carnival to promote understanding between white Londoners and their Caribbean immigrant neighbors.

Guest Dr. Carole Boyce-Davies is Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University. She has held distinguished professorships at a number of institutions, including the Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Professor of Comparative Literary Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (Routledge, 1994) and Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (Duke University Press, 2008).

Music featured in this episode included: “Afro-Cuban Lullaby” arranged by Daniel Henderson, performed by Daniel Henderson and his Big Band, “Evening Glow” composed by Daniel Henderson performed by Daniel Henderson and his Big Band, “Oasis” composed by Jennifer Duerden, performed by Crosscurrent, and “Blinded” and “Me” composed and performed by Jeff Cuno.

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THE SAXON Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Living in Saxony 1100 years ago, in a culture much like the Vikings, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim probably witnessed violence against women all the time. Violence was a part of society, and she retreated to an intellectual life. But there, too, she found violence against women in the ancient Roman plays she was reading. If she couldn’t change society, at least she could change the plays! She rewrote them, altering the plots so that the women emerged victorious! Katie interviews Mark Damen, Professor of Classics at Utah State University and translator of several of Hrotsvitha’s plays.

Guest Mark Damen began studying Latin in junior high and has been at it ever since. He completed his BA in Latin at the University of Florida and his MA and PhD at the University of Texas at Austin where he focused his work on ancient comedy, the subject of most of his publications. Following his wife Fran Titchener who joined Utah State in 1987, he has taught classes on a wide range of subjects, including ancient history, myth and drama, classical literature, language and etymology, and even playwriting. In 1998 he was Utah’s CASE Professor of the Year.

Music featured in this episode included: “Karitas” composed by Hildegard von Bingen, performed by Maria Jonas and Pina Rücker, various music performed by Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch, and “Waehaell” composed and performed by Hrōðmund Wōdening.

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THE FAIR LABOR LAWYER Bessie Margolin

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Bessie Margolin grew up in the New Orleans Jewish Orphan’s Home, was one of the first women to graduate from Tulane Law School and earned her PhD in Law from Yale University in 1932. Her groundbreaking work as Assistant Solicitor of Labor for the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act championed many of the wage and hour rights Americans take for granted today and enshrined in law the basic human dignity of American workers. She still ranks sixth for most arguments at the Supreme Court by a woman, and her brilliance in banter with the Justices is legendary. Margolin’s passionate dedication to her life’s work made an indelible impact on American legal history and the lives of ordinary Americans.

It also shaped the life of our guest Marlene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin. Trestman followed Margolin’s guidance and her model from fellow ward of the New Orleans Jewish Children’s service to study at a prestigious law school, and finally to admission at the Supreme Court.

Guest Marlene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin (LSU Press), is currently at work on a collective biography, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The History of New Orleans’s Jewish Orphans’ Home, 1855-1946. Both books draw on experience. Lawyer-turned-author Trestman, who has won funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, American Jewish Archives, Supreme Court Historical Society, and Texas Jewish Historical Society, had a personal relationship with Margolin prompted by common childhood experiences; Margolin grew up in the orphanage and Trestman was a ward of the successor agency.

Music featured in this episode by The New Hot 5, Jeff Cuno, Peak Duo, and Trialogo.

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THE MAID OF MONTEREY Maria Ruiz de Burton

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 06:05:00 -0000

Maria Ruiz de Burton was a writer, entrepreneur and businesswoman, and the first Mexican-American woman to publish a novel in English. Born in 1832 in Baja California, Mexico to a prominent Spanish family, Maria Amparo Ruiz was fifteen when the Mexican-American war ended and California became part of the United States. She married the commander of the American forces that invaded Baja shortly after the end of the war, and his career took them all over the United States, giving her an insider view at every level of American society. Her sentimental novels disguised pointed critiques of American culture and policy inside thrilling tales of love and intrigue. She spent most of her adult life fighting to regain legal rights to the land her family had owned for generations (essentially all of San Diego county). After her death, her books were forgotten for over 100 years, but were rediscovered in the 1990s and are now recognized as important examples of early Chicano literature.

Olivia interviews guest Maria Carla Sanchez, who is associate professor of English Literature and Women’s Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She is co-editor, with Linda Schlossberg, of Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion (NYU P 2000); author of Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America (U Iowa P 2008), as well as essays on women writers, pedagogy, and race relations; and an associate editor for College Literature. Her book-in-progress looks at nineteenth-century U. S. and Mexican literature, slavery, and genre.

Music for this episode provided by Ana Laura Allende, the Earth Stringband, Fiddlesticks, Andy Reiner, Jeff Cuno, and Marc Nelson.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTRESS Sahib Gizzatullina

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 06:05:00 -0000

A classic story of a young woman defying her parents to follow her heart, but with a fascinating Russian twist! Sahib Gizzatullina lived for the stage, introducing Russian audiences to theater for the first time in their lives. She and her penniless traveling theater troupe experienced all the passion, heartbreak, and drama that you’d expect from a roving band of actors. But they did it during Russia’s most turbulent time: through the reign–and murder–of Tzar Nicholas II, through both world wars, the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of the USSR.

Katie interviews guest Danielle Ross, Assistant Professor of Asian History at Utah State University where she teaches pre-modern and modern Islamic and world history. A native of California, Ross has published articles on Muslim participation in the First World War and Islamic law and education in the Russian empire. She is currently researching Muslim merchant-industrialist networks in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century Russia.

All music for this episode from field recordings provided by Dr. Ross.

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THE SISTERS Jane and Anna Maria Porter

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 12:37:00 -0000

Sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porter were wildly popular writers–among the most widely-read writers in Regency England. (Yes, more popular than Jane Austen!) Their novels were on every British bookshelf, their poetry was popular and acclaimed, and Jane Porter’s historical novel The Scottish Chiefs would retain its popularity for nearly 150 years. So how did these bestselling icons of British literature end up nearly penniless and living as “professional houseguests” without a home to call their own? And why did the eternal fame they expected elude them in the end?

Guest Devoney Looser is the author of the award-winning book The Making of Jane Austen (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017). She was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018 for her work on a book about the Porter Sisters. She is Professor of English at Arizona State University and the author or editor of six other books on literature by women. Her recent writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times, Salon, The TLS, and Entertainment Weekly, and she’s had the pleasure of talking about Austen on CNN. Looser has played roller derby as Stone Cold Jane Austen and is on Twitter @devoneylooser and @Making_Jane

Music featured in this episode by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Allison Kim, Peter Ryan, and Half Pelican.

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THE SAGE Gargi Vachaknavi

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:04:00 -0000

Are public debates like the feuds we see on Twitter and Facebook a product of modern society? Gargi Vachaknavi has long been remembered in India for her brilliant performance in a public debate 2,700 years ago. Her story offers a refreshing model for how to engage in heated ideological discussions: she didn’t just throw down an epic victory, humiliating her opponent. She did something much more clever!

Guest Ravi M. Gupta holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and serves as Director of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University. He is the author or editor of four books, including an abridged translation of the Bhagavata Purana (with Kenneth Valpey), published in 2017 by Columbia University Press. Gupta has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship, and two research fellowships at Oxford. He is a Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies. He received his PhD from the University of Oxford. His current research focuses on the Bhagavata Purana’s Sanskrit commentaries. He enjoys teaching World Religions, Hinduism, Sanskrit, and Religious Studies Theory and Method.

Music featured in this episode provided by Navatman Music Collective, Nimisha Shankar, Ashok Pathak, and Vinod Prasanna, Okey Szoke & Pompey.

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THE RADICAL Lola Ridge

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:39:00 -0000

Rose Emily Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1973. After spending her childhood in Australia and New Zealand, she fled an abusive husband for California in 1907. Arriving in America, she promptly changed her name, her age, her nationality and her marital status and launched her new life as Lola Ridge, radical poet, anarchist organizer, and editor of the influential avant-garde magazine Broom. Her unconventional life, radical activist work and influential writing should have placed her alongside literary giants (and friends) William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Jean Toomer, but the shifting political climate, and her first would-be biographer’s failure to produce any actual writing, meant that for decades she has been almost completely forgotten.

Our guest, Guggenheim-award-winning writer Terese Svoboda, is working to remedy this tragic erasure. Along with Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, A Radical Poet, Terese Svoboda has published 6 books of fiction, 7 books of poetry, a memoir, and a book of translation from the Sudanese.

Music featured in this episode by Half Pelican, Trialogo, The New Hot 5, and Killarney.

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THE VISIONARY Hildegard of Bingen

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 12:52:00 -0000

900 years ago, the young Hildegard of Bingen was given by her parents to the Catholic Church. She was literally “walled up” in a tiny convent, completely cut off from the outside world. But over the course of her long and varied life, she emerged from the walls to embrace the world. She founded her own convents and traveled across Europe on preaching tours. She spent decades caring for the sick and infirm, resulting in her seminal medical text that endured for centuries. She is also much celebrated today as a composer; she wrote hauntingly beautiful music that was rediscovered just 100 years ago. But she is perhaps most famous for her vivid and prophetic religious visions. She did what her visions told her to do, even if it meant defying the Pope himself.

Guest Alice Chapman is Associate Professor of Medieval History in the History Department at Grand Valley State University, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the author of Sacred Authority and Temporal Power in the Writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, and she has published articles focusing on the role of the papacy in disputes between ecclesiastical and royal power including “Disentangling Potestas in the Works of Bernard of Clairvaux,” and “Ideal and Reality: Images of a Bishop in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Advice to Eugenius III (r. 1145-53). She is also working on a second book project focused on the role of Christ as Physician (Christus medicus) in the Middle Ages.

Music featured in this episode by Solis Camerata, Kira Zeeman Rugen, Makemi, and selections from “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions of the Trinity” at the St. Paul’s Forum

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THE DISAPPEARING WOMAN Adelaide Herrmann

Mon, 05 Mar 2018 23:00:00 -0000

Adelaide Herrmann ruled the stage for fifty years as one the brightest stars of the Golden Age of Magic. After the death of her husband, renowned magician Herrmann the Great, Adelaide took center stage, and toured for thirty years as one of the most famous magicians in the world. She was more famous than Houdini, and continued performing until her death at age seventy-nine - when she was inexplicably forgotten for nearly a century. Join our guest, anthropologist and mentalist/magician Paul Draper, as we discover how the Queen of Magic just... disappeared.

[correction: Paul Draper mistakenly names the librarian of the Magic Castle as Lisa Cummings. Her name is Lisa Cousins.]

Music for this episode provided by Jeremy Dittus, Peak Duo, Amanda Setlik Wilson, and Jeff Cuno.

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THE MUSICIAN Mary Lou Williams

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 20:47:00 -0000

Mary Lou Williams was one of the most innovative, creative, groundbreaking musicians in the history of jazz. She was a brilliant and prolific composer and uniquely gifted pianist whose influence spans nearly the entire timeline of jazz music, but her name is almost never listed among the “giants of jazz.” Although prejudice kept her from achieving the recognition and fame she deserved during her lifetime, her contributions cement her legacy as a true pioneer of American music.

Guest Carol Bash is an award winning filmmaker with over 15 years of experience in broadcast journalism and independent documentaries. She is the producer and director of the documentary film Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band. Her production company Paradox Films is developing Clean Justice, a feature documentary on the environmental justice movement; and Blueprint For My People, a short film incorporating Margaret Walker’s poem, “For My People” and rare cyanotypes of African Americans in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Most recently, she worked with the award winning Firelight Films as Archival Producer on Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities, which premiered nationally on PBS’ Independent Lens series on February 19, 2018.

All music excerpted from the film Mary Lou Williams, the Lady Who Swings the Band: “Lotta Sax Appeal” with Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy, “The Land of Oobla Dee” with Dizzy Gillespie, “Nightlife” by Mary Lou Williams, “Roll ‘Em” with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, “Roll ‘Em” and “The Jeep is Jumpin” from Live at Keystone Corner, “Free Spirits” and “Ode to Saint Cecile” from Free Spirits, “Our Father” from Mary Lou’s Mass, “Capricorn” and “Scorpio” from Zodiac Suite, and “St. Martin de Porres” from The Black Christ of the Andes.

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THE PHILOSOPHER Margaret Cavendish

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:40:00 -0000

Four hundred years ago, Margaret Cavendish dared to contemplate the biggest philosophical questions of her day. Brilliant and bold, she wrote 21 books despite being dismissed or mocked by the almost entirely male intellectual community. A famously eccentric dresser, she and her husband hosted high-society parties at their fantastical castle, but she was also paralyzed by bashfulness and dreaded talking to people. She hoped that her intellectual works would lead to eternal fame, but she remained quite ignored until recent scholars dug her books out of the shadows.

Guest Dr. Rachel Robison-Greene earned her PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She works in metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. She teaches philosophy at Weber State University. She has co-edited eleven books on pop-culture and philosophy and is currently working on a solo edited collection on philosophy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Music featured in this episode by Solis Camerata, Mandy Clegg, Tommy Strawser, Sam Kreidenweis, Erik Gustafson, Kerry Ginger, Joel Wolcott, Carol Jennings, and Marc Nelson.

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THE UNSINKABLE Margaret “Molly” Brown

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 12:05:00 -0000

Margaret "Molly" Brown is often cited as the quintessential American rags-to-riches story. Born to poor Irish immigrants in Missouri, Margaret went on to become one of the wealthiest women in the country. She cemented her place in history through her heroism on the disastrous maiden voyage of the Titanic, but her life story is a compelling and unusual tale of character, compassion and just the right amount of bull-headedness. Her story is fully worthy of the many films, books and musicals which have born her name (even if that isn’t really her name, and most don’t in any way resemble her real story). Discover the remarkable woman behind the myth of the “Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Join us on-location at the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, Colorado.

Guest Jamie Melissa Wilms was Director of Education at the Molly Brown House from 2013-2018, and is now the Executive Director of the Denver Firefighter’s Museum. She has a BA in American History/Public Administration from Northern Michigan University, an MA in Historical Administration/American History from Eastern Illinois University, and has worked in the museum field for over fifteen years in locations across the United States.

Music featured in this episode by Killarney, Andy Reiner and Jon Sousa, Marc Nelson, and The Earth Stringband.

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THE PRINCESS Te Puea Herangi

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:17:00 -0000

Te Puea Herangi was one of the most important and influential Maori leaders of the 20th century. Born into the family of the Maori King, she was a tireless activist for her people. Her work to assure economic prosperity in the Waikato region, her fierce battles for justice for Maori communities harmed by illegal land seizures, and her passionate dedication to Maori cultural revival assure that she will long be remembered as a critical voice in New Zealand history. Olivia interviews Dr. Gina Colvin.

Guest Gina Colvin is New Zealand Māori of Ngāti Porou and Ngā Puhi descent. She is an adjunct research fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Colvin is the co-editor of Decolonizing Mormononism [University of Utah Press] and writes about the intersections of race, gender, culture and religion. Colvin is also the host of A Thoughtful Faith Podcast and she blogs at Patheos.

Music provided by the talented students of Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi Marae:

“He Tatai Tangata” written by Metotagivale Schmidt-Peke and performed by Taniwha, and “Iwi Taketake” written and performed by Taniwha (Metotagivale Schmidt-Peke, Javan Rivers-Hall and Scarlett Manners Te Pania).

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THE BOOK MISSIONARY Mary Lemist Titcomb

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 14:10:00 -0000

Mary Lemist Titcomb was a pioneering librarian at the turn of the 20th century, when public libraries were first appearing in America. Believing strongly in the power of books, especially for children in far-flung places, she invented America’s first Bookmobile: a horse-drawn, specially constructed book-wagon to bring books to remote farms in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her triumphs over prejudice and disaster resulted in nationwide bookmobile programs that continue to affect the lives of millions globally.

*Correction–in this episode Glenn stated that Titcomb was only four feet tall. She misspoke, Titcomb was actually five feet tall.

Katie inverviews Sharlee Mullins Glenn, award-winning author of Library on Wheels: Mary Lemist Titcomb and America’s First Bookmobile, and many other books, and is the founder and former president of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

Music featured in this episode by Marc Nelson, Andy Reiner, Jon Sousa, Jeff Cuno, Darol Anger, Bruce Molsky, and the Berklee World Strings.

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THE SINNER Pearl DeVere

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 14:56:00 -0000

[episode remastered in Oct 2025] Pearl DeVere was one of the most famous and successful madams in the history of the American West. From a suitably mysterious background, Pearl built a thriving business that became one of the most famed “parlor houses” in the country. Her incredible business acumen, as well as her famed beauty and charm, ensured that her legend endures to this day in the historic gold rush town of Cripple Creek, Colorado.

Recorded on-location at the Old Homestead House Museum in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Guest Charlotte Bumgarner has been Executive Director for Gold Belt Tour Scenic and Historic Byway Association since 2001, and is one of its founding members. She first became involved with the Old Homestead House Museum as a tour guide in 1996, and is now the manager and protector of the museum.

Music featured in this episode performed by Half Pelican, The New Hot 5, Daniel Henderson, Amanda Setlik Wilson, and the Earth Stringband.

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THE SAINT Margaret Clitherow

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 14:48:00 -0000

Margaret Clitherow’s life – and death – were shaped by the religious upheavals of the Protestant Reformation in Elizabethan (16th century) England. A devoted Catholic in a time and place where Catholicism was illegal, she played a powerful role in a kind of “spy” network secretly harboring Catholic priests in the city of York. When a young boy living in her household exposed her secrets, she was imprisoned and then executed by the gruesome method of being pressed to death. She is now Saint Margaret Clitherow, one of only 3 female martyrs of the English Reformation–the other 197 are male.

Katie interviews renowned Reformation Historian Peter Marshall, Professor of History at the University of Warwick in England, and co-editor of Oxford’s English Historical Review. He is one of the world’s preeminent scholars in Reformation history and winner of the Harold J. Grimm Prize for Reformation History. His books include 1517: Martin Luther and the Invention of the Reformation (2017), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation (2015), Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (2017), The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (2009), and Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story (2007).

Music featured in this episode provided by the Weber State University Choirs and Orchestra.

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What'sHerName Podcast Trailer

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 07:01:00 -0000

Committed to reclaiming forgotten history, What’sHerName podcast tells the stories of fascinating women you’ve never heard of (but should have). Hosted and produced by academic sisters Dr. Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle, What'sHerName brings back the “lost” women of history through compelling interviews with guest historians, writers, and scholars. Fascinating and funny, thought-provoking and thoughtful, What’sHerName restores women’s voices to the conversation.

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