Dig: A History Podcast

Spiritualism's Place. Episode #3 of 4. In honor of our new book, Spiritualism's Place, we're re-releasing one of our favorite episodes about Lily Dale. In the late 20th century, white Americans flocked to New Age spirituality, collecting crystals, hugging trees, and finding their places in the great Medicine Wheel. Many didn’t realize - or didn’t care - that much of this spirituality was based on the spiritual faiths and practices of Native American tribes. Frustrated with what they called “spiritual hucksterism,” members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) began protesting - and have never stopped. Who were these ‘plastic shamans,’ and how did the spiritual services they sold become so popular? Listen to find out!  Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism's Place. Episode #2 of 4. Enjoy this re-release of one of our favorite episodes in celebration of our newly released book: Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Seances in Lily Dale. For three years before his untimely death on the Titanic, British newspaper man W. T. Stead gathered the bereaved and curious in a room in Cambridge House so they could communicate with the dead. Several psychics, including the blind medium Cecil Husk and materialization medium J. B. Jonson, worked these sessions which had become known as Julia’s Bureau. After Stead’s death, Detroit medium Mrs. Etta Wriedt sought to channel the dead newspaper man. Wriedt was also known to channel a Glasgow-born, eighteenth-century apothecary farmer named Dr. John Sharp. Other frequent visitors include an American Indian medicine chief named Grayfeather, the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, and a female Seminole Indian named Blossom who died in the Florida everglades as a young child. But the bureau’s most important spirit visitor can also be said to have been the founder of the bureau, Julia herself. Who was Julia? And how do these seances fit into the long history of Spiritualism? Find out today! Find transcripts and show notes here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism's Place, Episode #1 of 4: Enjoy this re-release of our episode on Kate and Maggie Fox, the "founders" of Spiritualism. Averill wrote this episode in preparation for writing about the Fox sisters in Chapters 2 & 3 of Spiritualism's Place. This time around, you can listen for the context and history that didn't make it into the book! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches Series. Episode #4 of 4. This episode tells te story of one of Japanese folklore’s most infamous yokai (supernatural beings). The kitsune, “fox-spirit” or “fox-witch” has deep roots, millennias-old, in central Japan. The use of the word spirit conjures ghosts to western minds but the Japanese are using it to mean “supernatural or enlightened being”. This is why kitsune is also translated to fox-witch and, in many ways, this is a more accurate name within the western context. This shapeshifting spirit was believed to be the most cunning of yokais, its abilities only increasing with age. For centuries, kitsune have been suspected of performing kitsune-tsuki or “fox possession,” which were made easier by its ability to shapeshift into the form of a human woman. For this last episode on our 2024 Witches series, we’re tracing the history of Japanese fox-witches and the phenomenon of fox possession. Find show notes and transcripts at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches, Episode #3 of 4. The Salem witch trials lasted from late February 1692 to May 1693 in eastern Massachusetts Bay Province. This event resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of at least 155 individuals. Of these people, thirty were found guilty, with nineteen meeting their end by hanging. One man suffered a gruesome death by crushing under stones, while five others perished in jail due to harsh conditions. Although modest in scale compared to the extensive witch-hunts in 17th-century Europe, the Salem episode stands as the most severe witch-hunt in American history. It surpassed all previous New England witchcraft trials in terms of accusations and executions. The aftermath of the Salem trials marked a turning point. No further witchcraft convictions occurred in New England after this event. Moreover, the Salem crisis ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Puritan government in Massachusetts, signaling a significant shift in the region's political and social landscape. Bibliography Kamensky, Jane. Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England. Oxford University Press. 1997. Moyer, Paul. Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Cornell University Press. 2020. Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Vintage Books. 2003. Ray, Benjamin C. Satan and Salem : The Witch-Hunt Crisis Of 1692. University of Virginia Press, 2015. Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750. Oxford University Press. 1980. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches Series. Episode # 2 of 4. In 1692, the unusual behavior of a young girl was explained as the result of the evil trickery of a witch. Soon, people were naming culprits, and those accused were on trial for their very lives. You’re all familiar with the story, right? But today we’re not talking about the famed witch panic that gripped Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 - no, we’re talking about the other witch panic that took place that very same year, 200 miles away in Stamford, Connecticut. What can this concurrent, but very different, witch panic teach us about ideas about witchcraft in colonial New England? Find transcripts and show notes at: www.dogpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches III, Episode #1 of 4. Magic practitioners - both real and fictional, historical and contemporary - wield many different kinds of magic. Blood and bone magic, necromancy, divination, cleansing magic, manifestation, earth and elemental magic; the list is extensive. But wherever there is magic use, you are likely to find love magic. Spells and incantations to entrap a lover, potions and drugs to enthrall or make one feel amorous - love magic is ubiquitous in our current cultural representations of magic, especially (but not exclusively) when there are women magic-users involved. Curiously, while love magic has been around for millenia, love magic was not always so firmly feminized. And that seems worth digging into. Bibliography Laine Doggett, Love Cures: Healing and Love Magic in Old French Romance. (Pennsylvania State UP, 2009). Christopher Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, (Harvard UP, 2009) Gyorgy Endre Szonyi, John Dee's occultism : magical exaltation through powerful signs Jeffrey Watt, “Love Magic and the Inquisition: A Case from Seventeenth-Century Italy,” The Sixteenth Century Journal , Fall 2010, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Fall 2010), 675-689. Benjamin R. Foster, From Distant Days: myths, tales and poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia, (CDL Press, Maryland, 1995) Corinne Wieben, “The Charms of Women and Priests: Sex, Magic, Gender and Public Order in Late Medieval Italy,” Gender and History Vol.29 No.1 April 2017, 141–157. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series. Episode #3 of 3. The modern history of the body is marked by the coinciding pathologization of fatness AND the elevation of a new thin ideal. But one can make the argument that even after fatness was pathologized (deemed medically or psychologically abnormal), it was not necessarily stigmatized in any systematic way UNTIL its opposite quality- thinness-- took on new and important meanings of its own. In this sense, it’s not fatness whose meaning changes with time so much as that of THINNESS. As was made clear in this episode’s prequel, The History of Fat: The Complex Attitudes Toward Fatness in the Pre-Modern West, fatness has always been complicated- at some times accepted, even admired, and at other times criticized and a source of revulsion. In response to gender crises, technological advancement, and anxieties about modernity, twentieth-century beauty standards came to worship thinness in ways that were completely unheard of in premodern times. Today we tackle the History of Thin. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Body Series. Episode #2 of 3. In the mid-nineteenth century, a feud erupted between two camps of prominent public intellectuals and thought-leaders in the United States. The results of this feud affected the education, culture, and lives of generations of Americans. And yet, you have probably never heard of it. One the one side, the manualists, who believed that deaf people should be educated in manual methods in the form of sign language. On the other side, the oralists, who believed that deaf people should not use sign, but instead be educated in how to read lips and vocalize spoken English. It might be easy to see this as a just a schism between two pedagogical perspectives - is it better to teach using this method or that method? But this was about much more than educational approaches - instead, it became about the very place of deaf people in United States society. Thinkers and educators had spent decades of the nineteenth century debating the nature of deafness and the deaf mind: could deaf people think and reason without formalized language? Could they tell right from wrong, or were they animal-like? How might deaf people exist in a civil society if they did not share a common language? Were deaf people a distinct cultural group, or disabled individuals who could be assimilated? Today, we’re talking about the history of deaf people in the United States. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies, Episode #1 of 3. Historian Thomas Lacquer’s 1992 Making Sex argues that the one sex model dominated ancient and medieval medicine and popular ideas of sex, until, approximately, the Enlightenment, which gradually dispelled the one sex model in favor of the two-sex model--the strict dimorphic binary of sex, male and female, that most people are probably familiar with today. While numerous historians, and particularly historians of the ancient and medieval periods, have challenged the scope and specifics of Lacquer’s thesis, the revolution in gender history that his work prompted is undeniable. To kick off this series on Bodies, we’re going to talk about the history of how sex - or the meaning and value ascribed to genitals - was socially and scientifically constructed and reconstructed in Europe over the last two thousand years. For a full transcript, bibliography, and more, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 1990).  Joan Cadden, The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1995) Helen King, The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence (Routledge, 2013).  Thomas Lacquer, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Harvard University Press, 1992) Elizabeth Reis, Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (John Hopkins Press, 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus Episode: We're diving into the biography and the life and times of a woman named Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Elizabeth Oakes Smith was a household name in the mid- nineteenth century. She was a journalist, she was a women's rights activist, she traveled across the country speaking on the lyceum circuit, and she was also a well-known published author. Famous writers such as Edgar Allan Poe reviewed her written work and gave her raving reviews. But something happened. Elizabeth Oakes Smith was essentially erased from history. Bibliography Baym, Nina. Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. University of Illinois Press, 1993. Patterson, Cynthia. "Illustration of a Picture": Nineteenth-Century Writers and the Philadelphia Pictorials, American Periodicals, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2009):136-164 Reed, Ashley. Heaven's Interpreters: Women Writers and Religious Agency in Nineteenth-Century America. Cornell University Press, 2020.  Scherman, Timothy, ed.. Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Selected Writings, Volume I: Emergence and Fame, 1831-1849. Mercer University Press, 2023. Scherman, Timothy, ed.. Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Selected Writings, Volume II: Feminist Journalism and Public Activism, 1850-1854. Mercer University Press, 2024. Tuchinsky, Adam. “‘Woman and Her Needs’: Elizabeth Oakes Smith and the Divorce Question.” Journal of Women’s History 28, no. 1 (2016): 38–59. Woidot, Caroline M., ed. The Western Captive and Other Indian Stories by Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Broadview Editions, 2015. Wyman, Mary Alice. Two American Pioneers: Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Columbia University Press, 1927. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

EMG's Book Sentimental State. Episode #4 of 4. In this episode, Marissa and Averill uncover the harrowing real story behind a wave of forced migration from early 18th century Paris to the struggling French territories along the Gulf Coast. Driven by underpopulation woes and a charlatan's get-rich-quick scheme, over 100 women were quite literally rounded up from prisons and poorhouses under dubious accusations of "debauchery" and "prostitution." Their journey into this cruel human trafficking operation is laid bare through the meticulous research of historian Joan DeJean. You'll hear how an ambitious and ruthless warden conspired with corrupt officials to clear Paris' streets by falsifying charges against poor servant girls, foreigners, and even women simply deemed "inconvenient" by their own families. Branded as criminals but guilty of little more than poverty, these so-called "corrections girls" were then abandoned in hellish conditions at the Crown's fledgling outposts with no provisions. Yet many survived through grit and resilience, going on to become founders of New Orleans' aristocracy. Find transcripts and show notes at: digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

EGM's Book The Sentimental State. Episode #3 of 4. In 1923, Zitkala-Ša, a Dakota woman, wrote an unpublished essay titled "Our Sioux People," tracing the U.S. government's relationship with the tribe. She described a scene where delegates from the Pine Ridge reservation met with Mr. E. B. Merritt of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC. Zitkala-Ša quoted: "through all the pathos of their sad story, the sight of thier gaunt faces, their cheap and shabby civilian clothes which bespoke their poverty more than words, Mr. E. B. Merritt, Assistant Commissioner sat unmoved in his luxurious office, where walls were hung with bright colored paintings of primitive Indian folk and their teepees." Zitkala-Ša's complex political writing and activism added American Indian perspectives to women's political activism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We do this episode in honor of Elizabeth's new book, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State. Find transcripts here show notes: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elizabeth's Book, The Sentimental State #2 of 4. We’re talking about abortion and Ireland today. It’s hard for a lot of reasons. People shouldn’t have to fight so hard to make decisions for their own bodies. An unborn fetus should not have the same legal status as an adult woman. But we’re honoring Elizabeth’s book, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State, with this series about women, activism, and reform. Elizabeth tells the history of American women, Black and white, who took the anxieties and ideals of the Progressive era and mobilized them to exact political change. Reading Elizabeth’s book reveals a lot about the welfare state today, but also, I think, is a kind of roadmap for collective action. For Irish women, and all people with uteruses, unwanted pregnancies left one with few choices until it was finally decriminalized in 2018. Two-thousand-and-eighteen. Barely six years ago. Today we’re looking at 100 years of Irish history, inclusive of both the north and south. And most of that history, and most of this episode, is painful. But from that pain came people, mostly women, taking care of each other and fighting for change. And from that collective action came reform. Today, women in both Northern Ireland and the Republic can legally obtain an abortion up to twelve weeks in their own country. Is it perfect? No, of course not. As Elizabeth’s book reminds us, reform never is. But it’s leaps and bounds better than it was. For our listeners in Texas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and 18 other US states, this episode will hit too close to home. But I hope it’s also a reminder that collective action works. We can have something, and lose it, and then get it back. We just need to fight for each other. So chin up. We can do this together. Select Bibliography Fran Amery, Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: The Changing Politics of Abortion in Britain (Bristol University Press, 2020). Lindsay Earner-Byrne and Diane Urquhart, The Irish Abortion Journey, 1920-2018, (Palgrave Macmillian, 2019). Jennifer Thompson, Abortion Law and Political Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Fiona Bloomer and Emma Campbell, Decriminalizing Abortion in Northern Ireland (Bloomsbury, 2023) Begoña Aretxaga, Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland (Princeton University Press, 1997) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Celebrating Elizabeth's Book: Episode #1 of 4. Dear listener, we’ve got a special episode for you today. Our producer, Elizabeth Garner Masarik, just published her first book, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State. You can buy it on any major booksellers website as a paperback or ebook. So we are starting a series of women’s history episodes to celebrate the publication of her book. Today we’ll begin with an in-depth discussion of her book and its dominant themes. So sit back and enjoy our deep dive into Elizabeth’s book, The Sentimental State.  Bibliography Elizabeth Garner Masarik, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State (University of Georgia Press, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs, No 6 Cs of History Series. Continuity. Episode #4 of 4. Pretend it’s 500 BCE and you know nothing about modern, scientific medicine. You know nothing about anatomy or biochemistry or microbes. How would you approach the art of healing your loved ones when they became ill? How would you identify what’s wrong with them and offer them the supportive care they needed, their best chance of survival? You'd probably keep track of any events like vomiting, diarrhea, urination, wounds that are weeping or orifices that are secreting. Is pus or wax flowing out of their ear? Are they urinating way more or way less than normal? Is their urine super dark or smelly? Is that cut on their ankle looking crusty and gooey? Note your experience of trying to heal this loved one is shaped entirely by fluids. This is one of the reasons why, for millennia, the practice of healing followed a comprehensive, rational, and holistic explanation for disease based on vital fluids (or humors). This week, for the last episode in our Continuity series, we are discussing the millennias-long strangle-hold humoral medicine had on natural philosophy and medicinal healing. And… plot twist… we may be head back in this direction. Find transcripts and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 6 Cs of History: Continuity, Episode #3 of 4. Starting in the late 1990s, historians like Deborah Simonton and Judith Bennett argued that if we take a step back a look at the longue duree of women’s history, the evidence suggests that even as Europe’s economies transformed from market places to market economies, women’s work--and the value placed on gendered labor--was and continues to be remarkably (and frustratingly) consistent. There was not, in fact, a transformative moment ushered in by capitalism, industrialization, or post-industrialization for women. Even when factoring in race, urban/rural divides, and class, European (and American) women’s labor was always valued less than men’s, whether in the “household economies” or guilds of the medieval period, on the factory floors of the industrial era, or in the office cubicles of our more recent history. Today we’re going to take a step back and look at the longer history of the gender wage gap, where we can see the continuity in women’s work from the 14th century to the present. For show notes and a transcript, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Judith Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). Deborah Simonton, A History of European Women’s Work:1700 to the Present (London, Routledge, 1998).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 6 Cs of History, Continuity: Episode #2 of 4. In this final series on the 5- nope, 6 - C’s of historical thinking, we’re considering the concept of continuity. We’re much more accustomed to thinking about history as the study of change over time, but we must also consider the ways in which things do not change, or maybe, how they shift and morph in their details while staying, largely, consistent. In the United States, police brutality is, unfortunately, a constant. The contours and context change, extralegal violence at the hands of law enforcement does not. Today, we’re talking about long and in many ways unchanging history of police brutality in the United States. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 6 C's of History, Continuity: Episode #1 of 4. Reproductive labor is the labor or work of creating and maintaining the next generation of workers. This is the work of birth, breastfeeding or bottle feeding, washing dirty butts and wiping runny noses, nursing those who unable to care for themselves, keeping living areas habitable by washing and getting rid of refuse- and figuring out how to get water or where to put trash if not living with modern conveniences, cooking- including the sourcing, storing, and knowledge of food production to not make people ill. All of the things that humans rely on but that either through biology or through gendered norms, are the domain of women. Today we’re discussing the history of how reproductive labor was gendered as women’s work, the continuity of the undervaluation of reproductive labor within capitalism, and how this undervaluing contributes to the implications of gendered labor. Put more bluntly, capitalism is dependent on undervalued reproductive and gendered labor, and we’re gonna explore that history a bit in this episode. Find the transcript, full bibliography, our swag store, and other resources at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1884. Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman. Slavery's Capitalism : A New History of American Economic Development. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016. Jennifer Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Caitlin Rosenthal. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. (Harvard University Press, 2018). Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2012). Lauel thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History. Contingency. Episode #4 of 4. It’s October 10, 732 and the Umayyad armies commanded by Abd al-Rahman are facing the Franks led by Charles Martel. The battle is bloody and chaotic. When the fog clears, the Umayyad Muslim invasion is halted, and the Frankish Kingdom under Charles Martel emerges as a powerful force in Christendom. Historian Edward Gibbon writes that Tours was one of “the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbors of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.” He continues, saying that if it weren’t for the Battle of Tours, “Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomat.” This week we are finishing our series on the last of the five Cs, contingency, by exploring the Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers, which has been remembered as the only event preventing the Islamization of Western civilization. But, as always, it’s so much more complicated than that. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History: Contingency #3 of 4. In spring 1931, Li Shui Tong [Lee Jow Tong] met Magnus Hirschfeld when the latter was giving a public lecture in Shanghai. Li was a medical student with a deep--and vested--interest in the exciting new field of sexology. Hirschfeld’s work and ideas would go on to shape modern ideas about “homosexuality” in clear and often problematic ways. The theory of homosexuality that Hirschfeld built in the early decades of his research was built on ideas about biological race, empire, and a white male subjectivity. His work shaped the way people talked about sexuality for decades after his death. The white European, and male-centricness of sexology, gay rights, and gay rights movements came as a result of Hirschfeld’s fusion of his early work with a theory about “the races,” and the imperialist presumptions of his early work that assumed a white, cis male body to be the standard around which rights needed to be procured and sexuality needed to be understood. To examine Li and Hirschfeld’s story is to grapple with the contingency of history. Individual choices matter, and outcomes are the result of the confluence of events, disasters, and decisions. As historians Thomas Andrews and Flannery Burke argued, “the world is a magnificently interconnected place. Change a single prior condition, and any historical outcome could have turned out differently.” Bibliography Heike Bauer, The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture (Temple University Press, 2017).  Ed. Heike Bauer, Sexology and Translation: Cultural and Scientific Encounters Across the Modern World (Temple University Press, 2015). Howard Chiang, After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018). Howard Chiang, Sexuality in China: HIstories of Power and Pleasure (University of Washington Press, 2018).  Laurie Marhoefer, Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love (University of Toronto Press, 2022).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Five Cs of History. Contingency. Episode #2 of 4. At the turn of the 20th century, Buffalo was - to borrow a phrase from historian Mark Goldman - a city on the edge. Perfectly situated on Lake Erie and a hub for railroads, Buffalo was a critical part of the country’s trade infrastructure. It was an ideal spot to unload cereal crops from the midwest, for instance, to be stored in the city’s many grain elevators until it could be moved along by rail or transferred to waterfront mills for processing. It had a booming ship building industry for lake-going schooners and steamers. It was close to the incredible power generating potential of Niagara Falls, the leader in mass produced energy in the newly electrified United States. It had a small but growing steel industry and was looking for ways to rival Pittsburgh as America’s steel city. The future, it seemed, was bright, glowing with electric potential. But no one could predict what would go wrong. Join us as we discuss the historical concept of contingency using NY state's Queen City. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History, Contingency #1 of 4. The U.S. healthcare system is the way it is because of decisions made by people at various points in the last century. America’s healthcare issue is the result of a series of interconnected decisions and events and catastrophes. This episode is a part of our 5 c’s of history episode and today we are exploring contingency. Contingency is “The idea that every historical outcome depends on a multitude of prior conditions; that each of these prior conditions depends, in turn, upon still other conditions; and so on. The core insight of contingency is that the world is a magnificently interconnected place. Change a single prior condition, and any historical outcome could have turned out differently.” So we’re going to do an overview of the American health insurance system and touch on some key points along the way. For the script and resources, visit digpodcast.org Bibliography Conn, Steven. ed. To Promote the General Welfare: The Case for Big Government. Oxford UP, 2012. Gerber, David A. Disabled Veterans in History. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan, 2012. Hoffman, Beatrix. Healthcare for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States Since 1930. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Klein, Jennifer. For All these Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State. Princeton University Press, 2006. Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Harvard University Press, 2000. Starr, Paul. Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform. New Haven, Connecticut; London: Yale University Press, 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5Cs of History, Complexity: #4 of 4. During the Tang dynasty in the mid 8th century, a military leader named Li Baozhen was frustrated with his aging body. He had achieved much military glory and material wealth in his life, but he was aging and facing the fact that death was approaching. But he had also had dreams that he was riding triumphantly through the sky on a crane. Surely this was an omen! At the same time, Li Baozhen met Sun Jichang, who was a fangshi - a word that can be translated as alchemist, wizard, magician, and also doctor or physician. Sun Jichang offered Li Baozhen a concoction that he promised would allow him to “transcend” death. Inspired by his dreams of slipping away from earth on the back of a crane, Li Baozhen took the elixir - only to become incredibly sick. Li Baozhen’s experience captures something of the complexity of Chinese medicine: competing ideas of how to heal, the use of various powerful medicines in careful (and not so careful) doses, the intermingling of spiritual and medicial philosophies, and the quest for health and power, even immortality. For this installment in our series on the five C’s of historical thinking, we’re contemplating the historical concept of complexity through an exploration of Chinese medicine. Bibliography Andrews, Bridie. The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850-1960. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2014.  Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: The Song Dynasty, 960-1200. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009.  Goldschmidt, Asaf. “Epidemics and Medicine during the Northern Song Dynasty: The Revival of Cold Damage Disorders,” T’oung Pao 93 (2007): 53-109.  Liu, Yan. Healing with Poisons: Potent Medicines in Medieval China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021.  Lo, Vivienne and Michael Stanley-Baker, “Chinese Medicine,” in A Global History of Medicine, ed., Mark Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.  The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine, trans. Maoshing Ni. Boston: Shambhala Press, 1995. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History. Complexity. Episode #3 of 4. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and its residents are considered United States citizens. However the island’s political status remains a subject of debate and discussion. Some Puerto Ricans advocate for independence, while others support maintaining the current status as a territory, pursuing statehood, or seeking other forms of self-determination for the island. The political status of Puerto Rico remains a complex and ongoing issue. Find show notes and transcripts at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History: Complexity, #2 of 4. Josephine Baker’s life story - both what we know and what we don’t/can’t know - is fascinating. For our purposes today, her life story is a perfect case study for complexity in historical thinking. Not only was she an icon of contradictions, but the way she lived and interacted with the world has allowed historians and feminist scholars to really tease out the complexity of her lifetime. Josephine Baker lived from 1906 until 1975. She was both a Civil Rights activist and a performer who used blackface and racialized tropes to entertain. She was both a woman who had intimate (probably sexual) relationships with other women, and exiled an adopted son when he came out to her as gay. She was both a deeply private woman and opened her home to the public like an amusement park. And for most of her life she lived in France, which was both deeply enamored with Black American culture and music and deeply racist. As Josephine Baker shows us, historical moments, like life stories, are rarely simple. Bibliography Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase, Josephine: The Hungry Heart, (Random House New York, 1993).  Peggy Caravantes, The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015) 151. Luca Cerchiari, Laurent Cugny, and Franz Kerschbaumer, Eurojazzland (Boston: Northwestern University Press, 2012) Ed. Mae G. Henderson and Charlene B. Register, The Josephine Baker Critical Reader FBI Records: The Vault — Josephine Baker Patrick O’Connor. “Josephine Baker.” American National Biography Online Mary McAuliffe, When Paris Sizzled: The 1920s paris of hemingway, chanel, cocteau, cole porter, josephine baker, and their friends (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated, 2016) Alan Schroeder and Heather Lehr Wagner, Josephine Baker: Entertainer (New York: Chelsea House, 2006) Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007). Phyllis Rose, Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time, (DoubleDay, 1989).  Jennifer Sweeney-Risko, “Fashionable ‘Formation’: Reclaiming the Sartorial Politics of Josephine Baker,” Australian Feminist Studies 2018, VOL. 33, NO. 98, 498–514 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Complexity Series. Five Cs of History. Episode #1 of 4. The dominant narrative- and the story that many of you expect to hear today- is that fatness used to be less stigmatized; that plump women were beautiful and plump men regarded as wealthy and important but that somewhere along the way, thinness became associated with beauty and fatness became medicalized as obesity and stigmatized as disgusting, leading to today’s skinny-loving, fat-phobic culture. There are, of course, elements of truth to this story but… it’s also way more COMPLEX than this. This week for our Complexity series, we’re covering the complex history of fatness in the premodern West. Find transcripts and show notes here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History: Change Over Time, Episode #4 of 4. Written and spoken language are separate things. Languages that are connected to a written script change more slowly and last longer than those that don’t. Writing acts as an anchor to humans’ ever-changing speech sounds. But these two aspects of language (speech and writing) did not always go hand in hand. Today we dive into the history of the written word. Bibliography Fischer, Steven R. A History of Writing New ed. London: Reaktion Books. 2021. Gabrial, Brian. “History of Writing Technologies,” in Bazerman Charles. 2008. Handbook of Research on Writing : History Society School Individual Text. New York: L. Erlbaum Associates. Powell Barry B. Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 2012. Stanlaw, James. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Hoboken NJ: Wiley Blackwell. 2021. Stroud, Kevin. https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/ “The Evolution of Writing.” Published in James Wright, ed., INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Elsevier, 2014 https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Change over Time Series. The Five Cs of History. Episode #3 of 4. The Rights Revolution movements of the twentieth century were deeply connected to one another, with activists known for their work in one movement having cut their teeth in the others. These movements were also profoundly influenced and connected to struggles of the past, with older movements having either been where activists began their activism or were mentored by senior members in the struggle. Additionally, many historians and sociologists are tweaking the narrative of “feminisms” by displaying how the feminist movement has been a continual movement and how many different feminisms have co-existed throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Feminism did not “go silent” at times but has always been present in different ways. Find show notes and transcripts at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History. Change over Time. Episode #2 of 4. In recent years, America’s two party system has seemed more intractable than ever: Democrats vs. Republicans. Now, we have a clear idea of each party’s location on the political map: Democrats are liberal, Republicans conservative; Democrats are left-leaning, Republicans right-leaning. Right now, those truths seems so deeply entrenched that they seem almost natural - it’s always been this way and always will be. But if historians know anything it’s this: things change. In this episode, we’re thinking about change over time by looking at the long history of America’s political parties. Find transcripts and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Five Cs of History. Change Over Time #1 of 4. Roger Casement has been a subject of fascination - and controversy - for over a century. During his lifetime, he was an internationally-recognized champion for human rights, and was instrumental in exposing the horrors surrounding the rubber industry in the Belgian Congo and Peruvian Putumayo. Significantly, he spent his life striving to do more than just expose the injustices of the Congo and Putumayo - he built a network of activists and leaders willing to intercede, push for reform, and demand change for the indigenous peoples who suffered under European occupation. After years working within the British Empire, he was radicalized in his Irish nationalist beliefs, and spent the last two years of his life working to fight for Ireland’s independence from Britain. After his execution, some held on to the memory of him as a humanitarian hero, others claimed he was another martyr of the Irish nationalist cause, and still others distanced themselves from his evident homosexuality. The question of his sexuality determined whether or not he could be counted among the ‘real’ Irish heroes. Find the transcript and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History. Causality Series #4 of 4. Despite the fact that eighty percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, it does not. That is because the Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified. Despite being introduced in 1923, the ERA was not passed by Congress until 1972. However, the amendment failed to be ratified by the required number of states before the deadline set by Congress, and therefore did not become part of the Constitution. Since then, efforts to pass the ERA have continued but legal and political obstacles remain, and the ERA has yet to be officially added to the U.S. Constitution. We are in the process of exploring the 5 C’s of history on the podcast this year and in this series we are exploring causality, meaning how historians evaluate multiple factors that shape past events. Today we will look at the Equal Rights Amendment and the reasons that --so far-- it has not become law. Find transcripts and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 C's of History: Causality, #3 of 4. In 2017, White House chief of staff John Kelly, then serving Donald Trump, was interviewed by Fox New’s Laura Ingraham, who asked about Kelly’s thoughts on a church in Virginia that had recently taken down a statue to Robert E. Lee. Kelly responded that Robert E. Lee had been a “honorable man” who “gave up his country to fight for his state,” and claimed that the war had been caused by a “lack of ability to compromise.” Today, when asked the reason for the Civil War, most of us would immediately- and correctly -  say slavery. And nearly all historians would support that. But still, the question nags. What about slavery caused a violent, protracted civil war? What event or issue or Supreme Court case or compromise was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Or was it the competing cultures of North and South that did it, both created and exacerbated by the existence of Black chattel slavery? Today, as we continue to explore the concept of causality as a historical thinking skill, we’re talking about the causes of the American Civil War. Select Bibliography Astor, Aaron, Judith Giesberg, Kellie Carter Jackson, Martha S. Jones, Brian Matthew Jordan, James Oakes, Jason Phillips, Angela M. Riotto, Anne Sarah Rubin, Manisha Sinha. “Forum on Eric Foner’s “The Causes of the American Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions.” Civil War History 69 (2023): 60-86.  Blight, David. Was the Civil War Inevitable? The New York Times Magazine. December 21, 2022.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Cs of History: Causality Series. Episode #2 of 4. There was a sense, among very learned folks, that Rome had been something great that had been lost. In their grief, Renaissance scholars pored over classical manuscripts, attempting to build a picture of Rome’s greatness and, perhaps, find a reason for its disintegration. Rome’s fall was bemoaned, even resented by some but the mechanics of its demise were still a bit of a mystery. Fifth century Roman manuscripts were few and far between. Renaissance scholars were forced to piece together scraps of information and tie them together with incredible amounts of conjecture. That is, until 1665 when a French legal scholar named Jacques Godefroy used a very old document in very new ways and revolutionized what we knew about the Roman Empire’s fifth-century demise. Godefroy’s work launched what is perhaps the most contentious academic debate in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, listeners, for this week’s episode on causation, we are tackling the Fall of Rome. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 5 C's of History: Causality Series, #1 of 4. According to the website of Britain’s National Army Museum, the first Opium War started when, “In May 1839, Chinese officials demanded that Charles Elliot, the British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, hand over their stocks of opium at Canton for destruction. This outraged the British, and was the incident that sparked conflict.” In popular culture, and especially among European and American historians, the “Opium Wars” have long been framed as a conflict between the powerful/domineering British and the weak/insular Chinese, in which the British exploited China by getting the Chinese people addicted to opium and then went to war when the Chinese government finally tried to stop them, and the British used their military might to then extract punishing and unequal trade relationships with the Chinese for the next 100 years. Certainly elements of this framework, of this cause and effect, are true. There was a confrontation in May of 1839, and the Nanking Treaty absolutely created an exploitative and unequal trade relationship between the British and Chinese. And yet, unsurprisingly, this is far from the whole story - and far from the only way historians have interpreted the “Opium Wars”. Today we’re going to discuss the causes of the first Opium War, and the different - sometimes problematic - ways historians have framed the 1839-42 Anglo-Sino conflict.  Select Bibliography Transcribed Qianlong emperor’s letter to King George III - in Chinese, and in English Song-Chuan Chen, Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War (Oxford University Press, 2017) Paul French, Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao (Hong Kong University Press, 2009).  Henrietta Harrison, “The Qianlong Emperor’s Letter to George III and the Early-Twentieth-Century Origins of IDeas about Traditional China’s Foreign Relations,” American Historical Association (2017).  Stephen Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War And The End Of China's Last Golden Age (Penguin, 2019) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Context Series. Episode #4 of 4. Swear words shock and offend. They also have a physiological impact on us: we blush, our heart races, and our brain is stimulated. The words that have this power vary over time and space. The history of swear words really drives home the idea that the past is a foreign country. The most offensive and shocking thing someone could say in 11th century England was “God’s bones” but that phrase no longer holds much power over us. During the Victorian age of euphemism, “leg” was so highly charged that it was often replaced with the word “limb” in polite conversation. Today we’re living through another linguistic shift that places racial epithets- like the n-word- at the top of the profane hierarchy. Swearing is almost entirely context-dependent; swears are constantly being invented, downgraded, or escalated in our collective mind. Thousands of English-language swear words are even lost to history; they’re extinct and meaningless to us now. Still more have the same meaning but have entirely lost their power. So what sweeping, historical trends undergird the ebb and flow of obscenity? We’re here to find out. This episode belongs in our series about context, which is part of our year-long mega series about the 5 Cs of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 5 Cs of History: Context, Episode #3 of 4. There are few individuals in American history with as divided a legacy as Margaret Sanger. For many, she was a pioneer of women’s health, an important birth control activist, and founder of Planned Parenthood. For others, Sanger represents the immorality of feminism and insidious evil of reproductive choice. Yet others see Sanger as a eugenicist orchestrating a genocide against the Black American population. Radical, unconventional, and outspoken, Sanger is an endlessly useful character for modern day political ends. Which is it? Was Margaret Sanger good or evil? If we slow down, think like historians, and examine Sanger’s beliefs and actions within their historical context, we can get a bit closer to the reality. For the transcript and access to our resources for educators, visit digpodcast.org Bibliography Baker, Jean H. Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion. New York: Hill and Wang, 2011.  Lamp, Sharon. “‘It is For the Mother:’ Feminist Rhetorics of Disability During the American Eugenics Period.” Disability Studies Quarterly 26 (2006).  Ordover, Nancy. American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.  Sanger, Margaret. My Fight for Birth Control. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931.  Thompson, Lauren MacIvor. “The Offspring of Drunkards: Gender, Welfare, and the Eugenic Politics of Birth Control and Alcohol Reform in the United States.” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 49 (2021): 357-364.  Weingarten, Karen. “The Inadvertant Alliance of Anthony Comstock and Margaret Sanger: Abortion, Freedom, and Class in Modern America.” Feminist Formations 22 (Summer 2010): 42-59.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Context Series. Episode #2 of 4. Published in 1968, Anne Moody’s autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi details her journey from a cotton plantation in the deep south to becoming a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. At times heartbreaking and other times inspiring, Moody’s memoir explores how an individual faced with enormous-- and seemingly insurmountable --obstacles can become a person that shapes history. Moody’s autobiography gives context to the mid to late 20th century Civil Rights movement in a way that still resonates with young people today. This is why her autobiography is a staple text in many advanced high school and college-level history courses, as well as other humanities and social science courses. Hundreds of thousands of students have read her memoir over the last half century, allowing readers to witness history happening on the level of the individual alongside historical forces operating in the larger economy and society. Coming of Age in Mississippi not only allows us to witness an individual coming of age but also how a subject can forge historical change. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 C's of History: Context Series, #1 of 4. On December 16th, 1929, thousands of Igbo [ee-bo or ibo] women gathered outside the colonial government compound in Opobo. They were there to demand the end of British imperialism in Eastern Nigeria, though the British seemed oblivious to the intention and motivations of these women. What they saw were erratic, reactive women wielding sticks and stones, bearing down on the post office, Native Court, and dispensary. The women pressed against the bamboo fence surrounding the compound, demanding change. They believed the British wouldn’t fire on a group of women. In Igbo society, men did not attack women, and the women believed that the British operated under the same code of cultural conduct. But the British didn’t believe that women were capable of making war, of organizing sophisticated networks of protest, or that women could destroy government buildings with nothing more than their hands, sticks, and stones. When the women refused to back down, the lieutenant in charge ordered his soldiers to open fire. They shot 67 bullets into the crowd, and each found a victim. At least 31 women died that day from bullet wounds; perhaps eight more drowned when the crowd pushed them into the nearby river as they tried to escape the gunfire. Blood-splattered, women screamed and cried, and the smoking guns cleared. The Igbo Women’s War of 1929 came to a violent end. Transcript, complete bibliography, and resources for teachers at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Nwando Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900-1960, (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 2005).  Toyin Faola and Adam Paddock, editors, The Women’s War of 1929: A History of Anti-Colonial Resistance in Eastern Nigeria (Carolina Academic Press, 2011) David Pratten, The Man-leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Producer's Choice series. #4 of 4. Justiniano Durán had carefully painted Colombian President Nieto Gil’s official presidential portrait from life some time around 1861. After Nieto’s death in 1866, his portrait was sent to Paris for an alteration, intended to make it look more “distinguished.” This is where his face acquired the strange whitish-blue tint observed by historian Fals Borda over 100 years later. Once the portrait was returned to Colombia, there was very little interest in it. Eventually, it ended up being abandoned in the Inquisition Palace. Just as his dark-faced portrait was lightened, the reality of Nieto’s African ancestry was obscured and lost to history. Fals Borda was intent on rectifying this wrong. He had the portrait restored, that is re-darkened, that year. It wasn’t until 2018, however, that the restored portrait and Nieto’s black ancestry, was recognized and celebrated by the Colombian state. In August of that year, former president Juan Manuel Santos presided over the installation of a replica of Nieto’s original portrait to the presidential palace in Bogata. Perhaps the 19th-century Colombian authorities’ effort to erase the African roots of its fourteenth president is unsurprising to those who know Latin American history. But the story of race and nationalism in Latin America is much more complicated than meets the eye. Join us as we dig in. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Surprise Series! #3 of 4. Spanish American Nina Otero-Warren (1881-1965) was a suffragist, Progressive educator, woman's club member, public health and social welfare board member, and writer. She worked for formal and informal mediation between Hispanos, Anglo Americans, and Indians. She was instrumental in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, was the first Hispanic woman to run for United States Congress, and she was the superintendent of the Santa Fe school system for many years. Get the transcript and full bibliography at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Surprise Series. Episode #2 of 4. There was once a young, deaf Black man, and I’m not going to tell you his real name because those records are private, so we’ll just call him Levi. Levi lived on a farm in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. According to his patient case file, he was incarcerated at the Matteawan State Hospital because he murdered his white “master” in 1870. A quick google search - let’s face it, that’s often our first research step! - on Levi brought me to an index on Deaf Americans maintained by Gallaudet University that claimed that he was an enslaved farm worker who killed his white master, David Hasbrouck. On this episode, we won’t be talking about Levi’s murder case and all the issues it raised - you’ll have to read my future article for more on that. But instead, we’ll learn more about one of the things that made his murderous act possible. Today, we’re talking about the history of poor relief and child welfare in the United States. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Guess the Theme Series, #1 of 4. Tea, it turns out, is a bottomless commodity history. As historian Erika Rappaport notes, at various times over the last two thousands years, “In Asia, the Near East, Europe, and North America, tea was a powerful medicine, a dangerous drug, a religious and artistic practice, a status symbol, an aspect of urban leisure, and a sign of respectability and virtue.” As a product of empire, cultural exchange, medicinal application, immense profitability, social imagination, and agricultural innovation, the history of tea is also the history of millions of intersecting individual lives. Some, like Catherine of Braganza, were elite women who made tea-drinking fashionable in 17th century Britain. Some, like Mary Tuke of England, were entrepreneurs who built a business and reputation on the products of the 18th century imperial markets. And yet others, like Anandaram Dhekial Phukan of Assam, were hopeful subjects of British imperialism who believed the 19th century empire could improve the lives of his people. The British thirst for tea altered economies and ecologies, started wars, underwrote individual fortunes and spectacular falls from grace. The simplicity and ubiquitousness of tea in British culture today belies its deep history. Today we’re going to spill a little tea, and see what we find out. Select Bibliography Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton, Matthew Mauger, Empire of Tea : The Asian Leaf That Conquered the World (London : Reaktion Books, 2015) Erika Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press; 2017) Jayeeta Sharma, Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India (Duke University press, 2011) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series. Episode #4 of 4. You might think that the story of Pharaoh Sety I of Egypt's 19th Dynasty ends with his death. But you’d be wrong, at least according to one 20th-century British woman, Dorothy Eady. Dorothy, who believed herself to be the reincarnation of Sety's lover Bentreshyt, is the only reason we know about this story at all. Dorothy Eady’s past life, which she discovered piecemeal over time, became her obsession. It shaped everything about her. She spent the first half of her life searching for her spiritual home, Abydos, and the second half making amends for Bentrshyt’s sin. Perhaps most shockingly, Dorothy, now called Omm Sety, would resume Bentreshyt’s sexual love affair with King Sety 3200 years after their deaths! More on that in a bit. Today we’re using the story of Omm Sety as a gateway into the history of past lives in Britain and America. Find transcripts and show notes here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series. Episode #2 of 4. The years 1896-1910 of the American woman’s suffrage movement are sometimes referred to as the doldrums because of an apparent lack of progress during the years. However, revised scholarship has shown that these were in fact the years where a lot of uncelebrated work was done for the cause. Today we will focus on the life of Anna Howard Shaw, who was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) from 1904-1915. Shaw oversaw the transition of NAWSA from a volunteer-based organization to a professional entity with headquarters in New York City and a paid staff. You'll find show notes and a transcript at digpodcast.org Bibliography Trisha Franzen, Anna Howard Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage (Uni. of Illinois Press, 2014).  Ellen Carol DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Wendy L. Rouse, Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement (NYU Press, 2022).  Anna Howard Shaw, The Story of a Pioneer (New York: Kraus Reprint Co, 1970). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series. Episode #2 of 4. Elijah Pierson was the embodiment of early 19th century Christian masculinity. So how did he end up, just a few years later, shambling along the streets of New York City with a scruffy beard, long hair, and dirty fingernails, following a wild eyed prophet? And - perhaps more disturbing - how did he end up at the center of a sensational murder trial? (And we mean literally at the center: he was the dead guy.) If you’re a historian of the United States, you’ve probably already guessed what we’re talking about. And chances are, if you ever had to take an American religious history class, or even an early America or Jacksonian America class, you may have read it. Those of you who haven’t, gee whiz, you’re in for a wild ride. Today, we’re talking about a book that is a true classic in the field of American religious history: Sean Wilentz and Paul Johnson’s 1994 book, The Kingdom of Matthias. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series, #1 of 4. The Fox sister’s story has been told hundreds of times, in autobiography, newspaper stories, biographies, histories of Spiritualism, Victorian entertainment, women’s rights movements, and many other contexts. Today we’re going to share some insights into Maggie and Kate Fox’s life, how their stories have been told, and why the way we tell these kinds of histories matter. For a complete bibliography and a transcript, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth Century America (1989) Simone Natalie, Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture (Penn State University, 2016) Barbara Weisberg, Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series, Episode # 4 of 4. When Ann Braude published her groundbreaking book Radical Spirits in 1989, critics did not like that Braude prominently linked the women’s rights movement, particularly during the antebellum period, with Spiritualism. And even now, thirty years on, many histories still gloss over these important connections. So today we are exploring the close association of Spiritualism and the women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century. Bibliography Braude, Ann. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Second Edition. Indiana University Press, 2001. Cox, Robert S. Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism. University of Virginia Press, Reprint 2017.  Franzen, Trisha. Anna Howard Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage. University of Illinois Press, 2014.  Hewitt, Nancy A. Radical Friend: Amy Kirby Post and Her Activist Worlds. The University of North Carolina Press, 2018.  McGarry, Molly. Ghosts of Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth-Century America. University of California Press, 2008.  Seeman, Erik R. Speaking with the Dead in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism, Episode #3 of 4. In the late 20th century, white Americans flocked to New Age spirituality, collecting crystals, hugging trees, and finding their places in the great Medicine Wheel. Many didn’t realize - or didn’t care - that much of this spirituality was based on the spiritual faiths and practices of Native American tribes. Frustrated with what they called “spiritual hucksterism,” members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) began protesting - and have never stopped. Who were these ‘plastic shamans,’ and how did the spiritual services they sold become so popular? Listen to find out! Get the transcript and other resources at digpodcast.org Bibliography Irwin, Lee. “Freedom Law, and Prophecy: A Brief History of Native American Religious Resistance,” American Indian Quarterly 21 (Winter 1997): 35-55. McNally, Michael D. Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. Owen, Suzanne. The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011. Urban, Hugh. New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America. Berkley: University of California Press, 2015. Bowman, Marion. “Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem, Heart Chakra of Planet Earth: The Local and the Global in Glastonbury,” Numen 52 (2005): 157-190. Amy Wallace, Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda. Berkley: North Atlantic Books, 2013.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series. Episode #2 of 4. For three years before his untimely death on the Titanic, British newspaper man W. T. Stead gathered the bereaved and curious in a room in Cambridge House so they could communicate with the dead. Several psychics, including the blind medium Cecil Husk and materialization medium J. B. Jonson, worked these sessions which had become known as Julia’s Bureau. After Stead’s death, Detroit medium Mrs. Etta Wriedt sought to channel the dead newspaper man. Wriedt was also known to channel a Glasgow-born, eighteenth-century apothecary farmer named Dr. John Sharp. Other frequent visitors include an American Indian medicine chief named Grayfeather, the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, and a female Seminole Indian named Blossom who died in the Florida everglades as a young child. But the bureau’s most important spirit visitor can also be said to have been the founder of the bureau, Julia herself. Who was Julia? And how do these seances fit into the long history of Spiritualism? Find out today! Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritualism Series, #1 of 4. Helen Duncan was charged under the 1735 Witchcraft Act, but her case was no eighteenth-century sensation: she was arrested, charged, and ultimately imprisoned in 1944. Of course, in 1944, Britain was at war, fighting fascism by day on the continent and hiding in air raid shelters by night at home. The spectacle of a Spiritualist medium on trial for witchcraft seemed out of place. What possessed the Home Secretary to allow this trial to make headlines all across the UK in 1944? That’s what we’re here to find out. Get the full transcript, bibliography, and resources for educators at digpodcast.org Select Bibliograph Lisa Morton, Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Nina Shandler, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell, (Da Capo Press, 2006) Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, (Oxford University Press, 1997) Malcolm Gaskill, Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches, (HarperCollins Publishers, 2002) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a special episode researched and written by one of our interns, Olivia Langa. Intern Episode! #2 of .... To find out more about the everyday lives of women in coal mining families we must look at the songs of less popular female Appalachian singers from the 1930s. One such place to look is in Depression-era Harlan County, located in the southeast corner of Kentucky, situated within a valley between the Pine and Black Mountains on the Kentucky/Virginia border. Most of the folklore that came out of Harlan County tell stories of the horror faced by the miners under the foot of the elite. However, three women, Aunt Molly Jackson, Florence Reece, and Sarah Ogan Gunning, wrote songs in response to the Harlan County upheaval and about the lives of coal mining families. Their work differs from that of the coal mining men because they were not directly involved in coal mining as their occupation. Instead, they occupied spaces within the home and family unit, bearing the responsibility of domesticity. However, with no money, no food, and the constant threat from outside forces, they carried a tremendous burden. Looking at their songs provides a look into their lives as coal miners’ wives and daughters and gives us a look into the devastation they witnessed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Animals Series. Episode #4 of 4. The interplay between human and veterinary medicine was incredibly common by the second half of the 19th century. While human medicine and veterinary medicine were distinct professions, they were inextricably linked in the latest experimental turn. Not only were animals involved in the experiments that led to medical breakthroughs, they were crucial to the ethical, and public health policies that shape modern medicine. Today we’re exploring the history of animals and medical science but we'll start at the beginning.  For transcripts and show notes visit www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Animals Series. Episode #3 of 4. The term “canary in a coal mine” is ubiquitous for any early warning signal. Like our fictional vignette of a miner carrying a canary into the coal mine, canaries were often taken into mines during the first part of the 20th century to test the air for poisonous gasses. The practice was so commonplace that it's become a cliché. Metaphors aside, canaries are a sentinel species, used by humans to detect environmental risks by providing advance warning of a danger. Often animals are used as sentinels because they are more susceptible to environmental hazards that humans may be in the same environment. In the case of coal mining, canaries -- or really any small bird -- are very susceptible to changes in air quality because of their rate of respiration, anatomy, and small size. Contrary to popular belief, canaries in coal mines do not have a very long history. They were only used as sentinel animals in British and American coal mines for roughly 100 years. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a long time at all. Yet, canaries have become ubiquitous with mining in general and as a figure of speech. Find transcripts and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Animals, Episode #2 of 4. Toads, dogs, cats, ferrets, rats, and occasionally even butterflies were depicted in the 16th and 17th centuries as “witch’s familiars” throughout Europe. A servant of the witches, whose purpose was to help them stir up trouble and cause harm in their enemies, familiars were particularly important in English witch lore. Some were conjured by witches, some sent by the Devil to tempt a woman into maleficence, some were supposed to be the Devil himself in the form of a common black dog. Whatever their origin and intent, familiars were not just background characters in English witch trials. They were presented as evidence and used to sentence hundreds, probably thousands, of people to death for witchcraft - in England. Not so in France or Denmark or Italy. It was only in England that the familiar’s significance was codified in law. Why, you ask? Great question. Let’s find out. For a complete transcript and bibliography, visit digpodcast.org Bibliography Maeve Brigid Callan, The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish (Cornell University Press, 2017) Alan Dures and Francis Young, English Catholicism, 1558-1642 (Taylor and Francis, 2021) Elizabeth Ezra, “Becoming Familiar: Witches and Companion Animals in Harry Potter and His Dark Materials,” Children’s Literature, 47 (2019) 175-196 Erica Fudge, Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes: People and Their Animals in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 2018). Charlotte Rose Millar, “The Witch’s Familiar in Sixteenth-Century England,” Melbourne Historical Journal 38 (2010) 113-130. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Animals Series, #1 of 4. In mid-March of 2022, a video spread virally across social media platforms: an elephant with its trunk wrapped around the top bar of its enclosure, its eye casting an anxious look out. A keeper pats his cheek and holds an apple, trying to comfort the distressed animal. The elephant was trapped in his enclosure in a zoo during the Russian bombardment of Kyiv. Animals are victims, transportation, weapons, mascots, heroes, and soldiers in human conflicts – and have been for as long as humans have made war. But perhaps the most dramatic has been the elephant, the massive, intimidating, trumpeting beast of ancient warfare. Elephants are the largest land animals on earth, but not only are they huge and powerful, they have experience human-like emotions, are extremely intelligent, and have long memories. The combination of their extreme power and deep intelligence have long made them valuable to humans, especially as military machines. Today, we’re talking about the history of war elephants in ancient and modern warfare. For the complete transcript and bibliography, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Thomas Trautmann, Elephants & Kings: An Environmental History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015) Konstantin Nossov, War Elephants (Bloomsbury, 2012) Vicki Constantine Croke, Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of An Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II (New York: Random House, 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Race Series. Episode #4 of 4. In today’s episode we’re going to explore race in the 1920s and dig into a few key moments and movements to see how race and ethnicity played a key role in shaping the American interwar years. Find transcripts and shownotes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Race Series. Episode #3 of 4. During WWII, South Africa's United Party failed to enforce segregation laws with the vigor that most Afrikaners thought was necessary. As a result, war time was accompanied by growing fears of racial mixing and prophecies of racial doom for white South Africans. Afrikaners placed much of the blame for the problems on non-white South Africans. The racial and ethnic discontent was complicated by Afrikaners' Christian convictions, fears of communism, and, strangely, a desire for modernization. These four principles resulted in their Apartheid project and South Africa's devolution into a racist pariah state For this month’s series on race, we are tackling one of history’s most notorious systems of racial segregation, South Africa’s Apartheid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Race #2 of 4. We’ve discussed the end of American slavery many, many times here on DIG. We’ve talked about abolition in the context of Reconstruction, in the context of refugees sometimes called “contraband,” in the context of Black military service, in the context of the Black Codes and Jim Crow – just to name a few. You might notice something in that list: each of those things centers specifically on the end of slavery, but not on the long and arduous effort to end slavery. In the many times we’ve talked about abolition and emancipation (at least in the US) we’ve talked almost exclusively about the final days of America’s peculiar institution. Today, let’s shift our focus and look instead at the big picture, the long and shifting effort to end slavery in the United States. Get the transcript and further reading at digpodcast.org Bibliography Rael, Patrick. Eighty-Eight Years: The Long Death of Slavery in the United States, 1777-1865. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Race #1 of 4. Over the last five years the British government has been reckoning with more recent expressions of the anti-immigration and anti-Black sentiments among its elected officials. The “Windrush scandal” broke in 2017, revealing that the British Home Office systematically and intentionally denied citizenship privileges (like access to the National Health Service, passports, visas for visiting family members, and more) to those of the “Windrush generation.” The Windrush scandal highlights the disconnect between Britain’s self image as an antiracism world leader and the reality of racist policies and practices in modern Britain, but as this episode explores, the current scandal is just one of a long list of injustices imposed on citizens from the West Indies and other former British colonies. Get the transcript and complete bibliography at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Kenetta Hammond Perry, London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship, and the Politics of Race (Oxford University Press, 2016). Kieran Connell, Black Handsworth: Race in 1980s Britain (University of California Press, 2019) Guardian staff, 'It's inhumane': the Windrush victims who have lost jobs, homes and loved ones | Commonwealth immigration,” The Guardian (April 2018) Amelia Gentlemen, “Lambs to the slaughter': 50 lives ruined by the Windrush scandal,” The Guardian Olivia Peter, “Windrush scandal: Everything you need to know about the major political crisis,” The Independent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bad Women Series, #4 of 4. The popular image of Parks is one of quiet, and demure respectability. When we were in elementary school, we were taught that Parks was a tired old woman, whose feet hurt after a long day on the job. Because she was a Black woman living in the south, she was relegated to the “back of the bus” on Montgomery, Alabama’s public transportation. Yet, that day Parks did not move to the back of the bus. It was understood that her personal feelings and fatigue were the reason she did not give up her seat for a white passenger on that fateful day in December 1955, not her “lifetime of being rebellious,” as Parks herself said about her activism. Today we’ll discuss Rosa Parks, the mid twentieth century civil rights movement in the United States, and the formation of memory. Get the transcript and full bibliography for this episode at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Carl Wendell Hines, reprinted in Vincent Gordon Harding, “Beyond Amnesia: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Future of America,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Sep., 1987): 468-476. Jeanne Theoharis, “’A Life History of Being Rebellious’: The Radicalism of Rosa Parks,” in Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle, ed. Jeanne Theoharis (New York University Press, 2009), 115. Danielle McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Vintage Books, 2011). Rosa Parks, My Story (New York: Dial Books, 1992). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bad Women Series. Episode #3 of 4. Anyone who's read or seen Arthur Miller's play The Crucible likely remembers Tituba, the enslaved woman who sets off the 1692 witch panic in Salem, Massachusetts. In literature and history, she's been depicted as both a menacing Barbadian voodoo queen and a Black feminist touchstone. Who was the real Tituba? The answer is … well, not clear. But, today we’ll explore the history of how she has been used, interpreted, and sought out by scholars, poets, and playwrights since the early 18th century. Today, for this installment of our Bad Women series, we’re talking about Tituba, the “Black Witch” of Salem.  We're producing this series as a collaboration with historian Hallie Rubenhold's new podcast Bad Women: The Ripper Retold. Rubenhold's book The Five has earned critical acclaim: this social history about the victims of Jack the Ripper is the 2019 winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction and was shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize. Find show notes and transcripts at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bad Women Series #2 of 4. Malintzin is by far the most controversial figure of the 1519 Mexican invasion. Was she a traitor, or a feminist national hero? Was she the mother of Mexico, or the Eve-like bringer of Mexico’s original sin? Was she a collaborator, bystander, or victim of the Spanish? In terms of her legacy, it’s a mixed bag. In terms of her lived experience, it is, as we often say, complicated. And today, we’re digging into the controversial history and legacy of Malintzin. Find the transcript, bibliography, and lesson plans to use with this episode at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Rebecca Jager, Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women As Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols (2015) Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Unframing the “Bad Woman”: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui and Other Rebels with a Cause (University of Texas Press, 2014) Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices, An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 2006) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bad Women Series in collaboration with Hallie Rubenhold's new podcast Bad Women: The Ripper Retold . Episode #1 of 4. The life story of Shih Yang, known to history by her married name Cheng I Sao (the wife of Cheng I) would inspire countless novels and semi-fictionalized accounts of a Chinese pirate queen or “Dragon Lady” of the South China Sea. Indeed, her life was so sensational, and pirates so marginalized, that authors, even historians, have found it difficult to parse fact from fiction. But have no fear, we’re not in the business of peddling fiction and we’re not starting now. We’ve done the work. So, sit back, relax, and hear about the life of Cheng I Sao, the woman commander of the Pirate Confederacy in the South China Sea.  Find transcripts and show notes here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BONUS EPISODE! Tuck into this episode by our badass intern Carly Bagley, a student at St. Mary's University in Texas. She wrote, recorded and produced this episode as a companion episode to Sarah's Slavery and Soul Food and Elizabeth's Birth of a Nation. Teaser: Last summer on June 17, 2020, the Quaker Oats Company announced its decision to rename its Aunt Jemima pancake brand after 131 years. Public opinion since the announcement has been mixed. One camp believes that the change is long overdue. While another group believes there’s nothing wrong with the brand’s namesake. For this special mini episode, we’re going to DIG in deeper and look at the history of Aunt Jemima. This case study will examine how something as innocuous as a box of pancake mix, represents America’s problematic history of racism.  Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Occult Series. Episode #4 of 4. If you visit the city of New Orleans, Louisiana you will be regaled by stories of the magnanimous Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Join any of the hundreds of walking tours of the city and tour guides will weave tales of fact and fiction as you travel down the narrow streets of the French Quarter, and meander through the uneven grounds of NOLA’s famous cemeteries. Unable to visit New Orleans? No worries, just turn on the TV and watch a highly fictionalized account of Marie Laveau in American Horror Story “Coven” and “Apocalypse,” played by Angela Bassett. Or do a simple Google search and find pages and pages of blog posts and articles mixing snippets of fact with a heavy dose of legend for some interesting and entertaining reading. Since her death in 1881 Marie Laveau has morphed from a respected and charitable neighbor, or a “she-devil” and mysterious Voodoo Queen (depending on whose talking), and into a saint of strong, Black, feminist womanhood. How do we separate popular history from fact? Today we are digging into the real life of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, and navigating the buried line between fact and fiction. Find transcript and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Occult Series #3 of 4. Whether we’ve ever really given it any study, we’re all at least a little familiar with the link between the Nazi party and the occult. Movies like Captain America and Hellboy have plot lines that center on supernatural obsessions of Nazi leadership, desperately trying to find magical or supernatural ways of winning the war and establishing the Nazi worldview. Indiana Jones famously fought the Nazis - more than once! - to secure the Holy Grail and Ark of the Covenant, which the Nazis hoped would bring them cosmic power. But this is just pop culture, embellishing what we already know was a fanatical movement to create compelling movie plots, right? Right? Well, as we always say, it’s complicated - but in short, while those movie plotlines might be exaggerated for dramatic effect, they weren’t made up out of wholecloth. The NSDAP, or the National Socialist Worker’s Party, which rose to power in the interwar period led by Adolf Hitler, was a party ideologically enabled by occultist theories about the Aryan race and vampiric Jews, on old folk talks about secret vigilante courts and protective werewolves, and on pseudoscience ideas about ice moons. In this episode, we’re going to explore the occult ideas, racial mythology, and ‘supernatural imaginary’ that helped to create the Nazi Party. Bibliography Kurlander, Eric. Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Paradiz, Valerie. Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales. New York: Basic Books, 2008.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Occult Series. Episode #2 of 4. In 1980s Japan, mizuko spirit attacks, or hauntings by the spirits of aborted fetuses, were on the rise among middle school and high school girls. Listen to one Japanese teen's testimonial: “You probably won’t believe it, but mizuko spirit attacks are really frightful. Last summer, I got knocked up. I went to the hospital for an abortion, but about a week later, I started hearing the crying voice of a baby in the middle of the night, coming from inside me. Soon after that, a red blob came out of me, and when I looked at it closely, it looked like a baby. I was so scared! So last Sunday I went to a temple in Kamakura and offered incense before a statue of Mizuko Jizō. That’s what happened to me. Be careful, everybody!” This exact scenario DID happen to many young women in Japan in the 1980s. There was a sudden uptick in mizuko spirit attacks among young women and a media blitz about this phenomenon. But what are mizuko attacks exactly? And which came first? The media blitz or the hauntings? How were young women supposed to get rid of them? And what did this all mean? Find out in today’s episode about the history of mizuko spirit attacks. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Occult #1 of 4. In the 1970s, Lorraine and Ed Warren had a spotlight of paranormal obsession shining on them. In the last decade, their work as paranormal investigators--ghost hunters--has been the premise for a blockbuster horror franchise totaling at least seven films so far, and more planned in the near future. So… what the heck? Is this for real? Yes, friends, today we’re talking about demonology, psychic connections to the dead, and the patriarchy. Just a typical day with your historians at Dig. Get the full transcript, bibliography, and more at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Sarah Bartels, The Devil and the Victorians : Supernatural Evil in Nineteenth-Century English Culture, (Taylor & Francis Group, 2021,) Dyan Elliot, Fallen Bodies : Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, (Princeton University, 2006) Ed. Joseph Laycock , Spirit Possession Around the World : Possession, Communion, and Demon Expulsion Across Cultures, (ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2015). Catherine Rider, Magic and Religion in Medieval England, (Reaktion Books, Limited, 2012). Cheryl Wicks, with Lorraine and Ed Warren, Ghost Tracks: What History, Science, and 50 Years of Field Research Have Revealed about Ghosts, Evil, and Life After Death (Graymalkin Media, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series. Episode #4 of 4. In his occupation as a swineherd, Jacob Nufer had performed countless genital surgeries on his pigs. He was an expert gelder. He was convinced he could deliver his child abdominally so that both his wife and child would survive. For this, there was no precedence. Most observers must have believed that Jacob was about to murder his wife and that his child might already be dead. Few people would have had confidence in his success. But Jacob was desperate. Using his gelding tools, Jacob made an incision in his wife’s abdomen, with no anesthesia and rudimentary sanitation, to deliver his infant daughter. Shockingly, the historical record asserts that both mother and child survived the operation. Even more shocking, Elizabeth is recorded as having five more children, all delivered vaginally. Their baby born by cesarean also thrived. She lived to the ripe old age of 77. This is the first recorded incidence of a cesarean section performed where both the mother and child survived the procedure. Or is it? You’ll have to keep listening to find out. Today we’re discussing the surprisingly long history of cesarean birth in western medicine. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series #3 of 4. Childbirth is such a routine part of life that in some ways it can become invisible, especially historically. History, people often assume, is made up of major events, political elections, wars, etc. – not routine biological processes. But for something so invisible, it has made up a significant portion of the lives of women across time. Through American history, birthing women have advocated for the right to shape their own birth experiences, whether through home births surrounded by female kin or hospital births under twilight sleep. And the choices our foremothers made aren’t always the ones we might guess. Today, we present a history of childbirth in America. Bibliography Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series. Episode #2 of 4. The 1915 silent-film The Birth of a Nation is one of the most popular and controversial films ever made. It’s success catapulted director D.W. Griffith into stardom while cementing the film, a piece of racist propaganda, into the annals of film history. It’s an amazing film with a horrifying message, which claimed that America’s rebirth after the Civil War was possible only through the power of white supremacy. The Birth of a Nation is still studied in film schools because of Griffith’s early use of dramatic camera and editing techniques. In 1992 the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Archives because it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” But why was such a blatantly racist film so popular and why is it still relevant today? That’s what we hope to shed light on in this episode. Let’s dive in…. Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series, Episode #1 of 4. Symphysiotomy. Probably not a word you’ve heard before - and if you have, I’m sorry? Symphysiotomy is an obstetric procedure in which a person’s pubic symphysis cartilage is cut to widen the pelvis for childbirth. Yes. Gross. I know. For most of the 19th century, symphysiotomy was a new solution to difficult births, and, to some doctors, preferable to Caesarean section, and certainly to the gruesome craniotomy. By the 1930s, though, in countries where childbirth had been medicalized, the symphysiotomy was phased out in favor of the safer C section - except Ireland. While surgical solutions to difficult childbirths increased in American and European obstetrics throughout the twentieth-century generally, it was only in Ireland that the use of symphysiotomy increased. Why, for the love of God, WHY, you ask? Let’s dig in. For a complete transcript and bibliography, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Cara Delay, “The Torture Began”: Symphysiotomy and Obstetric Violence in Modern Ireland, Nursing Clio, May 31, 2016 Cara Delay and Beth Sundstrom, “The Legacy Of Symphysiotomy In Ireland: A Reproductive Justice Approach To Obstetric Violence,” Reproduction, Health, and Medicine: Advances in Medical Sociology, Volume 20, 197-218 (2020). Marie O’Connor, Bodily Harm Report: Symphysiotomy and Pubiotomy in Ireland, 1944-1992, (2011)  Adrian Wilson, Ritual and Conflict: the Social Relations of Childbirth in Early Modern England, (Taylor & Francis Group, 2013). Adrian Wilson, The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1770 (Harvard University Press, 1995). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Border Series. Episode #4 of 4. In 1919, the idealistic American President Woodrow Wilson brought with him to the Paris Peace Conference his 14 Points. Among these points were the doctrine of self-determination (the idea that all peoples have the right to determine the nature of their own governance) and an idea for a coalition that enhanced international security (the League of Nations). While progressives lauded Wilson’s ideas in principle, the European powers who had won The Great War were skeptical and bitter. Unlike the United States, Britain and France had suffered immensely during the war and they wanted reparations for their losses. Moreover, most of the officials who made up the French and British states were not ready to surrender their empires. Even though anti-colonial movements had gained strength during the war, they were still the minority, and very few activists were in positions of power. To limit colonial power in a world that was apprehensive about it, a liberalized colonial schematic was created and called a mandate. The mandate would be granted by an international coalition that would be known as the League of Nations. These events transformed the peace-making process into something that was quite different from those of the past… or WAS it? We’ll soon find out! This week, as part of our border series, we’re telling the story of France’s League of Nations mandates in Syria and Lebanon. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders #3 of 4. If we look for women of color in national women’s rights organizations before the 1970s, we don’t see very many. Once it was assumed that women of color did not participate in twentieth century feminism. Of course that wasn’t the case at all and the historical record is righting itself, as historians and other social scientists complicate the narrative of twentieth century feminism, arguing that feminisms were at play. Sociologist Benita Roth even titles her book Separate Roads to Feminism, showing that women of color acted in feminist ways but were not largely involved with national and white feminist organizations. Historian Cynthia Orozco has a new book out titled Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican-American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist, which excavates the importance of a feminist figure of the Mexican American Civil Rights movement, adding to the scholarship that unearths the “forgotten” history of women’s importance in major American social movements. In today’s episode we’ll be exploring the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement of the early to mid-twentieth century and two women important to that movement, Adela Sloss-Vento and Alicia Dickerson Montemayor, whose work to establish women as authoritative figures in the Mexican American Civil Rights movement paved the way for the Chicana Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Find a transcript, complete bibliography, and teaching resources at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. University of California Press. 2010. Kaplowitz, Craig A. LULAC, Mexican Americans, and National Policy. Texas A&M University. 2005. Márquez, Benjamín. LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization. University of Texas.1993. Ngai, Mai. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press. 2004. Orozco, Cynthia E. No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. University of Texas Press. 2009. Orozco, Cynthia E. Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist. University of Texas Press. 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders Series. Episode #2 of 4. In popular media, borderline personality disorder has become linked in particular to beautiful, unstable, and ultimately dangerous white women, most famously Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. As a diagnosis, borderline personality disorder went through various iterations before being declared a personality disorder enshrined in the DSM-III in 1980. Psychiatrists described borderline personality disorder, or BPD, in broad terms, with symptoms including intense emotions, fear of abandonment, instability in relationships, impulsivity, distorted self-image, uncontrolled anger, and dissociation. The diagnosis is very commonly used – more than half of those hospitalized with mental illness have been diagnosed with BPD. But another statistic about BPD is more revealing: between 70 and 77 percent of all people diagnosed with BPD are women. BPD is a troubled and troubling diagnosis, one that’s been criticized and theorized and analyzed by feminists, disability scholars, and so-called “borderlines” themselves. In this episode of our ‘borders’ series, we explore the complicated history of a different kind of border: borderline personality disorder. Find show notes and transcripts at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders #1 of 4. Like many of the Spanish conquistadors who made their way to the Americas, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca joined an expedition to explore “Florida” in search of glory and, ideally, an encomienda of his own. (“Florida” is what the Spanish called all of the land around the Gulf of Mexico, including the actual Floridian peninsula.) Unlike most Spanish conquistadors, Cabeza de Vaca ended up lost in the area we now call Texas for the better part of a decade, naked, barefoot, unarmed, horseless, and at the mercy of the natives he encountered--most of whom he couldn’t communicate with beyond gesturing and hoping to be understood. Cabeza de Vaca’s experience of the Americas was brutal at times, as he teetered on starvation, was beaten by his enslavers, and suffered indignities for much of his eight+ years lost in Texas and northern Mexico. Still, his recollection of his “journeys” are nuanced, if inevitably colored by his background and biases. And by the end of his life, he became a champion of indigenous rights, demanding reform so loudly that the other Spaniards of South America had him arrested and sent back to Spain on trumped up charges. Though the writing and travels of Cabeza de Vaca are very much a part of the history of conquistadores, they also stand out. For the complete transcript, as well as links to our swag store and resources for teachers, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography There are several English translations of Cabeza de Vaca’s text available. Fanny Bandelier’s is usable, but Adorno and Pautz’s is excellent, with thorough annotation and cross referenced footnotes utilizing Oviedo and other sources.  Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (transl. Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz), The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca (University of Nebraska, 2003). Rafael Varón Gabai, Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers: The Illusion of Power in Sixteenth-century Peru, (University of Oklahoma Press, 1997).  Alex D. Krieger and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, We Came Naked and Barefoot : The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca Across North America, edited by Margery H. Krieger (University of Texas Press, 2002).  Charles Gibson,  The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519-1810 (Stanford University Press, 1964).  Dennis F. Herrick, Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Baker H. Morrow and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, South American Expeditions, 1540-1545, (University of New Mexico Press, 2011). Kathleen Ann Myers, Nina M. Scott, and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, Fernandez de Oviedo's Chronicle of America : A New History for a New World (University of Texas Press, 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series. Episode #4 of 4. Birth control and abortion are constant flash points in contemporary politics, and they’re often described as signs of a rapidly changing society. But women have always had ways (though not always quite as effective) to control family size through contraception, and early American women were no exception. Understanding the role that reproductive rights has played in American history provides critical context to today’s debates. Have we always had these kinds of debates? How did Americans think about abortion in the late 18th century, or the 19th century? We’re here to shed light on some of these questions. Find show notes and transcript here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series, Episode #3 of 4. While police investigations have adapted to new technologies, the basic premises of investigative police work have been pretty consistent since the 1880s in the UK, Ireland, and the US. But that does not mean that the philosophical and procedural organization of modern policing have not or cannot undergo revision or reform. For example, the ways that these national policing organizations dealt with same-sex sex when homosexuality was illegal shifted significantly over time . The Irish police -- or Garda -- had a multitude of tactics for catching men having sex with men. One of the most controversial was when they used agents provocateur, men who used their own bodies as bait for same-sex desiring men. This was a tactic employed first in 1927, and then dropped completely by 1936. Why? Today we’ll contemplate that question while thinking about authorized deception, authorized crime, and incitement to crime in the modern policing of sex.  For the complete transcript, bibliography, and information about ways to support this show, visit digpodcast.org Bibliography Paul Bleakley, “Fish in a Barrel: Police Targeting of Brisbane’s Ephemeral Gay Spaces in the Pre- Decriminalization Era,” Journal of Homosexuality, 68:6, (2021) 1037-1058. Vicky Bungaya, Michael Halpina, Chris Atchisonb and Caitlin Johnston, “Structure and agency: reflections from an exploratory study of Vancouver indoor sex workers,” Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 13, No. 1, (January 2011) 15–29 Vicky Conway, Policing Twentieth Century Ireland (Routledge Press, 2013). Derek Dalton, “Policing Outlawed Desire: ‘homocriminality’ In Beat Spaces In Australia,” Law Critique (2007) 18:375–405. Morgan Denton, “Open Secrets: Prostitution and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Irish Society,” (State University of New York at Buffalo Dissertations, 2012). Lyle Dick, “The Queer Frontier: Male Same-sex Experience in Western Canada’s Settlement Era,” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes, 48:1 (Winter 2014) 15-52 Gregory Feldman, ““With my head on the pillow”: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Evil among Undercover Police Investigators,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 58(2) (2016) 491–518. Angela Fritz, “‘I was a Sociological Stranger’: Ethnographic Fieldwork and Undercover Performance in the Publication of The Taxi-Dance Hall, 1925–1932,” Gender & History, Vol.30 No.1 (March 2018) 131–152. LaShawn Denise Harris, ““Women and Girls in Jeopardy by His False Testimony”: Charles Dancy, Urban Policing, and Black Women in New York City during the 1920s,” Journal of Urban History, Vol. 44(3) (2018) 457-475 Louise A. Jackson, Women police: Gender, welfare and surveillance in the twentieth century. (Manchester University Press, 2006). Gary Potter, “The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1,” Eastern Kentucky University Police Studies Online Gary Marx, Police Surveillance in America, (University of California Press, 1988) Brendon Murphy, “Deceptive apparatus: Foucauldian perspectives on law, authorised crime and the rationalities of undercover investigation,” Griffith Law Review, 25:2 (2016), 223-244. William Peniston, Pederasts and others: urban culture and sexual identity in nineteenth century Paris, (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2004) 25-26 Michel Rey, “Parisian Homosexuals Create a Lifestyle, 1700-1750: The Police Archives," in Tis Nature's Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality during the Enlightenment, ed. Robbert Purks MacCubbin (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 179-91. Stephen Robertson, “Harlem Undercover: Vice Investigators, Race, and Prostitution, 1910-1930,” Journal of Urban History, 35: 4 (May 2009) 486-504. Philip Matthew Stinson, Sr., John Liederbach, Steven P. Lab, and Steven L. Brewer, Jr., “Police Integrity Lost: A Study of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested,” Final technical report, April 2016 https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/249850.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series. Episode #2 of 4. At the tail end of a pandemic (we hope!) vaccines are in the news. There are huge disparities in COVID-19 vaccination rates marked by class, race, and geography. Critics question the system of tiered eligibility as many essential workers like those in the food industry are not yet eligible for the vaccine. Others don’t trust pharmaceutical companies to tell the truth about the side effects or efficacy of their immunizations. Still more believe that compulsory vaccination violates their personal liberties and that vaccine mandates are a slippery slope into a fascist state. But we’re here to tell you that vaccination has always been controversial. Many of the concerns people have now about the COVID-19 vaccine were voiced in the past about the original smallpox vaccine. A few years ago, when we were the History Buffs Podcast, we released an episode about the history of immunization and anti-vax movements. In light of a renewed interest in vaccination, we’re revamping that tired old episode. This week, we attempt to add some historical context to our current vaccine debates by telling you the story of the invention of vaccination, its impact, it’s opponents, and the issues surrounding them.  Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series, Episode #1 of 4. Late in 2020, a number of white academics were revealed to be passing as people of color, making the concept of racial passing a matter of national conversation. For these white folks, the benefits of being considered a person of color were based on a perception that minorities somehow have special access, abilities, or freedoms unavailable to white people – which is, of course, both untrue and oversimplified. In reality, whites passing as people of color is a manifestation of their inability to believed, or inability to accept, that there might be spaces and roles that might exclude white people. However, historically, it has been Black Americans who have passed as white. Throughout American history, Black Americans have chosen to pass as white for a number of reasons - to escape from bondage, to avoid the oppression of Jim Crow, to succeed in a career otherwise closed to a person of color. Some passed only from 9 to 5, others, for their entire lives. But when Blacks passed as white, it wasn’t quite the same, nor was it just a way to land a job or garner some social cache. They did so to try to slip free of structural racism – and the results weren’t all positive. In this episode, Averill and Sarah discuss the history of African Americans passing as white in the United States.  For a complete transcript of this episode, educator resources, and ways to support this show, visit digpodcast,org Bibliography Bibb, Henry. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave. New York: McDonald & Lee Printers, 1849 Craft, William and Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom: or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. London: William Tweedie, 1860. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written By Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.  Gatewood, Willard B. Aristocrats of Color, The Black Elite, 1880-1920. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. Hobbs, Allyson. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014. Hughes, Langston. The Ways of White Folks. New York: Vintage Classics ebooks, 1990. McCaskill, Barbara. “Ellen Craft: The Fugitive Who Fled as a Planter,” in Ann Short Chirart and Betty Wood, eds., Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume I. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah leads Elizabeth, Marissa, and Averill through a discussion and examination of the 1776 Report. Spoiler alert: it's complete garbage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elections Series #4 of 4. On May 24, 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to codify marriage equality through a popular vote. Significantly, the popular vote enacted a constitutional amendment, adding protection for two adult’s right to marry regardless of sex or gender. In a country that only just decriminalized same-sex sex in 1993, this turn of events might be surprising. 61% of eligible Irish voters voted. 62% of those voters said Yes, to approve the referendum amending the constitution. Members of the main mobilizing campaign--the “Yes Equality” campaign that advocated for the amendment--credit their success to a strong social media movement, the mobilization of real people’s stories, and a non-confrontational high-road approach in comparison with the No campaigners. The leaders of Yes Equality, Grainne Healy, Brian Sheehan, and Noel Whelan, also insist that Ireland was just ready to accept gay and lesbian Irish people as equals, evidenced by the smashing success of a 62% victory. The 2015 referendum was absolutely a major milestone in Irish gay and lesbian history. Whether or not it signaled Ireland’s definitive acceptance of queer Irish people as “equal” is less clear.  Bibliography Ed. Charlie Bird and Colm Toibin, A Day in May : Real Lives, True Stories, (Dublin: Merrion Press, 2016). Averill Earls, “Solicitor Brown and His Boy: Love, Sex, and Scandal in Twentieth-Century Ireland,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques, vol. 46, no. 1, (March 2020). [[Yes, that’s me!]] Averill Earls, “Unnatural Offences of English Import: The Political Association of Englishness and Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century Irish Nationalist Media,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 28, no. 3, (September 2019), 396-424. Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin Brenda Gray, “Mobility, Connectivity and Non-Resident Citizenship: Migrant Social Media Campaigns in the Irish Marriage Equality Referendum,” Sociology, Vol. 53(4) (2019) 634–651. Grainne Healy, Brian Sheehan, and Noel Whelan, Ireland Says Yes : The Inside Story of How the Vote for Marriage Equality Was Won (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2015).  Brian Lacey, Terrible Queer Creatures  Eithne Luibhéid, “Same-sex marriage and the pinkwashing of state migration controls,” International Feminist Journal Of Politics, Vol. 20, No. 3, (2018) 405–424 Patrick McDonagh, “‘Homosexuals Are Revolting’: Gay & Lesbian Activism in the Republic of Ireland 1970s-1990s,” Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, n. 7 (2017), pp. 65-91. Una Mullally, In the Name of Love (2014) Elizabeth O’Connor, “Discourse, performativity and the Irish marriage equality referendum debate,” Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, vol. 8 no. 1, 81-93.  Sonja Tiernan, The History of Marriage Equality in Ireland: A Social Revolution Begins. (Manchester University Press, 2020) Brian Tobin, “Marriage Equality in Ireland: The Politico-Legal Context,” 30 Int'l J.L. Pol. & Fam. 115 (2016), 115-130. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elections Series. Episode #3 of 4. 1968 was an extremely turbulent and painful year in the United States of America. The Vietnam War was in full swing, as well as the protest movement against it. Gallup Poll results in February of 1968 showed that fully half of the American populace disapproved of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s (LBJ) handling of the war in Vietnam. By March of 1968, LBJ notified his party and the nation that he would not run for a second full term in office. In April of 1968, beloved civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In June of the same year, popular NY Senator and former Attorney General Robert Kennedy (RFK) was assassinated. Then, the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago erupted in protests and police violence, the likes of which many in the U.S. had never seen. Needless to say, 1968 was a traumatizing year for the U.S and I’ve just mentioned the high points! Today as an addition to our series about important elections, we’ll be discussing the American presidential election of 1968 within the context of the larger political and social upheaval happening in the U.S. during that time. Find show notes and transcript at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Election Series, Episode #2 of 4. The consequences of 1876 were enormous. To end the the election limbo, Democratic and Republican politicians worked out a shadowy deal in which Rutherford Hayes was declared the president (by one electoral vote!) and the Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction in the former Confederacy. The results of the “Compromise of 1877” were a total abandonment of the process of reforming the South from a land ruled by white supremacy and defined by slavery to one of freedom and equal rights. The federal government effectively washed its hands of Reconstruction and left the South to its own devices. The result was … not good. As one freedman, Henry Adams, described it: “The whole South – every state in the South – had got into the hands of the very men that held us as slaves.” Today, as part of our series on elections, we’re talking about 1876, the election that ended Reconstruction, upended the accomplishments of the Civil War era, derailed civil rights, and allowed for the reign of Jim Crow.  Bibliography DuBois, W. E. B. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880. New York: The Free Press, 1998.  Foner, Eric. A Short History of Reconstruction. New York: Harper Collins, 1990.  Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1865-1877. New York: Harper Collins, 1988.  Holt, Michael F. By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876. Lawrence: Kansas State University Press, 2008.  Rehnquist, William H. Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876. New York: Knopf, 2004.  Woodward, C. Vann. Reunion & Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1951.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elections Series. Episode #1 of 4. On the morning of August 11, 1492, Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope, taking the name Alexander VI and yelling “I am Pope! I am Pope!” The throngs of Romans in the Piazza di San Pietro shared in his excitement. But for some, the Papal Election of 1492 seemed to indicate the downfall of the papacy, if not the end of days. Giovanni de Medici is recorded as saying, “Now we are in the power of a wolf, the most rapacious, perhaps that this world has ever seen; and if we do not flee, he will infallibly devour us.” Gian Andrea Boccaccio wrote in a letter to the Duke of Ferrara, “ten Papacies would not suffice to satisfy the greed of all his kindred.” Ferrante, King of Naples, purportedly told his wife, “This election will not only undermine the peace of Italy, but that of the whole of Christendom.” The priest and prognosticator Girolamo Savonarola would spend the last year of his life trying to render the 1492 Papal election void due to simony, a campaign that resulted in his excommunication, torture, and execution. What was it about the Papal Election of 1492 and its resultant Pontiff, Alexander VI, that elicited such a dramatic range of reactions? As it turns out, this question is difficult to answer but it involves assassination, simony, nepotism, accusations of poison, coercion, abuse, incest, wildly debauched orgies, and political corruption. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drugs Episode #4 of 4. For centuries, psychiatrists searched for the cure to mental illness, frustrated that medical doctors seemed to be able to find the “magic bullet” medications to fight disease and infection. In the mid 20th century, though, a series of new major and minor tranquilizers revolutionized the world of psychiatry. Doctors doled out Miltown, Librium, and Valium to stressed businessmen and frazzled housewives, using ad men to market these psychiatric wonder drugs to just about every ailment imaginable. In the process, psychopharmaceuticals became intertwined with the women’s rights movement, enflamed mid-century gender politics, and changed the way Americans thought about mental illness. Get the transcript at digpodcast.org Bibliography & Further ReadingDavid Herzberg, Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and teh Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. New York: Crown Publishers, 2010. David Healy, The Creation of Psychopharmacology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. Jonathan Metzl, Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drugs Series. Episode #3 of 4. Tobacco smoking is definitely the default way to consume tobacco. But in certain times and places, smokeless tobacco- such as snuff, chew, or tobacco tea- have found niches. Yes, snuff was practical for some, a pop phenomenon to others, but many of these historical niches for smokeless tobacco were medicinal. It’s difficult to imagine now, in a society raised on the message of “smoking kills” but tobacco’s introduction onto the world stage in the 1500s can be traced primarily to its supposed medicinal properties. This is especially true of smokeless tobacco. But smokeless tobacco’s story doesn't end there. Get ready for a wild ride, this is the global history of smokeless tobacco.  Find transcript and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drugs Series. Episode #2 of 4. Today we’re going to discuss alcohol consumption in early America. Alcohol was very important to early Americans and it flowed freely through the colonies. Adults and children alike drank alcoholic beverages for a variety of reasons. One being that it was one of the few things that were safe to drink at the time. However, by the time of the Early Republic period, roughly 1790 to 1830, Americans were consuming more hard liquor per capita than any other country in the world. So today we’ll explore drinking in early America, ask why Americans drank so much, and how such drinking affected the new republic. Find transcript and show notes at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drugs, Episode 1 of 4. Quinine, the alkaline derived from the bark of the quina-quina tree, would prove the most effective treatment for malarial fever and infection in human history. In the decades after the bark of the tree was exported to Europe, every state with imperialist aspirations wanted access to quinine. The Spanish Crown, recognizing quina bark for its power and lucrativeness, monopolized the harvest and export of the medicament. By the beginning of the 19th century, the imperialist aspirations of Europeans required an effective malaria treatment. The quest for quinine led to a robust smuggling ring empowered by the Age of Revolutions, Italian social welfare, and the invention of the British Empire’s cocktail of choice. Quinine’s role in reshaping the world is immeasurable… but we’re going to give it the old college try! For the complete transcript and full bibliography, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (Yale University Press, 2002) Matthew Crawford, The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016) Stefanie Gänger, A Singular Remedy: Cinchona Across the Atlantic World, 1751–1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, (Oxford University Press, 1981). Andreas-Holger Maehle, Drugs on Trial: Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century (Rodopi, 1999) Clements Markham,Travels in Peru and India, (London: John Murray, 1862). Digitized by Project Gutenberg. Frank M. Snowden, The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962, (Yale University Press, 2006). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches Series. Episode #4 of 4. On a brisk autumn day in New York City, 1968, roughly 13 women spent the morning of October 31st dressing in black cloaks and dresses. They stuck feathers, leaves, and furs in their long hair. One woman grabbed her enormous hat, roughly in the shape of a costume witch hat, but instead of a pointy top, it sported a paper mache pig’s head on a plate surrounded by dollar bills. These women were members of W.I.T.C.H., the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell and they were about to jump on their broomsticks and fly into the history books. Find show notes and transcripts at: digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches Series, #3 of 4. In 1618, the Earl of Rutland and his wife accused three women of bewitching their family. They believed that bewitchment was the cause of death of their first son, and the long-term illness of their second. The women in question were former servants of their household at Belvoir (or Beaver) Castle near Bottesford, England: Joan Flower, a Bottesford cunning woman, and her two daughters, Margaret and Phillipa. Joan Flower died while being transported to the prison at Lincoln; her two daughters were interrogated mercilessly by the Earl and several other noblemen who also served as magistrates in Lincoln County until they confessed. The jury found both guilty, and the judge sentenced them to death. Less than a year later, the Earl’s second son succumbed to his long-term illness. The Earl had his family tomb inscribed with these words: “In 1608 he married ye lady Cecila Hungerford, daughter to ye Honorable Knight Sir John Tufton, by whom he had two sons, both of which died in their infancy by wicked practises and sorcerye.”[1] Francis Manners and his wife, Cecily, were convinced that their family had been cursed by a witch. Historian Tracy Borman suspects foul play of a non-magical sort. Ultimately, the motive mattered little to the Flower women. Their accusers were too powerful to be denied a conviction, and they were too inconsequential, with too few friends in Bottesford or Lincoln, to survive a witch hunt. Full transcript and bibliography at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Bibliography Michael D. Bailey, Magic and Superstition in Europe, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006). Tracy Borman, Witches: James I and the English Witch-Hunts,(London: Vintage, 2014). Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches Series. Episode #2 of 4. Since at least the 1970s, academic histories of witches and witchcraft have enjoyed a rare level of visibility in popular culture. Feminist, literary, and historical scholarship about witches has shaped popular culture to such a degree that the discipline has become more about unlearning everything we thought we knew about witches. Though historians have continued to investigate and re-interpret witch history, the general public remains fixated on the compelling, feminist narrative of the vulnerable women hanged and burned at the stake for upsetting the patriarchy. While this part of the story can be true, especially in certain contexts, it’s only part of the story, and frankly, not even the most interesting part. Today we tackle male witches in early modern Eurasia and North America! Find Show Notes and Transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Witches, Episode #1 of 4. In 1973, two professors active in the women’s health movement wrote a pamphlet for women to read in the consciousness-raising reading groups. The pamphlet, inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves, looked to history to explain how women had been marginalized in their own healthcare. Women used to be an important part of the medical profession as midwives, they argued -- but the midwives were forced out of practice because they were so often considered witches and persecuted by the patriarchy in the form of the Catholic Church. The idea that midwives were regularly accused of witchcraft seemed so obvious that it quickly became taken as fact. There was only one problem: it wasn’t true. In this episode, we follow the convoluted origin story of the myth of the midwife-witch. Get the full transcript at digpodcast.org Bibliography & Further Reading Samuel S. Thomas, “Early Modern Midwifery: Splitting the Profession, Connecting the History,” The Journal of Social History 43 (2009), 115-138. Thomas Forbes, “Midwifery and Witchcraft,” The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 17 (1962), 1966. David Harley, “Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch,” in Brian P. Levack, Witchcraft, Healing, and Popular Diseases: New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology (Florence: Taylor and Francis Group, 2001) Leigh Whaley, Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 Ritta Jo Horsley and Richard Horsley, “Who Were the Witches? Wise Women, Midwives, and the European Witch Hunts,” Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture 3 (1986), Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1970), Monica Green, “Women’s Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval Europe,” Signs 14 (1989), 434-473. Margaret Murray, The Witch Cult in Western Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1921) Margaret Murray, The God of the Witches (London: Oxford University Press, 1931) Thomas Szasz, The Manufacture of Mental Illness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1970) Jacqueline Simpson, “Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why?” Folklore 105 (1994) Jennifer Nelson, More than Medicine: A History of the Feminist Women’s Health Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2015). Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth Century Representations (London: Taylor and Francis Group, 1996). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Food Series. Episode #4 of 4. In June 2020, Quaker Oats announced they were revamping their famous (infamous?) brand of breakfast products, Aunt Jemima. From the late 19th century to the late 1980s, Aunt Jemima products prominently featured the image of the Black mammy trope to sell the idea that all white families could have the comforting presence of a Southern Black cook in their homes. As always, there was immediately a backlash from Americans who appealed to the place Aunt Jemima holds in American nostalgia – but what many don’t realize is the way that the figure of Aunt Jemima was specifically created to provide that sense of nostalgia drawn from the long, racist history of Black women who were bound to serve white families. In this episode, we explore that history, and go back further to consider how even the staple foods of Southern cuisine originated in the horrors of slavery.  Find transcripts and show notes here: www.digpodcast.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Food Series #3 of 4. The Black Panthers are often misrepresented or their significance is minimized in popular thought and opinion. The everyday organizing is often lost and an overemphasis on the Panther’s clashes with law enforcement overshadow the substantial community programs, the Service to the People Programs, offered by the Black Panther Party on the local level. Additionally, the dominant narrative highlights the men of the Panther party, yet women made up 2/3 of the membership and set a community-focused revolutionary agenda. Instead of viewing Black power movements like the Panthers as the antithesis of the non-violent civil rights movement, it is important to recognize that civil rights and Black power movements such as the Black Panthers, both emanate from a centuries-long Black freedom struggle. As former Panther Ericka Huggins states, “We were making history. It wasn’t nice and clean. It was complex.” Get the transcript and complete bibliography at digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Austin, Curtis. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party. University of Arkansas Press. 2008. Bloom, Joshua, Waldo E. Martin, Jr. Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. University of California Press, 2016. Foner, Philip S. ed. The Black Panthers Speak. Lippincott. 1970. Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Jones, Charles E. , ed. The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered). Black Classic Press. 1998. Katz, Michael B. The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Levine, Susan. School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Newton, Huey P. Revolutionary Suicide. Penguin Classics. 2009. Orleck, Annelise. Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Orleck, Annelise, and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, eds. The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964-1980. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Peniel, E.Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking The Civil Rights-Black Power Era. Routledge. 2006. The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. Black Panther Party : Service to the People Programs. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Arinna Hermida. “Mapping the Black Panther Party in Key Cities.” An Oral History with Ericka Huggins, Interviews conducted by Fiona Thompson in 2007, Oral History Center University of California, The Bancroft Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Food Series. Episode #2 of 4. Cannibalism gave imperial powers compelling justifications for their colonial endeavors; indigenous Americans and Australasians were backward, uncivilized, savage, and ritual cannibalism served as proof of their need for a guiding hand. But it’s not that easy. Why? Because right at the moment when Europeans were using cannibalism to demean indigenous cultures and justify their civilizing missions, they too were engaging in cannibalism. So were most of the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia, but under the guise of therapeutics. This week’s episode will focus on cannibalism’s most “civilized” iteration, but also its most widespread, medicinal cannibalism. It’s true. For thousands of years, all over the world, the human body has been both the object of medical treatment AND an ingredient in its therapies. ** Thanks to my student Dan Hacker for piquing my interest about this topic! ~ Marissa Rhodes For transcripts and show notes see: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Food Series, Episode #1 of 4. When the Spanish conquered Mesoamerica, they conquered cacao. Mixing the bitter cacao seeds with sugar and other spices - spices that were often also obtained through European conquest - the Spanish created a commodity that stimulated the European comestible market. Its luxuriousness grew first out of its expensiveness and rarity in early modern Europe. The inaccessibility of chocolate to most early modern Europeans meant it has not featured strongly in the longer history of European “aphrodisiacs” specifically, but the story of the ways that Europeans adopted the bittersweet central American drink as a sex remedy says a great deal about the history of sexuality, medicine, gender, economics, race, and imperialism.  For the full bibliography and a transcript of this episode, visit digpodcast.org Select Bibliography Jennifer Evans, Aphrodisiacs, Fertility, and Medicine in Early Modern England, (Boydell & Brewer, 2014).  Kate Loveman, “The Introduction of Chocolate into England: Retailers, Researchers, and Consumers, 1640-1730,” Journal of Social History v. 47 n. 1 (2013) 27-46. Ed. Cameron McNeil, Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao (University of Florida Press, 2009). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Commemorative Sex Series. Episode 4 of 4. Wherever you have a military, you will have sex. Whether it’s an occupied city, an encampment in a theater of war, or a military base here in the United States, anywhere you have a large population of young men, stationed away from their girlfriends and wives, you will soon have a booming sex trade – and the requisite STI outbreak. So how has the United States military dealt with this particular problem facing soldier health? For this episode in our anniversary series on sex, we’re talking about sex, sexually transmitted infections, and the US military.  Find transcripts and show notes at: https://digpodcast.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices