Stay ConnectedIn each episode of History Fix, I discuss lesser known stories from history that you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Need your history fix? You’ve come to the right place.
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Amidst the chaos of 19th century New York City, one poor immigrant woman named Ann Lohman managed to climb her way out of the slums and into a brownstone mansion on 5th avenue. But her means of doing this rubbed some people the wrong way. Ann, alias Madame Restell, was a notorious abortionist operating in the city with satellite offices in Philadelphia and Boston. She built an empire selling married women birth control and performing procedures to help them end unwanted pregnancies. Soon after she began this profitable practice, there were many who hoped to take her down, put a stop to it. But not for the reasons you might expect. Not for the reasons people oppose abortion today. Turns out, abortion, though mostly unseen and unspoken of, has been mostly an accepted necessity throughout history. It wasn’t until the mid 1800s when women like Madame Restell rose up, challenging the status quo that abortion became controversial. Let’s fix that.
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We're going medieval this week to rectify some misconceptions about castles. Despite what many believe and what's put out there in fairy tales, castles are a very specific thing built in a specific time and place for a specific purpose. We'll examine the medieval period (AKA the middle ages or the dark ages) in Europe to better understand why and how castles were built and what they were used for. We'll also unpack the story of lesser known heroine, Nicola de la Haye, who defied gender norms to defend England's Lincoln Castle against invaders on more than one occasion, successfully withstanding siege after siege.
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This week, we're going all the way back to ancient Greece. We'll examine the story of Aspasia of Miletus, a woman who came to Athens around 450 BC and quickly became the talk of the town. Her name appears over and over again in writing from the time, Socrates wrote about her, Plato, Plutarch, Cicero the orator, Xenophon the historian, Athenaeus the writer, Aristophanes the comic playwright, Pericles the leader of the city-state of Athens. One woman’s name was on all of their minds: Aspasia of Miletus. They loved her. They hated her. They called her a great mind, a teacher, a master of rhetoric. They called a prostitute, a cheap whore, a brothel madam. They gave her credit for writing great speeches passed on to men. They gave her credit for starting great wars, the ruin of Athens. But who was Aspasia really and why was everyone talking about her? Join me to find out!
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This week, we'll delve into a cautionary tale: the "Radium Girls." These women were employed to paint glow in the dark numbers on watch faces and dials in the 1920s and 30s using radium paint. Assured that the paint was safe, the girls were instructed to shape their paintbrushes into sharp points with their own lips. But, turns out, ingesting radioactive radium paint isn’t safe at all, and as the women became sick and sicker and died, the companies they worked for chose to gaslight them, refusing to take responsibility all while lining their pockets with profits. But these women fought back, standing up while laying down and their fight set an important precedent we can’t afford to forget. Let’s fix that.
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This week, Joan Collins from the Pea Island Preservation Society joins me again to discuss Richard Etheridge, the first Black man to serve as keeper in the US Life Saving Service. Born into slavery, Etheridge fought for the Union army during the Civil War. Afterwards, he returned home to the Outer Banks of North Carolina where he re-entered service as a life saver, more specifically, surfman number 6, the lowest ranking position. Join me this week to learn how Etheridge distinguished himself time and again, climbing through the ranks despite all obstacles, despite the color of his skin, to lead, to serve, to fight, on behalf of humanity.
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Between mainland North Carolina and the narrow stretch of barrier islands we call the Outer Banks, sits a tiny island, just 12 miles long and around 3 miles wide. Dotted with rich maritime forest and bordered by brackish salt marsh on all sides, it’s home to two sleepy towns aptly named Manteo and Wanchese. This is Roanoke Island of course, of Lost Colony fame. But some 300 years later, in the mid 1800s, it was home to another colony entirely, one you’ve probably never even heard of, a colony whose population soared to just under 4,000 people in a matter of a few years. That’s more than the combined populations of Manteo and Wanchese today. This was the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony and its history, its story, some might argue, has become even more lost than the Lost Colony itself. Let’s fix that.
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In this episode, we'll uncover the truly impressive accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man living in rural Maryland in the 1700s. Banneker was a self taught astronomer who helped to lay out the boundary for the construction of Washington DC. He also built his own working clock and wrote and published almanacs for the years 1792 to 1797. He also called Thomas Jefferson out for being a hypocrite, my personal favorite accomplishment. But, despite all of the truly impressive things he really did, he's mostly remembered for things he did not do: planning the city of Washington DC, constructing the first clock in America, writing the first almanac in America, etc. Join me to examine how and why his already impressive enough real life accomplishments have been embellished by historical telephone. Let's fix that.
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This week, we'll delve into the mind blowing life of Josephine Baker, a Black performing artist who took Paris by storm starting in the 1920s. She sang, she danced, she barely wore any clothing, and she had a pet cheetah named Chiquita that regularly terrorized the orchestra pit. But Josephine Baker was so much more than that. from St. Louis street rat to world famous performer, first Black female movie star to French spy during World War II, entrepreneur to US civil rights activist, mother of twelve… I think you will find that Josephine Baker is nothing if not completely unexpected. Let’s fix that.
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This week I'll explore the social history of the cannabis plant including its use since ancient times as a fiber, medicine, and for its psychoactive properties both ritualistically and recreationally. I'll explore how cannabis first made its way to the Americas and how it became a main crop of colonial planters that they were actually required by law to grow. I'll explore it's use in 19th century American medicines and do some digging to find out why it came to be banned in 1937 following an influx of Mexican immigrants who brought recreational use of "locoweed" or "marijuana" with them. You're in for a wild ride!
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Thomas Alva Edison has always been portrayed as the greatest, most prolific by far American inventor. The man obtained over a thousand patents in his lifetime and is credited with inventing or improving upon devices that changed our world, our lives forever: the lightbulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, telegraphs, telephones, x-rays, and batteries. The list goes on. His contemporaries were blown away. But in recent decades, many have come to doubt Edison’s genius. More recent Edison critics take a look at his impressive body of work with scrutiny. "He didn't really invent all of those things," they say. Modern minds are split on Thomas Edison. He’s either a great American hero, inventor of our modern world, or an idea stealing fraud who ripped off other great minds and claimed the credit. But who was he really? Was Thomas Edison the real deal or do we need to rewrite the history books, giving back credit where credit is due? Let’s fix that.
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