Unsung History

Latest Episodes:

The Pacific Coast Abortion Ring Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

In mid-1930s, pregnant women in cities in California, Oregon, and Washington could obtain safe surgical abortions in clean facilities from professionals trained in the latest technique. The only catch? The abortions were illegal.

The syndicate that provided these abortions was the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring, which operated from 1934 to 1936 with clinic locations in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and San Diego, Long Beach, Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, California. It employed more than thirty people, which included not just doctors but also receptionists, nurses, and steerers who referred women to the Pacific Coast Abortion clinics from doctors’ offices and pharmacies.

Joining me to help tell the story of the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring is Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Assistant Professor of History at LaSierra University and author of From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969, the source for much of this introduction.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Jewel Inez Joseph, mother of Ruth Attaway who died after an abortion, in court, Los Angeles, 1935,” published in the Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1935, and is available via the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Additional Sources:

“Abortion and the Law in California: Lessons for Today,” by Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, California History, February 1, 2022; 99 (1): 10–29.
“How California created the nation’s easiest abortion access — and why it’s poised to go further” by Kristen Hwang, Cal Matters, April 21, 2022.
“San Diego’s History as a Haven for Desperate Women” by Randy Dotinga, Voice of San Diego, July 3, 2022.
“‘Criminal Operations’: The First Fifty Years of Abortion Trials in Portland, Oregon,” by Michael Helquist. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 2015; 116 (1), 6–39.

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Mary Ware Dennett & the Birth Control Movement Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

For birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett, the personal was political. After a difficult labor and delivery with her third child, a physician told Mary Ware Dennett she should not have any more children, but he told her nothing about how to prevent pregnancy. Dennett’s husband began an affair with a client of his architectural firm, destroying their marriage, and Dennett devoted her work to ensuring that other couples could receive information about birth control. A 1930 federal court case against her, United States v. Dennett, opened the door to widespread distribution of birth control information in the US.

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Assistant Professor of History at Kennesaw State University and faculty research fellow at the Georgia State University College of Law’s Center for Law, Health & Society. She is writing a book called Battle for Birth Control: Mary Dennett, Margaret Sanger, and the Rivalry That Shaped a Movement, that will be published by Rutgers University Press.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photo of Mary Ware Dennett from the New York Journal-American Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University Of Texas.

Sources:

“The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People,” by Mary Ware Dennett, 1919. Available via Project Gutenberg.
“Papers of Mary Ware Dennett,” Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
“The Sex Education Pamphlet That Sparked a Landmark Censorship Case,” by Sharon Spaulding, Smithsonian Magazine, September 30, 2021.
“A Birth-Control Crusader,” by Marjorie Heins, The Atlantic, October 1996.
“Mary Coffin Ware Dennett,” by Lakshmeeramya Malladi,Embryo Project Encyclopedia, June 22, 2016.
“Unsentimental Education: Mary Ware Dennett’s quest to make contraception—and knowledge about sex—available to all,” by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The American Scholar, March 4, 2021.

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Abortion in 18th Century New England Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

In 1742, in Pomfret, Connecticut, 19-year-old Sarah Grosvenor discovered she was pregnant, the result of a liaison with 27-year-old Amasa Sessions. Instead of marrying Sarah, Amasa provided her with a physician-prescribed abortifacient, what the youth of Pomfret called “taking the trade." When that didn’t work to end the pregnancy, the physician attempted a manual abortion, which led to Sarah’s death. Three years later, the physician was tried for “highhanded Misdemeanour." The surviving trial documentation gives us an unusually detailed look into the reproductive lives of Connecticut youths in the mid-18th Century.

Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about the Sarah Grosvenor case and its historical context is Dr. Cornelia H. Dayton, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and author of the 1991 article, “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” in The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 1, 1991, pp. 19–49, and co-creator of the Taking the Trade website.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is original artwork created by Matthew Weflen.

Additional Sources:

“Abortion in Colonial America: A Time of Herbal Remedies and Accepted Actions,” by Kimberly Phillips, UConn Today, August 22, 2022.
“The Strange Death of Sarah Grosvenor in 1742,” New England Historical Society.
“The History of Abortifacients,” by Stassa Edwards, Jezebel, November 18, 2014.
“How U.S. abortion laws went from nonexistent to acrimonious,” by Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, May 17, 2022.
“In Connecticut, A Long Battle For Reproductive Freedom,” by Susan Campbell, Hartford Courant, June 5, 2014.

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Agatha Christie Sep 05, 2022

Show notes

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time, whose books have been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. You can probably name several of her books and recurring characters, but how much do you know about Agatha Christie herself? In our final British History episode, we look at Agatha Christie’s life, in the hospital dispensary, at home with her daughter, abroad on archeological digs, and behind the typewriter.

Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about Agatha Christie is historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, OBE, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces and BBC presenter and author of the new book, Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, which will be published in the United States on September 6, 2022.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Agatha Christie as a young woman, circa 1910. It is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The audio interlude is “Mystery Waltz,” written by Raymond Scott and performed by Raymond Scott and His Orchestra in 1953. The audio is in the public domain and available via Archive.org.

Additional Sources:

AgathaChristie.com: The home of Agatha Christie
“A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley,” BBC Select TV Mini Series, 2013.
“When the World’s Most Famous Mystery Writer Vanished,” by Tina Jordan, The New York Times, June 11, 2019.
“The Essential Agatha Christie,” by Tina Jordan, The New York Times, October 25, 2020.
“Why Agatha Christie is even more awesome than you thought,” by Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, PBS NewsHouse, September 15, 2015.

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Mary Seacole Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

When the United Kingdom joined forces with Turkey and France to declare war on Russia in March 1854, Jamaican-Scottish nurse Mary Seacole decided her help was needed. When the British War Office declined her repeated offers of help, she headed off to Crimea anyway and set up her British Hotel near Balaklava. The British Hotel, which opened in March 1855, was a combination general store, restaurant, and first aid station, and the British soldiers and officers came to love Mary and call her “Mother Seacole.”

Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about Mary Seacole is historian and writer Helen Rappaport, author of the new book, In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian, which will be released in the United States on September 6, 2022.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Mary Seacole from an unknown source, believed to be dated around 1850; it is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

“Mary Seacole & Black Victorian History: Remarkable Women in Extraordinary Circumstances,” Helen Rappaport.
Mary Seacole Trust.
“The Crimean War,” by Andrew Lambert, BBC.
“Crimean War,” History.com

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Henrietta Maria Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

Henrietta Maria, the French Catholic wife of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 17th Century, was called a “Popish brat of France” by her British subjects, blamed for the English Civil War, and seen as a mannish and heartless mother. The reality is, of course, much more nuanced. Henrietta Maria fiercely loved Charles and their children and fought to protect them in any way she could during a time of upheaval and violence. In this episode we push past the caricature of Henrietta Maria to see the real, complicated, person she was.

Joining me in this episode is historian and writer Leanda de Lisle, author of the new book, Henrietta Maria: The Warrior Queen Who Divided a Nation, which will be released in the United States on September 6, 2022.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Henrietta Maria,” painted by Anthony van Dyck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“Who was Henrietta Maria of France?” Royal Museums Greenwich
“Henrietta Maria, Queen Of Great Britain (1609-69),” Royal Collection Trust
“Queen Henrietta Maria,” Merton College Oxford
“English Civil Wars,” History.com
“The English Civil Wars: History And Stories,” English Heritage
“British Civil Wars,” National Army Museum

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Anne Bonny & Mary Read, Pirate Queens Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

During the Golden Age of Pirates, two fierce and ruthless pirates stood apart from the rest, despite their brief careers. The only women in their crew, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were aggressive fighters to the end, refusing to surrender even when their captain called for quarter.

Joining me to discuss Anne Bonny and Mary Read is pirate expert Dr. Rebecca Simon, author of the new book, Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode audio is “Pirate Song,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry F. Gilbert; and performed by Reinald Werrenrath in July 1925; the audio is in the public domain. The episode image is an illustration of Anne Bonny and Mary Read from the 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates; the image is in the Public Domain and available through the Internet Archive.

Additional Sources:

“If There’s a Man Among Ye: The Tale of Pirate Queens Anne Bonny and Mary Read,” by Karen Abbott, Smithsonian Magazine, August 9, 2011.
“How Anne Bonny and Mary Read Changed The Face Of Female Piracy,” by Katie Serena, All That’s Interesting, February 20, 2018; Updated May 24, 2021.
“How Two 18th-Century Lady Pirates Became BFFs on the High Seas,” by Hadley Meares, Atlas Obscura, September 9, 2015.
“The Female Pirates, Anne Bonny & Mary Read,” by Rebecca Simon, May 23, 2022.
“Female pirate lovers whose story was ignored by male historians immortalised with statue,” by Maya Oppenheim, The Independent, November 19, 2020.

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The Women who Programmed the ENIAC Aug 08, 2022

Show notes

During World War II, the United States Army contracted with a group of engineers at the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering to build the ENIAC, the world’s first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer in order to more quickly calculate numbers for ballistics tables. Once the top-secret device was built, someone needed to figure out how to program the more than 17,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 6,000 switches, and 1,500 mechanical relays so that the calculations could be run. Six women mathematicians who had been manually calculating the figures, were chosen to develop the programming, which they worked out before they were even allowed to see the machine.

Joining me to help us learn more about the ENIAC six is Kathy Kleiman, a leader in Internet law and policy, founder of the ENIAC Programmers Project, and author of the 2022 book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Photograph of World's First Computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator,” National Archives at College Park, ARC Identifier 594262.

Sources:

Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer by Kathy Kleiman
The ENIAC Programmers Project
“Jean Bartik, Software Pioneer, Dies at 86,” by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, April 7, 2011.
“Frances E. Holberton, 84, Early Computer Programmer,” by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, December 17, 2001.
The Computers: The Remarkable Story of the ENIAC Programmers, 2016, Vimeo On-Demand.
“ENIAC Accumulator #2,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
“The world’s first general purpose computer turns 75,” by Erica K. Brockmeier, Penn Today, February 11, 2021.
“The Brief History of the ENIAC Computer,” by Steven Levy, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2013.
“ENIAC: First computer makes history,” by Michael Kanellos, ZDNet, February 13, 2006.
“ENIAC Programmers,” Women in Technology Hall of Fame Awards.

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Filipino Nurses in the United States Aug 01, 2022

Show notes

A February 2021 report by National Nurses United found that while Filipinos make up 4% of RNs in the United States, they accounted for a stunning 26.4% of the registered nurses who had died of COVID-19 and related complications. Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the United States and especially so many of the frontlines of healthcare? To answer that question, we need to look at the history of American colonization of The Philippines, United States immigration policies, and the establishment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the US.

Joining me to help us learn more about Filipino nurses is Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the 2003 book, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History, and the new book, Asian American Histories of the United States.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Baby show arranged by Red Cross nurse, Phillipines [sic] Chapter, P.I. Philippines, 1922,” Courtesy of the Library of Congress, No known restrictions on publication.

Additional Sources:

When the Reporter Asks You Why There Are So Many Filipino Nurses in the U.S.: You want more than the count of their lives lost,” by Catherine Ceniza Choy, The Margins, May 17, 2021.
“Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the U.S.?” by Anne Brice, Berkeley News, May 28, 2019.
“Why are there so many Filipino Nurses in California? After Filling a Nursing Shortage in the 1960s, Immigrant Caregivers Have Changed the Practice and the Politics of Health Care” by Catherine Ceniza Choy, Zocalo, September 20, 2019
“Sins of Omission How Government Failures to Track Covid-19 Data Have Led to More Than 3,200 Health Care Worker Deaths and Jeopardize Public Health,” National Nurses United, Updated March 2021.
“COVID-19 takes heavy toll on Filipino health care workers,” PBS News Weekend, May 9, 2020.
“The History of Medicare,” National Academy of Social Insurance.
“History, Philippines,” by Gregorio C. Borlaza, Britannica.
“Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965,” History, Art, & Archives, United States House of Representatives.

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The Townsend Family Legacy Jul 25, 2022

Show notes

When Alabama plantation owner Samuel Townsend died in 1856, he willed his vast fortune to his children and his nieces. What seems like an ordinary bequest was anything but, since Townsend’s children and nieces were his enslaved property. Townsend, who knew the will would be challenged in court, left nothing to chance, hiring the best lawyer he could find to ensure that his legatees received both their freedom and the resources they would need to survive in a country that was often hostile to free African Americans.

To learn more about the Townsend Family, I’m joined in this episode by public historian Dr. R. Isabela Morales, the Editor and Project Manager of The Princeton & Slavery Project, and author of Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Fugitive African Americans fording the Rappahannock,” photographed by Timothy H. O’Sullivan in August 1862. The image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Additional Sources: