Unsung History

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Elizabeth Packard Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

Elizabeth Packard was born in Massachusetts in 1816 into a comfortable home where her parents were able to provide for her education. She taught briefly at a girls’ school before at age 23 agreeing at her parents’ urging to marry 37-year-old Calvinist minister Theophilus Packard. Over the next 20 years Elizabeth was a devoted mother and housewife who grew the family’s vegetables and sewed clothes for their six children.

To the outside world, it appeared to be a contented marriage, until Elizabeth started to publicly express her religious beliefs, which were at odds with her husband’s. Theophilus questioned her sanity and threatened to have her committed if she continued. Elizabeth continued, and Theophilus kept his promise, taking advantage of the law, which allowed a husband to have his wife committed, without either public hearing or her consent.

After three years in the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital for the Insane in Jacksonville, Illinois, Elizabeth was deemed incurable and released. Then, after getting the jury trial she’d been requesting for three years, Elizabeth was finally able to share her story with the world, and she began her remarkable career as a writer and social reformer.

In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of Elizabeth Packard’s life and interviews New York Times bestselling author Kate Moore, who has recently published a wonderfully detailed narrative account of Elizabeth Packard’s life, titled: The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: from Elizabeth Packard's 1866 book, Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard’s Trial.

Sources:

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore
"Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry," by Kate Moore. Time Magazine, June 22, 2021.
"Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity" by Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard
"Elizabeth Packard: Nineteenth-Century Crusader for the Rights of Mental Patients," by Myra Samuels Himelhoch and Arthur H. Shaffer, Journal of American Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Dec., 1979), pp. 343-375.
"Badass Elizabeth Series," Packed with Packards Blog.

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Mary Mallon (The Sad & Complicated Story of "Typhoid Mary") Jul 26, 2021

Show notes

Mary Mallon, known to history as Typhoid Mary, immigrated from Northern Ireland to New York City at age 15, around 1883. She found work as a cook, a well paying job for an immigrant woman and worked for number of different families in the early 20th Century.

In March 1907, civil engineer George Soper burst into the kitchen of the home where she was cooking and told her that she was spreading typhoid via her cooking. He demanded samples of her feces, urine, and blood to test. Mallon, who believed she was in perfect health, chased him away with a carving fork.

Mallon spent most of the rest of her life in quarantine, on North Brother Island, forced to give regular stool and urine samples. She was briefly released, but knowing no other skills, cooked again and was forced back into quarantine.

Although Mallon was the first person in the US identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid, by the time of her second quarantine in 1915, many healthy carriers had been identified, more than 400 in New York alone. None of the other healthy carriers was forcibly confined, even the other cooks or those who caused more cases and more deaths than Mallon did.

In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the history of Mary Mallon’s quarantines, and interviews Kari Nixon, an assistant professor of English at Whitworth University, who teaches medical humanities and Victorian literature. Dr. Nixon is author of the 2021 book Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19: What Pandemics Teach Us about Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image from The New York American (June 20, 1909 issue).

Sources:

Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19: What Pandemics Teach Us about Parenting, Work, Life, and Communities from the 1700s to Today, by Kari Nixon, 2021.
Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, by Judith Walzer Leavitt, 1997.
Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative, by Priscilla Wald, 2008.
"The Work of a Chronic Typhoid Germ Distributor," by George Soper, JAMA. 1907; XLVIII(24):2019–2022.
"The sad and tragic life of Typhoid Mary," by J. Brooks, CMAJ. 1996;154(6):915-916.
"The Most Dangerous Woman in America," NOVA.

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The El Centro Hunger Strike of 1985 Jul 19, 2021

Show notes

In 1945, United States immigration officials opened the El Centro Immigration Detention Camp in El Centro, California, to be an administrative holding center for unauthorized Mexican migrants, many of whom had been working on local farms and ranches. From the beginning, migrants were often detained for long periods of time while they served as the unpaid labor force of the center.

Conditions were poor in the facility in the decades that followed, and in 1985 the incarcerated migrants (by this time a multinational group) decided to strike. On May 27, 1985, fifteen detained men stormed the mess hall, inspiring somewhere between 175-300 more men to join them. The group refused to work, to go inside, or to eat until their grievances were met. Their complaints included inhumane conditions in the 120-degree heat of the Imperial Valley, poor food quality, inadequate medical treatment, lack of entertainment, physical abuse, psychological intimidation, solitary confinement, and threats of violence.

In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the history of the El Centro facility and the 1985 Hunger Strike, and interviews Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Jessica Ordaz, author of The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash.

Sources:

The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz. University of North Carolina Press, 2021.
"ICE immigration center in El Centro closes," by Tatiana Sanchez. The Desert Sun, October 1, 2014.
"Aliens Staging Hunger Strike at Detention Camp," By Judith Cummings, Special To the New York Times, June 4, 1985.

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Black Teachers & The Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina Jul 12, 2021

Show notes

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decided unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas that that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Although the process was slow and contentious, the SCOTUS decisions in Brown and Brown II required that desegregation must occur "with all deliberate speed" to provide Black students with the equal protection under the law required by the 14th Amendment.

Black teachers had no protections or guarantees under the Brown ruling. As Southern states tried to destroy the NAACP using legislatures and courts, they targeted teachers with the belief that, as Candace Cunningham writes, “to dispense with Black teachers was to weaken the NAACP. To dispose of Black teachers was to destabilize the civil rights movement.” In March 1956, the South Carolina general assembly passed a series of anti-NAACP statutes, including the anti-NAACP oath, which made it illegal for local, county, or state government employees to be NAACP members.

In May 1956, in Elloree, South Carolina, 21 Black teachers refused to distance themselves from the NAACP, and the white school officials did not rehire them for the following year. The Elloree teachers, with NAACP lawyers, took their case to court in Bryan v. Austin in September 1956.

In this episode, Kelly tells the story of what happened with Black teachers in Elloree, South Carolina, in aftermath of Brown v. Board, and interviews Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, Candace Cunningham.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Civil rights march on Washington, D.C. Warren K. Leffler. 1963. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003654393/

Sources:

“Hell Is Popping Here in South Carolina”: Orangeburg County Black Teachers and Their Community in the Immediate Post-Brown Era," by Candace Cunningham, History of Education Quarterly, February 3, 2021.
"A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color," by Cindy Long, NEA Today, March 11, 2020
"School Desegregation and Black Teacher Employment," Working Paper by Owen Thompson, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2019.
"65 Years After ‘Brown v. Board,’ Where Are All the Black Educators?" by Madeline Will, EdWeek, May 14, 2019.

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Homosexuality and the Left Before 1960 Jul 05, 2021

Show notes

Political activism of queer people in the United States started long before the Stonewall riots in 1969. One surprising place that queer people found a home for their activism was in the Communist Party. The Communist Party of the United States was established in 1919, and from the 1920s to the 1940s the Party was influential in American politics, at the forefront of labor organizing and opposition to racism. It was the first political party in the US to be racially integrated. Some queer folks embraced the radical politics of the Party and found it to be a place where they could agitate for radical sexual politics as well.

One of the first national gay rights organizations in the United States, The Mattachine Society, was founded in 1950 by prominent Communist Harry Hay and a group of friends in Los Angeles. However, in the early 1950s as Joseph McCarthy and others publicly linked homosexuality and Communism as threats to the 'American way of life,' homosexuals began to distance themselves from the Left to gain acceptance, and the previous links between homosexuals and the Communist Party were lost or suppressed. In 1953 Harry Hay was ousted from the Mattachine Society in part because of his Communist affiliation, which by then was considered a liability.

In this episode, Kelly tells the history of homosexuality and the Communist Party in America in the early 20th Century and interviews Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston Aaron Lecklider, author of Love’s Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Members of Marine Cooks and Stewards Union. Courtesy Black Heritage Society of Washington State. Public domain.

Sources:

Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture, by Aaron Lecklider, 2021
"Despite Everything, Queer Leftists Survived," by Scott W. Stern, Jacobin Magazine, June 2021.
"Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement," PBS
"Communist Party USA History and Geography," Mapping American Social Movements Project, University of Washington
"Homophiles': The LGBTQ rights movement began long before Stonewall," by Ben Kesslen, NBC News, June 10, 2019

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Sophonisba Breckinridge Jun 28, 2021

Show notes

Sophonisba “Nisba” Preston Breckinridge, born April 1, 1866, was a woman of firsts. Breckinridge was the first woman admitted to the Kentucky bar to practice law in 1895; the first woman to earn a PhD in Political Science at the University of Chicago in 1901; the first woman to earn a JD at the University of Chicago Law School in 1904; the first woman professor granted a named professorship at the University of Chicago in 1929; and the first woman to serve as U.S. representative to a high-level international conference in 1933.

Along the way, Breckinridge co-founded the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Service Administration (now the The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice), was instrumental in the creation and promotion of The Social Security Act of 1935 and The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and published extensively in the fields of family, public welfare, and children.

Kelly briefly tells Breckinridge’s story and interviews Anya Jabour, Regents Professor of History at the University of Montana, and author of Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: By Bain News Service - Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.07524. Public Domain.

Sources:

Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America by Anya Jabour, University of Illinois Press, 2019
"Sophonisba Breckinridge," The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
"Reclaiming Sophonisba," University of Chicago Law School, by Becky Beaupre Gillespie, January 6, 2020
"‘Forgotten Feminist’ Sophonisba Breckinridge was a Woman of Many Firsts" by Meredith Francis, WTTW, October 7, 2020
"When lesbians led the women’s suffrage movement," The Conversation, by Anya Jabour, January 24, 2020

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Susie King Taylor Jun 21, 2021

Show notes

usie King Taylor was born into slavery in Georgia in 1848. With the help of family members, she was educated and escaped, joining the Union army at the age of 14, to serve ostensibly as a laundress, but in reality as a nurse, teacher, and even musket preparer. In 1902, Taylor published Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, an autobiography that covers not just her experiences during the Civil War, but also her childhood and her later years. Taylor includes in the work her powerful analysis of race relations at the beginning of 20th Century.

Kelly briefly tells Taylor’s remarkable story and interviews Ben Railton, Professor of American literature and American Studies at Fitchburg State University, and author of Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Susie King Taylor, Published by the subject, 1902 [from a photograph taken earlier]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Public Domain.

Sources:

Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops by Susie King Taylor
"Susie King Taylor: An African American Nurse and Teacher in the Civil," Library of Congress
The Susie King Taylor Women's Institute and Ecology Center

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The Jackson State Shootings in May 1970 Jun 14, 2021

Show notes

Just after midnight on May 15, 1970, officers opened fire on a group of unarmed students milling in front of a dorm on the campus of Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing two and wounding twelve. Although the shootings took place just a week and a half after the shootings at Kent State University, the Jackson State shootings never got the attention of those at Kent State, and when they did they were often described as a second Kent State, erasing the context of white supremacy and state-based violence that inform what happened in Jackson.

Kelly tells the tragic story of the Jackson State shootings and interviews Nancy Bristow, Professor of History at the University of Puget Sound, and author of Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College to find out more.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: Alexander Hall, viewed from across Lynch Street, National Archives. Public Domain.

Sources:

Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College by Nancy K. Bristow
"The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest." Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, 1970.
“Program about the Jackson State Killings, Jackson, Mississippi,” WYSO, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC.
"50 Years After the Jackson State Killings, America's Crisis of Racial Injustice Continues—and Shows the Danger of Forgetting," Time Magazine, by Nancy K. Bristow, May 14, 2020
"The Jackson State shootings are often overlooked. But Rich Caster still remembers." The Washington Post, by Kevin B. Blackstone, May 14, 2020.
"GIBBS/GREEN 51st COMMEMORATION 2021," Jackson State University, May 15, 2021. [Facebook Video]

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Knitting Brigades of World War I Jun 07, 2021

Show notes

Between America’s entry into World War I and the end of the war less than two years later, Americans knit 23 million articles of clothing and bandages for soldiers overseas, directed by the American Red Cross. How was this knitting organized? Who did the knitting? And why don’t more people know about this impressive feat? Kelly digs into the story of World War I knitting efforts and interviews Holly Korda, author of The Knitting Brigades of World War I: Volunteers for Victory in America and Abroad to find out more.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode Image: Women knit at the Red Cross Knitting Booth while waiting for their trains at New York’s Grand Central Station, 1918. NATIONAL ARCHIVES/ 20802094.

Sources:

The Knitting Brigades of World War I by Holly Korda.
"The Wool Brigades of World War I, When Knitting was a Patriotic Duty," Atlas Obscura.
"Knitting for Victory — World War I," History Link.
"Showing support for the Great War with knitting needles," Smithsonian.
"'Knit Your Bit': The American Red Cross Knitting Program," Center for Knit and Crochet.
"Wilson's Sheep," The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum.
"Knitted Articles for the American Red Cross," The Delineator, V.91 1917. [Knitting Patterns]

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Introducing Unsung History Jun 03, 2021

Show notes

A podcast about the people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet. With host Kelly Therese Pollock.

In each episode of Unsung History I’ll start us out with a short narrative answering the Who, What, When, and Where to introduce you to the topic, and then I’ll talk to someone who can help us learn the Why and How: a historian or other academic, a journalist or researcher, or someone who was there when history as history unfolded. Launching June 7, 2021.

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