Unsung History

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The Women of the Rendezvous Plantation on Barbados in the 17th Century Jan 13, 2025

Show notes

In 1686, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Atkins, Dorothy Spendlove, and their children, all of whom were half-siblings, along with some of their children's other half-siblings and their children's father, boarded a ship headed from Barbados to England, where they would live out their lives. It wasn’t unusual for a plantation owner like John Peers to impregnate both his enslaved Black laborers and his white servant, but it was unusual for him to acknowledge his illegitimate offspring, baptize them, bring them and their mothers with him across the ocean, and provide for them in his will, all of which John Peers did. This week we look at the story of a Barbados family, not via its patriarch, but rather through the lives of the five women who bore his children – Susannah, Elizabeth, Dorothy, and John's wives, Hester Tomkyns and Frances Knights (née Atkins). Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jenny Shaw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of The Women of Rendezvous: A Transatlantic Story of Family and Slavery.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “Calypso Island - P5,” by Audio Beats, purchased under Pond5's Content License Agreement; the Pond5 license authorizes the licensee to use the media in the licensee's own commercial or non-commercial production and to copy, broadcast, distribute, display, perform and monetize the production or work in any medium. The episode image is “A representation of the sugar-cane and the art of making sugar,” by John Hinton, 1749; the engraving is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Additional Sources:

“On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” by Sir Hilary Beckles, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, April 8, 2017.
“Barbados profile - Timeline,” BBC News, January 4, 2018.
“Barbados: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide,” Library of Congress.
“Barbados parts way with Queen and becomes world’s newest republic,” by Michael Safi, The Guardian, November 30, 2021.
“Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations,” by Janell Ross, Time Magazine, July 6, 2023.

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Henry Christophe: The King of Haiti Jan 06, 2025

Show notes

Henry Christophe, one of the heroes of the Haitian Revolution, was, from 1811 to his death in 1820, King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti, the first, last, and only King that Haiti ever had. This week we look at Christophe’s meteoric rise from being born enslaved on an island hundreds of miles from Haiti to fighting in the American Revolution to serving as a general in the Haitian Revolution to being king of all he surveyed, until it all came crashing down around him. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Maestro Walter's Brass Band, Final March - JEZI OU KONNEN,” by Félix Blume, from Death in Haiti; the audio is available under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. The episode image is a portrait of Henry Christophe from 1816 by Richard Evans; the painting is in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“The Haitian Revolution Timeline,” by Kona Shen at Brown University, 2022.
“The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.
“How Toussaint L’ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution,” by Kedon Willis, History.com, Originally posted August 30, 2021, and updated, August 18, 2023.
“Inside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere,’” by Marlene Daut, The Conversation, Originally published January 23, 2019, and update November 16, 2022.
“Rare document sheds light on historical black queen,” The University of Central Lancashire, September 26, 2019.
“Atlantic freedoms: Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its defining climax in the Age of Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, AEON, November 7, 2016.
“The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith, Library of Congress.

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The Surprisingly Salacious History of the Modern Restaurant Dec 30, 2024

Show notes

If you were to head to Paris in the mid-eighteenth Century and ask for a restaurant, you might be handed a bowl of meat bouillon, prepared in such a way as to improve vigor and perhaps even sperm production. Restaurant referred first to the broth itself and then to the eateries in which men, and less frequently women, could eat said broth. As restaurant came to mean the luxurious establishment at one which could eat an elaborate menu of delicate food items prepared by talented chefs, sex stayed the menu, and restaurants and the city’s sex workers formed a mutually beneficial relationship to serve diners’ appetites. Even as restaurants jumped across the pond to the US, the correlation remained. As a word of warning, this episode may not be appropriate for younger ears. Joining this episode is Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History at the University of Victoria and author of Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Sugar Blues,” composed by Clarence Williams with lyrics by Lucy Fletcher; this performance is by Leonare Williams and her Dixie Band, recorded on August 10, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. National Jukebox. The episode image is a digitized image from "Tableaux de Paris ... Paris qui consomme. Dessins de P. Vidal," published in Paris in 1893.; the digital version is available via the British Library and is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

“When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally published May 18, 2020, and updated August 20, 2023.
“Revolutionary broth: the birth of the restaurant and the invention of French gastronomy,” by Joel Abrams, The Conversation, August 25, 2021.
“Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” by Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 13, 2017.
“Looking to Quell Sexual Urges? Consider the Graham Cracker,” by Adee Braun, The Atlantic, January 15, 2014.
“Segregating Restaurants,” by Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, NY Food Story.
“The Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women,” by Jessica Gingrich, Atlas Obscura, June 22, 2018
“History,” The Berghoff.
“8 Restaurants And Bars Where U.S. History Was Made,” by Mercedes Kane, The Takeout, June 22, 2022.
“National Statistics,” National Restaurant Association.
“A restaurant wanting a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe bans diners under 30,” by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, June 10, 2024.

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Frances Perkins Dec 23, 2024

Show notes

On March 4, 1933, Frances Perkins was sworn in as the 4th Secretary of Labor. It was the first time in United States history that a woman served in the Cabinet, only 13 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Perkins came into office with a long list of to-do items, and she succeeded in accomplishing nearly all of them in her long tenure, as a central architect of many of the programs of the New Deal, especially the Social Security Act. More quietly, but no less importantly, Perkins also worked to institute more humane policies around immigration, especially as the rise of Nazism in Europe created a refugee crisis of Jews attempting to flee to the US. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University and author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins: Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The additional audio is from a radio address of America’s Town Meeting of the Air from December 19, 1935, titled “Should We Plan for Social Security,” in which Frances Perkins defends the new legislation; the audio is available on the Social Security Administration website, and there is no known copyright. The mid-episode music is “Minimal Piano” by Sakartvelo from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is Frances Perkins, c. 1935-1936. Courtesy Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections

Additional Sources:

“Who Was Frances Perkins? Meet the Trailblazing Workers’ Rights Advocate Whose Homestead Just Became a National Monument,” by Sarah Kuta, The Smithsonian Magazine, December 19, 2024.
“The Woman Behind the New Deal,” The Frances Perkins Center.
“Frances Perkins,” Social Security History, the Social Security Administration.
“Frances Perkins became the First Female Cabinet Member,” Library of Congress.
“Frances Perkins: Breaking Glass Ceilings in the Cabinet,” by Rebecca Brenner Graham, The White House Historical Association.
“Frances Perkins,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.
“A Proclamation on the Establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument,” The White House, December 16, 2024.

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Florence Price & the Black Chicago Renaissance Dec 16, 2024

Show notes

On June 15, 1933, the all-white, all-male Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed Florence Price’s award-winning Symphony Number 1 in E minor, the first institution of its caliber to play the work of a Black woman composer. It was a monumental achievement, but not one that Price achieved alone. She was supported by a sisterhood of Black women who created an environment in Chicago in which composers and performers like Price and Margaret Bonds could find success. Joining me in this episode is musicologist and concert pianist Dr. Samantha Ege, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and author of South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Dr. Samantha Ege performing Nora Holt’s Negro Dance, composed in 1921; the composition is in the public domain, and the recording is used with the permission of Dr. Ege. The episode image is a portrait of Florence Price, circa 1940, taken by George Nelidoff; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional sources:

“Now Hear This ‘Florence Price and the American Migration’ [video],” PBS with host Scott Yoo, April 15, 2022.
“About Florence,” International Florence Price Festival.
“How Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance Changed Classical Music Around the World,” by Stephen Raskauskas, WFMT, April 10, 2018.
“The Curious Case of ‘Naughty Little Nora,’ a Jazz Age Shape Shifter,” By Samantha Ege, The New York Times, November 12, 2024.
“Nora Holt: The Most Famous Woman You've Never Heard of,” by Imani Perry, The Atlantic, December 1, 2021.
“Maude Roberts George facts for kids,” Kiddle Encyclopedia.
“A trailblazing Black, female composer’s work is revived by Opera Philadelphia,” by Peter Crimmins, WHYY, January 31, 2023.
“Margaret Bonds: Composer and Activist,” Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections.
“History of NANM,” National Association of Negro Musicians.
“125 Moments: 072 Price’s Symphony in E Minor,” Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
“The Rediscovery of Florence Price: How an African-American composer’s works were saved from destruction,” by Alex Ross, The New Yorker, January 29, 2018.
“The Chicago Black Renaissance is Harlem’s radical counterpart,” by Crystal Hill, The TRiiBE, February 10, 2022.

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The Women Physicists who Fled Nazi Germany Dec 09, 2024

Show notes

As the Nazis rose to power in Germany, life became increasingly hostile for women scientists, especially women of Jewish descent, but also those who expressed anti-Nazi sentiments. The sexism in academic that had held them back in their careers also made escape from Germany difficult, as they didn’t look as strong on paper as their male counterparts. But four women physicists – Hertha Sponer, Hildegard Stücklen, Hedwig Kohn, and Lise Meitner – managed to flee, taking their scientific knowledge and rugged determination with them to the United States and Sweden. Joining me in this episode is writer Olivia Campbell, author of the forthcoming book, Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Classical Piano (Sad & Emotional)” by Clavier Clavier from Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Hedwig Kohn in her laboratory, 1912;” the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“Timeline of the Holocaust: 1933-1945,” Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles.
“Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“Albert Einstein’s Little-Known Correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois About Equality and Racial Justice,” by Maria Popova, The Marginalian.
“Hertha Sponer,” Duke University Department of Physics.
“Dr. Slucklen Retires In September,” Sweet Briar News, Volume 29, Number 24, 16 May 1956.
“Hedwig Kohn, April 5, 1887–1964,” by Brenda P. Winnewisser, Jewish Women’s Archive.
“Interview of Hedwig Kohn by Thomas S. Kuhn on 1962 June 7,” Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics,College Park, MD, USA.
“Google Honors Pioneering Physicist Hedwig Kohn Who Fled Nazi Germany,” by Madeline Roache, Time Magazine, April 5, 2019.
“Lise Meitner,” Atomic Heritage Foundation.
“Lise Meitner – the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize,” by Timothy J. Jorgensen, The Conversation, February 7, 2019.
“Why the ‘Mother of the Atomic Bomb’ Never Won a Nobel Prize,” by Katrina Miller, The New York Times, Originally published October 2, 2023, and updated November 8, 2023.

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The Women who Entered the Federal Workforce during the Civil War Era Dec 02, 2024

Show notes

As the federal workforce grew during the Civil War, department heads began employing women, without any explicit authorization from Congress that they could do so. When Congress finally acknowledged the employment of women in federal departments in 1864, it set their salary at $600 a year, half of what the lowest-paid men clerks were making. Surprisingly, though, a few years later Congress debated – and nearly passed – a resolution requiring equal pay for women employed by the federal government, something that wouldn’t become law for nearly another century. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jessica Ziparo McHugh, author of This Grand Experiment: When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War-Era Washington, D.C.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “I Love the Ladies,” composed by Jean Schwartz, with lyrics by Grant Clarke, and performed by William J. Halley on May 18, 1914, in Camden, New Jersey; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Among the Greenbacks – The Cutting and Separating Room the Treasury Building – Washington,” from Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capitol, as a Woman Sees Them, by Mary Clemmer Ames, 1873.

Additional Sources:

“History: A legacy of service to the Nation since 1861,” The U.S. Government Publishing Office.
“History of the Treasury,” U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“Behind the Scenes in Washington: Being a Complete and Graphic Account of the Credit Mobilier Investigation, the Congressional Rings, Political Intrigues, Workings of the Lobbies, Etc. ... with Sketches of the Leading Senators, Congressmen, Government Officials, Etc., and an Accurate Description of the Splendid Public Buildings of the Federal Capital,” by James Dabney McCabe, Continental Publishing Company, 1873.
“Gendered Merit: Women and the Merit Concept in Federal Employment, 1864-1944,” by Cathryn L. Claussen, 40 Am. J. Legal Hist. 229 (1996).
“FACT SHEET: On Equal Pay Day, the Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces Actions to Continue Advancing Pay Equity and Women’s Economic Security,” The White House, March 12, 2024.

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The Northern Manufacturers of Southern Plantation Goods Nov 25, 2024

Show notes

Plantation owners in the Southern United States regularly furnished their enslaved workers with goods – clothing, shoes, axes, and shovels, that had been manufactured in the North. Many Northern manufacturers specifically targeted the Southern plantation market, enticed by the prospect of selling cheap goods on a regular schedule. While in some cases the Northern manufacturers supported surprising politics – joining the Republican Party and donating to Abolitionist causes – they had no qualms about making their money in an industry adjacent to the slave economy. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Seth Rockman, Associate Professor of History at Brown University and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Relaxing Enchanted Piano” by Mikhail Smusev from Pixabay and is used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Brogans, Manufacturer Little & Co., third quarter 19th century,” Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Herman Delman, 1955; image is in the public domain.

Additional sources:

“In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation,” by Matthew Desmond, The New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.
“Industrialization and Conflict in America: 1840–1875,” by David Jaffee, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.
“8. The Market Revolution,” The American Yawp.
“Industry and Economy during the Civil War,” by Benjamin T. Arrington, National Park Service.
“In search of slave clothes: A museum director’s hunt for a painful symbol,” by J. Freedom du Lac, The Washington Post, January 20, 2012.
“Antebellum Tariff Politics: Regional Coalitions and Shifting Economic Interests,” by Douglas A. Irwin, The Journal of Law & Economics 51, no. 4 (2008): 715–41.

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Lily Dale Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

In 1879, a group of Spiritualists purchased 20 acres of land, halfway between Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania. The gated community they created, now a hamlet of Pomfret, New York, became known as Lily Dale. Each summer, people came to Lily Dale (and still come) to speak with the dead through Lily Dale’s many licensed mediums. In its early years, modern Spiritualism, which began with the young Fox sisters (Maggie and Kate), often intersected with Women’s Suffrage, and suffragists like Susan B. Anthony were frequent visitors to Lily Dale. Joining me in this episode to help us understand more about Lily Dale and Spiritualism more generally is Dr. Averill Earls, Assistant Professor of History at St. Olaf College, Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast, and one of the authors of Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Night Whisper,” by by Sergio Prosvirini, Free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photograph of “The Lily Dale Museum,” by Plazak, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

Lily Dale Assembly
“In Good Spirits: Lily dale, New York, is a curious little village where the still-quick commune with the once-quick,” by Bil Gilbert, Smithsonian Magazine, May 31, 2001.
“Lily Dale, the Town That Speaks to the Dead,” by Bess Lovejoy, Mental Floss, August 26, 2015.
“This Community Welcomes Mediums, but First You Have to Prove Yourself,” By Anna Kodé, The New York Times, October 27, 2023.
“The Art of Belief: On Talking to the Dead in Lily Dale,” by Laura Maylene Walter, LitHib, March 23, 2021.
“In the Joints of Their Toes,” by Edward White, The Paris Review, November 4, 2016.
“The Mystery of the Three Fox Sisters,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic Science, October 1922.
“The Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism,” by Abbott Kahler, Smithsonian Magazine, October 30, 2012.
National Spiritualist Association of Churches.

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Isabel Kelly Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

Isabel Truesdell Kelly earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1932, with a dissertation on the “Fundamentals of Great Basin Culture,” having researched the Northern Paiute and Coast Miwok Indigenous cultures of Northern California. After graduating she led excavations in Mexico and then began a career as an anthropologist with the US State Department, which had a growing interest in assisting the scientific and technological development of countries like Mexico as a way of maintaining a toehold in the region during the growing cold war with the Soviet Union. Joining me this week is Dr. Stephanie Baker Opperman, Professor of History at Georgia College, and author of Cold War Anthropologist: Isabel Kelly and Rural Development in Mexico.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Hermoso Mexico,” composed by R. Herrera, arranged and conducted by Guillermo González and performed by Banda González (Victor Band) on May 16, 1919, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Isabel T. Kelly portrait,” DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

Additional Sources:

“Isabel T. Kelly Ethnographic Archive,” Southern Methodist University (SMU) Libraries.
“Isabel Truesdell Kelly,” The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
“Isabel T. Kelly's Southern Paiute Ethnographic Field Notes, 1932-1934, Las Vegas,” compiled and edited by Catherine S. Fowler and Darla Garey-Sage, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.
“Isabel T. Kelly: Pioneer Great Basin Ethnographer,” by Catherine S. Fowler, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 36, no. 1 (2016): 172–76..
“With Grit and Determination: A Century of Change for Women in Great Basin and American Archaeology,” by Nicole M. Herzog and Suzanne Eskenazi, University of Utah Press, 2020.

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