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Season 1

20TH Century Black History Military History Vietnam War

Racial Conflict in the U.S. Army During the Vietnam War Era

June 5, 2023

In September 1969, African American journalist Wallace Terry reported on “another war being fought in Vietnam — between black and white Americans.” After the 1948 integration of the military, the U.S. Army had tried to be co…

Guest: Beth Bailey
19TH Century Black History Civil War Military History

Black Soldiers & their Families in the Civil War

May 29, 2023

As soon as the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, free Black men in the North rushed to enlist, but they were turned away, as President Lincoln worried that arming Black soldiers would lead to secession …

19TH Century Religious History

The Oneida Perfectionist Religious Community

May 22, 2023

In 1848, a group of religious perfectionists, led by John Humphrey Noyes, established a commune in Oneida, New York, where they lived and worked together. Women in the community had certain freedoms compared to the outside w…

Guest: Susan Wels
20TH Century 21ST Century Immigration Legal History

The Diversity Visa Lottery

May 15, 2023

In the 1980s undocumented Irish immigrants convinced United States lawmakers to create a program that would provide a path to citizenship for individuals without family connections in the United States. That program eventual…

Guest: Carly Goodman
18TH Century 19TH Century Legal History Women's History

Women & the Law in Revolutionary America

May 8, 2023

Despite a plea from Abigail Adams to her husband to “Remember the Ladies,” women, especially married women, didn’t have many legal rights in the Early Republic. Even so, women used existing legal structures to advocate for t…

20TH Century Black History Civil Rights Movement

Project Confrontation: The Birmingham Campaign of 1963

May 1, 2023

In 1963, on the heels of a failed desegregation campaign in Albany, Georgia, Martin Luther King., Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided to take a stand for Civil Rights in “the Most Segregated City in…

Guest: Paul Kix
19TH Century Environmental History Literary History

The Plant Revolution and 19th Century American Literature

April 24, 2023

During the 19th Century, growing international trade and imperialist conquest combined with new technologies to transport and care for flora led to a burgeoning fascination with plant life. American writers, from Emily Dicki…

Guest: Mary Kuhn
20TH Century Civil Rights Movement Native American History Political History

The 1972 Occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

April 17, 2023

While voters were casting their ballots in the 1972 presidential election, Native demonstrators had taken over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, DC, barricading themselves in with office furniture and prep…

20TH Century Political History

The Southern Strategy

April 10, 2023

In the decades following the Civil War, African Americans reliably voted for the Republican Party, which had led the efforts to outlaw slavery and enfranchise Black voters; and white southerners reliably voted for the Democr…

20TH Century Biographical History Black History Chicago History Political History

Harold Washington

April 3, 2023

In 1983, Harold Washington took on the Chicago machine and won, with the help of a multiracial coalition, becoming the first Black mayor of Chicago. Winning the mayoral election was only the first fight, and 29 of the 50 ald…

20TH Century Fashion History Political History Women's History

The 1968 White House Fashion Show

March 27, 2023

On February 29, 1968, Lady Bird Johnson hosted the first–and last–White House Fashion Show. The fashion show, intended both to highlight the fourth largest industry in the United States and to promote domestic tourism, inadv…

19TH Century Reproductive Justice History Women's History

Madame Restell, "The Wickedest Woman in New York"

March 20, 2023

In 19th Century New York, everyone knew who to go to to end an unwanted pregnancy: the French-trained, sophisticated Madame Restell, who lived in a posh mansion on 5th Avenue. In reality, Madame Restell was English immigrant…

20TH Century Political History Women's History

The National Women's Conference of 1977

March 13, 2023

In her 2015 book, Gloria Steinem described the National Women’s Conference of 1977 as “the most important event nobody knows about.” The four-day event in Houston, Texas, which brought together 2,000 delegates and another 15…

19TH Century Biographical History Literary History Women's History

Lydia Maria Child

March 6, 2023

By 1833, Lydia Maria Child was a popular author, having published both fiction and nonfiction, including the wildly successful advice book The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy. And she had …

Guest: Lydia Moland
20TH Century Chicago History Immigration

The Eastland Disaster

Feb. 27, 2023

On the morning of July 24, 1915, employees of the Western Electric Company and their families excitedly boarded the SS Eastland near the Clark Street Bridge in Chicago, eager to set off for a day of fun in Michigan City, Ind…

19TH Century 20TH Century Chicago History Immigration

The History of Polish Chicago

Feb. 20, 2023

If you’ve ever lived in Chicago, you’ve probably heard at some point that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. While that’s an exaggeration it’s certainly the case that the Chicagoland region has a la…

20TH Century Black History Chicago History

John H. Johnson & Ebony Magazine

Feb. 13, 2023

When businessman John H. Johnson died in 2005, Ebony Magazine, the monthly photo-editorial magazine that he launched in 1945, reached an estimated 10 million readers. Under the direction of executive editor Lerone Bennet Jr.…

Guest: E. James West
19TH Century 20TH Century Carceral History Chicago History

The History of the Cook County Jail

Feb. 6, 2023

The first Cook County Jail was a wooden stockade, built in 1833 in Chicago, which was then a town of around 250 people. Today, the Cook County Department of Corrections, which takes up 8 city blocks on the Southwest Side of …

20TH Century Black History

The Green Book

Jan. 30, 2023

In 1936, Victor Hugo Green published the first edition of what he called The Negro Motorist Green Book, a 16-page listing of businesses in the New York metropolitan area that would welcome African American customers. By its …

Guest: Alvin Hall
19TH Century Biographical History Literary History Women's History

American Women Writers in Italy in the 19th Century

Jan. 23, 2023

The second half of the nineteenth century was a momentous time in Italian history, marked by the unification of the peninsula and the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. Three American women writers had a front-seat view of t…

Guest: Etta Madden
20TH Century Black History Civil Rights Movement

The 1968 Student Uprising at Tuskegee Institute

Jan. 16, 2023

Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and after months of increasing tension on campus, the students at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama occupied a building on campus where the Trustees were meeting, demandin…

Guest: Brian Jones
20TH Century Biographical History Black History Political History Women's History

Shirley Chisholm

Jan. 9, 2023

Throughout her life, Shirley Chisholm fought for coalitional change. She was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States in 1972, co-fo…

20TH Century Women's History

The Aerobics Craze of the 1980s

Jan. 2, 2023

In the late 1960s, Air Force surgeon Dr. Kenneth Cooper was evaluating military fitness plans when he realized that aerobic activities, what we now call cardio, like running and cycling, was the key to overall physical healt…

18TH Century Atlantic World History Pirate History

Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate

Dec. 26, 2022

Stede Bonnet lived a life of luxury in Barbados, inheriting from his father an over 400-acre sugarcane plantation, along with 94 slaves. But in late 1716, when he was 29 years old, Bonnet decided to leave behind his plantati…

18TH Century America's Founding History Of Science & Medicine

Smallpox Inoculation & the American Revolution

Dec. 19, 2022

In 1775, a smallpox outbreak struck the Continental Northern Army. With many of the soldiers too sick to fight, their attempted capture of Quebec on December 31, 1775, was a devastating failure, the first major defeat of the…

19TH Century Black History Environmental History

The Sea Islands Hurricane of 1893

Dec. 12, 2022

On August 27, 1893, a massive hurricane struck the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, battering the Sea Islands and Lowcountry through the next morning. Around 2,000 people in the thriving African American community perish…

19TH Century Labor History

The Rise of the Labor Movement & Employer Resistance in the Late 19th Century

Dec. 5, 2022

After the Civil War, the simultaneous shift in the labor economy of the Southern United States and the second industrial revolution led to a growing interest in labor organizing. Newly formed labor organizations led a combin…

Guest: Chad Pearson
19TH Century Immigration Women's History

Single Irish Women & Domestic Service in late 19th Century New York City

Nov. 28, 2022

As many as two million Irish people relocated to North America during the Great Hunger in the mid-19th Century. Even after the famine had ended, Irish families continued to send their teenaged and 20-something children to th…

Guest: Vona Groarke
20TH Century

Keeping Secrets in the 1950s

Nov. 21, 2022

Americans in the 1950s, yearning to return to normalcy after the Great Depression and World War II, got married, had lots of kids, and used their newly middle-class status to buy cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs. But not …

20TH Century Biographical History LGBTQIA+ History Literary History

Gordon Merrick

Nov. 14, 2022

In 1970, writer Gordon Merrick published The Lord Won’t Mind , advertised as “the first homosexual novel with a happy ending,” his fifth novel but first to focus on a gay romance story. The novel was a hit and stayed on the …

Guest: Joseph Ortiz
20TH Century Biographical History Literary History Women's History

Elsie Robinson

Nov. 7, 2022

As a girl born in 1883 to a family who couldn’t afford to send her to college, Elsie Robinson had limited options. To escape the drudgery of small-town life and then a stifling marriage, Elsie wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Wh…

20TH Century Political History Reproductive Justice History Women's History

The Politics of Reproductive Rights in 1960s & 1970s New York

Oct. 31, 2022

Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, much of the focus of reproductive rights organizing in the US was done in the states, and nowhere was that more effective than in New York, where leftist feminists in groups like Re…

20TH Century Chicago History Latino/a History Riots

The 1966 Division Street Uprising & the Puerto Rican community in Chicago

Oct. 24, 2022

In 1966, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley declared that the first week of June would be known as “Puerto Rican Week,” culminating in the first Puerto Rican Parade, to honor the growing Puerto Rican population in the city. Afte…

20TH Century Biographical History Immigration Labor History Latino/a History

Bert Corona

Oct. 17, 2022

Labor leader and immigrant rights activist Bert Corona viewed Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the United States, both with and without documentation, as one people without borders, and he understood that their st…

20TH Century Immigration Latino/a History

The Effect of the Mexican Revolution on Mexican Immigration to the U.S.

Oct. 10, 2022

The Mexican Revolution in the early 20th Century was a pivotal moment in Mexican history, and it was also a pivotal moment in United States history, as huge numbers of Mexicans fled war-torn Mexico and headed to the US borde…

Guest: Alda Dobbs
19TH Century Immigration Latino/a History

Southwest Borderlands in the 19th Century

Oct. 3, 2022

Through the 19th Century, the US-Mexico border moved repeatedly, and the shifting borderlands were a space of cultural and economic transition that often gave rise to racialized gendered violence. In this episode I speak wit…

20TH Century Reproductive Justice History Women's History

The Pacific Coast Abortion Ring

Sept. 26, 2022

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 ill…

20TH Century Biographical History Reproductive Justice History Women's History

Mary Ware Dennett & the Birth Control Movement

Sept. 19, 2022

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 n…

18TH Century History Of Science & Medicine Legal History Reproductive Justice History Women's History

Abortion in 18th Century New England

Sept. 12, 2022

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 ab…

20TH Century Biographical History British History Literary History Women's History

Agatha Christie

Sept. 5, 2022

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 A…

Guest: Lucy Worsley
19TH Century Atlantic World History Biographical History Black History British History Women's History

Mary Seacole

Aug. 29, 2022

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 …

17TH Century Biographical History British History Women's History

Henrietta Maria

Aug. 22, 2022

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…

18TH Century Atlantic World History British History Pirate History Women's History

Anne Bonny & Mary Read, Pirate Queens

Aug. 15, 2022

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 t…

Guest: Rebecca Simon
20TH Century Military History Women's History World War II

The Women who Programmed the ENIAC

Aug. 8, 2022

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 ele…

Guest: Kathy Kleiman
19TH Century 20TH Century Asian-American History

Filipino Nurses in the United States

Aug. 1, 2022

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 complicati…

19TH Century 20TH Century Black History Legal History

The Townsend Family Legacy

July 25, 2022

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 ensla…

18TH Century America's Founding Legal History

The Unusual Codicil in Benjamin Franklin's Will

July 18, 2022

When Benjamin Franklin died in April 1790, his last will contained an unusual codicil, leaving 1000 pounds sterling each to Philadelphia and Boston, to be used in a very specific way that he hoped would both help tradesmen i…

Guest: Michael Meyer
20TH Century Biographical History Women's History

Dale Evans, Queen of the West

July 11, 2022

Dale Evans is probably best known as the Queen of the West, the wife and co-star of the King of Cowboys, Roy Rogers. But before she ever met Roy, Dale had a successful career in singing, songwriting, and acting, and she had …

18TH Century Political History

Independence Day

July 4, 2022

On July 4, Americans will eat 150 million hot dogs, spend $1 billion on beer, and watch 16,000 fireworks displays (and those are just the official ones). But why do we celebrate on July 4, when did it become a national holid…

20TH Century LGBTQIA+ History Riots

The 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot

June 27, 2022

On a hot weekend night in August 1966 trans women fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. Although the Compton’s riot didn’t spark a national movement the way…

Guest: Susan Stryker