Unsung History

What makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? How do Christmas movies react to – and help us heal from – collective trauma? How can a British Christmas movie feel quintessentially American? We discuss all that and more this week at the 20th Anniversary of Love Actually, with G. Vaughn Joy, a film historian, writer, podcast host, and PhD candidate at University College London. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The first mid-episode musical selection is “The First Noel,” from Christmas Songs and Carols (1912) by Trinity Choir; in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The second mid-episode musical selection is “Jingle Bells,” from Favorite Colleges Songs (1916) by Victor Male Chorus; in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from a publicity poster for Love Actually. Films Discussed: It's a Wonderful Life (1946) The Bishop's Wife (1947)  A Christmas Story (1983) Die Hard (1988) Love Actually (2003) The Holiday (2016) Red Nose Day Actually (2017) Klaus (2019) Additional Sources: “From Fiction to Film: ‘The Greatest Gift' and ‘It's a Wonderful Life,'” by Elizabeth Brown, Library of Congress Blog, December 21, 2018. “How World War II shaped ‘It's a Wonderful Life,'” by Rachael Scott, CNN, December 25, 2021. “What ‘It's a Wonderful Life' Teaches Us About American History,” by Christopher Wilson, December 16, 2021. “How A Christmas Story Went from Low-Budget Fluke to an American Tradition,” by Sam Kashner, Vanity Fair, November 30, 2023. “What's That Building? The real-life locations from ‘A Christmas Story,'” by Dennis Rodkin, WBEZ Chicago, December 21, 2023. A Christmas Story House. “Love Actually,” by Roger Ebert, RogertEbert.com, November 7, 2003. “FILM REVIEW; Tales of Love, the True and the Not-So-True” by A.O. Scott, The New York Times, November 7, 2003. “Love Actually Is the Least Romantic Film of All Time,” by Christopher Orr, The Atlantic, December 6, 2013 “25 Surprising Facts About 'Love Actually' for Its 20th Anniversary,” by Kristy Ruchko, Mental Floss, Posted on November 6, 2018 and Updated on November 13, 2023. “The Visible Magic of Asking ‘Why?' A Contemporary History Approach to Klaus (2019),” by Vaughn Joy, Review Roulette, December 24, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stories of the Civil Rights Movement don't often center the fundraisers, often Black women, whose tireless efforts made the movement possible; today we're featuring one of those women. Mollie Moon, born in 1907, the founder and first chairperson of the National Council of Urban League Guilds, raised millions of dollars for the Civil Rights Movement, using her charm and connections to throw charity galas, like her famed Beaux Arts Ball, where everyone wanted to be seen. Her long service to the movement eventually earned her the President's Volunteer Action Award from President George H. W. Bush in 1989. Joining this episode to tell us all about Mollie Moon and the funding of the Civil Rights Movement is Dr. Tanisha C. Ford, professor of history in The Graduate Center, at CUNY, and author of Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement. 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 “Crazy Blues,” composed by Perry Bradford and performed by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1921; the recording is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from the cover of Our Secret Society; Image: Harper Collins. Additional Sources: “Socialite Mollie Moon Used Fashion Shows to Fund the Civil Rights Movement,” by Tanisha C. Ford, Harper's Bazaar, March 8, 2021. “Mollie Moon, 82, Founding Head Of the Urban League Guild, Dies,” by Peter B. Flint, New York Times, June 26, 1990. “Mollie Moon: A Real Voice,” by Lev Earle, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, March 25, 2021. “Henry Lee Moon (1901-1985),” by Susan Bragg, BlackPast, June 19, 2011. “Louise Thompson and the Black and White Film,” by Denise Lynn, Black Perspectives, AAIHS, April 15, 2021. “Harlem Community Art Center,” Mapping the African American Past, Columbia University. National Urban League Guild. “Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970,” by Rachel Wimpee, Rockefeller Archive Center, November 4, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the ravages of post-World War II Europe, some Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust found the beginnings of a new life when they met – and married – American (and Canadian and British) men serving with the Allied forces. These women were part of a much larger group of war brides, who came to the United States in such large numbers that they required a change in immigration law, but these Jewish war brides faced additional challenges, from language barriers to the memory of the trauma they'd experienced to finding a community in their new home. Dr. Robin Judd, Associate Professor of History at the Ohio State University and author of Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides after the Holocaust, joins this episode to help us explore the story of these women. 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 “Hava Nagila - Orchestra Clarinet,” by JuliusH, available for use via the Pixabay content license.  The episode image is “Hanns Ann Alexander wedding 1946,” taken on May 19, 1946, and posted on Flickr by David Lisbona; the image was adapted for use under CC BY 2.0 DEED. Additional Sources: “Displaced Persons,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Coming To America: The War Brides Act of 1945,” The National WWII Museum, December 28, 2020. “Here Came The War Brides 60 Years Ago, a Vast Wave of British Women Followed Their New Loves to a New Land,” by Tamara Jones, The Washington Post, February 12, 2006. “Band of Sisters,” by Sarah Kewshaw, The New York Times, July 6, 2008. “America Denied Refugees After the End of World War II—Just As We Are Today,” by David Nasaw, Time Magazine, September 17, 2020. “Statement by the President Upon Signing the Displaced Persons Act,” Harry S. Truman, June 25, 1948, Truman Library. “Flory Jagoda: Singer Songwriter, Storyteller, and Composer,” Ladino Music Today as a Tool of Storytelling and Preservation, Curated by Laurel Comiter, Gabriel Mordoch, and Gabriel Duque, University of Michigan Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scholar Merze Tate, born in Michigan in 1905, overcame the odds in what she called a “sex and race discriminating world,” to earn graduate degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University on her way to becoming the first Black woman to teach in the History Department at Howard University. During her long career, Tate published 5 books, 34 journal articles and 45 review essays in the fields of diplomatic history and international relations. Her legacy extends beyond her publications, as the fellowships she endowed continue to support students at her alma maters. Joining me in this episode is historian Dr. Barbara Savage, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Merze Tate: The Global Odyssey of a Black Woman Scholar. 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 "Trio for Piano Violin and Viola," by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. The episode image is “Portrait of Merze Tate;” photograph taken by Judith Sedwick in 1982 and housed in the Black Women Oral History Project Collection at the  Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America; there are no known copyright restrictions. Additional sources: “Merze Tate Collection,” Western Michigan University Archives. “Who was Dr. Merze Tate?” Western Michigan University. “Merze Tate: Her Legacy Continues,” Merze Tate Explorers. “WMU's Merze Tate broke color barriers around the world [video],” WOOD TV8, February 18, 2021. “Merze Tate,” by Maurice C. Woodard. PS: Political Science & Politics 38, no. 1 (2005): 101–2.  “Vernie Merze Tate (1905-1996),” by Robert Fikes, BlackPast, December 22, 2018. “Merze Tate,” St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. “Diplomatic Historian Merze Tate Dies At 91,” Washington Post, July 8, 1996. “Merze Tate College,” Western Michigan University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The beginning of the Civil Rights Movement is often dated to sometime in the middle of the 1950s, but the roots of it stretch back much further. The NAACP, which calls itself “the nation's largest and most widely recognized civil rights organization,” was founded near the beginning of the 20th Century, on February 12, 1909. As today's guest demonstrates, though, Black Americans were exercising civil rights far earlier than that, in many cases even before the Civil War.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Dylan C. Penningroth is a professor of law and history and Associate Dean of the Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at the University of California–Berkeley and author of Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights. 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 “Hopeful Piano,” by Oleg Kyrylkovv, available via the Pixabay license. The episode image is “Spectators and witnesses on second day of Superior Court during trial of automobile accident case during court week in Granville County Courthouse, Oxford, North Carolina,” by Marion Post Wolcott, photographed in 1939; the photograph is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. Additional Sources: “8 Key Laws That Advanced Civil Rights,” by Mehrunnisa Wani, History.com, January 26, 2022. “The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History,” by Eric Foner, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “(1865) Reconstruction Amendments, 1865-1870,” BlackPast. “14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868),” U.S. National Archives. “March 27, 1866: Veto Message on Civil Rights Legislation,” Andrew Johnson, UVA Miller Center. “Andrew Johnson and the veto of the Civil Rights Bill,” National Park Service. “Grant signs KKK Act into law, April 20, 1871,” by Andrew Glass, Politico, April 20, 2019. “Looking back at the Ku Klux Klan Act,” by Nicholas Mosvick, National Constitution Center, April 20, 2021. “Reconstruction and Its Aftermath,” Library of Congress The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Europeans arrived in the Great Lakes region, they learned from the Indigenous people living there of a route from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, made possible by a portage connecting the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River. That portage, sometimes called Mud Lake, provided both opportunity and challenge to European powers who struggled to use European naval technology in a region better suited to Indigenous birchbark canoes. In the early 19th century, however, the Americans remade the region with major infrastructure projects, finally controlling the portage not with military power but with engineering, and setting the stage for Chicago's rapid growth as a major metropolis. Joining me in this episode is Dr. John William Nelson, Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University and author of Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent.  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 "Water Droplets on the River," composed and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is a photograph of a statue that depicts members of the Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illinois Confederation, leading French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette, to the western end of the Chicago Portage in the summer of 1673. The statue was designed by Chicago area artist Ferdinand Rebechini and erected on April 25-26, 1990. The photograph is under the creative commons license CC BY-SA 2.0 and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional sources: “Chicago Portage National Historic Site,” National Park Service. “STORY 1: Chicago Portage National Historic Site/Sitio Histórico Nacional de Chicago Portage,” Friends of the Chicago River. “Portage,” Encyclopedia of Chicago. “The Chicago Portage,” Carnegie Mellon University Libraries Digital Collection. “Marquette and Jolliet 1673 Expedition,” by Roberta Estes, Native Heritage Project, December 30, 2012. “Louis Jolliet & Jacques Marquette [video],” PBS World Explorers. “Cadillac, Antoine De La Mothe,” Encyclopedia of Detroit. “Chicago's Mythical French Fort,” by Winstanley Briggs, Encyclopedia of Chicago. “Seven Years' War,” History.com, Originally posted on November 12, 2009 and updated on June 13, 2023. “Treaty of Paris (1783),” U.S. National Archives. “The Northwest and the Ordinances, 1783-1858,” Library of Congress. “The Battle Of The Wabash: The Forgotten Disaster Of The Indian Wars,” by Patrick Feng, The Army Historical Foundation. “The Battle Of Fallen Timbers, 20 August 1794,” by Matthew Seelinger, The Army Historical Foundation. “History of Fort Dearborn,” Chicagology. “How Chicago Transformed From a Midwestern Outpost Town to a Towering City,” by Joshua Salzmann, Smithsonian Magazine, October 12, 2018. “Chicago: 150 Years of Flooding and Excrement,” by Whet Moser, Chicago Magazine, April 18, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before Europeans landed in North America, five Indigenous nations around what would become New York State came together to form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. When the Europeans arrived, the French called them the Iroquois Confederacy, and the English called them the League of Five Nations. Those Five Nations were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; the Tuscaroras joined the Confederacy in 1722. Some founding father of the United States, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin admired the Haudenosaunee and incorporated their ideas into the U.S. Constitution. Despite that admiration, though, the United States government and the state government of New York did not always treat the Haudenosaunee with respect, and Haudenosaunee leaders had to navigate a difficult terrain in maintaining their sovereignty.  Today we're going to look at the relationship between the Haudenosaunee and the United States through the stories of four individuals: Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse, and Arthur C. Parker. Joining me in this episode is Dr. John C. Winters, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and author of The Amazing Iroquois and the Invention of the Empire State. 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 “Falling Leaves (Piano),” by Oleksii Holubiev, from Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha),” painted by Thomas Hicks in 1868; the painting is in the public domain and can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Additional Sources: Haudenosaunee Confederacy “Haudenosaunee Guide For Educators,” National Museum of the American Indian. “The Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Constitution,” by Jennifer Davis, Library of Congress, September 21, 2023. “Indian speech, delivered before a gentleman missionary, from Massachusetts, by a chief, commonly called by the white people Red Jacket. His Indian name is Sagu-ua-what-hath, which being interpreted, is Keeper-awake,” Library of Congress, 1805. “The Graves of Red Jacket,” Western New York Heritage. “Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation [video],” WGRZ-TV, May 17, 2021. “Ely S. Parker,” Historical Society of the New York Courts.  April 2, 2015 in From the Stacks “‘We Are All Americans:' Ely S. Parker at Appomattox Court House,” by Mariam Touba, New York Historical Society, April 2, 2015. “Engineer Became Highest Ranking Native American in Union Army,” by David Vergun, DOD News, November 2, 2021. “Building to be Named for Ely S. Parker First Indian Commissioner of the BIA Recognized,” U.S. Department of the Interior, December 15, 2000. “‘The Great White Mother': Harriet Maxwell Converse, the Indian Colony of New York City, and the Media, 1885–1903,” by John. C. Winters, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 21(4), 279-300.  “Harriet Maxwell Converse,” PBS.org. “Harriet Maxwell Converse,” Poets.org. “Research and Collections of Arthur C. Parker,” New York State Museum. “Arthur C. Parker and the Society of the American Indian, 1911-1916,” by S. Carol Berg, New York History, vol. 81, no. 2, 2000, pp. 237–46.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1945, the population of the United States was around 140 million people, and those Americans owned an estimated 45 million guns, or about one gun for every three people. By 2023, the population of the United States stood at just over 330 million people, and according to historical data from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the number of guns produced and imported for the US market since 1899 exceeds 474 million firearms. Even assuming some of those guns have broken or been destroyed or illegally exported, there are easily more guns than people in the United States today. How and why the number of guns rose so precipitously in the US since World War II is our story today. Joining me to help us learn more about guns in the United States in the second half of the 20th Century is Dr. Andrew C. McKevitt, the John D. Winters Endowed Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University and author of Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. 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 “Johnny Get Your Gun,” composed by Monroe H. Rosenfeld and performed by Harry C. Browne, in New York on April 19, 1917; the audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Hi-Standard ad from 1957. Additional sources: “How Many Guns Are Circulating in the U.S.?” by Jennifer Mascia and Chip Brownlee, The Trace, Originally posted March 6, 2023, and Updated August 28, 2023. “The Mysterious Meaning of the Second Amendment,” by James C. Phillips and Josh Blackman, The Atlantic, February 28, 2020. “Timeline of Gun Control in the United States,” by Robert Longley, ThoughtCo, updated on January 08, 2023. “Do Black People Have Equal Gun Rights?” by Charles C. W. Cooke, The New York Times, October 25, 2014. “Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West,” by Matt Jancer, Smithsonian Magazine, February 5, 2018. “The NRA Wasn't Always Against Gun Restrictions,” by Ron Elving, NPR, October 10, 2017. “How NRA's true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby,” by Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz, Washington Post, January 12, 2013. “Opinion: The reality of gun violence in the US is bleak, but history shows it's not hopeless,” by Julian Zelizer, CNN, April 1, 2023. “Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968,” by Franklin E. Zimring, The Journal of Legal Studies 4, no. 1 (1975): 133–98. “Remarks Upon Signing the Gun Control Act of 1968,” by President Lyndon B. Johnson, The American Presidency Project. “The Inside History of How Guns Are Marketed and Sold in America,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, August 19, 2022. “The Supreme Court will hear a case that could effectively legalize automatic weapons,” by Ian Millhiser, Vox, November 3, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you go to a grocery store in the United States and pick up a box of cereal, you expect to find a white box on the back of the package with information in Helvetica Black about the food's macronutrients (things like fat and protein) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). The Nutrition Facts label is so ubiquitous that you may not even notice it. But how did it get there and why does it look the way it does? The history of that label is our story this week. Joining me to discuss the history of food labeling in the United States is Dr. Xaq Frohlich, Associate Professor of History of Technology in the Department of History at Auburn University, and author of From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age. 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 “Oh, you candy kid,” composed by John L. Golden, with lyrics by Bob Adams, and performed by Ada Jones in 1909; the audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress's National Jukebox. The episode image is “FDA Label Man,” an ad produced by the FDA for the nutritional label; the image is in the public domain as a United States government work and is available via the FDA Flickr. Additional Sources: “Milestones in U.S. Food and Drug Law,” U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906: Topics in Chronicling America,” Lobrary of Congress Research Guides. “The Pure Food and Drug Act,” History, Art & Archives, United States House of Representatives. “The American Chamber of Horrors [video],” U.S. Food & Drug Administration YouTube Channel, June 29, 2018. “The Accidental Poison That Founded the Modern FDA,” by Julian G. West, The Atlantic, January 16, 2018. “F. D. A. Proposes Sweeping Change in Food Labeling,” by Richard D. Lyons, The New York Times, January 18, 1973. “H.R.3562 - Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990,” Congress.gov. “How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label,” U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “The FDA wants to change what counts as ‘healthy' food. Big food makers say that's unfair.” by Irina Ivanova, CBS Moneywatch, February 27, 2023.  “FDA to test new package labels that could change how consumers make food choices,” by Madeline Holcombe, CNN Health, June 21, 2023. “The FDA is attempting to ban partially hydrogenated oils for good. But what in the world are they?” by Joy Saha, Salon.com, August 16, 2023. “Burkey Belser, designer of ubiquitous nutrition facts label, dies at 76,” by Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post, September 25, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the 19th Century, the Northern Cheyenne people made a number of treaties with the United States government, but the U.S. repeatedly failed to honor its end of the treaties. In November 1876, the U.S. Army, still fuming over their crushing defeat by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne at the Battle of Little Bighorn, attacked a village of Northern Cheyenne, destroying 200 lodges and driving the survivors, including women and children, into the freezing cold with few supplies. When the weakened survivors surrendered at Fort Robinson the following spring, believing they would be located on a northern reservation, they were instead forced north to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where they faced miserable conditions. Finally in 1884, the Northern Cheyenne Reservation was established in what is now southeastern Montana. Joining me in this episode is writer Gerry Robinson, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and author of The Cheyenne Story: An Interpretation of Courage. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Little Coyote (Little Wolf) and Morning Star (Dull Knife), Chiefs of the Northern Cheyennes,” photographed by William Henry Jackson in 1873; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: Northern Cheyenne Tribe Chief Dull Knife College “Northern Cheyenne Reservation Timeline,” Montana Tribal Histories. "Beyond "Discovery" Lewis & Clark from an Indigenous Perspective: Journal of American Indian Higher Education," by Richard Littlebear, Tribal College 14(3):11. “Treaty & Occupation,” Sand Creek Massacre Foundation. “In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty, the U.S. Broke It and Plains Indian Tribes are Still Seeking Justice,” by Kimbra Cutlip, Smithsonian Magazine, November 7, 2018. “Little Wolf and President Grant,” by Catherine Denial, TeachingHistory.org. “Battle of the Little Bighorn,” History.com, Originally posted on December 2, 2009, and updated on December 21, 2020. “Treaty With The Cheyenne Tribe, 1825,” Tribal Treaties Database. “Treaty Of Fort Laramie With Sioux, Etc., 1851,” Tribal Treaties Database. “Treaty With The Arapaho And Cheyenne, 1861,” Tribal Treaties Database. “Treaty With The Northern Cheyenne And Northern Arapaho, 1868,” Tribal Treaties Database. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1950, President Harry Truman ordered US troops to the Korean peninsula to help the South Koreans repel the invading North Korean People's Army, which was supported by the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and China. One of the regiments shipped overseas to fight was the 65th Infantry Regiment, the Borinqueneers, made up of soldiers from Puerto Rico. In Korea, the Borinqueneers served heroically, despite harsh conditions and racist treatment. Joining me in this episode to help us learn more about the 65th Infantry Regiment is writer Talia Aikens-Nuñez, author of the young adult book Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War.  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 “La Borinqueña,” performed by the United States Navy Band in 2003; the audio is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is “Members of the 65th Infantry Regiment pose for a photo after a firefight during the Korean War;“ the photo is by the U.S. Army, in the public domain, and available via the Department of Defense. Additional sources: “Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Fought Bravely in Korea—Then Had to Fight for Redemption,” by Iván Román, History.com, Originally published November 20, 2021, and updated August 17, 2023. “The Borinqueneers: The Forgotten Heroes of a Forgotten War,” Center for Puerto Rican Studies, CUNY Hunter. “The 65th Infantry Regiment: A Storied History,” National Museum of the United States Army. “Congress Honors Puerto Rican Regiment for Heroic Korean War Service,” by Shannon Collins, DOD News, October 7, 2016. “Bloodied in Battle, Now Getting Their Due,” by David Gonzalez, The New York Times, October 2, 2007. “65th Infantry Regiment ‘Borinqueneers' Highlight Hispanic Heritage Month,”by Tim Oberle, Eighth Army Public Affairs, U.S. Army, September 18, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 1960s, as college campuses became hotbeds of liberal protest, conservative college groups, like the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI), the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), and College Republicans, backed by powerful conservative elders and their deep pockets, fought back, staging counter protests, publishing conservative newspapers, taking over student governments, and suing colleges to remain open. Joining me in this episode to discuss the campus right in more detail is Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, author of Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. 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 “Row Your Boat,” by The Goldwaters, Sing Folk Songs to Make the Liberals Mad, 1964. The episode image is "Ban SDS sign,” Columbia University Student Strike, April 1968, Office of Public Affairs Protest & Activism Photograph Collection, Collection number: UA#109, University Archives, Columbia University, accessed October 9, 2023. Additional Sources: “The Attack on Yale,” by McGeorge Bundy, The Atlantic, November 1951. “Debunking a Longstanding Myth About William F. Buckley,” by Matthew Dallek, POlitico, March 31, 2023. “About Us,” Young America's Foundation. “Young Americans for Freedom,” Civil Rights Digital History Project, University of Georgia. "Young Americans for Freedom and the Anti-War Movement: Pro-War Encounters with the New Left at the Height of the Vietnam War," by Ethan Swift, Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections. 2019. “About Us,” Intercollegiate Studies Institute. “1968: Columbia in Crisis,” Columbia University Libraries. “How Columbia's Student Uprising of 1968 Was Sparked by a Segregated Gym,” by Erin Blakemore, History.com, Originally published April 20, 2018, and updated July 7, 2020. “‘The Whole World Is Watching': An Oral History of the 1968 Columbia Uprising,” by Clara Bingham, Vanity Fair, March 26, 2018. “The Right Uses College Campuses as Its Training Grounds,” by Scott W. Stern, Jacobin, August 2023. “Critical race theory is just the new buzzword in conservatives' war on campuses,” by Lauren Lassabe, The Washington Post, July 7, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women, a group of women, led by writer Betty Friedan and organizer and attorney Pauli Murray, decided that to make progress they needed to form an independent national civil rights organization for women. Within months, the National Organization for Women had 300 founding members, a slate of officers, and a statement of purpose. By 1974, NOW boasted 40,000 members in over 700 chapters, and today NOW claims hundreds of thousands of members in all 50 states and DC, working toward equal rights for women and girls. Joining me to discuss the history of NOW is Dr. Katherine Turk, Associate Professor of History and Adjunct Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of The Women of Now: How Feminists Built an Organization That Transformed America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio are “Light Thought Var. 2” and “Vision of Persistence," by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com);Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.The episode image is: “ERA March from Governor's mansion to the capitol - Tallahassee, Florida,” photographed by Donn Dughi; this work is from the Florida Memory Project hosted at the State Archive of Florida, and is released to the public domain in the United States under the terms of Section 257.35(6), Florida Statutes.  Additional Sources: “United States President's Commission On The Status Of Women Records,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. “American Women: Report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women, 1963,” Department of Labor. “The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan's ‘The Feminine Mystique,'” by Jacob Muñoz, Smithsonian Magazine, February 4, 2021. “National Organization for Women, ‘Statement of Purpose' (1966),” The American Yawp Reader. “National Organization for Women (NOW) founding documents, 1966–1968,” National Organization for Women Records, Schlesinger Library “National Organization for Women Founder on Group's 50th Anniversary and Finding Success in Anger,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, June 30, 2016. “Feminist Factions United and Filled the Streets for This Historic March,” by Maggie Doherty, The New York Times, Originally published August 26, 2020, and updated September 3, 2020. “The Equal Rights Amendment: The Most Popular Never-Ratified Amendment,” by Christine Blackerby, National Archives Education Updates, December 5, 2013. “How Phyllis Schlafly Derailed the Equal Rights Amendment,” by Lesley Kennedy, History.com, Originally published March 19, 2020, and updated September 29, 2023. “The 1978 Equal Rights Amendment March,” by Henry Kokkeler, Boundary Stones, WETA, April 12, 2022. National Organization for Women Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When farmer John Durfee found the body of a local factory girl hanging from a fence post on his property on the morning of December 21, 1832, he and the rest of the townspeople assumed she had died by suicide. But a cryptic note she had left among her possessions pointed the investigation in a different direction, and the ensuing murder trial captured the public imagination. Joining me now to discuss the murder of Maria Cornell and the shifting cultural milieu of New England in the 1830s is Dr. Bruce Dorsey, Professor of History at Swarthmore College and author of Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation.  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 “Midnight,” by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay; available for use under the Pixabay License. The episode image is “A very bad man - Ephraim Kingsbury Avery,” published by Henry Robinson & Company in 1833; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Additional Sources: “Sarah Maria Cornell,” The Town & the City: Lowell before and after The Civil War, University of Massachusetts Lowell Library. “Trial of Rev. Mr. Avery ; a full report of the trial of Ephraim K. Avery, charged with the murder of Sarah Maria Cornell : before the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, at a special term in Newport, held in May, 1833 ; Avery's trial ; Additional medical testimony by Professor Channing on the part of the defendant, and Dr. William Turner, for the government,” reported by Benjamin F. Hallett, 1832, Harvard Library. “Letters of the law : the trial of E. K. Avery for the murder of Sarah M. Cornell,” by J. Barbour, Law Text Culture, 2, 1995, 118-133. “Religious Revivals and Revivalism in 1830s New England,” TeachUSHistory.org. "The Second Great Awakening and the Making of Modern America," by Kerry Irish, Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics. 78, 2018.  “Religion and Reform,” The American Yawp. “The Mill Girls of Lowell,” National Park Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just days after British troops captured New York City from General Washington and his army in September 1776, fire broke out, destroying a fifth of the city. The British blamed rebels who had remained hidden in Manhattan, but Washington, who had been ordered by Congress to leave the city standing on his retreat, never claimed responsibility, though he complained that the blaze hadn't caused more destruction. So who did start the fire and why? Joining me this week to discuss the New York fire and the question of who started it is Dr. Benjamin Carp, Professor and Daniel M. Lyons Chair of History at Brooklyn College, and author of The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The poetry is from selections of “Conflagration: A Poem,” Printed in New York from High Gaine in 1780 and performed by Theodore Weflen-Pollock. The episode image is "Representation du Feu terrible a Nouvelle Yorck," The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library; the image is in the public domain.  Additional Sources: “Timeline: The American Revolution,” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “The American Revolution: A timeline of George Washington's military and political career during the American Revolution, 1774-1783,” George Washington Papers, Library of Congress. “The Burning of Charlestown: Only Two Spoons Remained for Relief Ellery,” by Massachusetts Historical Society, Charlestown Patriot Bridge, June 17, 2020. "The Burning of Falmouth, 1775: A Case Study in British Imperial Pacification," by Donald A. Yerxa, Maine History 14, 3 (1975): 119-161. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal/vol14/ iss3/3  “New York City's Forgotten Past,” by Erik Peter Axelson, HistoryNet, December 9, 2019. “Did George Washington Order Rebels to Burn New York City in 1776?” by Erik Ofgang, Smithsonian Magazine, May 11, 2023. “From George Washington to Lund Washington, 6 October 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RuPaul's Drag Race first aired on TV in 2009, but the New York City drag scene that launched RuPaul started over a century earlier. From drag balls to Wigstock, New York has long been considered the capital of drag culture. Joining me in this episode to discuss New York City's rich history of drag is writer Elyssa Maxx Goodman, author of Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City. 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 “The New York Glide,” written by Tim Delaney and performed by Ethel Waters and Albury's Blue & Jazz Seven in May 1921; the performance is in the public domain. The episode image is Lady Bunny, photographed by Tai Seef during Wigstock 2001, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “How Drag Queens Have Sashayed Their Way Through History,” by Sam Sanders and Josh Axelrod, NPR, June 27, 2019. “The US has a rich drag history. Here's why the art form will likely outlast attempts to restrict it,” by Scottie Andrew, CNN, April 29, 2023. “From police raids to pop culture: The early history of modern drag,” by Emily Martin, National Geographic, June 2, 2023. “The Evolution of Drag: A History of Self-Expressionism,” by Gaelle Abou Nasr, Arcadia, December 12, 2021. “InQueery: Trixie Mattel Breaks Down the History of ‘Drag,'” Them, September 20, 2018. “Julian Eltinge was the most famous drag queen ever. What happened? [video]”, PBS American Masters, February 18, 2021. “A century ago, this star ‘female impersonator' made men swoon,” by Randy Dotinga, The Washington Post, June 24, 2023. “Mob Queens [podcast],” by Jessica Bendinger & Michael Seligman. “Stonewall Riots,” History.com, Originally posted May 31, 2017, and updated June 23, 2023. “Marsha Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and the history of Pride Month,” Smithsonian, June 7, 2021. “Before There Was ‘RuPaul's Drag Race,' There Was Wigstock,” by Michael Appeler, Variety, May 6, 2019. “The Pyramid Club: New York City's First Drag Landmark,” by Dawson Knick, Village Preservation, July 25, 2019. “Wigstock Returns From the Dead,” by Jacob Bernstein, The New York Times, August 15, 2018. “New Heights for a Diva: RuPaul's TV Talk Show,” by Andrea Higbie, The New York Times, October 20, 1996. “Behind the Rise of RuPaul's Drag Race,” by Maria Elena Fernandez, Variety, August 22, 2017. “There Has Never Been a Show Like RuPaul's Drag Race,” by David Canfield, Vanity Fair, August 27, 2021. “RuPaul Shares the Origin of His Name and Drag Persona [video],” Late Night with Seth Meyers, February 12, 2020. “NYPD Commissioner Apologizes For 'Oppressive' 1969 Raid On Stonewall Inn,” by Bobby Allyn and Dani Matias, NPR, June 6, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the course of just one year in the early 1840s, Thomas Smallwood, a recently emancipated Black man, with the assistance of the New England educated white abolitionist Charles Torrey, arranged for around 400 enslaved people to escape the Baltimore and DC area for freedom in Canada. While the abolition movement was still debating the best path forward, Smallwood and Torrey put their beliefs into action, establishing the Underground Railroad, and using the press to taunt the slaveowners whose enslaved people they freed. Joining me in this episode to discuss Thomas Smallwood, Charles Torrey, and the Underground Railroad, is journalist Scott Shane, author of Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland. 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 “Go Down Moses,” performed by the Tuskegee Institute Singers in 1914 and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” performed by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in 1909; both songs are in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress's National Jukebox. The episode image is "Crossing the river on horseback in the night,"  from 1872, available via the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library; the image is in the public domain. Additional Resources: “A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood, (Coloured Man:) Giving an Account of His Birth--The Period He Was Held in Slavery--His Release--and Removal to Canada, etc. Together With an Account of the Underground Railroad. Written by Himself.” by Thomas Smallwood. “A Black Voice from the ‘other North”” Thomas Smallwood's Canadian Narrative (1851),” by Sandrine Ferré-Rode, Revue française d'études américaines, vol. 137, no. 3, 2013, pp. 23-37. “Slave Patrols in the President's Neighborhood,” by Penelope Fergison, The White House Historical Association. “What is the Underground Railroad?” National Park Service. “Home!, or, The pilgrim's faith revived / written during his incarceration in Baltimore Jail, after his conviction and while awaiting--his sentence [four lines of poetry] ; published for the benefit of his family.” by Charles Torrey, 1845. “Charles Torrey – The Most Successful, Least Celebrated Abolitionist,” New England HIstory Society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the best known poets of Revolutionary New England was an enslaved Black girl named Phillis Wheatley, who was only emancipated after she published a book of 39 of her poems in London. Wheatley, who met with Benjamin Franklin and corresponded with George Washington, was the first person of African descent to publish a book in English. Wheatley achieved literary success and helped drive the abolition movement, but she died young and penniless, and many of her poems were lost to history. Joining me to discuss Phillis Wheatley is Dr. David Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center and author of The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode performance is poetry of Phillis Wheatley, read by Laurice Roberts for this podcast; the poems are in the public domain. The music is “Morning Dew” by Julius H. from Pixabay and is used in accordance with the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a portrait of Phillis Wheatley, possibly painted by Scipio Moorhead, which was used as the frontispiece for her 1773 book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral; the portrait is available via the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and is  in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Phillis Wheatley: The unsung Black poet who shaped the US,” by Robin Catalano, BBC Rediscovering America, February 21, 2023. “How Phillis Wheatley Was Recovered Through History,” by Elizabeth Winkler, The New Yorker, July 30, 2020. “The Multiple Truths in the Works of the Enslaved Poet Phillis Wheatley,” by drea brown, Smithsonian Magazine, June 24, 2020. “The Great American Poet Who Was Named After a Slave Ship,” by Tiya Miles, The Atlantic, April 22, 2023. “Phillis Wheatley: 1753–1784,” Poetry Foundation. “Phillis Wheatley: Her Life, Poetry, and Legacy,” by Stephanie Sheridan, National Portrait Gallery Face to Face Blog. Phillis Wheatley Historical Society “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” by Phillis Wheatley, available via Project Gutenberg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the biggest stars in Prohibition Age New York was blues singer Gladys Bentley, who caused a stir in Harlem, wearing a top hat and tails, flirting with women in the audience, and singing raunchy lyrics. Despite Bentley's phenomenal talent, the repeal of Prohibition and the end of the jazz age led to waning interest in the type of bawdy performance for which she was known. Despite attempts to change with the times, Bentley was never again able to reach the level of fame she had once enjoyed. Joining me in this episode to discuss Gladys Bentley and queer Black women performers in Prohibition Age New York is Dr. Cookie Woolner, Associate Professor of History at the University of Memphis and author of The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall. 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 “Them There Eyes,” performed by Gladys Bentley on You Bet Your Life on May 15, 1958. The episode image is a photo of Gladys Bentley on a card distributed by the Harry Walker Agency, with a caption that reads: “America's Greatest Sepia Player -- Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs;” the photo is in the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “I am Woman Again,” by Gladys Bentley, Ebony Magazine, August 1952. “Gladys Bentley: Gender-Bending Performer and Musician [video],” PBS American Masters Unladylike2020, June 2, 2020. “The Great Blues Singer Gladys Bentley Broke All the Rules,” by Haleema Shah, Smithsonian Magazine, March 14, 2019. “Overlooked – Gladys Bentley,” by Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times, 2019. “Honoring Notorious Gladys Bentley,” by Irene Monroe, HuffPost, Posted April 14, 2010 and updated May 25, 2011. “Blues Singer Gladys Bentley Broke Ground With Marriage to a Woman in 1931,” by Steven J. Niven, The Root, February 11, 2015. “Gladys Bentley on ‘You Bet Your Life' [video],” Aired on May 15, 1958; posted on YouTube by Joel Chaidez on December 18, 2009. “Gladys Bentley (feat. Eddie Lang) How Much Can I Stand? (1928) [video],” Audio recorded on November 2, 1928 and issued as a single by OKeh in 1929; posted on YouTube by randomandrare on April 16, 2010. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a child in Los Angeles, Wong Liu Tsong knew she wanted to be an actress. Adopting the screen name Anna May Wong and dropping out of school to pursue her passion, Wong landed her first lead role at age 17. Despite Hollywood racism that would limit the types of roles she would receive, Wong's impressive career spanned over 60 films, in addition to stage and television work, and she was the first Asian American woman to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Yunte Huang, Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American 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 “Anna May Wong singing in three languages -Rudy Vallee Radio Show from July 11, 1935,” posted on YouTube by Robert Fells, who attributes the original discs to Jerry Haendiges. The episode image is a press photograph of Anna May Wong, from: Press photographs of Anna May Wong, 1930s, Postcards and Press Photographs of Anna May Wong, circa 1930-1981, MS Thr 2095 Case 1, Folder 4. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Additional Sources: “Anna May Wong, 1905-1961,” by Kerri Lee Alexander, National Women's History Museum. “Life Story: Anna May Wong (1905–1961): The First Asian American Movie Star,” Women and the American Story, New York Historical Society. “Anna May Wong: Trendsetting Movie Star and Fashion Icon / 1905-1961 [video],” UNLADYLIKE2020. “Actress Anna May Wong Championed Asian American Representation in More than 60 Films,” by Chelsea Cozad, Smithsonian, October 24, 2022. “Anna May Wong: the legacy of a groundbreaking Asian American star,” by Pamela Hutchinson, The Guardian, October 19, 2022. “The True Story of Anna May Wong and The Good Earth,” by Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair, May 1, 2020. “Lucy Liu Speaks Out for More Diversity at Hollywood Walk of Fame,” by Jordan Moreau, Variety, May 1, 2019. “Anna May Wong Will Be the First Asian American on U.S. Currency,” by Soumya Karlamangla, New York Times, October 18, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Anna Rosenberg Hoffman died in 1983, the New York Times called her “one of the most influential women in the country's public affairs for a quarter of a century.” A skilled labor mediator and advisor to four U.S. presidents, Rosenberg, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, stood up to Senator Joe McCarthy and was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary of Defense in 1950, making her the then-highest ranking woman in the history of the Department of Defense. It was only one of many firsts in her storied career. Joining me in this episode to help tell the story of Anna Rosenberg is history teacher and writer Christopher C. Gorham, author of The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America. 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 “Heartwarming," composed and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Portrait of Anna M. Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense, at her desk in the Pentagon,” taken on February 2, 1951, credit: United States Army; the image is in the PUblic Domain and is available via the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Additional Sources: “One of the most important women in American history has been forgotten,” by Christopher C. Gorham, The Washington Post, May 30, 2023. “Papers of Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, 1870-1983,” Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. “MANPOWER: The Buffalo Plan,” Time Magazine, September 27, 1943. “Senators Confirm Anna M. Rosenberg,” The New York Times, December 22, 1950. “Lessons of the Anna M. Rosenberg Hearings: Where Congressional Investigations Go Wrong,” by Herrymon Maurer, Commentary, May 1951. “Anna Rosenberg Hoffman Dead; Consultant And 50's Defense Aide,” by Eric Pace, The New York Times, May 10, 1983. "Anna M. Rosenberg, an ‘Honorary Man,'" by Anna Kasten Nelson, The Journal of Military History 68, no. 1 (2004): 133-161. “Anna M. Rosenberg and Women in Defense after World War II,” by Stephanie Hinnershitz, National WWII Museum, March 18, 2022. “Anna M. Rosenberg, Social Security History. “Anna Rosenberg,” by Susan L. Tananbaum, The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. “Anna M. Rosenberg (1902 - 1983),” Jewish Virtual Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 20th century, career options for Black workers were limited, and the jobs often came with low pay and poor conditions. Ironically, because they were concentrated in certain jobs, Black workers  sometimes monopolized those jobs and had collective power to demand better conditions and higher pay. The Pullman Company, founded in 1862, hired only Black men to serve as porters on Pullman cars, since George M. Pullman thought that formerly enslaved men would know how to be good, invisible servants and that they would work for low wages. In 1925, the Pullman Porters formed their own union, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, with A. Philip Randolph serving as president. After years of struggle, in 1935, the Pullman Company finally recognized the union, and it was granted a charter by the American Federation of Labor (AFL), making the Brotherhood the first Black union it accepted.  Joining me in this episode to help us learn about the Black working class is historian Dr. Blair L. M. Kelley, the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the incoming director of the Center for the Study of the American South and author of Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class. 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 “Pullman Porter Blues,” music and lyrics by Clifford Ulrich and Burton Hamilton; performed by Clarence Williams on September 30, 1921; the recording is in the public domain.The episode image is: “J.W. Mays, Pullman car porter,” photographed by C.M. Bell, 1894; the photograph is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources: “George Pullman: His Impact on the Railroad Industry, Labor, and American Life in the Nineteenth Century,” by Rosanne Lichatin,” History Resources, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  “The Rise and Fall of the Sleeping Car King,” by Jack Kelly, Smithsonian Magazine, January 11, 2019. “The Pullman Strike, by Richard Schneirov, Northern Illinois University Digital Library. “Pullman Porters,” History.com, Originally published February 11, 2019, and updated October 8, 2021. “The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,” by Brittany Hutchinson, Chicago History Museum. “Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (1925-1978),” by Daren Salter, BlackPast, November 24, 2007. “A. Philip Randolph Was Once “the Most Dangerous Negro in America,” by Peter Dreier, Jacobin, January 31, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1894, Mary P. Evans, wrote in the Woman's Era, a Black women's magazine, that exercise: “enables you to keep in the best condition for work with the hands or with the brain… It prepares you to meet disappointment, sorrow, ill treatment, and great suffering as the strong, courageous and splendid woman meets them. It is a great aid to clear, quick, and right thinking.” She wasn't the only Black woman of the day encouraging Black women and girls to exercise as a way of improving not just themselves but also the whole race. Despite the lack of facilities and obstacles in their way, Black women and girls aspired to physical fitness. In 2010, Michelle Obama, the first Black First Lady of the United States echoed Mary P. Evans, encouraging everyone to pursue physical fitness with the “Let's Move” campaign.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Ava Purkiss, assistant professor of women's and gender studies and American culture at the University of Michigan and author of Fit Citizens: A History of Black Women's Exercise from Post-Reconstruction to Postwar America. 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 Sunburst Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Nesrality from Pixabay and is used via the Pixabay Content License.The episode image is “Atlanta University, Founder's Day Drill,” from The Harmon Foundation Collection: Kenneth Space Photographs of the Activities of Southern Black Americans and available in the public domain via the National Archives (NAID: 26174852; Local ID: H-HS-2-214). Additional Sources: “First Lady Michelle Obama Launches Let's Move: America's Move to Raise a Healthier Generation of Kids,” White House Press Release, February 9, 2010. “African Americans and the YMCA (Archives and Special Collections),” University of Minnesota LIbraries. “A Brief History Of Diversity And Inclusion At The Y,” The YMCA of San Diego County, July 27, 2017. “Our History,” Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College. “Olivia A. Davidson (1854-1889),” by Nana Lawson Bush, BlackPast, January 19, 2007. “Physical Education Pioneer Maryrose Reeves Allen Dies,” The Washington Post, January 17, 1992. “The 'Hidden Figures' of Physical Education: Black Women Who Paved the Way in PE,” by Tara B. Blackshear and Brian Culp, Momentum magazine, co-authors, February 15, 2022. “Addressing Racism In The Fitness Industry Requires Understanding Its Roots,” by Rodney J. Morris and Pamela Kufahl, Club Industry, October 6, 2020. “A healthful legacy: Michelle Obama looks to the future of ‘Let's Move,'” by Krissah Thompson and Tim Carman, The Washington Post, May 3, 2015. Tweet by Michele Obama as First Lady, May 19, 2015.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the American colonies and then in the antebellum United States, the legal system reinforced the power and authority of slaveholders by allowing them to physically abuse the people they enslaved while severely punishing enslaved people for even minor offenses. Some enslaved women, who could find no justice in the courts, sought their own justice through lethal resistance, murdering their enslavers.  Joining me now to help us understand the enslaved women who chose lethal resistance, what drove them, and why these stories are important to tell, is Dr. Nikki M. Taylor, Professor of History at Howard University and author of several books, including Brooding over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women's Lethal Resistance. 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 “Desire for Freedom” by Lexin_Music from Pixabay and is used via the Pixabay Content License. The image is “Silhouette portrait of slave Bietja,” by Jan Brandes; it is available in the public domain. Additional Sources: Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner's Community, by Vanessa M. Holden, University of Illinois Press, 2021. Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall, Simon & Schuster, 2021. “Poetry of Defiance: How the Enslaved Resisted,” Zinn Education Project Teaching Activity, by Adam Sanchez. “Slave codes,” National Park Service. “The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice,” by William Goodell, 1853, Published in Learning for Justice. “Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South,” The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI). "Thrice Condemned: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Practice of Leniency in Antebellum Virginia Courts," by Tamika Y. Nunley, Journal of Southern History 87, no. 1 (2021): 5-34.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometime in the mid-1780s, Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable, a Black man from Saint-Domingue, and his Potawatomi wife, Kitihawa, settled with their family on a swampy site near Lake Michigan called Eschecagou, “land of the wild onions.” The homestead and trading post they built on the mouth of the Chicago River, with a comfortably appointed cabin, workshop, bake house, stable, smokehouse, and more, was the first settlement on what would become the city of Chicago. Their importance was long forgotten, but in 2006, the Chicago City Council belatedly voted to amend the Municipal Code of Chicago to add DuSable as the city's official founder.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Courtney P. Joseph, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Lake Forest College who is writing a book titled DuSable's Diaspora: Haiti, Blackness, and Belonging in Chicago. 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: “Chicago (that Toddling Town),” written by Fred Fisher and performed by Jazz-Bo's Carolina Serenaders in 1922; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is a photograph of the bust of DuSable just north of DuSable Bridge in Chicago; the bust was created by Erik Blome in 2009; the photograph was taken by Matthew Weflen on June 17, 2023, and is used with permission. Organizations: DuSable Heritage Association Friends of the Park DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center Sources: “Chicago's Authentic Founder: Jean Baptiste Point Dusable Or Haitian Secret Agent In The Old Northwest Outpost 1745-1818,” by Marc Rosier, Trafford Publishing, 2015. “Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the First Chicagoan,” by Thomas A. Meehan, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 56, No. 3, Emancipation Centennial Issue (Autumn, 1963), pp. 439-453. “The Father of Chicago: Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable,” by John R. Schmidt, WBEZ Chicago, August 8, 2011. “'The First White Man in Chicago Was a Negro'?” by Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Root, September 30, 2013. “Do Chicagoans know DuSable had a Native American wife? We should celebrate her, too,” by Laura Washington, Chicago Sun-Times, June 13, 2021. “The Black Founder of Chicago: Point du Sable | Black History Explainer [video],” Unique Coloring, 3,027 views  Oct 1, 2022. “The Story of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable [video],” Field Museum,  “Who Is Jean Baptiste Point du Sable? [video],” 77 Flavors of Chicago, February 6, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men were endowed with the rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” he did not have in mind the rights of the hundreds of human beings he enslaved. But the enslaved population of the United States, and the abolitionists who supported them, like Frederick Douglass and John Brown, adopted the American symbols of revolution and freedom in their own fight for liberty.   Joining me on this episode to discuss the power of symbols like the flag and Independence Day is historian Dr. Matthew Clavin, Professor of History at the University of Houston and author of Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War. 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 Frederick Douglass's speech, “What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” originally delivered on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, and performed by Chicago actor Anthony C. Brown. The mid-episode music is “Dramatic Atmosphere with Piano and Violin,” byUNIVERSFIELD from Pixabay. The episode image is: "Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave, on an English platform, denouncing slaveholders and their religious abettors," 1852, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Additional Sources: “July Fourth used to be a protest holiday for enslaved Americans,” by Matt Clavin, The Washington Post, July 3, 2023. “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” National Archives. “These are the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence,” by Colman Andrews, USA Today, July 3, 2019. “Today in History - July 4: Independence Day” Library of Congress. “Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?” by Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, July 2, 2016. “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, ‘Had a Declaration…' [electronic edition],” Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society.  “Practical Considerations Founded on the Scriptures: Relative to the Slave Population of South-Carolina,” by Frederick Dalcho, 1823. “'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?': The History of Frederick Douglass' Searing Independence Day Oration,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, Originally published July 3, 2019, Updated June 26, 2020. “A Nation's Story: ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?'” Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. “Frederick Douglass Knew What False Patriotism Was,” by Esau McCaulley, The New York Times, July 3, 2023. “John Brown's Passionate ‘Declaration of Liberty,' Written on a Lengthy Scroll,” by Rebecca Onion, Slate: The Vault, December 2, 2013. “The Harpers Ferry 'Rising' That Hastened Civil War,” WBEZ Chicago, October 22, 2011. “John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry,” History.com, Originally published November 13, 2009, Updated October 14, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In September 1970, commandos from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked five planes, landing three of them near Zarqua, Jordan, at a remote desert airstrip called Dawson's Field, which the commandos renamed Revolution Airport. While they held hundreds of passengers and flight crew hostage in the desert, the PFLP issued their demands for release of Palestinian militants who were imprisoned in Europe.  Joining me on this episode to help us understand more is American historian Prof. Martha Hodes, who was a 12-year-old passenger on one of the planes, flying with her 13-year-old sister, Catherine. Dr. Hodes is Professor of History at New York University and the author of My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering. 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 “Calm Piano Dramatic” by AleXZavesa and is available for use via Pixabay. The episode image is “Pan Am Boeing 747-121 N736PA,” by Rob Russell, CC BY 2.0.  Additional Sources: “History of the Question of Palestine,” United Nations. “Creation of Israel, 1948,” Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),” BBC, November 18, 2014. “Skyjackings: What's Being Done And How Passengers React,” by John Brannon Albright, The New York Times, June 21, 1970. “A Brief History of Airplane Hijackings, From the Cold War to D.B. Cooper,” by Janet Bednarek, The Conversation, Smithsonian Magazine, July 18, 2022. “Leila Khaled freed after US pressure,” The Guardian, January 1, 2001. “An Infamous Hijacking, Revisited Through a Child's Eyes,” by Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times, June 1, 2023. “1970 Hijackings,” PBS American Experience. “Terror in Black September: The First Eyewitness Account of the Infamous 1970 Hijackings,” by David Raab, Palgrave Macmillan, September 4, 2007. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over 350,000 African American men joined the United States military during World War I, serving valiantly despite discrimination and slander. Historian and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois had hoped that their patriotism would help them gain respect and equality, but after the war it was quickly evident that would not be the case. Du Bois spent the next several decades attempting to tell the full story of Black soldiers in the Great War, but despite a vast archive of materials entrusted to him and his own towering intellect, Du Bois was never able to craft a coherent narrative of their participation.  Joining me in this episode to discuss Du Bois and his relationship with World War I is Dr. Chad L. WIlliams, the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, and the author of The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War. 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 “All Of No Man's Land Is Ours,” written by James Europe and Noble Sissle, with vocals by Noble Sissle; the song was recorded around March 14, 1919 and is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is “The famous 369th arrive in New York City,” photographed by Paul Thompson on February 26, 1919; the image is in the public domain and is available via the National Archives (National Archives Identifier: 26431290; Local Identifier: 165-WW-127A-12). Additional Sources: “W.E.B. Du Bois,” NAACP.  "Du Bois, W. E. B.," by Thomas C. Holt, African American National Biography. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. "W. E. B. Du Bois in Georgia," by Derrick Alridge,  New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Jul 21, 2020.  “Niagara Movement,” History.com, Originally posted December 2, 2009 and updated February 24, 2021. “U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State. “The African Roots of War,” by W. E. B. Du Bois, The Atlantic, May 1915. “Why Frederick Douglass Wanted Black Men to Fight in the Civil War,” by Farrell Evans, History.com, Originally posted February 8, 2021 and updated November 22, 2022. “Patriotism Despite Segregation: African-American Participation During World War I,” The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. “African Americans in the Military during World War I,” National Archives. “The 93rd Division During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive,” Pritzker Military Museum & Library. “African-American Soldiers in World War I: The 92nd and 93rd Divisions,” EdSiteMent, The National Endowment for the Humanities “W. E. B. Du Bois, World War I, and the Question of Failure,” by Chad Williams, Black Perspectives, February 19, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During World War II, over 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of whom were US citizens, were forcibly removed from their homes in California, Washington, and Oregon, and imprisoned in relocation centers, small towns surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. The War Relocation Authority, the government agency created by FDR that oversaw the mass relocation and internment, appointed a project attorney for each of the 10 camps. These white attorneys served the conflicted position of both advising the project director and running a legal aid for the Japanese American prisoners.  Joining me in this episode is legal historian Eric L. Muller, the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law and author of Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe: Complicity and Conscience in America's World War II Concentration Camps. 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 “Longing for Japan,” by srento, licensed for use via Pond5. The episode image is “Lone Pine, Calif. Apr. 1942. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry arriving by train and awaiting buses for Manzanar, a War Relocation Authority center,” by Clem Albers, from April 1, 1942; the photograph is housed in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-73157), with no known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: “Japanese American Incarceration During World War II,” DocsTeach, Created by the National Archives. “FDR sets up War Relocation Authority , March 18, 1942,” by Andrew Glass, Politico, March 18, 2018. “How Japanese American Incarceration Was Entangled With Indigenous Dispossession,” by Hana Maruyama, KCET, August 18, 2022. “The Injustice of Japanese-American Internment Camps Resonates Strongly to This Day,” by T. A. Frail, Smithsonian Magazine, January 2017. “She fought the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and won,” by Lori Aratani, The Washington Post, December 18, 2019. “The dangerous economics of racial resentment during World War II,” by Gwynn Guilford, Quartz, February 13, 2018. “Before people start invoking Japanese American internment, they should remember what it was like,” by Jeff Guo, The Washington Post, November 18, 2015. “Bitter Harvest,” by A. V. Krebs, The Washington Post, February 2, 1992. Related Episodes: The US-Born Japanese Americans (Nisei) who Migrated to Japan Patsy Mink Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 color blind, seeing not Black or white but just olive drab, but by 1970, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Gen. Walter T. Kerwin, noted: “In the past year racial discord has surfaced as one of the most serious problems facing Army leadership.” So in the midst of fighting a deeply unpopular overseas war, the military also created the Defense Race Relations Institute (DRRI) and developed mandated race relations training. Joining me to discuss race relations in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War era is Dr. Beth Bailey, a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Kansas and Author of An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era. 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 “Old Soul Record” by Musictown from Pixabay and is free to use through the Pixabay license. The episode image is “Photograph of Specialist 4th Class McClanton Miller Kneeling in Dense Brush Waiting for Orders to Move Forward;” picture was taken January 23, 1966 and is available via the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID: 17331387; Local ID: 111-CC-33199) with no restrictions on use. Additional sources: “Vietnam War Timeline,” History.com, Published September 13, 2017 and Updated March 29, 2023. “Ho Chi Minh,” PBS American Experience. “Foreign Relations Of The United States, 1952–1954, Indochina, Volume XIII, Part 1,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State. “Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964),” National Archives and Records Administration. “Vietnam Lotteries,” Selective Service System. “Resistance to the Vietnam War,” by Jessica McBirney, Common Lit, 2016. “The Draft,” Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. “Vietnam War Protests,” History.com, Published February 22, 2010 and Updates November 1, 2022. “The Forgotten History Of A Prison Uprising In Vietnam,” by Sarah Kramer, NPR All Things Considered, August 29, 2018. “History,” Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. “Black and White in Vietnam,” by Gerald F. Goodwin, The New York Times, July 18, 2017. “Training for Vietnam, fighting for civil rights: Post an island of relative calm in a turbulent sea,” by Christine Schweickert, U.S. Army, May 14, 2015. “As we rethink the Vietnam War, we have to grapple with its racial implications,” by Hannah Gurman, The Washington Post, October 6, 2017. “African-American struggle for equality in Army during Vietnam still instructive,” by David Vergun, U.S. Army, February 25, 2014. “The military provides a model for how institutions can address racism,” by Margaret B. Montgomery, The Washington Post, June 23, 2020. “Serving without 'equal opportunity': Vietnam veterans faced racism at home and abroad,” by Erica Thompson, The Columbus Dispatch, Published December 3, 2020 and Updated December 9, 2020. “War within war,” by James Maycock, The Guardian, September 14, 2001. “Reflections On The Curse Of Racism In The U.S. Military,” by David Barno and Nora Bensahel, War on the Rocks, June 30, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 by the border states. With the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the dire need for more recruits to the Union Army, Black soldiers were formally welcomed into the armed forces, eventually comprising 10% of the Union Army. It wasn't just the Black soldiers who fought and sacrificed for their country, though, it was also their families they left behind as they marched off to war.  Joining me in this episode s Dr. Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr., Assistant Professor of African American History at Furman University and author of The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice. 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 “Battle Cry of Freedom,” written in 1862 by American composer George Frederick Root to support Lincoln's 1862 call for 300,000 volunteers for the Union Army; this version was performed by Harlan and Stanley in 1907 and is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is “Unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters,” photograph created between 1863 and 1865, available via the Library of Congress with no known restrictions on publication. Additional sources: “A Call to Remember the 200,000 Black Troops Who Helped Save the Union,” by Christine Hause, The New York Times, February 26, 2022. “Remembering the Significant Role of the U.S. Colored Troops in America's History,” Wounded Warrior Project. “Black Americans in the U.S. Army,” U.S. Army. “Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War,” National Archives. “African-American Soldiers During the Civil War,” Library of Congress. “Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” by Steven Mintz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “Black Civil War Soldiers,” History.com, Originally posted April 14, 2010; updated November 22, 2022. “Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America,” by David Walker, Boston, Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. “War Declared: States Secede from the Union!” National Park Service. “Civil War Begins,” United States Senate. “Black Women, the Civil War, and United States Colored Troops,” by Holly Pinheiro, Black Perspectives, July 20, 2021. Related episodes: Susie King Taylor (Episode 3) Mary Ann Shadd Cary (Episode 33) The Abolition Movement of the 1830s (Episode 45) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 world, in both dress and occupation. What captured the attention of the outside world, though, were the sexual practices of the Oneidans, who believed in complex marriage where every man and every woman in the community were married to each other and where birth control was achieved via male continence.  Joining me to discuss the Oneida community, and its most infamous resident, presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, is New York Times bestselling writer Susan Wels, author of An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder. 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 “Walk Together (Acoustic Piano and Guitar Version)” by Olexy from Pixabay. The episode image is “Oneida Community,” photograph taken between 1860 and 1880; image is in the Public Domain and available via the Library of Congress. Additional sources: “The First Great Awakening.” by Christine Leigh Heyrman, Divining America, TeacherServe©, National Humanities Center. “Great Awakening,” History.com, Originally posted March 7, 2018, Updated September 20, 2019. “Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening,” USHistory.org. “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic: Religion and the New Republic,” Library of Congress. “The Second Great Awakening,” by Isaiah Dicker, Guided History: History Research Guides by Boston University Students. “‘My Heart Was So Full of Love That It Overflowed': Charles Grandison Finney Experiences Conversion,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. “People & Ideas: Charles Finney,” God in America, PBS. “The Utopia of Sharing in Oneida, N.Y.”by Beth Quinn Barnard, The New York Times, August 3, 2007. “The Rich, Sexy History Of Oneida — Commune And Silverware Maker,” WBUR, May 20, 2016. “Oneida Community (1848-1880): A Utopian Community,” Social Welfare History Project  (June 2017), Virginia Commonwealth University. “Oneida Community Collection,” Syracuse University. Oneida Mansion House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 eventually became the Diversity Visa Lottery, established as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. Despite the program's roots in demand from Irish immigrants, the majority of the recipients of diversity visas have been awarded to immigrants from Africa, with more than 480,000 individuals and their families immigrating to the United States from Africa between 1995 and 2022 via the Diversity Visa Program. Joining me this week for a deep dive into the diversity visa lottery, and its impact on West African countries, is historian Dr. Carly Goodman, Senior Editor at the Washington Posts's Made by History and author of Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music “Melancholic Afrobeat” by artbybigvee from Pixabay and is available in the public domain. The episode image is “Loterie Americaine visa services in French and English in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2015,” and is used by permission of the photographer, Carly Goodman. Additional sources: “Find out if you are eligible for the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery and how to register,” USA.gov. “Immigration History Timeline,” Immigration History. “Fifty Years On, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Continues to Reshape the United States,” by Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman, and Isabel Ball, Migration Policy Institute, October 15, 2015. “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 – Civil Rights Movement Era,” The Asian American Education Project. “European Immigrants in the United States,” by Elijah Alperin and Jeanne Batalova, Migration Policy Institute, August 1, 2018. “1986: Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986,” Library of Congress. “Diversity visa lottery, criticized after New York terrorist attack, was invented to help the Irish,” by Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post,  November 1, 2017. “The ‘Diversity' Green Card Lottery Was Originally for White Immigrants,” by Becky Little, History.com, Originally posted November 2, 2017; Updated March 9, 2019. “U.S. Lottery will award 20,000 visas in 1989-90,” by Karlyn Barker, The Washington Post, March 2, 1989. “While Immigration Reform Waits, Lottery Fills the Void,” by Lisa Wormwood, Special to The Christian Science Monitor, April 13, 1989. “Fact Sheet: Temporary Protected Status (TPS),” National Immigration Forum, updated February 1, 2023. “Temporary Protected Status,” U.S. Department of Justice. “Family Reunification Is the Bedrock of U.S. Immigration Policy,” by Philip E. Wolgin, The Center for American Progress, February 12, 2018. “What is the Diversity Visa Program?” FWD.us, September 14, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 themselves and their children, leaning on their dependent status and the obligations of their husbands and the state to provide for them.  I'm joined this week by Dr. ​​Jacqueline Beatty, Assistant Professor of History at York College of Pennsylvania, and author of In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America. 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 “Chester,” composed by William Billings in 1778, performed by the United States Marine Corps Band in 2014; the recording is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is: ”A New England kitchen. A hundred years ago,” by H. W. Peirce, ca. 1876, via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources: “When Women Lost the Vote,” Museum of the American Revolution. “Lydia Chapin Taft – New England's First Woman Voter,” New England Historical Society. “Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March - 5 April 1776 [electronic edition],”. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society.  “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776 [electronic edition],” Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society. “On the Trail of America's First Women to Vote,”  by Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; Published Feb. 24, 2020, Updated Aug. 7, 2020. “Coverture: The Word You Probably Don't Know But Should,” National Women's History Museum, September 4, 2012. “Boston: A City Steeped in U.S. History,” History.com; Published March 7, 2019, Updated March 13, 2019. “Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery,” The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “Philadelphia: Colonial City to Modern Metropolis [video],” Penn Museum, July 6, 2018. “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery - March 1, 1780,” Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. “Historic Overview,” Explore Charleston. “How Slavery Built Charleston,” by Brentin Mock, Bloomberg, July 20, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 America,” Birmingham, Alabama. In Project Confrontation, the plan was to escalate, and escalate, and escalate. And escalate they did, until even President John F. Kennedy couldn't look away. Joining me now to help us learn more about the Birmingham campaign is journalist Paul Kix, author of You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America. 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 “An Inspired Morning” by PianoAmor via Pixabay. The episode image is “Civil rights leaders left to right Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King, Jr., at a press conference during the Birmingham Campaign,” in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 16, 1963, by photographer M.S. Trikosko, and available via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources and References: “Albany Movement,” King Encyclopedia, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. “The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),” National Archives. “The Birmingham Campaign,” PBS. “Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (1922-2011),” National Park Service. “Opinion: Harry Belafonte and the Birmingham protests that changed America,” by Paul Kix, Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2023. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," by Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963, Posted on the University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center website. “The Children's Crusade: When the Youth of Birmingham Marched for Justice,” by Alexis Clark, History.com, October 14, 2020. “Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights by President John F. Kennedy [video],” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Dickinson to Frederick Douglass played with plant imagery to make sense of their world and their country and to bolster their political arguments.  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Kuhn, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Virginia, and author of The Garden Politic: Global Plants and Botanical Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America. 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 “Down by the Salley Gardens,” performed by Celtic Aire, United States Air Force Band; the composition is traditional, and the lyrics are by Willian Butler Yeats; the recording is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is from Plate VI of Familiar Lectures on Botany, by Almira Phelps, 1838 edition. Additional Sources and References: “The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved the Plant Kingdom,” by Luke Keogh, Arnoldia Volume 74, Issue 4, May 17, 2017. “History of Kew,” Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “The Great British Tea Heist,” by Sarah Rose, Smithsonian Magazine, March 9, 2010. “Almira Phelps,” History of American Women.  “‘How Many Stamens Has Your Flower?' The Botanical Education of Emily Dickinson,” by Anne Garner, New York Academy of Medicine, April 28, 2016. “Emily Dickinson's Schooling: Amherst Academy,” Emily Dickinson Museum. “Gardens at the Stowe Center,” Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. “Hawthorne in the Garden,” by W.H. Demick, The House of the Seven Gables, July 1, 2020. “Frederick Douglass On How Slave Owners Used Food As A Weapon Of Control,” by Nina Martyris, NPR, February 10, 2017. “Cedar Hill: Frederick Douglass's Rustic Sanctuary,” National Park Service. “Amoral Abolitionism: Frederick Douglass and the Environmental Case against Slavery,” by Cristin Ellis, American Literature 1 June 2014; 86 (2): 275–303.  “‘Buried in Guano': Race, Labor, and Sustainability,” by Jennifer C. James,  American Literary History 24, no. 1 (2012): 115–42. “The Intelligent Plant,” by Michael Pollan, The New Yorker, December 15, 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, 2015. The Overstory, by Richard Powers, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben, Greystone Books, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 preparing to fight with makeshift weapons. The occupation marked the finale of a cross-country caravan, the Trail of Broken Treaties, and the activists were demanding the consideration of their Twenty-Point Position Paper, which called for a restoration of Indigenous rights and recognition of Native American sovereignty. Joining me to help us understand the 1972 occupation and to discuss the larger story of native presence and activism in DC is Dr. Elizabeth Rule, author of Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation's Capital and Founder of the Guide to Indigenous Lands Project. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Hank Adams, in the fall of 1972, addressing the mission of the cross-country trip to Washington, D.C., from the Hank Adams Collection that was donated to the Washington Secretary of State and is included in: “Hank Adams: “An Uncommon Life.” Additional Sources: “The Trail of Broken Treaties, 1972,” National Park Service “The Trail of Broken Treaties: A March on Washington, DC 1972,” William & Mary Libraries. “Native Americans Take Over Bureau of Indian Affairs: 1972,” by Bob Simpson, The Washington Area Spark, March 26, 2013. “Trail of Broken Treaties 20-Point Position Paper,” October 1872, Minneapolis, Minnesota. “When Native American Activists Occupied Alcatraz Island,” by Evan Andrews, History.com, original November 20, 2014; updated September 1, 2018. “Occupy Wounded Knee: A 71-Day Siege and a Forgotten Civil Rights Movement,” by Emily Chertoff, The Atlantic, October 23, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Democratic Party. When Black voters started to vote for Democratic candidates in larger numbers, starting with the 1936 re-election of FDR, whose New Deal policies had helped poor African Americans, Republicans began to turn their sights toward white Southern voters. By the 1964 Presidential election, Republican Barry Goldwater was actively courting those voters, winning five states in the deep South, despite his otherwise poor showing nationwide. Republican Richard Nixon successfully refined the strategy in his 1968 defeat of Democrat Hubert Humphrey. In the following decades, the Republican Party continued to employ the Southern Strategy, eventually leading to a complete realignment of the parties. Joining me for a deep dive on the Southern Strategy is Dr. Kevin M. Kruse, Professor of History at Princeton University, author of several books on the political and social history of twentieth-century America, and co-editor with fellow Princeton History Dr. Julian E. Zelizer of Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies about Our Past.  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 Richard Nixon campaigning in 1968; it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The mid-episode audio is the "Go, Go Goldwater" radio jingle produced by Erwin Wasey, Ruthrauff and Ryan, Inc. (EWR & R) from the 1964 presidential campaign; it is widely available on YouTube and is sampled here for educational purpose. Additional Sources: To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party, by Heather Cox Richardson, Basic Books, 2021. “The Kansas-Nebraska Act,” United States Senate. “Missouri Compromise (1820),” National Archives. “Whig Party,” History.com, Originally Published November 6, 2009, Last Updated July 29, 2022. “Republican Party founded,” History.com, Originally Published February 9, 2010; Last Updated March 18, 2021. “What we get wrong about the Southern strategy,” by Angie Maxwell, The Washington Post, July 26, 2019. “Exclusive: Lee Atwater's Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy,” by Rick Perlstein, The Nation, November 13, 2012. “How the Southern Strategy Made Donald Trump Possible,” by Jeet Heer, The New Republic, February 18, 2016. “Paul Manafort's role in the Republicans' notorious 'Southern Strategy,'” by Sue Sturgis, Facing South, November 3, 2017. “Candace Owens wrongly called GOP's Southern strategy a ‘myth,'” by Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post, April 9, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 alderpersons on City Council, led by the “the Eddies,” Aldermen Ed Vrdolyak and Edward M. Burke, opposed Washington's every move. This week we look at Washington's rise to the 5th floor of City Hall, who helped him get there, and the struggles he faced once elected. Joining me to help us learn more about Harold Washington is Dr. Gordon K. Mantler, Executive Director of the University Writing Program and Associate Professor of Writing and of History at the George Washington University and author of The Multiracial Promise: Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America. 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 Harold Washington, US Federal Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “WASHINGTON, Harold,” HIstory, Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives. “Mayor Harold Washington Biography,” Chicago Public Library. “Achieving the Dream: Harold Washington,” WTTW Chicago. “Who Was Harold Washington? A Look Back at the Legacy of Chicago's First Black Mayor,” NBC5 Chicago, April 15, 2022. “How Mayor Harold Washington Shaped the City of Chicago,” by Adam Doster, Chicago Magazine, April 29, 2013. “Punch 9 for Harold Washington [video],” directed by Joe Winston, 2021. “The Legacy of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington [video],” UChicago Institute of Politics, Streamed live on Apr 27, 2022. “ILLINOIS SETS UP AT LARGE VOTING; Governor Signs Emergency Bill for House Election,” The New York Times, January 30, 1964, Page 14. “Hyde Park Stories: Harold Washington Park,” by Patricia L. Morse, Hyde Park Historical Society, February 22, 2023.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, inadvertently became one of the many PR missteps of the Johnson administration, as it occurred in the midst of the Tet Offensive. Just one month later LBJ announced on national television that he would not seek reelection, and today the fashion show is largely forgotten.  Joining me to help us understand how and why Lady Bird Johnson ended up hosting a White House Fashion Show, and why it was never repeated, is fashion history Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, author of Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode is “The Stars and Stripes Forever March,” composed by John Philip Sousa and performed by the United States Marine Corps Band; the audio is in the public domain. The episode image is from the 1968 “Discover America” White House Fashion Show, available via the National Archives (NAID: 218517833, Local ID: 306-SSA-68-8218-CC5), and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Claudia Alta Taylor ‘Lady Bird' Johnson,” The White House. “The Environmental First Lady,” Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, The University of Texas at Autin. “Spotlight: 1968 White House Fashion Show,” by Kaitlyn Crain Enriquez, National Archives - The Unwritten Record, August 10, 2021. “The White House Fashion Show [video],” White House Historical Association, posted on YouTube on June 14, 2022. “The 1968 Fashion Show, the History Lesson Melania Missed,” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Politico, March 5, 2018. “Why the First White House Fashion Show Was Also the Last,” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Slate, October 10, 2014. “Discover America Scarf,” Frankie Welch's Americana: Fashion, Scarves, and Politics, UGA Special Collections Library Online Exhibitions. “TET: Who Won?” by Don Oberdorfer, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2004. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Ann Trow Lohman, and she had never even been to France, but she managed to combine medical skill with her carefully crafted public persona to become tremendously wealthy, while providing a much-needed service. As the legal landscape of the United States grew ever more conservative, Madame Restell did her best to evade the authorities, and then Anthony Comstock knocked on her door. Joining me this week to help us understand more about Madame Restell is historian and writer Jennifer Wright, author of Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist. 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 part of Twelve Pieces for piano, op. 40, No. 9, Valse in F-sharp minor, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1878, performed by Kevin McLeod, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is “The arrest of abortionist Ann Lohman (a.k.a. Madame Restell) by Anthony Comstock,” from the February 23, 1878, edition of the New York Illustrated Times; scanned from The Wickedest Woman in New York: Madame Restell, the Abortionist by Clifford Browder; available via Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain. Additional sources: “Madame Restell: The Abortionist of Fifth Avenue,” by Karen Abbott, Smithsonian Magazine, November 27, 2012. “Life Story: Ann Trow Lohman, a.k.a. Madame Restell (1812 - 1878),” Women and the American Story, New York Historical Society. “When 'The Wickedest Woman of New York' Lived on Fifth Avenue,” by Simon Scully, Mental Floss, October 2, 2020. “Madame Restell's Other Profession,” By Christopher Gray, The New York Times, October 10, 2013. “‘Sex and the Constitution': Anthony Comstock and the reign of the moralists,” by Geoffrey Stone, The Washington Post, March 23, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 15,000-20,000 observers was the culmination of a commission appointed first by President Ford and then by President Carter, and was and funded by Congress for $5 million to investigate how federal legislation could best help women. The excited delegates believed that the conference would change history, so what happened, and why do so few people now even remember that it happened. Joining me to help us learn more about the National Women's Conference are Dr. Nancy Beck Young, the Moores Professor of History; and Dr. Elizabeth Rodwell, Assistant Professor of Digital Media, who are both on the leadership team for The Sharing Stories from 1977 project through the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. 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 “Retro Disco Old School” by Musictown from Pixabay. The episode image is from the final mile of the Torch Relay on its arrival to Houston on November 18, 1977. From left to right: Bella Abzug, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, Michele Cearcy, Betty Friedan, Billie Jean King. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration. Additional sources: Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics, by Marjorie J. Spruill, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. “Women Unite! Lessons from 1977 for 2017,” by Marjorie Spruill, Process :A Blog for American History, from the Organization of American Historians, The Journal of American History, and The American Historian, January 20, 2017. “The 1977 Conference on Women's Rights That Split America in Two,” by Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 15, 2017. “Sisters of ‘77 [video],” Directed by Cynthia Salzman Mondell and Allen Mondell, March 1, 2005. “Spotlight: National Women's Conference of 1977,” by Chucik, National Archives, November 16, 2017. “Women on the Move: Texas and the Fight for Women's Rights,” Texas Archive of the Moving Image.  “National Women's Conference, 1977,” by Debbie Mauldin Cottrell, Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. “The 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston Was Supposed to Change the World. What Went Wrong?” by Dianna Wray, Houstonia Magazine, January 20, 2018. “Road Warrior: After fifty years, Gloria Steinem is still at the forefront of the feminist cause,” by Jane Kramer, The New Yorker, October 12, 2015. “What's left undone 45 years after the National Women's Conference,” by Errin Haines, The 19th, March 25, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 been editing a beloved monthly periodical for children called Juvenile Miscellany for seven years. But her popularity crumbled precipitously when she published An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, arguing for the immediate emancipation of enslaved people. Child never stopped writing or fighting for the causes she believed in, but she never again reached the literary heights to which she'd seemed poised to ascend. Joining me to help us learn more about Lydia Maria Child is Dr. Lydia Moland, Professor of Philosophy at Colby College and author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The poem mid-episode, read by Teddy, is “The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day,” written by Lydia Maria Child and originally published in 1844 in Flowers for Children, Volume 2. The image is of Lydia Maria Child, from “Representative Women,” by L. Schamer, produced by Louis Prang Lithography Company, in 1870; the image is available courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and is in the public domain. Additional sources: “Lydia Maria Child,” Poetry Foundation. “Lydia Maria Child,” David Ruggles Center for History and Education. “October 20, 1880: Lydia Maria Child Dies,” Mass Moments. “Lydia Maria Child 1802-1880,” From a talk titled, “Here are some of her accomplishments” by Jane Sciacca, Wayland Historical Society, October 2018. “Lydia Maria Child,” National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. “William Lloyd Garrison,” National Park Service. “Lydia Maria Child Taught Americans to Make Do With Less,“ by Lydia Moland, Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2022. “Activists have always been frustrated at allies' insistence on gradual change,” by Lydia Moland, Washington Post, March 28, 2022. “Books by Child, Lydia Maria,” Project Gutenberg “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself,” by Harriet A. Jacobs; edited by Lydia Maria Child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, Indiana, during their annual company picnic. Tragically, the ship capsized just 19 feet from the wharf in the Chicago River, killing 844 people in one of the worst maritime disasters in United States history. Joining me on this episode to help us understand more about the tragic Eastland disaster are Ted and Barb Wachholz, who co-founded the Eastland Disaster Historical Society with Barb's sister, Susan Decker, and their mom, Jean Decker. Barb and Susan's grandmother, Borghild Amelia Aanstad, who went by Bobbie, was 13 years old, when she, along with her sister Solveig, Mother Mariane, and Uncle Olaf, survived the capsizing of the Eastland. 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 “Somewhere a Voice is Calling,” written by Arthur Tate in 1911. This recording is by the Revillon Trio in 1915 and is in the Public Domain. It is available via the Internet Archive. The image is a photograph taken on July 24, 1915 during the rescue operations; it is freely available via the Eastland Disaster Historical Society. Sources: Eastland Disaster Historical Society The Eastland Disaster by Ted Wachholz, Arcadia Publishing (SC), August 17, 2005. “The Forgotten Disaster of the SS Eastland [video],” Ask a Mortician, September 23, 2022. “The Eastland Disaster Killed More Passengers Than the Titanic and the Lusitania. Why Has It Been Forgotten?” by Susan Q. Stranahan, October 27, 2014. “The Eastland Disaster: New look at 100-year-old tragedy [video],” Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2015. “The Eastland Disaster,” WTTW Chicago. “1915 – Eastland Disaster,” Chicagology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 large population of people of Polish descent and that Chicago is important historically to American Polonia. From the earliest Polish immigrants to Chicago in the 1830s through today, Poles have helped shape the culture, politics, religion, and food of Chicago. This week we dive into that history. Joining me to help us understand more about Polish Chicago is Dr. Dominic A. Pacyga, professor emeritus of history in the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago and author of several books on Polish immigrants and Chicago, including American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago in 2019. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is “Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 4, in B Flat Minor,” by Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, performed by Polish pianist and Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski in in the early 1920s and captured on an Aeolian Company "DUO-ART" reproducing piano; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is the Tadeusz Kościuszko Monument, an outdoor sculpture by artist Kazimierz Chodziński, installed in the median of East Solidarity Drive, near Chicago's Shedd Aquarium; the photograph was taken by Matthew Weflen on Sunday, February 19, 2023, and is used with permission. Additional Sources: “Poles,”by Dominic Pacyga, Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2005. “Can Chicago Brag about the Size of its Polish Population?” by Jesse Dukes, WBEZ Chicago, October 26, 2015. “Where Have All the Polish Pols Gone?” by Edward McClelland, Chicago Magazine, January 6, 2020. “How Chicago Became a Distinctly Polish American City,” by Marek Kępa, Culture.PL, April 27, 2020. “Explore Polish culture in Chicago's neighborhoods,” Choose Chicago. “Chicago's Milwaukee Av. to be renamed Polish Heritage Corridor in honour of city's Poles,” by Stuart Dowell, The First News, June 20, 2022. “Chicago, The Polish City,” Interview of Dominic Pacyga by Łukasz Kożuchowski, Polish History. “Chicago's Polish Constitution Day Parade is back. This year, it has a new theme,” by Adriana Cardona-Maguidad, WBEZ Chicago, May 3, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. for several decades, Ebony helped shape Black culture and perceptions of Black history. Johnson Publishing Company helped shape Chicago history, too, when they opened their Loop location in 1972, at 820 S. Michigan Ave. The now-iconic 11-story, 110,000 square-foot building was the first major downtown building to be designed by an African American architect, John W. Moutoussamy, and the first skyscraper owned by an African American in the Loop.  Joining me this week to help us understand more about Johnson Publishing is Dr. E. James West, a Lecturer at University College London, co-director of the Black Press Research Collective, and author of Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America, A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago, and Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is from the Sol Taishoff Award ceremony on February 25, 1986, where Don Hewitt, John Johnson and John Quinn were recognized for Excellence in Journalism. The video was aired on C-SPAN and is in the public domain. The episode image is “Ebony magazine, Volume LX, Number 12 honoring the life of John H. Johnson, the founder of Johnson Publishing Company, publisher of Ebony magazine,” from the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Bunch Family. Additional Sources: “Succeeding Against the Odds: The Autobiography of a Great American Businessman,” by John H. Johnson and Lerone Bennett, Jr., Johnson Publishing Company, October 1, 1992. “John H. Johnson, 87, Founder of Ebony, Dies,” by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, August 9, 2005. “The Radical Blackness of Ebony Magazine,” by Brent Staples, The New York Times, August 11, 2019. “Lerone Bennett Jr., Historian of Black America, Dies at 89,” by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, February 16, 2018. “75 Years of Ebony Magazine,” The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian. “Under new ownership, 'Ebony' magazine bets on boosting Black business,” by Andrew Craig, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, October 31, 2021. “New apartments pay homage to Ebony/Jet building's history,” by Dennis Rodkin, Crain's Chicago Business, September 9, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Chicago, is one of the largest single-site jails in the country and incarcerates nearly 100,000 people a year. The history of the jail's expansion is a story of urban politics and patronage, battles over criminal justice reform, and the racist underpinnings of mass incarceration.  Joining me to help us learn more about the Cook County Jail is Dr. Melanie Newport, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and author of This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-roll audio is “Slow E-Guitar Blues Solo” by JuliusH from Pixabay. The image of the Cook County Department of Corrections is by Stephen Hogan on Flickr and was taken on October 24, 2017; it is used under Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0). Additional Sources: “Learning about American History and Politics through American Jails,” by Elaina Hancock, UConn Today, November 15, 2022. “Jails and Prisons,” by Jess Maghan, Encyclopedia of Chicago. “Cook County Jail's History,” Cook County Sheriff's Office. “A rare glimpse into a transformative time at Cook County Jail,” by Renata Cherlise, Chicago Reader, December 9, 2016. “Blues in the Big House [video]” “When a Psychologist Was in Charge of Jail,” by Melanie Newport, The Marshall Project, May 21, 2015. “The COVID-19 Struggle In Chicago's Cook County Jail,” Cheryl Corley, NPR, April 13, 2020. “Cook County to Proceed With End of Cash Bail in Wake of SAFE-T Act Ruling,” NBC5 Chicago, December 29, 2022. Organizations to support: Chicago Community Jail Support Chicago Community Bond Fund Uptown People's Law Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 final printing in 1966, the Green Book had gone international, with a 100-page book that included not just friendly businesses throughout the United States but also hotels and resorts that would be safe for African American travelers in Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa, along with a list of currency exchange rates.  Joining me this week to help us learn more about why African American travelers needed the Green Book and how Victor Green and his family created such an important and long-lasting publication is award-winning television and radio broadcaster and financial educator Alvin Hall, author of the new book, Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The musical interlude and music under the outro is: "Whiskey on the Mississippi," by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License. The image is "The Travelers' Green Book: 1961," Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Additional Sources: “Navigating The Green Book,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. “How the Green Book Helped African-American Tourists Navigate a Segregated Nation,” by Jacinda Townsend, Smithsonian Magazine, April 2016. “The Green Book: The Black Travelers' Guide to Jim Crow America,” by Evan Andews, History.com, March 13, 2019. “Traveling While Black: The Green Book's Black History,” by Brent Staples, The New York Times, January 25, 2019. “A look inside the Green Book, which guided Black travelers through a segregated and hostile America,” by George Petras and Janet Loehrke, USA Today, February 19, 2021. “The Movie Green Book Is Named for a Real Guide to Travel in a Segregated World. Its Real History Offers a Key Lesson for Today,” by Arica L. Coleman, Time Magazine, November 17, 2018. “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration,” by Isabel Wilkerson, Smithsonian Magazine, September 2016. “Sundown Towns,” by Ross Coen, BlackPast, August 23, 2020. “Sundown Towns,” Tougaloo College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 this history while they lived in Italy: Caroline Crane Marsh, the wife of the United States Minister; journalist Anne Hampton Brewster; and Emily Bliss Gould, founder of a vocational school for Italian children. Joining me to help us learn more about these American women in Italy in the late 19th Century is Dr. Etta Madden, the Clif & Gail Smart Professor of English at Missouri State University and author of several books, including Engaging Italy: American Women's Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo credits: Engraving of Emily Bliss Gould, by A.H. Ritchie, based on a portrait by Lorenzo Suszipj, in A Life Worth Living, by Leonard Woolsey Bacon, 1879, Public Domain; Anne Hampton Brewster, Albumen photograph, ca. 1874, McAllister Collection, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Caroline Crane Marsh, ca 1866, Fratelli Alinari, Florence, Special Collections Library, University of Vermont.  Additional Sources: “How Italy became a country, in one animated map,” by Zack Beauchamp, Vox, December 1, 2014. “Issues Relevant to U.S. Foreign Diplomacy: Unification of Italian States,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State. “The Italian Risorgimento: A timeline,” The Florentine, March 10, 2011. “About George Perkins Marsh,” The Marsh Collection, Smithsonian. “Ambasciatrice, Activist, Auntie, Author: Caroline Crane Marsh,” by Etta Madden, New York Public Library, December 19, 2018. “Traveling with Caroline Crane Marsh,” University of Vermont Special Collections, June 11, 2020. “Anne Hampton Brewster,” Archival Gossip Collection. “Anne Hampton Brewster: Nineteenth-Century News from Rome,” by Etta Madden, November 21, 2018. “Anne Hampton Brewster papers finding aid,” Library Company of Philadelphia. “Emily Bliss Gould: An American in Italy–A Guest Post,” by Etta Madden, History in the Margins, September 30, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, demanding a number of reforms, including a role for students in college governance, the end of mandatory ROTC participation, athletic scholarships, African American studies curriculum, and a higher quality of instruction in engineering courses.  Joining me to tell the story of the Tuskegee student uprising is Dr. Brian Jones, Director of New York Public Library's Center for Educators and Schools and author of The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Photo credit:  The photo used for this episode comes from: http://sammyyoungejr.weebly.com/the-movement.html. Additional Sources: “The Overlooked History of a Student Uprising That Helped Institutionalize Black Studies in the U.S.,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time, October 4, 2022. “History of Tuskegee University,” Tuskegee University. “Tuskegee Institute's Founding,” National Park Service. “Tuskegee Institute--Training Leaders,” African American Odyssey, Library of Congress “Tuskegee University (1881-),” by Allison O'Connor, Blackpast, October 27, 2009. “Booker T. Washington,” History.com, October 29, 2009. “The Tuskegee Student Uprising & Black education in America,” The Black Table, S1 E38. “Tuskegee Halts All its Classes; Tells Students to Go Home – Acts After Protests,” The New York Times, April 9, 1968. “The Moral Force of the Black University,” by Brian Jones, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 3, 2022. “Jan. 3, 1966: Sammy Younge Jr. Murdered,” Zinn Education Project. “Nov. 14, 1960: Gomillion v. Lightfoot,” Zinn Education Project. Sammy L. Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student To Die In The Black Liberation Movement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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-founder of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women's Political Caucus, both in 1971, and co-founder of the National Congress of Black Women in 1984. Toward the end of her life, Chisholm told an interviewer: “I want history to remember me … as a Black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.”  Joining me in this episode is Dr. Anastasia Curwood, Professor of History and Director of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies at the University of Kentucky, and author of Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics.  Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is Shirley Chisholm speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, on July 12, 1972. The photographer was Warren K. Leffler, and the photograph is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress.  The audio clip of Shirley Chisholm speaking is from her presidential campaign announcement on January 25, 1972, in Brooklyn; the audio is courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archive, via C-SPAN. The audio clip of Rep. Barbara Lee is from Two Broads Talking Politics, Episode 433: Barbara Lee, which originally aired on October 9, 2020; the episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Kelly Therese Pollock and is used with express permission. Additional Sources: “‘Unbought and Unbossed': When a Black Woman Ran for the White House,” by Jackson Landers, Smithsonian Magazine, April 25, 2016. “‘Unbought and Unbossed': How Shirley Chisholm Helped Paved the Path for Kamala Harris Nearly Five Decades Ago,” by Stuart Emmrich, Vogue, August 20, 2020. “Politicians reflect on Shirley Chisholm's legacy 50 years after her historic presidential run,” by Anna Lucente Sterling, NY1, February 17, 2022. “CHISHOLM, Shirley Anita,” House.gov. “What You May Not Know About TC Alum Shirley Chisholm,” Teacher's College, Columbia University, Published Wednesday, November 30, 2022. “Shirley Chisholm, 'Unbossed' Pioneer in Congress, Is Dead at 80,” by James Barron, The New York Times, January 3, 2005. “Congressional Black Caucus swears in its largest group in history,” by Cheyanne M. Daniels, The Hill, January 3, 2023. “Democratic women lawmakers who broke through in 2018 now step into leadership roles,” by Grace Panetta and Mel Leonor Barclay, The 19th, January 3, 2023. “Rep. Lauren Underwood elected to House Democratic leadership position,” by Lynn Sweet, Chicago SunTimes, December 1, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices