Podcast appearances and mentions of bridget biddy mason

Bridget Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to California when her enslaver followed Mormon leader, Brigham Young to the west. While others road in wagons or on horseback, she walked the entire way, while caring for her new born baby. Her story is one of survival, courage, and strength that leads her to become one of the most successful and wealthiest black women of her time. We love our National Parks and we know you do too but when you're out there, remember to enjoy the view but watch your back. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe from wherever you're listening to NPAD! Become part of our Outsider family on Patreon  or Apple Subscriptions to gain access to ad-free episodes, bonus content, and more. Follow our socials Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. To share a Trail Tale, suggest a story, access merch, and browse our book recommendations - head over to our website. Thank you so much to our partners, check them out! BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Microdose Gummies: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order. IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping. Alo Moves: Use code NPAD to get a free 30-day subscription. Sources: NPS, LA Conservancy, NPS (2), NPS (3), NPS (4) Book: Biddy Mason: A Place of her Own by Camille Gavin

This episode explores Bridget "Biddy" Mason, a woman who went from being an enslaved midwife to becoming an entrepreneur, wealthy landowner, and philanthropist. Go to the Instagram page @exploreblackhistory to enroll in Explore Black History online classes for kids, download the free Black History E-Coloring Book, and access the link for the free Discussion Guide for today's episode.

If you're interested in learning about the Los Angeles real estate investor and philanthropist who began as an enslaved woman petitioning for her freedom, then my Bridget "Biddy" Mason Black History Facts profile is for you.   Show notes and sources are available at http://noirehistoir.com/blog/bhf-bridget-biddy-mason.

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Born enslaved, Biddy traveled with her master across the United States to settle in the new Mormon Utopia of Utah before heading even farther west to California. When he sought to return with Biddy to Texas, where her children would have been—as far as Texas law was concerned—immediately enslaved, she enlisted the help of a few free Black people, and successfully sued her owner for her freedom. After that, without ever learning to read or write, Biddy became a real estate entrepreneur and businesswoman who helped build the city of Los Angeles from the ground up. — A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the podcast about the Broads who helped shape our world! 3 Ways you can help support the podcast: Write a review on Apple Podcasts Share your favorite episode on social Tell a friend! — Broads You Should Know is hosted by Sara Gorsky. IG: @SaraGorsky Web master / site design: www.BroadsYouShouldKnow.com — Broads You Should Know is produced by Sara Gorsky & edited by Chloe Skye

 Today we are going to talk about Bridget “Biddy” Mason, the grandmother of Los Angeles, one of the most influential Black women in California. She overcame unimaginable prejudice and inequity and was one of the first prominent landowning citizens of Los Angeles. Briget was born into slavery in Georgia on August 15 of 1818. Her parents were of mixed African American and Native American descent. She wasn't given a last name. Because of this common practice with slaves, many African Americans can only go back so far in their ancestry. Stolen. One of her several slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina started calling her Biddy. Biddy spent much of her childhood enslaved on John Smithson's plantation in South Carolina, performing tasks in the cotton fields, the South's most important crop. Biddy was forbidden to learn to read or write but she learned about herbs and midwifery from the older enslaved women. Smithson gave her, two other female house servants, and a blacksmith as a wedding gift to his cousins, Robert and Rebecca Smith. The Smiths were successful landowners in Logtown, Mississippi. Biddy was 18. Smith was Mormon convert who cultivated cotton and traded slaves. Although, Mormons were better known as opponents of slavery.  For the Smith family, Biddy did domestic work, toiled hard in the cotton fields and performed farm labor. At other times, she worked as a midwife and house nurse — a job she liked. Biddy took care of Rebecca Smith, who was often ill and helped her during the birth of her six children.  During her years in Mississippi, Biddy gave birth to Ellen, Ann and Harriet, aged ten, four, and a newborn. It's likely that Smith himself fathered these children. Like countless other enslaved women, Biddy was almost certainly the victim of sexual violence. In 1848, Smith decided to follow the call of the church with his fellow Mississippi Saints in the great Mormon Exodus to Utah. He moved his family and his 14 slaves west to the Salt Lake Valley where Joseph Smith established a new Mormon community seventeen years prior. The area was still part of Mexico at the time but would soon become Utah.   Smith, his wife and children sat in the wagon on the journey while  Biddy, her daughters and the other slaves walked barefoot behind the 300 wagon caravan. Biddy was in charge of herding the animals for the 1,700 mile trek.   While they walked from Mississippi through Illinois and Colorado towards Salt Lake City, Biddy had a ton of responsibilities, including herding the cattle, preparing and serving the campfire meals and setting up and breaking down camp. All this while acting as the midwife and herbalist for the party, and still tending to her three young daughters. The trail must have been disturbing, frightening and strange. There were moments when surely there was a chance to escape, and for this reason, Biddy's value increased on the trail. With young children, she didn't have the option to leave. They lived in Utah for three years until Governor Brigham Young authorized another Mormon community, this time in San Bernardino. Brigham Young warned Smith that California, had been admitted to the Union as a free, non-slave state the year prior. Smith ignored his warnings and set out with his family and slaves and a 150-wagon caravan in 1851, to establish the Mormon settlement and extend the reach of his Church.  When Smith arrived in San Bernardino, he became one of the counselors to the bishop and owned a very large property. He was among the wealthiest settlers in San Bernardino. Held in bondage in the Mormon colony were dozens of African Americans as well as an untold number of local Native Americans, as well as an untold number of local Native Americans. San Bernardino was built, in part, by enslaved laborers like Biddy. Even though California was technically a free state, it was a land made up of unfree laborers of various kinds. Many indigenous people weer being forced to work in the Los Angeles "slave mart." This "slave mart" was the second most important source of municipal revenue in Los Angeles after the sale of licenses for saloons and gambling venues. On the weekends, local authorities would seek out and arrest intoxicated natives on dubious vagrancy charges. The Native Americans were thrown in a pen, and their labor for the coming week was auctioned off. If they were paid at the end of that week at all, they were usually paid in alcohol so they could get drunk, be arrested and continue the cycle.  In California, Biddy met two sets of couples who were free blacks. Charles and Elizabeth Flake Rowan and Robert and Minnie Owens. They urged her to legally contest her slave status in California. But she did not. Biddy remained enslaved in a “free” state for five more years as Smith maintained his southern way of life in California. He found himself increasingly at odds with fellow colonists and his own church who favorably disposed toward the practice of slavery. In 1855, the leaders of the Mormon colony in San Bernardino thought they were paying top dollar for 80,000 acres of land but had purchased only 35,000 acres. Fine print fuck up. When the colony sued the people who had sold them the land, they lost. The court allowed them to choose up to 35,000 acres anywhere in the larger area. The church chose Smith's ranch. It was turned over to them without any compensation and Smith was pissed. Without his property in California and in fear of losing his slaves, he sold off his cattle and conspired a plan to quietly leave the colony and move to Texas. Biddy and her fellow slaves did not trust Smith and they feared they were going to be sold and separated from their children. Smith lied to Biddy, promising her and her family's freedom in Texas. He needed her cooperation to get there and considered her valuable property. Without his land, he needed a place for them to all stay as he secured provisions for the ride east. He chose a camp of settlers originally from the American South in the Santa Monica Hills. Surely a more hospitable place for a slaveholder than Mormn san Bernardino.  One of Biddy's daughters was romantically involved with the Owens son. In December, Robert Owens and Elizabeth Rowan tipped off the local authorities. There was a group of Black Americans that were being illegally held in Santa Monica Canyon and they were about to be taken across state lines to the slave state of Texas. The sheriffs from San Bernardino and Los Angeles approached Judge Benjamin Hayes. Hayes issued a writ of habeas corpus, widely used against slaveholders in free states. Late on the night of New Year's Eve 1855, as Los Angeles residents celebrated the new year, sheriffs raided Smith's camp in the Santa Monica mountains.  Biddy's children were taken into protective custody at the city jail at the corner of Spring and Franklin Streets in downtown L.A. They let Biddy stay with the Owens family. Judge Hayes ordered Smith to bear all costs associated with the case and caring for those placed in guardianship of the sheriffs as they prepared for trial.  Los Angeles was then still a small town and the three day court hearing, starting on January 19, 1856 was a huge event.   Smith argued that Biddy and the rest of his slaves wished to go to Texas with him. Under state law, Black Americans could not testify against white Americans. Judge Hayes brought Biddy  and her eldest daughters into his chambers along with two trustworthy local gentlemen who acted as observers. Hayes asked Biddy if she was willingly leaving for Texas and Biddy told him, “I always do what I have been told, but I have always been afraid of this trip to Texas.”  Biddy also told the judge about the kind of treatment they had been subjected to over the years. Hannah, who was one of the women enslaved by Smith, gave an unbelievably damaging testimony in the courtroom. She reluctantly said that she wanted to go to Texas. There were long silences. Hannah had given birth to a baby boy only two weeks earlier and was terrified of what Smith would do to her if she refused to go with him to Texas. Hayes sent the San Bernardino sheriff up to talk with her and she said, I promised I would say in court that I wanted to go but I don't want to go. If you bring me back to court, I'll say I want to go but I don't want to go. The sheriff returned with an affidavit saying that, in fact, she did not want to go. Smith's behavior before and during the course of the hearing made it clear she had good reason to be afraid. It was awful. He threatened the Owens family, a neighborhood grocer and a doctor in the courtroom yelling “If this case isn't resolved on Southern principles, all people of color will pay the price.” A gang of Smith's sons and workers went to the jail and tried to intimidate the jailer and lure Biddy's daughters away from the jail with alcohol. Biddy's lawyer abruptly withdrew from the case after being  threatened and offered a bribe of $200.  Judge Hayes was furious with Smith, and clearly rattled by what he had heard. His family was behaving like thugs. Robert Smith was lying about trying to take them out of California and this disturbed Hayes. Smith, who was not being held, was a no-show on the last day of the trial, Monday, January 21. He ran off to Texas. He knew his reputation was ruined and was unwilling to pay court costs. Judge Hayes stated "all the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom and are free and cannot be held in slavery or involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State. It is therefore argued that they are entitled to their freedom and are free forever."    Amasa Mason Lyman was the mayor of San Bernardino and a Mormon Apostle. Biddy was a friend of Lyman and was fond of the Lyman family. Biddy took the surname Mason. It was her first last name.  With Smith gone, her daughters were released from protective custody and Mason moved her family into the Owens family home. They were now citizens in rough-and-tumble Los Angeles, where only around 80 of its 4,000 residents were Black. Her oldest daughter, Ellen, married the Owens' son, Charles. Owing to her experience and quality of work, she became one of the most popular midwives of that state, using the skills she learned as a slave.  Judge Hayes had a brother-in-law famous for being one of the first formally trained doctors in Southern California. Dr. John Strother Griffin, the “Father of East Los Angeles”. Griffin was impressed with her nursing skills and hired her as a nurse and midwife. She made $2.50 per day. That would be about $85 dollars in 2022. About 10 bucks a day for an 8 hour day. Griffin's office was on Main Street in the same county building as the jail in which she'd taken refuge with the 13 other enslaved people fighting for freedom. She offered her services to the prisoners free of charge. Biddy delivered hundreds of babies in Los Angeles and braved a smallpox epidemic, risking her life to tend to the sick. In her big black medicine bag, she carried the tools of her trade, and the papers Judge Hays had given her affirming that she was free. Biddy Mason worked as a midwife for ten years, saving her earnings carefully. When she was 48, she purchased her own property on the outskirts of Los Angeles where there were more gardens and vineyards than paved streets. She was the first African American woman to buy property in Los Angeles. It had a water ditch, and a willow fence running around the plot. Two lots for $250. Mason initially used the land for gardening and lived with the Owens. This purchase made her one of the first pioneers of Los Angeles. A remarkable feat for a woman who had spent the first 37 years of her life enslaved.  In her home, she established the city's first child care center for working parents. The First African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest African American church in the city. It was established on her Spring Street property. The initial meetings were held in Mason's home in 1872. She paid taxes and all expenses on church property to hold it for her people. The permanent church was eventually erected on land she donated at Eighth and Towne. Mason was quickly beloved and “known by every citizen” as “Aunt Biddy.”   She was also well received in the Los Angeles Spanish-speaking community. She could not read or write, but had become a fluent Spanish-speaker. She befriended Pio Pico, Mexico's last governor in California. Pico, Owens and Griffin were involved in real estate and all encouraged her to invest her money wisely and purchase property. Biddy invested in real estate in what is now the heart of downtown L.A. Finally, in 1884 Mason finally moved to her own land at 311 Spring Street and what is now Broadway. On one of the two lots, she built a two-story brick building which she rented the first floor to commercial interests and lived in an apartment on the second. Los Angeles was booming, and rural Spring Street was becoming crowded with shops and boarding houses. She sold the north lot for $1,500. A gain of nearly $13,000 today. She sold a property she had purchased on Olive Street for $375 in 1868, for $2,800. $82,000 today. Basically, in 1884, Biddy had over a 100,000 year in today's numbers. There were dirt streets and unpaved sidewalks, with curbs and gutters. The drainage system was primitive. Water was still channeled through the city through open ditches and bricklaid channels. Only fifteen streets had sewers running below their surface via riveted iron pipes. Three hundred foot tall poles holding electric lights had recently been erected on the major streets, illuminating with 3,000 candle power. Early that year, storms in February of 1884 caused the Los Angeles River to swell and cut new channels and the city's streets began to flood. The Aliso Street Bridge broke in two, part of the bridge was pushed down the river with half a dozen homes and they all lodged against the First Street Bridge,  creating a dam. The water rose, the river overflowed its banks and flooded the streets. Finally, the pressure from the rising water and the piled up homes and portion of bridge was too much for the First Street Bridge.  The west bank eroded when the First Street Bridge collapsed and thirty-five more houses were carried away. Along the riverbed, people sifted through the debris. Cradles, baby wagons, doors, cupboards, fences, pigs. Looking for something. Someone. Brooms, chickens, orange trees, beds. It was a dreadful sight. People were killed. Obviously, city lighting could not slow fooding, but it would aid in the recovery from the storm that had put a third of the city under water for hours. After the flood, Biddy arranged a deal with a grocer on Fourth and Spring. All of the families who lost their home were able to sign off for all of their groceries. Biddy Mason would pay the tab. Biddy owned land on San Pedro Street in Little Tokyo and was renting to over twenty tenants on three large plots near the now Grand Central Market. For the next three decades, she continued her real estate venture,  participating in the frontier town's transformation into an emerging metropolis. She used her wealth, a fortune of $300,000, the equivalent to $9.5 million in 2022 to feed and shelter the poor. She would visit the jail to leave a token and a prayerful hope with every prisoner. She opened a foster home, an elementary school for black children and a traveler's aid center. She was charming, effective and was deeply appreciated. In so many ways, she became the backbone of society. She helped her family buy properties around the city. She deeded a portion of her remaining Spring Street property to her grandsons “for the sum of love and affection and ten dollars.” She signed the deed with her customary fancy “X.” Still, never learning to read or write. Too busy making that cash.  Her success enabled her to support her extended family for generations.  Los Angeles had become a bustling city with 50,000 residents in the late 1880's. She was so well-known, at dawn each morning, a line would form in front of Mason's gate. Swarming with people in need of assistance. Her neighborhood developed quickly around her homestead and by the early 1890s, the main financial district of Los Angeles was one block from Mason's property. As she grew old and became too ill to see visitors, her grandson Robert was forced to turn people away each morning.  On January 15, 1891 Bridget “Biddy” Mason died at her beloved homestead in Los Angeles. She was 73 years old, one of the wealthiest Black women in the country. When she was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, her grave was left unmarked. The family held onto Mason's cherished “first homestead” until the Depression. Today the Broadway Spring Center Parking garage stands on the site.  Ninety-Seven years after her death, L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, and members of the church she founded held a ceremony, during which her grave was finally marked with a tombstone. Biddy Mason Memorial Park in downtown Los Angeles was erected one year later in her honor. Behind the Bradbury Building near Third and Spring, a memorial on an 80-foot-long poured concrete wall shows the timeline of Biddy Mason's life. November 16 was declared “Biddy Mason Day” in Los Angeles. Jackie Broxton said this, "She showed people what could happen when they were free and could set their own destiny". Jackie Broxton is the CEO & President of the Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation. The Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation was established in 2013 and began as an outreach ministry of the church Biddy founded. The Foundation caters to current and former foster youth in the local community. It should also be noted that Biddy's success story was the exception and not the rule. I believe that she attained so much, because she gave so much. As she navigated multiple levels of oppression, Biddy advocated for her community. When it comes to movements advancing our communities, culture, and policies in more equitable directions, it seems that women have always been at the forefront. Biddy Mason once said, “If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.” She is an inspiration that when given the support and opportunity, it is possible to overcome even the toughest of circumstances. Her story is one of resilience, compassion, and triumph. The fight continues today against the inherited systemic racism, sexism, and each and every intersection.  Sources: Los Angeles Almanac  Free Forever: The Contentious Hearing That Made Biddy Mason A Legend By  Hadley Meares The Life of Biddy Mason: From Slave to a Master by Fareeha Arshad Biddy Mason Collaborative National Park Service Biddy Mason: One of LA's first black real estate moguls By Hadley Meares Los Angeles Western Corral Honoring the legacy and 200th birthday of slave-turned-entrepreneur Biddy Mason by Michael Livingston Negro Trail-Blazers of California by Delilah Beasley  The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History by Dolores Hayden https://kentakepage.com/bridget-biddy-mason/ Bridget "Biddy" Mason: From Bondage to Wealth - Kentake Page Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation  

Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Mississippi but was able to secure her freedom in a California court after her owner tried to move her back East to Texas. Mason used her earnings from midwifery to buy property, establish the first AME church in Los Angeles, and build community as the wealthiest Black woman in LA.To learn more about Mason and her legacy, check out biddymasoncollaborative.com, laconservancy.org to learn more about Biddy Mason Memorial Park in Los Angeles, read Biddy Mason: A Place of Her Own by Camille Gavin and Biddy Mason Speaks Up by Arisa White and Laura AtkinsSources:https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/descendants-of-biddy-mason-the-grandmother-of-la-want-her-honored/2832587/https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htmhttps://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/09/418616/open-hand-conversation-descendants-biddy-masonhttps://la.curbed.com/2017/3/1/14756308/biddy-mason-california-black-historyhttps://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/biddy-mason.htmlhttps://laist.com/news/la-history/biddy-mason-free-forever-the-contentious-hearing-that-made-her-a-legend-los-angeles-black-historyhttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-27-me-25048-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1H9m1KyFEyIncVYBAAUMX3Gv2zQLEWhLaVE5spnl0eg7JvGgclV6LM2-I

In part two of this episode, a culturally centered perinatal wellness project, the InTune Mother Society, discuss Black entrepreneurship, ingenuity,  how the maternal and child health field can equitably support community-rooted birth justice work.Please complete this short survey to share input on the episode and let us know who or what you'd like to hear about on future episodes: https://bit.ly/MCHBridgesPilot.------Additional Resources Related to This EpisodeThe InTune Mother Society (TIMS) is Redesigning Birth Work For The Future. TIMS is working hard to build capacity for our State Approved Perinatal Wellness Coach Certification program.  The program is designed to prepare Central Oklahoma residents for a career as a Perinatal Wellness Coach. The program is approved by the US Department of Labor and Training Administration of Central Oklahoma Workforce Innovation Board (COWIB); our participants benefit from pioneering a job market that is focused on higher salaries that result from making Holistic Family Planning options accessible, through in-demand qualifications. Learn more about our community-based social innovation project at: https://timcenter.org/redesigning-birth-work-for-the-future/.Learn more about Bridget “Biddy” Mason, a slave midwife who became one of the first prominent citizens and landowners in Los Angeles in the 1850s and 1860s The Willie Lynch letter mentioned in the episode is now believed to not be written by Willie Lynch himself, however it is widely promoted as an authentic account of slavery during the 18th century. Read more here.  ***TRIGGER WARNING: This article quotes the Willie Lynch letter, which contains graphic, disturbing language such as stereotypes and racial slurs.What is Birth Justice?Black Maternal and Infant Health: Historical Legacies of Slavery (article)Black History Month: The Importance of Black Midwives, Then, Now and Tomorrow (blog post)African American Nurse-Midwives: Continuing the Legacy (article)

Congrats to Adam Bomb, who won week 3 of #moxiemillion, by sharing the show to help it reach 1 million downloads this month! Necessity is the mother of invention and these inventions had real mothers!  Hear about Black female inventors, the tribulations of research, and a story I didn't expect to find and couldn't pass up. 01:00 L'histoire  06:36 Martha Jones's corn husker 07:55 Mary Jones de Leon's cooking apparatus 08:56 Judy Reed's dough kneader-roller 10:30 Sarah Goode's folding bed-desk 11:40 Sarah Boon's ironing board 17:15 Lyda Newman's hairbrush 19:33 Madam CJ Walker's Wonderful Hair-grower 22:03 Biddy Mason Links to all the research resources are on the website. Hang out with your fellow Brainiacs.  Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter,  or Instagram.  Become a patron of the podcast arts! Patreon or Ko-Fi.  Or buy the book and a shirt. Music: Kevin MacLeod, David Fesilyan, Dan Henig. and/or Chris Haugen. Sponsors:  What Was That Like, Reddit on Wiki, Sambucol Want to start a podcast or need a better podcast host?  Get up to TWO months hosting for free from Libsyn with coupon code "moxie."   The first Africans arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. They were recorded as “20 and odd Negroes.” These Africans had been stolen from a Portuguese slave ship, transported to an English warship flying a Dutch flag and sold to colonial settlers in American.  The schooner Clotilda (often misspelled Clotilde) was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay, in autumn 1859[1] or July 9, 1860   The end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments meant that all black inventors now had the right to apply for patents. The result over the next few decades was a virtual explosion of patented inventions by black mechanics, blacksmiths, domestic workers, and farm laborers — many of them ex-slaves. By 1895 the U.S. Patent Office was able to advertise a special exhibit of inventions patented by black inventors. The list of new inventions patented by blacks after the Civil War reveals what kinds of occupations they held and in which sectors of the labor force they were concentrated. Agricultural implements, devices for easing domestic chores, and devices related to the railroad industry were common subjects for black inventors. Some patented inventions developed in the course of operating businesses like barbershops, restaurants, and tailoring shops. started here Researching African-American history is far tougher than it should be.  Marginalized stories don't get written down, and then there was the whole Lost Cause thing, actively eradicating what stories had been recorded.  For those in far-flung parts fortunate enough not to have have attended a school whose history books were written or chosen by these [sfx bleep], the Lost Cause was people like the Daughters of the Confederacy purposefully rewriting history.  Their version of events was that civil war generals were heroes, slaves were generally treated well and were happy to work for their enslavers, and that the war was about state's rights, not the immorality of owning another human being.  It was from this movement that my hometown of Richmond, VA got a beautiful tree-lined avenue of expensive row houses and every third block had a statue of a civil war general.  the number of Confederate memorial installations peaked around 1910 — 50 years after the end of the Civil War and at the height of Jim Crow, an era defined by segregation and disenfranchisement laws against black Americans. Confederate installations spiked again in the 1950s and 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement.  It weren't nothing to do with celebrating ancestors who fought for what they believed in, which you shouldn't do if your ancestor was so stunningly wrong in their beliefs, it was about telling African-Americans that you haven't forgotten when they were under your boot and you'd bring all that back tomorrow if you could.  The statues are on my mind today because I was just in a networking event with Noah Scalin and Mark Cheatham, the artists who created a now iconic (regionally) iconic image of the empty plinth where the Robert E Lee statue stood.  Scalin was the guy that started the Skull A Day website, if you ever saw that, and my husband helped him do an art installation in Times Square.   But my squirrel brain was talking about the inherent difficulty of researching this topic.  Details were sparse for the male inventors and it wasn't uncommon for me to find the same photo used on articles about different people, and if I ever, say, shared an image of Benjamin Montgomery with the caption Henry Boyd, many many apologies for the inconvenience.  But in researching black *women inventors, I'd be lucking to *find a picture, misattributed or otherwise.  Or their story or even enough of a bio to fill out aa 3x5 index card.  I got nothing, bupkis, el zilcho.  Well, not nothing-nothing, but not a fraction of what I wanted to present to you.  One of my goals with YBOF is to amplify the stories of POC, women, and the LGBT (see my recent Tiktok about the amazing Gladys Bently for the trifecta), but I guess if I really mean to do that, I'm going to have to abandon Google in favor of an actual library, when I no longer have to be wary of strangers trying to kill me with their selfishness.  That aside, I love a library.  I used to spend summer afternoons at the one by my house in high school – it was cool, quiet, full of amazing knowledge and new stories, and best of all, my 4 little sisters had no interest in going.  When you come from a herd of six kids, anything you can have exclusively to yourself, even if it's because no one else wants it, immediately becomes your favorite thing.   So I don't have as much as I wanted about Black female inventors of the pre-Civil War era, but I did find one real gem that I almost gave the entire episode to, but we'll come to her.  As with male inventors, it can be a little sketch to say this one was first or that one was first.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Black people kept in bondage were expressly prohibited from being issued patents by a law in 18??.  Some would change their names in an attempt to hide their race, some would use white proxies, and of course many Black inventors had their ideas stolen, often by their enslavers, who believed that they owned not only the person, but all of their work output, that they owned the inventor's ideas as much as they owned the crops he harvested, the horseshoes he applied, or the goods he built.     The other big thing that makes early patent history tricky is something I've dealt with personally, twice - a good ol' fashioned structure fire.  A fire broke out in a temporary patent office and even though there was a fire station right next door, 10,000 early patents were lost, as were about 7000 patent models, which used to be part of the application process.  Long story short, we don't, and probably can't, know definitively who was the first, second, and third Black woman to receive a patent, so I'm going to take what names I *can find and put them in chronological order, though surely there are some inventors whose names have been lost, possibly forever.   Martha Jones is believed to be the first Black woman to receive a U.S. patent in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, for her improvement to the “Corn Husker, Sheller.”  Her invention made it possible to husk, shell, cut and separate corn all in one step, saving time and labor.  This would be for dry or field corn, the kind used to make cornbread, not sweet corn, the kind you eat on the bone in the summer.  This invention laid a foundation stone for advancements in automatic agricultural processes that are still in use today.  I can show you the schematics from Jones' patent, but as for Jones herself, I've got sweet Fanny Adams.  But I can tell you that her patent came 59 years after the first white woman got hers in 1809, for a weaving process for bonnets, which I think also illustrates what constituted a “problem” in each woman's life.  On the gender side of things, Jones' patent came 47 years after Thomas Jennings became the first black man to receive a U.S. Patent in 1821 for the precursor to dry-cleaning, whose details we lost in that fire.   Next up, or so it is believed, was another Jones (it's like Wales in here today), Mary Jones De Leon.  In 1873, De Leon was granted U.S. patent No. 140,253 for her invention titled ”Cooking Apparatus.”  De Leon, who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, and is buried outside Atlanta, GA, created an apparatus for heating or cooking food either by dry heat or steam, or both.  It was an early precursor to the steam tables now used in buffets and cafeterias.  Remember buffets?  We'll be explaining them to our grandkids.  You'd go to a restaurant and eat out of communal troughs with strangers for $10.  By the way, if I were to say ‘chafing dish' and you thought of a throw-away line from the 1991 movie Hot Shot, “No, a crock pot is for cooking all day,” that's why we're friends.  If you didn't, don‘t worry, we're still friends.   The third patent in our particular pattern went to Judy Woodford Reed, and that patent is about the only records we have for her.  She improved existing machines for working bread dough with her "Dough Kneader and Roller" in 1884.  Her design mixed the dough more evenly, while keeping it covered, which would basically constitute sterile conditions back then.  Reed appears in the 1870 Federal Census as a 44 year old seamstress near Charlottesville, Virginia, along with her husband Allen, a gardener, and their five children.  Sometime between 1880 and 1885, Allen Reed died, and Judy W. Reed, calling herself "widow of Allen," moved to Washington, D. C.  It is unlikely that Reed was able to read, write, or even sign her name.  The census refers to Judy and Allen both as illiterate, and her patent is signed with an "X".   That might have actually worked to her favor.  Lots of whites, about 1 in 5, were illiterate back then, too, and an X reveals neither race nor gender.   The first African-American woman to fully sign a patent was Sarah E. Goode of Chicago.  Bonus fact: illiteracy is why we use an X to mean a kiss at the bottom of a letter or greeting card.  People who couldn't sign their name to a contract or legal document would mark it with an X and kiss it to seal their oath.  Tracing the origin of O meaning hug is entirely unclear, though, and theories abound.   Sarah Elisabeth Goode obtained a patent in 1885 for a Cabinet-bed, a "sectional bedsteads adapted to be folded together when not in use, so as to occupy less space, and made generally to resemble some article of furniture when so folded."  Details continue to be sparse, but we know that as of age 5 in 1860, she was free and living in Ohio.  She moved to Chicago 10 years later and 10 years after that, married a man named Archibald, who was a carpenter, as her father had been.  They had some kids, as people often do, though we don't know how many.   If they had many kids or lived in a small space for the number of kids they had, that could have been what motivated Goode to create a very early version of the cool desk that turns into a bed things you can see online that sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars.  Goode's invention had hinged sections that were easily raised or lowered. When not functioning as a bed, the invention could easily be used as a desk with small compartments for storage, ideal for a small city apartment, especially if there were hella kids in there.   We have a bit more on another Sarah inventor, this time Sarah Boone of NC.  Born into bondage in 1832, Sarah may have acquired her freedom by marrying James Boone, a free Black man, in 1847.  Together, they had eight children and worked to help the Underground Railroad.  Soon the family, along with Sarah's widowed mother, made their way north to New Haven, Connecticut.  Sarah worked as a dressmaker and James as a bricklayer until his death in the 1870s.  They'd done well enough for themselves to purchase their own home.  Far removed from the strictures and structures of enslavement, Sarah became a valued member of her community and began taking reading and writing lessons.     It was through her workaday life as a dressmaker that she invented a product you might well have in your home today, the modern-day ironing board.  Quick personal aside in an episode that's already chock-full of them–did anyone else marry military or former military and make your spouse do all the ironing because you assume they'd be better at it from having to do their uniforms?  I can't be the only one.  Back to Sarah Boone, who wanted “to produce a cheap, simple, convenient and highly effective device, particularly adapted to be used in ironing the sleeves and bodies of ladies garments.”   You might think the ironing board didn't *need to be “invented,” that it was just one of those things everybody kinda just had, but no.  Prior to Boone, you'd put bits of wood between the backs of two chairs, like a makeshift sawhorse.  And anyone who's ever used a makeshift sawhorse only to have it slide apart out from under them or end up sawing into their dining room table will attest that there was indeed room for improvement.  She began by creating a narrower, curved board that could slip into the  sleeves of dresses and shirts, with padding to stop the texture of the wooden base from being imprinted onto the fabric, and the whole thing collapsed for easy storage.   With a bit of help from other dressmakers, she finalized the design for which she'd be awarded her patent in 1892.  Such a simple device was a boon to many a homemaker, though there remains the extent to which she profited from the invention, particularly as they became a product for mass distribution by companies. Even so, we know that it was soon an indispensable household device and made manufacturers wealthy.   MIDROLL   Lyda Newman is remembered for two things, patented the first hairbrush with synthetic bristles in 1898 and her activism in the women's voting rights movement of the early 20th century – she was a key organizer of a Black branch of the Woman Suffrage Party, which was trying to give women the legal right to vote.  We know she was born in Ohio sometime between 1865 and 1885, which is a helluva range for history so relatively recent, and that she spent most of her life living in New York City, working as a hairdresser.      As a hairdresser, and an owner of a head of hair herself, Newman wanted the process of brushing hair to be more hygienic and efficient.  Most hairbrushes at the time were made using animal hair, the same kind you might get in shaving brushes or paint brushes.  Now imagine trying to get knots out with a shaving brush.  Animal-based bristles were too soft for the job, which is where we get the old trope/advice of 100 strokes – it took that many to get the job done.  And that was for white woman.  These brushes were practically useless for the thicker textures of African American hair.  Animal hair also harbored bacteria like it's nobody's business, which is unfortunate since it was also used to bristle toothbrushes and, oh yeah, back in the day, you'd have a single household toothbrush that everyone shared.  Newman's brush used synthetic fibers, which were more durable and easier to clean, in evenly spaced rows of bristles with open slots to clear debris away from the hair into a recessed compartment.  The back could be opened with a button for cleaning out the compartment.     This wasn't a gimmick or fly-by-night idea.  Newman's invention changed the hair-care industry by making hairbrushes less expensive and easier to manufacture.  This paved the way for other Black inventors in the hair-care space to actually *create the black hair care industry, chief among them, Sarah Breedlove.  Don't recognize the name?  What if I call her Madam C.J. Walker?  Well, I'm gonna tell you about her either way.  Breedlove, born in 1867 in Louisiana, was the first child in her family born into freedom, but found herself an orphan at age seven after both parents died of yellow fever.  She lived with a brother-in-law, who abused her, before marrying Moses McWilliams at age 14 to get away from him.  Sarah was a mother at 17 and a widow at 20, so on the whole, not having a good time of it.  And to top it all off, her hair was falling out.   She developed a product to treat the unspecified scalp disease that caused it, made of petroleum jelly, sulfur, and a little perfume to make it smell better.  And it worked!  She called it Madame C.J.Walker Wonderful Hair Grower (she was now married to Charles Walker) and along with Madame C.J.Walker Vegetable Shampoo, began selling door-to-door to other African-American women suffering from the same disease.  5 years later, she set up the Madame C.J.Walker Manufacturing Company in the US, and later expanded her business to Central America and the Caribbean.  She recruited 25,000 black women by the early 1900s to act as door-to-door beauty consultants across North and Central America, and the Caribbean.  Walker was the first one using the method known today as direct sales marketing to distribute and sell her products, a method adopted later on by Avon, TupperWare, and others.  And she paid well, too!  You could earn $25 a week with Walker, a damn site better than $2 per week as a domestic servant.  Her workforce would grow to be 40,000 strong.  So don't be telling me that paying a living wage is bad for business.   Walker didn't keep her success to herself, but used her wealth to support African-American institutions, the black YMCA, helped people with their mortgages, donated to orphanages and senior citizens homes, and was a believer in the power of education.  Now be sure you don't do as I am wont to do and accidentally conflate Madame CJ Walker with Maggie Walker, the first African American woman to charter a bank and the first African American woman to serve as a bank president, and an advocate for the disabled, because she deserves coverage of her own.    As I was searching for black female inventors, I came across one listicle with a paragraph on a woman the author claimed helped “invent” the city of Los Angeles.  That's a bit of a stretch, I thought to myself, but as I read the story of Bridget “Biddy” Mason, I became so utterly fascinated, I almost flipped the script to do the episode entirely about her.  I did not, as you've plainly noticed, since I'd already done primary research for the first six pages of an eight page script. Biddy was born into slavery in 1818 in Georgia, maybe.  We do know she spent most of her early life on a plantation owned by Robert Smithson.  During her teenage years, she learned domestic and agricultural skills, as well as herbal medicine and midwifery from African, Caribbean, and Native American traditions of other female slaves.  Her knowledge and skill made her beneficial to both the slaves and the plantation owners.  According to some authors, Biddy was either given to or sold to Robert Smith and his wife Rebecca in Mississippi in the 1840s.  Biddy had three children, Ellen, Ann, and Harriet.  Their paternity is unknown, but it's been speculated that Ann and Harriet were fathered by Smith.   Smith, a Mormon convert, followed the call of church leaders to settle in the West to establish a new Mormon community in what would become Salt Lake City, Utah in what was at the time still part of Mexico.  The Mormon church was a-okay with slavery, encouraging people to treat the enslaved kindly, as they were lesser beings who needed the white man's protection.  In 1848, 30-year-old Mason *walked 1,700 miles behind a 300-wagon caravan. Along the route west Mason's responsibilities included setting up and breaking camp, cooking the meals, herding livestock, and serving as a midwife as well as taking care of her three young daughters aged ten, four, and an infant.  Utah didn't last long for the Smiths and 3 years later, they set out in a 150-wagon caravan for San Bernardino, California to establish another Mormon community.  Ignoring warnings that slavery was illegal in California, Smith gathered his livestock and people they treated like livestock and schlepped them along.  Although California joined the United States as a free state in 1850, the laws around slavery were complicated and there was a lot of forced labor to be found.  Indigenous people could be forced to work as "contract laborers."  How, you ask?  Well this made we swear loudly when I read it.  Every weekend, local authorities would arrest intoxicated Natives on dubious charges and take them to what was essentially a slave mart and auction off their labor for the coming week. If they were paid at the end of that week, they were usually paid in alcohol so they could get drunk and be arrested to be auctioned off again.   Along the way, biddy Mason met free blacks who urged her to legally contest her slave status once she reached California, a free state.  When they got to Cali, Mason met more free blacks, like her lifelong friends Robert and Minnie Owens, who told her the same thing.  Smith must have noticed this, because a few years later, fearing the loss of his slaves, he decided to move the whole kit and caboodle to Texas, a slave state.  This was obviously real bad news for Mason and the other enslaved people, but thankfully Mason had the Owens on her side, particularly since her now 17 year old daughter was in love with their son.  The law was on her side, too.  The California Fugitive Slave Act, enacted in 1852, allowed slave owners to temporarily hold enslaved persons in California and transport them back to their home state, but this law wouldn't have covered Smith because he wasn't from Texas.  When Robert Owens told the Los Angeles County Sheriff that there were people being illegally held in bondage and being taken back to a slave state, the sheriff gathered a posse, including Owens, his sons, and cattleman from Owens' ranch, and cut Smith off at the pass, literally Cajon Pass, and prevented him from leaving the state.  The sheriff was armed with a legal document, a writ of habeus corpus, signed by Judge Benjamin Hayes.   On January 19, 1856 she petitioned the court for freedom for herself and her extended family of 13 women and children.  Their fate was now in the hands of Judge Hayes.  You wouldn't expect Hayes to be on Mason's side in a dispute against Smith.  Hayes hailed from a slave state and had owned slaves himself, plus in his time as a journalist, he's written pro-Mormon articles.  The trial started with a damning statement from Biddy's eldest daughter Hannah, herself a mother of a newborn, saying she wanted to go to Texas.  The sheriff spoke to her afterwards and found she was terrified of Smith and had said what she was told to say.  She wasn't wrong to be scared.  Smith threatened Mason's lawyer and bribed him to leave the case.  Smith's son and hired men trail hands went to the jail where Mason and her family were being kept safe and tried to intimidate the jailer.  They also threatened the Owens family and a neighborhood grocer and a doctor. They said 'If this case isn't resolved on Southern principles, you'll all pay the price, all people of color.'    Judge Hayes…he wasn't having any of this.  Technically, Mason and her children had also become free the minute they stepped into California. The new California constitution stated that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude unless for the punishment of crimes shall ever be tolerated in this state.” However, lacking options and probably unaware of her full rights, Mason continued to serve in the Smith household.  Smith claimed Mason and the others had stayed because they were “members of his family” who voluntarily offered to go with him to Texas.  Mason, as a non-white person, was legally barred from testifying against the white Smith in court, so Judge Hayes took her into his chambers along with two trustworthy local gentlemen who acted as observers to depose her.  He asked her only whether she was going voluntarily, and what she said was, 'I always do what I have been told, but I have always been afraid of this trip to Texas."    Smith fled to Texas before the trial could conclude.  On January 19, Judge Hays ruled in favor of Mason.  "And it further appearing by satisfactory proof to the Judge here, that all the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom and are free and cannot be held in slavery or involuntary servitude, it is therefore argued that they are entitled to their freedom and are free forever."  He hoped they would “become settled and go to work for themselves—in peace and without fear.”   Okay, now we're getting to the part of Biddy Mason's story that the listicle writer used to include her in a gallery of inventrixes.  Mason and her family moved to Los Angeles, then a dusty little town of only 2,000 or so residents, less than 20 of whom were black, where she worked as midwife and nurse.  As the town grew, so did her business.  Basically, if you were having a baby, Biddy Mason was delivering it.  Well, her friend Dr. Griffin probably helped, but we're hear to talk about Biddy.  After tending to hundreds of births and illnesses, she was known about town as Aunt Biddy.  As a midwife, Mason was able to cross class and color lines and she viewed everyone as part of her extended family.  In her big black medicine bag, she carried the tools of her trade, and the papers Judge Hayes had given her affirming that she was free, just in case.    By 1866, she had saved enough money to buy a property on Spring Street.  Her daughter Ellen remembered that her mother firmly told her family that “the first homestead must never be sold.”  She wanted her family to always have a home to call their own.  My family is the same way – if you can own land, even if it's an empty lot, do.  Mason's small wood frame house at 311 Spring Street was not just a family home, it became a “refuge for stranded and needy settlers,” a daycare center for working women, and a civic meeting place.  In 1872, a group of black Angelenos founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church at her house and they met there until they were able to move to their own building.     She also continued to invest in real estate, while always making sure to give back. According to the Los Angeles Times: “She was a frequent visitor to the jail, speaking a word of cheer and leaving some token and a prayerful hope with every prisoner. In the slums of the city, she was known as “Grandma Mason,” and did much active service toward uplifting the worst element in Los Angeles. She paid taxes and all expenses on church property to hold it for her people. During the flood of the early eighties, she gave an open order to a little grocery store, which was located on Fourth and Spring Streets. By the terms of this order, all families made homeless by the flood were to be supplied with groceries, while Biddy Mason cheerfully paid the bill.”   Eventually she was able to buy 10 acres, on which she built rental homes and eventually a larger commercial building she rented out.  That land she invested in and developed is now the heart of downtown L.A. three substantial plots near what is now Grand Central Market as well as land on San Pedro Street in Little Tokyo.  Mason was a shrewd businesswoman too.  Los Angeles was booming, and rural Spring Street was becoming crowded with shops and boarding houses. In 1884, she sold the north half of her Spring Street property for $1,500 and had a mixed-use building built on the other half.  She sold a lot she had purchased on Olive Street for $2,800, turning a tidy profit considering she'd bought it for less than $400.  In 1885, she deeded a portion of her remaining Spring Street property to her grandsons “for the sum of love and affection and ten dollars.”  She signed the deed with her customary flourished “X.” Though she was a successful real estate pioneer and nurse, who stressed the importance of education for her children and grandchildren, and taught herself Spanish, she had never learned to read or write.   Bridget “Biddy” Mason died 1891, one of the wealthiest women in Los Angeles.  For reasons never fully explained, she was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen Cemetery.  While you can't visit her grave, you can visit the mini-park created in her honor.  Designed by landscape architects Katherine Spitz and Pamela Burton, an 80-foot-long poured concrete wall, created by artist Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, displays a timeline of Biddy's life, illustrated with images like wagon wheels and a midwife's bag, as well as images such as an early survey map of Los Angeles and Biddy's freedom papers, from the northernmost end of the wall with the text “Biddy Mason born a slave,” all the way down to “Los Angeles mourns and reveres Grandma Mason.”  If you're ever down near the Bradbury Building on Spring street, get some pictures for me.   Sources: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mason-bridget-biddy-1818-1891/ https://la.curbed.com/2017/3/1/14756308/biddy-mason-california-black-history https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/biddy-mason-memorial-park https://alliesforracialjustice.org/shark-tank-in-the-1800s-black-women-reigned-in-household-inventions/ https://interestingengineering.com/black-inventors-the-complete-list-of-genius-black-american-african-american-inventors-scientists-and-engineers-with-their-revolutionary-inventions-that-changed-the-world-and-impacted-history-part-two https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2021/02/08/revolutionizing-cooking-mary-jones-de-leon/id=129701/ https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/lyda-newman https://interestingengineering.com/black-inventors-the-complete-list-of-genius-black-american-african-american-inventors-scientists-and-engineers-with-their-revolutionary-inventions-that-changed-the-world-and-impacted-history-part-two https://laist.com/news/la-history/biddy-mason-free-forever-the-contentious-hearing-that-made-her-a-legend-los-angeles-black-history  

The Last Drip is the last segment of the Dripping in Black Podcast that relates our guest(s) to a Black historical figure or an event or place. This excerpt is from episode 1.10 Dripping in Black Business and Real Estate featuring KaLena Livingston. The entire episode can be viewed on our YouTube page DiBk Channel and listened on most major podcast platforms. Dripping In Black Social Media Website: drippinginblack.com Instagram: @dibk20 Facebook: @dibk20 Twitter: Dibk20 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/c4challenge/message

All month, we're revisiting our favorite episodes.  Tune in to hear the highlights of Womannicans past!Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we'll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know -- but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Leading Ladies, Activists, STEMinists,  Local Legends, and many more. Encyclopedia Womannica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.Encyclopedia Womannica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard and Lindsey Kratochwill. Special thanks to Shira Atkins, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, and Sundus Hassan.We are offering free ad space on Wonder Media Network shows to organizations working towards social justice. For more information, please email Jenny at jenny@wondermedianetwork.com.Follow Wonder Media Network:WebsiteInstagramTwitter

Happy Women's History Month! We're highlighting leaders who took charge and made lasting impacts on their industries. This Women’s History Month, Encyclopedia Womannica is brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz celebrates all women driving change and is indebted to those trailblazing women who punctuate the brand’s history like Bertha Benz and Ewy Rosquist. These women defied the odds to change the auto industry forever and Mercedes-Benz applauds the tenacity and courage it takes to pave the road ahead. Listen along this month as we share the stories of more inspiring women in charge and at the top of their fields — powered by Mercedes-Benz.Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know -- but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Leading Ladies, Activists, STEMinists,  Local Legends, and many more. Encyclopedia Womannica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.Encyclopedia Womannica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, and Brittany Martinez. Special thanks to Shira Atkins, Edie Allard, and Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, and Ale Tejeda.We are offering free ad space on Wonder Media Network shows to organizations working towards social justice. For more information, please email Jenny at jenny@wondermedianetwork.com.Follow Wonder Media Network:WebsiteInstagramTwitter

The celebration of love and cupid has struck us. So how duped, jipped, and robbed is America after this one day? Lol. Have fun with us as we talk about all the days around us including pet love. Lastly but most importantly, we share more stories in honor of Black History Month. You will be inspired and elevated through the truth behind Mary Ellen Pleasant & Bridget "Biddy" Mason. How are we utilizing our time and our freedom?

This week's episode is about Bridget "Biddy" Mason, a real estate entrepreneur, nurse, and midwife! As always, I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. Please feel free to email the podcast at biasbender@gmail.com, or reach out via the podcast facebook or instagram pages (@biasbender). And if you're really enjoying what you hear and you want to support the show, be sure to rate, review, subscribe and tell a friend or two!Cover art by Michelle Li. (https://michellejli.com/)Original music by Adam Westerman. (Font Leroy Spotify Page)

This week, Sara brings us the story of Bridget "Biddy" Mason!Born into slavery, Biddy traveled with her master across the United States to settle in the new Mormon Utopia of Utah before heading even farther west to California. When he sought to return with Biddy to Texas, where her children would have been—as far as Texas law was concerned—immediately enslaved, she enlisted the help of a few free Black people, and successfully sued her owner for her freedom.After that, without ever learning to read or write, Biddy became a real estate entrepreneur and businesswoman who helped build the city of Los Angeles from the ground up.—A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the podcast about the Broads who helped shape our world!—3 Ways you can help support the podcast:Write a review on iTunesShare your favorite episode on socialTell a friend!—THE HOSTSBroads You Should Know is hosted by Sam Eggers, Sara Gorsky, & Chloe SkyeIGs: @BroadsYouShouldKnow @SaraGorsky @SamLAEggersChloe's Blog: www.chloejadeskye.comChloe's other podcasts: "Modern Eyes with Skye and Stone" & "Skye and Stone do Television"Sam's short: "Dickie & Bea"www.BroadsYouShouldKnow.com web design by Sara GorskyEmail us: BroadsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com Produced by Chloe Skye & Jupiter Stone; Edited by Chloe Skye

As February is the month to celebrate black history and love, what better way to celebrate than together. Your best friends offer a small black history lesson and dive into this months series of love and other things. This week, they’re talking money and now isn’t the time to get your panties in a bunch. History: Mary Ellen Pleasant - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/pleasant-mary-ellen-1814-1904/ Bridget “Biddy” Mason - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mason-bridget-biddy-1818-1891/ Madam C.J. Walker - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biography.com/.amp/inventor/madam-cj-walker Music: “Something on October 16th” Kenny Waller, (2019). Official Instagram: @_girlsinthegarden Email: girlsinthegardenpodcast@gmail.com Associated Hashtag: #yourbestfriendsinyourhead #girlsinthegardenpodcast

Sally Gordon (University of Pennsylvania) and Kevin Waite (Durham University) explore the role of the Mormon Church and the spread of slavery across the continent in the mid-19th century through the life of Bridget "Biddy" Mason.

"She approaches words as reference points, rather than endpoints. By reimagining language, she exerts control over her sense of self.”—Los Angeles Review of Books ARISA WHITE is a Cave Canem fellow, Sarah Lawrence College alumna, an MFA graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and author of the poetry chapbooks Disposition for Shininess, Post Pardon, Black Pearl, Perfect on Accident, and “Fish Walking” & Other Bedtime Stories for My Wife won the inaugural Per Diem Poetry Prize. Published by Virtual Artists Collective, her debut full-length collection, Hurrah’s Nest, was a finalist for the 2013 Wheatley Book Awards, 82nd California Book Awards, and nominated for a 44th NAACP Image Awards. Her second collection, A Penny Saved, inspired by the true-life story of Polly Mitchell, was published by Willow Books, an imprint of Aquarius Press in 2012. Her newest full-length collection, You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, was published by Augury Books and nominated for the 29th Lambda Literary Awards. Most recently, Arisa co-authored, with Laura Atkins, Biddy Mason Speaks Up, a middle-grade biography in verse on the midwife and philanthropist Bridget “Biddy” Mason, which is the second book in the Fighting for Justice series. Arisa was awarded a 2013-14 Cultural Funding grant from the City of Oakland to create the libretto and score for Post Pardon: The Opera, and received, in that same year, an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation to fund the dear Gerald project, which takes a personal and collective look at absent fathers. As the creator of the Beautiful Things Project, Arisa curates poetic collaborations that center narratives of women, queer, and trans people of color. Selected by the San Francisco Bay Guardian for the 2010 Hot Pink List, Arisa was a 2011-13 member of the PlayGround writers’ pool. Recipient of the inaugural Rose O’Neill Literary House summer residency at Washington College in Maryland, she has also received residencies, fellowships, or scholarships from The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Headlands Center for the Arts, Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Hedgebrook, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Prague Summer Program, Fine Arts Work Center, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2005, 2014, 2016, and 2018, her poetry has been published widely and is featured on the recording WORD with the Jessica Jones Quartet. A native New Yorker, living in central Maine, Arisa serves on the board of directors for Foglifter and Nomadic Press and is an advisory board member for Gertrude. As a visiting scholar at San Francisco State University’s The Poetry Center in 2016, she developed a digital special collections on Black Women Poets in The Poetry Center Archives. Arisa is as an assistant professor in creative writing at Colby College. For booking inquiries, contact Allison Connor at Jack Jones Literary Arts.

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations, despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case, she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 34785]

The second season of Dom Flemon's American Songster Radio podcast is released today, Friday, October 26. In this episode of American Songster Radio , Dom discusses the song “Black Woman” and revisits the lives of figures like Bridget “Biddy” Mason and “Stagecoach” Mary Fields. He also shares his own version of “Black Woman,” performed live on stage.

[Poetry] Arisa continues the conversation with “Black Lesbians” contributors. Arisa is a Cave Canem fellow and MFA graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and author of the poetry chapbooks Disposition for Shininess, Post Pardon, Black Pearl, Perfect on Accident (forthcoming), and “Fish Walking” & Other Bedtime Stories for My Wife. Her debut full-length collection, Hurrah’s Nest, was a finalist for the 2013 Wheatley Book Awards, 82nd California Book Awards, and nominated for a 44th NAACP Image Awards. Her newest full-length collection, You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, was nominated for the 29th Lambda Literary Awards. Arisa is currently co-authoring a middle-grade biography on the midwife and philanthropist Bridget “Biddy” Mason– slated for publication in 2019.

Everyday wonder woman, Bridget "Biddy" Mason. This is the incredible an inspiring story of how Biddy went from being given away as a "wedding gift," to walking from Mississippi to Texas then to California, to winning her freedom to owning land in the City of Los Angeles! Incredible, right? We thought so too!