Podcast appearances and mentions of Lauren M Cook

In today’s episode Lucy Clayton and Dr Benjamin Wild analyse how people’s social, political and gendered roles are disrupted by war. Fancy dress costume, which offers escapism and self-reflection by enabling its wearer to become somebody or something else, can mediate these tensions. From women who dressed as men to fight in America’s Civil War, to allied sailors who survived a Mid-Atlantic torpedo attack dressed as Nazi officials in WWII, Lucy and Ben consider the harrowing and heartening place of costume in conflicts throughout history. So what makes fancy dress prevalent during times of military conflict? How are costumed warriors perceived by their contemporaries? And just what did they wear?   Feast your eyes and get involved on our Instagram page @dressfancypodcast   Presenters; Lucy Clayton Twitter: @MsLucyClayton Instagram: @mslucyclayton   Dr Benjamin Wild FRHistS www.benjaminwild.co Twitter: @DrBenjaminWild Instagram: @benjamin__wild   Find out more: To put the discussion of WWI and WWII into its proper context, and to access the archives discussed, visit www.iwm.org.uk. London School of Economics and Political Science - Library -  Suffragette Collections, Elsie Edith Bowerman (1889-1973) - www.lse.ac.uk Find out more about Bletchley Park, ‘Home of the Codebreakers’ - www.bletchleypark.org.uk Cross-dressing soldiers in WWI featured in a recent exhibition, 'Under Cover: A Secret History of Cross-Dressers', at www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk. For the exhibition guide, see Sébastian Lifshitz, Mauvais Genre: Les travestis à travers un siècle de photographie amateur (Paris, 2016). Women in History. Heroic cross-dressing women warriors of Civil War including Frances Clayton (1830 - after 1863) and Lizzie Hoffman - www.timeline.com For an in-depth discussion of the role of women in the American Civil War, see DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War (Stroud, 2002). Land Girls - Film 1998    

President Trump's announcement via Twitter that transgender personnel would no longer be allowed to serve in the US armed forces provides an excellent opportunity to take a look at the history of female and trans soldiers who have fought in past US wars. Most people would be surprised to learn that there are over 100 documented cases of women who served in the Confederate and Union armies during the Civil War. In this episode, we look at the story of Albert Cashier, possibly the best known transgender soldier in US history who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. It's a remarkable story that provides us with some important historical perspective on the current #TransBan debate.  Among the many things we discuss:  Who was Albert Cashier? How did he manage to serve in the Union Army for 3 years without anyone suspecting that he was born in Ireland with the name Jenny Hodgers. How Cashier maintained his male identity for more than 40 years, only to have his “secret” discovered near the end of his life. How when word got out about Cashier’s birth identity, the U.S. Pension Bureau considered revoking his pension, but opted to maintain it when they determined that Hodgers and Cashier were one in the same. Further Reading De Anne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War (2003). Lon Dawson, Also Known as Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story, or How One Young Irish Girl Joined the Union Army During the Civil War (2005) Bonnie Tsui, She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War (2003) Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive) Hyson, “Traces” (Free Music Archive) Hefferman, “Discovery” (Free Music Archive) Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions Photographer: John Buckingham Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © Snoring Beagle International, 2017

This week on StoryWeb: Laird Hunt’s novel Neverhome. Last week’s StoryWeb episode featured Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Confederacy. This week, I am delighted to share Laird Hunt’s 2014 novel, Neverhome, a very rare look at the Civil War from the point of view of one of the 400 women who disguised themselves as male soldiers. Neverhome comes as a refreshing new take on a subject we all think we know: the Civil War. Hunt, a graduate of the MFA program at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and a faculty member in the University of Denver’s creative writing program, has written several other laudable novels, among them Indiana, Indiana, and Kind One. But with Neverhome, he hit it out of the park. The book was quite favorably reviewed in the Sunday Book Review of the New York Times, being named as an Editor’s Choice. His protagonist/narrator is Gallant Ash, AKA Constance Thompson. Before the Civil War, Constance is living in rural Indiana, married to Bartholomew Thompson. As the novel unfolds through flashbacks, we learn that theirs is a marriage of two gender-ambiguous individuals. Certainly, neither meets the stereotype of what a “real man” or a “true woman” should be according to 19th-century ideals. Bartholomew is gentle and soft, where Constance is the firm leader in their marriage and most definitely the one who would head out to war. As Constance/Ash says, Bartholomew was “made out of wool and I was made out of wire.” As the war gets underway, Constance enlists, taking the name of Ash. In a memorable scene near the beginning of the novel, he/she is dubbed “Gallant Ash” and is known by that moniker for the remainder of his service in the Union Army. When I read Neverhome, the story definitely drew me in. Would Gallant Ash pass as a male soldier? How would he/she handle physical necessities? And how would his/her courage stand the trials of the war? Adding to my interest in the novel was the fact that it is modeled loosely on Homer’s Odyssey. As I became aware of that structural element, I began to look for the ways Hunt would play on that epic of a warrior trying to make his way home. But to me, Gallant Ash’s voice was even more compelling than the story. The dialect Laird Hunt creates is rarely heard and is completely captivating. Anyone who knows my work knows that I absolutely love dialect done well. Whether it’s Huck Finn’s rural Missouri dialect or Granny Younger’s rhythmic speech in Lee Smith’s Oral History, Mrs. Todd’s coastal Maine accent in Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs or Kate Chopin’s capturing of Cajun dialect in Bayou Folk, I love authors who help us hear the way Americans from all regions speak. Until I read Neverhome, I hadn’t thought of rural folks from Indiana as having a dialect – but Hunt brings Gallant Ash’s manner of speaking to life so well that I found it almost impossible to put the book down. And how Gallant Ash spins a yarn! From the first page of this first-person narrative, I was hooked. Hunt says that “the seed for Neverhome was planted . . . when my wife bought me a copy of An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman.” You can learn more about “Lyons” Wakeman and the hundreds of women who fought on both sides of the Civil War by visiting the Civil War Trust website. See also the Smithsonian’s interview with Bonnie Tsui, who wrote She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers in the Civil War. You’ll also find DeAnne Blanton’s three-part article for the National Archives interesting and compelling. And if you want more, read the book Blanton wrote with Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War. A reading group guide to Neverhome provides additional insight and questions for consideration. Want to get a taste of Neverhome? There’s a lengthy preview at the publisher’s website. If you’re like me, you’ll want to get a copy of the book so you can hear all of Gallant Ash’s story. Visit thestoryweb.com/hunt for links to all these resources and to watch as Laird Hunt reads a scene in which Gallant Ash encounters another woman disguised as a soldier.