Unsung History

Enslaved Africans were forcibly shipped to Virginia starting in 1619 in response to a severe labor shortage. From the beginning, enslaved laborers resisted by fleeing and through violence, and white enslavers reacted by creating a racialized system of brutal policing, granting themselves authority based on skin color and a sense of superiority. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Gautham Rao, Associate Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C., and author of White Power: Policing American Slavery.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Good News,” performed by Tuskegee Institute Singers on August 31, 1914; the audio is in the public domain and is available through the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “The Effects of the Proclamation,” Harper's Weekly. Vol. 7, no. 321. February 21, 1863. p. 116; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources:Proceedings and Acts of the [Maryland] General Assembly January 1637/8-September 1664, Volume 1, Page 107.Proceedings and Acts of the [Maryland] General Assembly, April 1666-June 1676, Volume 2, Page 224. “An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections” (1680),” Virginia General Assembly, " Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, December 7, 2020.“The Stono Rebellion of 1739: Where Did It Begin?” by Nic Butler, Charleston County Public Library, September 9, 2022.“South Carolina Slave Code (1740),” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “The Emancipation Proclamation,” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.  “Thirteenth Amendment,” Constitution of the United States, Constitution Annotated, United States Congress.“On this day - Feb 24, 1865: Kentucky Refuses to Ratify Abolition of Slavery,” A History of Racial Injustice, Equal Justice Initiative.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner advanced his now-famous Frontier Theory, arguing that the American identity was forged through the process of exploring and adapting to new environments in the frontier west. Key to both Turner’s theory and the myth of the frontier that pre-dated it was the idea that brave white American men conquered a previously empty land through their grit in a relentless march west, but the land was populated long before white Americans arrived, and the people who lived, explored, and settled there were a far more diverse population than the myth acknowledges. Joining me in this episode is returning guest Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.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 west, a nest and you,” composed by Billy Hill with lyrics by Larry Yoell and sung by Lewis James on November 16, 1923, in Camden, New Jersey; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is the American Progress, painted by John Gast in 1872; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Brief History of the AHA,” American Historical Association.“Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893),” by Frederick Jackson Turner, The American Yawp Reader.“How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start,” by Colin Woodard, Smithsonian Magazine, January/February 2023.“Sacagawea, c. 1788 - c. 1812/1884?” by Teresa Potter and Mariana Brandman, National Women’s History Museum.“Sacagawea: Intrepid Indigenous Explorer [video],” The New York Historical.“Lewis & Clark Expedition,” National Archives.“Indian Treaties and the Removal Act of 1830,” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State.“Indian Territory,” Library of Congress.“Indian Territory,” by Dianna Everett, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, January 15, 2010.“Cheyenne Sanctuary: The Northern Cheyennes’ Exodus, Mari Sandoz, and Lost Chokecherry Lake,” by Emily Levine, The Nebraska Sandhills, October 23, 2024.Northern Cheyenne Tribe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the Weimar Republic, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science and advocated for the repeal of legislation that criminalized sexual relations between men. At the Institute, pioneering gender-affirming surgeries were performed, and it was there that Dora Richter became the first known trans woman to undergo comprehensive male-to-female gender-affirming surgeries. But when the Nazis came to power, they labeled Hirschfeld an enemy of the state and destroyed the Institute’s immense library. Joining me in this episode is historian and novelist Dr. Brandy Schillace, author of The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story.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 Kleine Kammermusik, composed by Paul Hindemith and performed in February 1992 by the Soni Ventorum Woodwind Quintet; the recording is available by Creative Commons license and is available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is a portrait of Magnus Hirschfeld from 1928; the picture is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic,” by Brandy Schillace, Scientific American, Mary 10, 2021.“The first Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933),” The Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V.“Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science,” by Gabrielle Bryan-Quamina, Science Museum, London, February 29, 2024.“Dora Richter (1892–1966),” Lili Elbe Library.“The Weimar Republic,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.“Hitler: Essential Background Information,” University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences.“How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?” National World War II Museum.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

For 74 days in 1810 the current-day parishes of East and West Feliciana in New Orleans were part of the independent Republic of West Florida, which flew a lone star flag. By that point the residents of the Felicianas, including a large enslaved population, living on land that had been stolen from indigenous people, had been part of three different empires. The republic ended with the parishes annexed into yet another country, the United States, though fifty years later they would be part of still another attempted breakaway republic, the Confederate States of America. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rashauna Johnson, Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of Sweet Home Feliciana: Family, Slavery, and the Hauntings of 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 “Louisiana,” composed by Oliver Wallace with Lyrics by Arthur Freed and performed by the Sterling Trio on December 27, 1920, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a lithograph believed to be of drawings that artist Lewis Henry made on the Mississippi River around 1846-1848 with Bayou Sara in the foreground and St. Francisville on the bluff in the background; the lithograph was published in 1857 and is in the public domain in the United States and available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Native Americans: the First Families of Louisiana on the Eve of French Settlement (Online Exhibition),” Louisiana State Museums.“Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“West Florida Revolt,” by Samuel C. Hyde, 64 Parishes.“The History of the Short-Lived Independent Republic of Florida,” by William C. Davis, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2013.“The West Florida Republic,” by Anne Butler West Feliciana Historical Society and Museum.“The Siege of Port Hudson: ‘Forty Days and Nights in the Wilderness of Death’ (Teaching with Historic Places),” National Park Service.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed in 1927 one of the goals of the founders was to recognize achievements in the industry. That recognition quickly took the form of annual awards banquets, with the first one hosted in 1929. Over time the format shifted from banquet to the Oscars telecast we all know today, as the categories and even membership of the Academy adapted to the shifts in filmmaking. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Monica Sandler, a film and media historian at Ball State University, whose forthcoming book is The Oscar Industry: Creative Labor, Cultural Production, and the Awards System in Media Industry.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 “He’s working in the movies now,” composed by Henry Lodge, with lyrics by Harry Williams and Vincent Bryan; the song was performed by Billy Murray on February 27, 1914, in Camden, New Jersey; it’s in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is of Grace Kelly and Marlon Brando at the Academy Awards on March 30, 1955, published in the Los Angeles Times on March 31, 1955; the copyright is held by the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, and this work is licensed under a "Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International" .Sources:“Experience over nine decades of the Oscars from 1927 to 2026,” Oscars.org.“Why Are the Academy Awards Called ‘Oscars’?” by Elizabeth Nix, History.com, January 22, 2026.“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [Pamphlet],” June 20, 1927, Available via the Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections.“The Academy Awards Scandal That First Got PwC Its Job Counting Oscars Votes,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, March 2, 2018.“How Television Changed the Oscars,” by Lily Rothman, Time Magazine, February 22, 2015.““TV – That’s Where Movies Go When They Die”: Rewatching the First Televised Oscars,” by Thomas Doherty, The Hollywood Reporter, March 26, 2022.“What Determines Whether a Performance Is Lead or Supporting? Oscar Rules Explained,” by Eliza Thompson, US Weekly, March 7, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

George Washington privately condemned slavery while actively holding hundreds of people in enslavement. He championed gradual emancipation plans while scheming to keep the people he enslaved from accessing them. He ruthlessly pursued a woman who escaped his enslavement and then emancipated the slaves he owned outright in his will. Washington’s complicated and contradictory legacy around slavery has been debated by Americans since his death. Joining us to discuss is Dr. John Garrison Marks, the Vice President of Research and Engagement at the American Association for State and Local History and author of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “I think we’ve got another Washington,” composed by George Fairman and performed by the Peerless Quartet on October 32, 2015, in New York City; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox.The episode image is “Washington at Mount Vernon plantation, 1797,” lithographed and published by Nathaniel Currier in 1852; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, 37 Ink, 2015.“The Enslaved Household of President George Washington,” by Lindsay M. Chervinsky, White House Historical Association, September 6, 2019.“George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786,A Spotlight on a Primary Source by George Washington,”Gilder Lehrman Institute.“George Washington’s Last Will and Testament, 9 July 1799,” Founders Online, National Archives. “Forgotten No Longer: Archaeology of the Slave Memorial & African American Burial Ground at George Washington's Mount Vernon,” by Joe A. Downer, Archaeological Field Research Manager, George Washington's Mount Vernon.“People Enslaved at Monticello Who Gained Their Freedom,“ Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.“Trump administration ordered to restore George Washington slavery exhibit it removed in Philadelphia,” by Hannah Schoenbaum, AP News, February 16, 2026.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

One hundred years ago, Dr. Carter G. Woodson created and launched the inaugural Negro History Week after his professors told him that Black people didn’t have a history worth studying. Negro History Week built on the success of Douglass Day and quickly spread through Black communities in the United States. Fifty years later, at the urging of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, President Gerald Ford called for Americans to celebrate Black History Month, which was finally ordered by Presidential Proclamation in 1986. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jarvis Givens, Professor of Education and African and African American Studies at Harvard University and author of I'll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month.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 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson and music by Jon Rosamond Johnson; this public domain performance is by the United States Army Field Band and the 82nd Airborne Chorus and features Staff Sgt. Kyra Dorn. The episode image is a portrait of Carter G. Woodson taken on 19 December 1915 by Addison Norton Scurlock; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“The Origins of Douglass Day,” by Jennifer Morris, Smithsonian Digital Volunteers, February 14, 2023.“The story behind the Frederick Douglass birthday celebration,” by Scott Bomboy, National Constitution Center, February 14, 2024.“Black History Month: A Commemorative Observances Legal Research Guide,” Library of Congress.“The Origins of Black History Month,” by Daryl Michael Scott, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History. “Here's the story behind Black History Month — and why it's celebrated in February,” by Jonathan Franklin, NPR, February 2, 2022.“W. E. B. Du Bois and Black History Month,” by Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Black Perspectives, February 18, 2016.“Message on the Observance of Black History Month, February 1976,” by Gerald Ford, February 10, 1976.“Proclamation 5443—National Black (Afro-American) History Month, 1986,” by Ronald Reagan, February 24, 1986.“Proclamation: National Black History Month, 2026,” by Donald Trump, February 3, 2026.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Reed Peggram, born in Boston in 1914, a gay Black man in a world that put up barriers to his success, excelled at Harvard before heading to a Europe on the brink of war. In Europe he fell in love with a Danist artist, and despite pleas from everyone in his life and from the US government to leave the war-torn continent, Reed refused to depart without Arne, leading to his imprisonment in an Italian concentration camp. Even then, Reed overcame the barriers in his way, escaping with Arne and surviving until they were rescued by the US Army. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Ethelene Whitmire, Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and author of The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Stared Down World War II in the Name of Love.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 “Do it Again!” composed by George Gershwin and performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra; the piece, which is in the public domain, was recorded on March 28, 1922 in New York, and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a 1935 photograph of Reed Peggram retrieved from Reed Peggram's Harvard student records in the Harvard University archives; it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional source:“Unpacking Reed Peggram’s Library,” by Ethelene Whitmire, Journal of Cultural Analytics, vol. 9, no. 2, May 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Charles C. Diggs, Jr., founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, spent 25 years in Congress, pushing for change, on issues from segregation in commercial aviation to home-rule for the residents of Washington, DC, to the anti-apartheid movement. His legislative accomplishments were overshadowed by his downfall, and today his story doesn’t receive the attention of other Civil Rights heroes. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marion Orr, Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science at Brown University and author of House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-audio is “Bad Luck Blues,” performed by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey in 1923; the performance is in the public domain. The episode image is an official Congressional photo of Charles Diggs, Jr., in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional sources:“DIGGS, Charles Coles, Jr.,” Office of the Historian, United States House of Representatives.“Charles Diggs, 75, Congressman Censured Over Kickbacks,” by Irvin Molotsky, The New York Times, August 26, 1998.“Eyes on the Prize; Interview with Charles Coles Diggs Jr., 1985-11-06 [video],” Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC.“Regional Council of Negro Leadership,” by Ten Ownby, Mississippi Encyclopedia.“Mound Bayou (1887- ),” by Herbert G. Ruffin II, BlackPast, January 18, 2007.“Emmett Till's Death Inspired a Movement,” Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.“About the CBC,” Congressional Black Caucus.“D.C. Home Rule,” Council of the District of Columbia.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When All in the Family premiered in January 1971, CBS was nervous enough about the content that they added an advisory message at the beginning. Despite their fears, the show was a success, quickly garnering both awards and top Nielsen ratings. All in the Family not only changed television in the United States but also the practice of politics. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Oscar Winberg, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies and the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku, and author of Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics.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 “I Don’t Like Your Family,” composed by Joseph E. Howard, with lyrics by Will M. Hough and Frank R. Adams; this recording, from October 4, 1906, is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photo of the Cast of the television program All in the Family from a press release dated March 12, 1976; the photo is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.All in the Family streaming:Meet the Bunkers (Season 1, Episode 1) on YouTubeSeasons 2 and 3 on Pluto TVSeasons 7 and 8 on TubiAdditional Sources:“Till Death Us Do Part, 6 June 1966,” History of the BBC. “Norman Lear, Whose Comedies Changed the Face of TV, Is Dead at 101,” by By Richard Severo and Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, December 6, 2023.“For Good or Bad, Norman Lear Helped Erase Rural America from TV,” by Jeffrey H. Bloodworth, The Daily Yonder, February 22, 2024.“How Archie Bunker Forever Changed in the American Sitcom,” by Sascha Cohen, Smithsonian Magazine, March 21, 2018.“Looking Back on the Legacy of ‘All in the Family’ 50 Years Later,” by Tim Gray, Variety, January 12, 2021.“Looking Back on “All in the Family,” the Sitcom That Reshaped America,” by Tim Brinkhof, The Progressive Magazine, May 30, 2024.“Rob Reiner was more than a Hollywood liberal. He was a sophisticated political operator,” by Melanie Mason, Politico, December 15, 2025.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When It’s a Wonderful Life was first released, it wasn’t a box office hit, but it did draw the attention of the FBI and its investigation into the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry (COMPIC). The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) didn’t end up doing anything with the FBI’s allegations of subversion in the film, but the pressure of investigations like this led to a shift in Christmas films over the next 15 years away from stories of social problems to more lighthearted romances and musicals. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Vaughn Joy, author of Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy. Dr. Joy’s public scholarship website with her husband, Dr. Ben Railton, is Black and White and Read All Over.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 "Carol of the Bells," composed by Mykola Leontovych and performed by the Concert Band of the United States Air Force Band of the Rockies; the performance is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is a still from It’s a Wonderful Life, which is in the public domain.Films Discussed:It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)Susan Slept Here (1954)Babes in Toyland (1961)Additional Sources:“Breaking Hollywood's 'Pattern of Sameness'; That is the task the independent producers have set themselves, says Frank Capra, who is one of them.” by Frank Capra, The New York Times, May 5, 1946.“The Truman Doctrine, 1947,” U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.“House Un-American Activities Committee,” Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.“Screen Guide for Americans,” by Ayn Rand, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, 1947.“FBI File on Communist Infiltration- Motion Picture Industry (COMPIC),” via archive.org.“When 'It's a Wonderful Life' Came Under FBI Scrutiny,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, December 11, 2025.“How ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Went From Box Office Dud to Accidental Christmas Tradition,” by Jay Serafino, Mental Floss, December 6, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Americans love their coffee; according to the Fall 2025 National Coffee Data Trends Report, 66% of adult Americans drink coffee every day, averaging three cups per day. This devotion to the caffeinated beverage is nothing new. Even before Bostonians dumped over 90,000 pounds of tea in the harbor, Americans were sipping cups of joe. George and Martha Washington served tea at the President’s House in New York, and after he stepped down as president, George Washington even tried growing coffee trees at Mount Vernon. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Michelle Craig McDonald, Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society, and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.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 “Coffee in the Morning and Kisses in the Night,” by Gus Arnheim, 1934, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsThe episode image is of a coffee pot, made by Robert and William Peaston and accompanying sugar bowl, creampot, and tongs, made by Myer Myers; the items were owned by Dorothy Remsen, who married Abraham Brinckerhoff of New York in 1772. The coffee set is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 704; and the image is available as part of the Met's Open Access policy.Additional Sources:“Coffee’s Creation Myth: How Coffee Conquered the World,” by Blake Stilwell, Coffee or Die Magazine, April 16, 2022.“The Boston Tea Party at 250: History steeped in myth,” by Gabrielle Emanuel, WBUR, December 14, 2024. “Coffee and the White House,” by Tianna Mobley, The White House Historical Association, May 2, 2022.“Coffee,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.“Coffee: World Markets and Trade,” by United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, December 2024. “Poll reveals America’s coffee consumption habits,” by Georgia Smith, Global Coffee Report, September 11, 2025.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Global rum sales are expected to reach nearly $28 billion USD by the year 2033, making it one of the ten most popular alcoholic beverages in the world. In this episode we look at the early history of rum, how its invention and production were intertwined with the transatlantic slave trade, and how abolitionists tried to find free-labor sources of the popular liquor. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jordan B. Smith, Associate Professor of History at Widener University, and author of The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity (use code PENN-JSMITH30 at Penn Press for 30% off).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 “Fun Island,” by Geoff Harvey - Pixabay; used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Barrels of Rum,” by MAClarke21, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“How Authentic Caribbean Rum Is Made [video],” West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers' Association (WIRSPA), YouTube, May 16, 2014.“About Barbados: History Of Barbados,” Barbados, org.“The History of Jamaica,” Jamaica Information Service.“Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery,” by Steven Mintz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.“Top 10 best-selling rum Brand Champions 2025,” by Lauren Bowes, The Spirits Business, July 1, 2025.“Global Rum Market Size, Share, Growth, and Regional Forecast, 2025 – 2032,” Persistence Market Research, June 20, 2025.“20 Countries that Export the Most Rum in the World,” by Sultan Khalid, Insider Monkey via Yahoo Finance, March 18, 2024.Donate to Recovery Efforts in Jamaica:Jamaican Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM)World Central KitchenProject HopeOne Love BrigadeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

New Orleans is known for its unique cuisine that blends and highlights the many cultural roots of the city and its residents. The history of food distribution in New Orleans is just as unique within the American landscape, relying heavily on public food systems, both street vendors and municipally-run public markets. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Ashley Rose Young, a curator and public historian who serves as the American History Curator in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress and is a Smithsonian Research Associate. Her book, Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans has just been published.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 “On my way to New Orleans,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald; this performance was sung by George O’Connor on February 10, 1915, in New York, and is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is: “French Market, New Orleans, La.,” Detroit Publishing Company, 1910; there are no known restrictions on publication, and the image is accessible via the Library of Congress.Additional sources:“New Orleans History 101: A beginner’s guide to understanding the Crescent City,” by Historic New Orleans Collection Visitor Services Staff, January 21, 2022.“Timeline: New Orleans,” PBS American Experience.“New Orleans Then and Now: The French Market,” by Ellen Terrell, Library of Congress Blog, July 12, 2018.“The Native Roots of the French Market,”by Kalie Rhodes, New Orleans Historical: A project by The Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans, February 11, 2021. “200 Years of Commerce, Community & Culture,” French Market District. “New Orleans Street Vendors: A long history of African American entrepreneurship,” by Zella Palmer, 64 Parishes, December 1, 2019.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1912, wealthy Savannahian Juliette Gordon Low supposedly called her cousin and exclaimed: “Come right over! I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, for all of America, and for the world.” That something would become the Girl Scouts of the USA, an organization that throughout its history struggled to fulfill its initial promise of inclusion for all girls while trying to maintain an apolitical stance with deference to local councils. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Amy Farrell, the James Hopes Caldwell Memorial Chair and Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College and author of Intrepid Girls: The Complicated History of the Girl Scouts of the USA.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 “By the campfire,” composed by Percy Wenrich with lyrics by Mabel Elizabeth Girling; the performance by the Sterling Trio on February 18, 1919, in New York, is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox and is in the public domain. The episode image is “Girl Scouts, circa 1940s,” taken at Camp Long; Item 31422, Ben Evans Recreation Program Collection (Record Series 5801-02), Seattle Municipal Archives; used under CC BY 2.0.Additional sources:“Practical Patriotism: Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, and Americanization,” by Leslie Hahner, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 5(2), 2008, 113–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420801989702.“New Quarter Honors Juliette Gordon Low, Founder of Girl Scouts,” by By Shannon Browning-Mullis, Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, March 20, 2025.“Early Girl Scouting,” Georgia Historical Society.“Girl Scouts Through the Years,” Women’s History and Cultural Center.“100 years of Girl Scouts: part I,” by Adam Frost, Smithsonian Institute, May 30, 2012“Quick History: Juliette Gordon Low [video],” Northeast Georgia History Center, March 13, 2020.“Golden Eaglet: The Story of a Girl Scout [video],” Girl Scouts USA, 1919.“From 18 girls in Savannah to a global movement to make a difference,” Girl Scouts USA. “Girl Scout Cookie History,” Girl Scouts USA.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Zoe Anderson Norris, known to her friends in the Ragged Edge Klub as the Queen of Bohemia, was born in Kentucky in 1860, moved to Wichita, Kansas, with her first husband, and then to New York City, where she forged a career for herself as a journalist and novelist, eventually launching her own magazine, The East Side. In The East Side and in her journalism, she often focused on the lives of immigrants and the poor. Joining me in this episode is Eve M. Kahn, author of Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris.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 “Come to the land of Bohemia,” composed by George Evans, with lyrics by Ren Shields; this performance by Hatvey Hindermyer was recorded on April 30, 1908, in New York, and is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is of Zoe Anderson Norris from 1909, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“To Fight for the Poor With My Pen: Zoe Anderson Norris, Queen of Bohemia,” Grolier Club Online Exhibitions.“Zoe Anderson Norris,” by W.J. Lampton, New York Times, February 27, 1914.“Zoe A. Norris,” Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912,” by John Wilson Townsend, Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1913.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Dr. Marguerite Phillips Dorsey Cartwright, born May 17, 1910, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a journalist, sociologist, educator, and actress, who served as a correspondent for the United Nations, attended and wrote about both the Bandung Conference and the All-African People's Conference, and was appointed to the Provisional Council of the University of Nigeria, where she became one of five trustees. Joining me in this episode to discuss both Marguerite Cartwright and Black women’s leadership in the fight for human rights is Dr. Keisha N. Blain, Professor of History and Africana Studies at Brown University and author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights.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 “Down South blues,” written by Fletcher Henderson, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters, and performed by The Virginians, in New York City, on September 25, 1923; the audio is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox and is in the public domain. The episode image is “Portrait of Marguerite Cartwright wearing a dashiki, undated,” by John Schiff; the photograph is courtesy Leo Baeck Institute and is used under fair use guidelines. Additional Sources:“Marguerite Cartwright and African-American Internationalism [video],” Society of Southwest Archivists, August 13, 2021.“M. P. CARTWRIGHT,” The New York Times, May 9, 1986, Section D, Page 22.“Introducing Marguerite Cartwright,” Amistad Research Center.“Cartwright, Marguerite, 1910-1986,” Biographical Note, Marguerite Cartwright papers, Amistad Research Center.“Bandung Conference (Asian-African Conference), 1955,” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State.“AAPC Background,” Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The feminist anti-rape movement began in the late 1960s at the height of women’s liberation. As rape crisis centers relied on federal grants aimed at prosecution of those committing sexual violence, feminists worried about the conservatizing influence of those funds, and Black women in particular were not well-served by the developing model. Black women activists found their own methods to combat rape and to care for survivors. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Caitlin Reed Wiesner, Assistant Professor of History at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and author of Between the Street and the State: Black Women's Anti-Rape Activism Amid the War on Crime.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 “Emotional Piano Music,” by Mikhail Smusev, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Black Women Matter,” taken on September 30, 2017, at the March for Racial Justice by Miki Jourdan; the image is available on Flickr and is available for use, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Additional Sources:“Feminism: The Second Wave,” National Women’s History Museum, June 18, 2020.“How Ronald Reagan Tried to Shrink Government Spending,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Published: November 21, 2024, and Last Updated: May 28, 2025.“A brief history of the Victims of Crime Act,” by Blair Ames, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, October 11. 2024.“The 2022 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization,” Congress.gov.“What are Rape Crisis Centers and how have they changed over the years?” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, September 15, 2021.Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The First Amendment to the US Constitution says that Congress cannot make law abridging the freedom of speech, but by as early at 1798, Congress was restricting immigration to the country on the basis of the ideological beliefs of the people who wanted to immigrate. While the reasons for restrictions have changed over time, as has the mechanism by which they’re enforced, the basic principle continues to today. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julia Rose Kraut, legal historian and author of Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “The Mask of Anarchy 1 (Strings)” by Victory Day from Pixabay in accordance with the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is "The Anarchist riot in Chicago: a dynamite bomb exploding among the police," by Thure de Thulstrup and published in the May 15th, 1886, Harper's Weekly 30 (1534): 312-313; image is in the Public Domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Nationality Act of 1790,” Immigration History, The Immigration and Ethnic History Society.“Alien and Sedition Acts (1798),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“The Alien Enemies Act: The One Alien and Sedition Act Still on the Books,” by Scott Bomboy, National Constitution Center, March 17, 2025.“The Sedition Act of 1798,” History Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives.“Haymarket Affair: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“May 4, 1886: Haymarket Tragedy,” Zinn Education Project.“Emma Goldman (1869-1940),” PBS American Experience. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Both Abigail Adams and Benjamin Franklin took trips in England to trace their family histories, and they weren’t alone among 18th century Americans, many of whom took a keen interest in genealogy and family connections. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Karin Wulf, Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, and Professor of History at Brown University and author of Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early 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 is “Nothing like that in our family,” composed by Seymour Furth with lyrics by William A. Heelan and performed by Billy Murray on April 24, 1906; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Sampler,” by Sophia Dyer, 1819; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Additional Sources:“Crossings- Abigail Was Here (Devonshire),” KathleenBitetti.com.“Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 6 September 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-08-02-0034. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 8, April 1, 1758, through December 31, 1759, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965, pp. 133–146.]“Genealogical Chart of the Franklin Family, [July 1758],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-08-02-0029. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 8, April 1, 1758, through December 31, 1759, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965, p. 120.]“Eliot’s Bible,” by Neely Tucker, Library of Congress Blog, August 6, 2024.“Isaiah Thomas Folio Bible, 1791,” Houston Christian University Dunham Bible Museum.“How Genealogy Became Almost as Popular as Porn,” by Gregory Rodriguez, Time Magazine, May 30, 2014.“Why Are Americans Obsessed with Genealogy?” by Libby Copeland, Psychology Today, October 13, 2020.“Our Story,” Ancestry.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Before American independence and the Bill of Rights promising religious freedom, the American colonies were English territory governed by English religious law that mandated worship according to the Book of Common Prayer. Even Maryland, which had been founded as a place for Catholics to worship freely, was majority Protestant and intolerant of public Catholicism by the time of the Revolution. Nonetheless, Catholics, including wealthy English landowners, Irish servants, and enslaved Africans, continued to live and worship throughout the American colonies, finding ways to keep their beliefs and customs alive. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Susan Juster, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library and author of A Common Grave: Being Catholic in English 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 “Ave Maria,” composed by Charles Gounod and sung by Florence Hayward; the recording was made on January 30, 1905, in Philadelphia and is in the public domain and can be accessed via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “The Founding of Maryland, 1634,” painted by Emmanuel Leutze in 1860; the painting is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists,” Library of Congress.“10 facts about U.S. Catholics,” byJustin Nortey, Patricia Tevington, and Gregory A. Smith, Pew Research Center, March 4, 2025.“Maryland's History,” Maryland Secretary of State.“The Catholic church in colonial days : the thirteen colonies, the Ottawa and Illinois country, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, 1521-1763,” by John Gilmary Shea, 1886.“American Catholic History Resources,” The Catholic University of America.“Catholicism in the Early South,” by Maura Jane Farrelly, Journal of Southern Religion 14 (2012).“Descendants of Jesuit Slaveholding and Jesuits of the United States Announce Historic Partnership,” Jesuit Conference of Canada and the U.S.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In August of 1893, Madeleine Pollard sued Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge of Kentucky for breach of promise, claiming that he had promised to marry her but then had married another woman. By the time of the trial, Pollard and the much-older Breckinridge had been involved in an affair for nearly a decade. Breckinridge’s legal team attempted to paint Pollard as an “adventuress,” going so far as to hire an undercover detective – Jane Tucker – to get dirt on Pollard, but it was Breckinridge’s reputation that suffered as a result of the revelations in the trial, especially with the women of Kentucky. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Elizabeth DeWolfe, Professor of History at the University of New England in Maine and author of Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy.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 “Wait until you see my Madeline,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer with lyrics by Lew Brown and performed by Billy Jones; the audio was recorded in Camden, New Jersey, on May 4, 1921 and is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photo of Madeleine Pollard, by C.M. Bell, produced between 1873 and ca. 1916; the image is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, and there are no known restrictions on publication.Additional Sources:“The Celebrated Trial, Madeline Pollard vs. Breckinridge, The Most Noted Breach of Promise Suit in the History of Court Records,” American Printing and Binding Company, 1894, via the Internet Archive.“The Court Case That Inspired the Gilded Age’s #MeToo Moment,” by Annie Diamond, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2018.“Sex, politics and broken promises grabbed headlines in Lexington in 1893,” by Liz Carey, The Lexington Herald-Leader, April 23, 2025."“Not Ruined, but Hindered”: Rethinking Scandal, Re-examining Transatlantic Sources, and Recovering Madeleine Pollard," by Elizabeth DeWolfe, in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, vol. 31 no. 2, 2014, p. 300-310. “BRECKINRIDGE, William Campbell Preston,” United States House of Representatives History, Art, and Archives.“W.C.P. BRECKINRIDGE DEAD.; Ex-Congressman's Public Career Ended After the Pollard Suit,” The New York Times, November 20, 1904.Related Episode:Sophonisba BreckinridgeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On the slave ships that sailed between Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, and the West Coast of Africa from the 16th through the 19th Centuries, the crews included not just white sailors but also Black mariners, including a significant number of crewmen who were themselves enslaved. These enslaved mariners were not just a source of inexpensive labor but were also valued for their geographic, linguistic, and cultural skills, and they, in turn, could use the opportunity of labor on slave ships as a means of social mobility and eventually legal emancipation, or sometimes the chance for flight. Joining me in this episode to discuss these mariners is Dr. Mary E. Hicks, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Bahia Sunrise,” used under the Envato Market License - Music Standard License. The episode image is “Night Chase of the Brigantine Slaver Windward by HM Steam-Sloop Alecto,” Illustration for The Illustrated London News, by Frederick James Smyth, May 1, 1858; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional sources:“A Brief History of Brazil,” by José Fonseca, The New York Times 2006.“A Chronology of Brazilian History,” The Atlantic,” February 1956.“2.3 The African Slave Trade and Slave Life,” Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship.“4.2 Slavery and Abolition in the 19th Century,” Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship.“The Contraband Slave Trade to Brazil, 1831-1845,” by Robert Conrad, Hispanic American Historical Review 1 November 1969; 49 (4): 617–638. “‘We need to tell people everything’: Portugal grapples with legacy of colonial past,” by Sam Jones, Gonçalo Fonseca, and Philip Oltermann, The Guardian, October 5, 2020.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Ruth Reynolds, born in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1916 to a strict Methodist family, may have seemed an unlikely ally to the cause of Puerto Rican independence, but she devoted her life to what she saw as her “sacred and patriotic duty” as an American to convincing her country to withdraw from Puerto Rico “so that our nation may stand before the world free from any suggestion of imperialist ambition.” Facing surveillance by the FBI and insular police and even incarceration for her views, Reynolds never backed down from her solidarity, but she was always careful to listen to the people of Puerto Rico and never to impose her view on them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Lisa G. Materson, Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and author of Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, and the Battle for Puerto Rico's Independence. 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 original mid-19th century fast-tempo arrangement of “La Borinqueña,” which later as a slower arrangement became the regional anthem of Puerto Rico; the performance is by the United States Navy and is in the public domain; it is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is from the arrest of Carmen María Pérez González, Olga Viscal and Ruth Reynolds, January 4, 1951, taken by Benjamin Torres, and archived at the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad de Puerto Rico; the photograph is in the public domain.Additional Sources:“Ruth M. Reynolds Papers,” Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Centro Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY.“Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Perspectives,” Library of Congress.“Puerto Rican Independence Movement [video],” American History TV, C-Span, April 13, 2018.“Remembering Don Pedro: An Online History of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.” “Puerto Rico’s Independence Movement: What Americans need to know about the PIP and Puerto Rico's Independence,” by Javier A. Hernandez, LA Progressive, Originally posted January 27, 2025 and updated February 12, 2025.“How the U.S. silenced calls for Puerto Rico's independence [video],” by Bianca Gralau, August 26, 2021.“The Case for Puerto Rican Independence,” by Alberto C. Medina, Current Affairs, April 5, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In March 1972, Selma James distributed a pamphlet that declared: “If we raise kids, we have a right to a living wage. . . WE DEMAND WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK. All housekeepers are entitled to wages. (Men too).” Soon it was a global movement, with Wages for Housework branches in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and several other countries, and autonomous groups like Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Emily Callaci, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor.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 “Get yourself a broom and sweep your troubles away,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyrics by James Brockman and Billy Rose, and performed by Frank Crumit and Frank E. Banta, in New York on December 19, 1924; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Wages for Housework poster drawn by Jacquie Ursula Caldwell in 1974, From the collection of Silvia Federici copyright Creative Commons, available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“A Woman’s Place,” Selma James, 1953.“Women and the Subversion of the Community: A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader,” by Mariarosa Della Costa, 2019.“Statement of the International Feminist Collective,” July 1972.“Wages Against Housework,” by Silvia Federici, 1975.“All Work and No Pay [video],” Made by the Wages for Housework Campaign with the BBC TV's Open Door series, 1976, posted by Global Women’s Strike, January 15, 2023.“The women who demanded wages for housework - Witness History, BBC World Service [video],” Witness History, BBC World Service, February 12, 2014.“Covid-19 has made housework more visible, but it still isn’t valued,” by Kevin Sapere, The Washington Post, April 8, 2021.“Wages for Housework is 50. This is the change it has inspired,” by Leila Hawkins, Nadja.co, April 16, 2022.“‘They say it is love, we say it is unwaged work’ – 50 years of fighting to be paid for housework,” by Rosa Campbell, Gloria Media, December 19, 2022.“The ‘true value of women’s work,’” by Kristina García, Penn Today, July 26, 2023.Care Income NowAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was many things: writer and publisher, public speaker, temperance reformer, advocate for women’s rights and dress reform, and adoptive mother. She was not the inventor of the trousers for women that came to bear her name – bloomers – although she wore them and wrote about them for many years. Throughout her life, even as poor health often stood in her way, Amelia Bloomer took action, never waiting for someone else to do what was needed. I’m joined in this episode by writer Sara Catterall, author of Amelia Bloomer: Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon.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 “Lily of the prairie,” composed and with lyrics by Kerry Mills, performed by Billy MMurray and the Haydn Quartet on July 7, 1907, in Camden, New Jersey; this recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is an illustration of Amelia Bloomer from Illustrated London News with the description: "Amelia Bloomer , Originator Of The New Dress. — From A Daguerreotype By T. W. Brown,” published August 27, 1851; the illustration is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Amelia Bloomer Didn’t Mean to Start a Fashion Revolution, But Her Name Became Synonymous With Trousers,” by Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine, May 24, 2018.“Amelia Bloomer – Publisher and Advocate for Woman’s Rights,” VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.“Amelia Bloomer: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894),” by Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow, National Women’s History Museum, 2017.“Amelia Bloomer,” National Park Service.“Petition of Amelia Bloomer Regarding Suffrage in the West,” by Linda Simmons, National Archives.“Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer,” by D. C. Bloomer, United States: Arena Publishing Company, 1895. Via Project Guternberg.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

My guest today is Dr. Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history, and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at the Johns Hopkins University and author of The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir. In this book, Prof. Jones researches her family’s past to understand how each generation encountered and negotiated the color line, beginning with her great-great-great-grandmother who survived enslavement and raised a free family. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode audio is “Family trouble blues,” composed by Olman J. Cobb, and performed in New York on May 5, 1923, with Lizzie Miles on vocals and Clarence Johnson on piano; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is Jennie Holley Jones and family, from the cover of The Trouble of Color. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The Universal Negro Improvement Association is often most closely associated with Marcus Garvey, but from the beginning, the work of women was essential to the development of the organization. Amy Ashwood co-founded the UNIA with Garvey, and it was her connections and capital that launched the Negro World newspaper, but after her brief marriage to and divorce from Garvey, she was removed from the UNIA and the newspaper. Other women, like Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, and actress Henrietta Vinton Davis, played important and public roles in the UNIA, especially during Garvey’s incarceration, but their contributions aren’t as widely remembered as Garvey’s. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Natanya Duncan, associate professor of history and director of Africana studies at Queens College CUNY, and author of An Efficient Womanhood: Women and the Making of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.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 "Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association," a studio recording made by African-American leader Marcus Garvey in New York in July 1921, and adapted from his longer speech "A Membership Appeal from Marcus Garvey to the Negro Citizens of New York;" it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Henrietta Vinton Davis, published in Women of distinction: remarkable in works and invincible in character by L. A. Scruggs in 1893; the image is in the public domain and is available via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.Additional Sources:“Women of the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” by Dr. Melissa Brown, BlackFeminisms.com.“Uncovering the Silences of Black Women’s Voices in the Age of Garvey,” by Keisha N. Blain, Black Perspectives, November 29, 2015.“Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind,” PBS.“Theorizing (with) Amy Ashwood Garvey,” by Robbie Shilliam, Chapter in Women’s International Thought: A New History, edited by Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, 158–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.""Negro Women Are Great Thinkers as Well as Doers": Amy Jacques-Garvey and Community Feminism, 1924-1927," by Ula Y. Taylor, Journal of Women's History 12, no. 2 (2000): 104-126. ”Black History Month: Amy Jacques Garvey,” by Emily Claessen, King’s College London, October 20, 2023.“The inside story of the pardon of Marcus Garvey,” by DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post, February 1, 2025.“Henrietta Vinton Davis: Lady Commander Order of the Nile,” by Meserette Kentake, Kentake Page, August 15, 2015."“If Our Men Hesitate Then the Women of the Race Must Come Forward”: Henrietta Vinton Davis and the UNIA in New York," by Natanya Duncan, New York History, vol. 95 no. 4, 2014, p. 558-583. “Laura Adorkor Kofey research collection,” New York Public Library.“After 85 years, slain minister's Jacksonville legacy lingers,” by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville.com, March 7, 2013.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

After emancipation, formerly enslaved Black Americans knew that the key to economic freedom was land ownership, but as soon as they began to acquire land, local tax assessors began to overassess their land and exact steep penalties if they couldn’t pay the resulting inflated property taxes. For the past 150 years, all over the country, the same story has played out, with African Americans paying disproportionately higher property taxes, whether due to systemic inequities or corrupt local officials, while at the same time receiving dramatically fewer public services. And due to a Depression-Era law, aimed at limiting the tax bargaining powers of large property owners, Black Americans have been unable to seek redress against discriminatory property tax assessments in the US Supreme Court. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Andrew W. Kahrl, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, and author of The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in 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 “Baby won't you please come home blues,” written by Charles Warfield and performed by Bessie Smith on April 11, 1923, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a sign in Harlingen, Texas, photographed in 1939, by Lee Russell; available via the The New York Public Library on Unsplash; free to use under the Unsplash License.Additional Sources:“How do state and local property taxes work?” The Tax Policy Briefing Book.“History of Property Taxes in the United States,” by Glenn W. Fisher, Economics History Association.“America Used to Have a Wealth Tax: The Forgotten History of the General Property Tax,” by Carl Davis and Eli Byerly-Duke, ITEP, November 2, 2023.“It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes,” by Andrew W. Kahrl, The New York Times, April 11, 2024.“Prop 13 and Inequality: How the 1978 Tax Reform Law Drives Economic and Racial Disparities” by Jonathan Vankin, California Local, November 29, 2022.“The Lock-in Effect of California’s Proposition 13,” By Les Picker, The NBER Digest, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005.“Property tax burdens fall on nation’s lowest-income homeowners, study finds,” UChicago News, Mach 9, 2021.“The Assessment Gap: Racial Inequalities in Property Taxation,” by Carlos Avenancio-León and Troup Howard, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, June 10, 2020.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

For Ericka Huggins, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which she attended at just 15 years old, was a turning point in her life, inspiring her toward activism. She later joined the Black Panther Party, and after being incarcerated as a political prisoner, served as Director of the acclaimed Oakland Community School and became both the first Black person and the first woman appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. She continues her activism work today in the fields of restorative justice and social change. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Frances Phillips, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and author of Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.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 Vinyl Funk by Alisia from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Ericka Huggins at Occupy Oakland Protest on November 2, 2011,” by Clay@SU on Flickr, CC by 2.0.Additional Sources:“Ericka Huggins”“Hggins, Ericka,” Archives at Yale.“Ericka Huggins (January 5, 1948),” National Archives.“The 1963 March on Washington,” NAACP.“How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement,” by Sarah Pruitt, History.com, Originally posted February 20, 2020, and updated July 27, 2023.“Black Panther Party,” National Archives.“The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change,” Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.“(1966) The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program,” BlackPast.“Black Panthers’ Oakland Community School: A Model for Liberation,” by Shani Ealey, Staff Writer, Black Organizing Project, November 3, 2016.“Black Panthers ran a first-of-its-kind Oakland school. Now it’s a beacon for schools in California,” By Ida Mojadad, The San Francisco Standard, August 7, 2023.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Thousands of years ago, a band of Cahuilla Indians migrated south into the Coachella Valley, calling the area Séc-he, meaning boiling water. The Mexicans translated this as agua caliente (hot water), which is the name still used today. As the United States extended its territory into California, the Agua Caliente were forced onto a reservation, and then, as the Southern Pacific Railroad was granted land in the region, the reservation was carved up into a checkerboard pattern. It took decades of legal fights and government intervention, but today Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians continues its work to retain its cultural heritage and stewards more than 34,000 acres of ancestral land. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Michael Albertus, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and author of Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies.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 “Dramatic Nostalgic Sad Piano and Cello” by Yevhen Onoychenko from Pixabay; it is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is the Agua Caliente Reservation; this media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 298622.Additional SourcesAgua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.“Dawes Act,” National Archives.“S.555 - Indian Gaming Regulatory Act,” 100th Congress (1987-1988).“Cahuilla,” UNESCO World Atlas of Languages.“Keeping Cahuilla Alive,” by Joan Page McKenna, me yah whae, Spring/Summer 2019.Agua Caliente Cultural Museum“Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, Palm Springs, Calif.,” by Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, July 25, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1865, when Black people in Mississippi first gained the legal right to marriage, so-called Black Codes outlawed interracial marriage, punishable by life in prison. Five years later, Republicans in the Mississippi state legislature repealed the Black Codes and legalized interracial marriage, but the law was reversed again ten years later when Democrats took control. In 1890, a new state Constitution, erasing all the racial progress of the 1868 one, enshrined a prohibition on interracial marriage that lasted until the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. Through it all, though, interracial couples in Mississippi formed lasting unions, started families, and in some cases even legally wed, despite the legal constraints against them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Kathryn Schumaker, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and author of Tangled FortunesThe Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Segregated South.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 “Mississippi Moon,” written and performed by Gus Van and Joe Schenck; this recording was created in New York on January 3, 1923 and is in the public domain; it is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode artwork is a photo by Monet Garner on Unsplash and is free to use under the Unsplash License.Additional Sources:“‘Unlawful Intimacy’: Mixed-Race Families, Miscegenation Law, and the Legal Culture of Progressive Era Mississippi.” by Kathryn Schumaker, 2023. Law and History Review 41(4): 773–94. doi: 10.1017/S0738248023000317.“Mississippi Miscegenation Laws,” Facing History and Ourselves.“Civil Rights Act of 1866, ‘An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication,’” National Constitution Center.Miss. Code Ann. § 97-29-1 Adultery and fornication; unlawful cohabitation.“Mississippi Rises Again,” by Don Winbush, Time Magazine, November 16, 1987.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 positioned the United States as a global power, but the U.S. didn’t complete the feat single-handedly. It required land from Panama, equipment and information from the failed earlier effort by the French, and, importantly, tens of thousands of laborers from around the Caribbean. Decades later the Panamanians finally gained control of the canal zone and then the canal itself, but the labor – and sacrifice – of the Afro-Caribbean workers still deserves greater recognition. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julie Greene, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and author of Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal.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 “Through the Panama Canal,” composed by J. Louis Von der Mehden and performed by Prince’s Band on January 7, 1914, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Panama Canal,” photographed by Harris & Ewing in 1913; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.Additional Sources:“The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal,” by Julie Greene, Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.“Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State.“Panama Canal: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“History,” Panama Canal Authority.“Chief Engineers of the Panama Canal,” PBS American Experience.“How the Panama Canal Took a Huge Toll On the Contract Workers Who Built It,” by Caroline Lieffers, The Conversation, April 18, 2018.“Why the Construction of the Panama Canal Was So Difficult—and Deadly,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Originally published October 25, 2021, and updated September 15, 2023.“The Panama Canal: The African American Experience,” by Patrice C. Brown, Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2).“Panama Canal Centennial online exhibition,” University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries.“The Panama Canal and the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,”Office of the Historian, US Department of State.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1686, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Atkins, Dorothy Spendlove, and their children, all of whom were half-siblings, along with some of their children's other half-siblings and their children's father, boarded a ship headed from Barbados to England, where they would live out their lives. It wasn’t unusual for a plantation owner like John Peers to impregnate both his enslaved Black laborers and his white servant, but it was unusual for him to acknowledge his illegitimate offspring, baptize them, bring them and their mothers with him across the ocean, and provide for them in his will, all of which John Peers did. This week we look at the story of a Barbados family, not via its patriarch, but rather through the lives of the five women who bore his children – Susannah, Elizabeth, Dorothy, and John's wives, Hester Tomkyns and Frances Knights (née Atkins). Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jenny Shaw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of The Women of Rendezvous: A Transatlantic Story of Family and Slavery.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “Calypso Island - P5,” by Audio Beats, purchased under Pond5's Content License Agreement; the Pond5 license authorizes the licensee to use the media in the licensee's own commercial or non-commercial production and to copy, broadcast, distribute, display, perform and monetize the production or work in any medium. The episode image is “A representation of the sugar-cane and the art of making sugar,” by John Hinton, 1749; the engraving is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.Additional Sources:“On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” by Sir Hilary Beckles, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, April 8, 2017.“Barbados profile - Timeline,” BBC News, January 4, 2018.“Barbados: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide,” Library of Congress.“Barbados parts way with Queen and becomes world’s newest republic,” by Michael Safi, The Guardian, November 30, 2021.“Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations,” by Janell Ross, Time Magazine, July 6, 2023.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Henry Christophe, one of the heroes of the Haitian Revolution, was, from 1811 to his death in 1820, King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti, the first, last, and only King that Haiti ever had. This week we look at Christophe’s meteoric rise from being born enslaved on an island hundreds of miles from Haiti to fighting in the American Revolution to serving as a general in the Haitian Revolution to being king of all he surveyed, until it all came crashing down around him. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Maestro Walter's Brass Band, Final March - JEZI OU KONNEN,” by Félix Blume, from Death in Haiti; the audio is available under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. The episode image is a portrait of Henry Christophe from 1816 by Richard Evans; the painting is in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“The Haitian Revolution Timeline,” by Kona Shen at Brown University, 2022.“The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.“How Toussaint L’ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution,” by Kedon Willis, History.com, Originally posted August 30, 2021, and updated, August 18, 2023.“Inside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere,’” by Marlene Daut, The Conversation, Originally published January 23, 2019, and update November 16, 2022.“Rare document sheds light on historical black queen,” The University of Central Lancashire, September 26, 2019.“Atlantic freedoms: Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its defining climax in the Age of Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, AEON, November 7, 2016.“The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith, Library of Congress.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

If you were to head to Paris in the mid-eighteenth Century and ask for a restaurant, you might be handed a bowl of meat bouillon, prepared in such a way as to improve vigor and perhaps even sperm production. Restaurant referred first to the broth itself and then to the eateries in which men, and less frequently women, could eat said broth. As restaurant came to mean the luxurious establishment at one which could eat an elaborate menu of delicate food items prepared by talented chefs, sex stayed the menu, and restaurants and the city’s sex workers formed a mutually beneficial relationship to serve diners’ appetites. Even as restaurants jumped across the pond to the US, the correlation remained. As a word of warning, this episode may not be appropriate for younger ears. Joining this episode is Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History at the University of Victoria and author of Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Sugar Blues,” composed by Clarence Williams with lyrics by Lucy Fletcher; this performance is by Leonare Williams and her Dixie Band, recorded on August 10, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. National Jukebox. The episode image is a digitized image from "Tableaux de Paris ... Paris qui consomme. Dessins de P. Vidal," published in Paris in 1893.; the digital version is available via the British Library and is in the public domain.Additional Sources:“When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally published May 18, 2020, and updated August 20, 2023.“Revolutionary broth: the birth of the restaurant and the invention of French gastronomy,” by Joel Abrams, The Conversation, August 25, 2021.“Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” by Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 13, 2017.“Looking to Quell Sexual Urges? Consider the Graham Cracker,” by Adee Braun, The Atlantic, January 15, 2014.“Segregating Restaurants,” by Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, NY Food Story. “The Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women,” by Jessica Gingrich, Atlas Obscura, June 22, 2018“History,” The Berghoff.“8 Restaurants And Bars Where U.S. History Was Made,” by Mercedes Kane, The Takeout, June 22, 2022.“National Statistics,” National Restaurant Association.“A restaurant wanting a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe bans diners under 30,” by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, June 10, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On March 4, 1933, Frances Perkins was sworn in as the 4th Secretary of Labor. It was the first time in United States history that a woman served in the Cabinet, only 13 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Perkins came into office with a long list of to-do items, and she succeeded in accomplishing nearly all of them in her long tenure, as a central architect of many of the programs of the New Deal, especially the Social Security Act. More quietly, but no less importantly, Perkins also worked to institute more humane policies around immigration, especially as the rise of Nazism in Europe created a refugee crisis of Jews attempting to flee to the US. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University and author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins: Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The additional audio is from a radio address of America’s Town Meeting of the Air from December 19, 1935, titled “Should We Plan for Social Security,” in which Frances Perkins defends the new legislation; the audio is available on the Social Security Administration website, and there is no known copyright. The mid-episode music is “Minimal Piano” by Sakartvelo from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is Frances Perkins, c. 1935-1936. Courtesy Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special CollectionsAdditional Sources:“Who Was Frances Perkins? Meet the Trailblazing Workers’ Rights Advocate Whose Homestead Just Became a National Monument,” by Sarah Kuta, The Smithsonian Magazine, December 19, 2024.“The Woman Behind the New Deal,” The Frances Perkins Center.“Frances Perkins,” Social Security History, the Social Security Administration.“Frances Perkins became the First Female Cabinet Member,” Library of Congress.“Frances Perkins: Breaking Glass Ceilings in the Cabinet,” by Rebecca Brenner Graham, The White House Historical Association. “Frances Perkins,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.“A Proclamation on the Establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument,” The White House, December 16, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On June 15, 1933, the all-white, all-male Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed Florence Price’s award-winning Symphony Number 1 in E minor, the first institution of its caliber to play the work of a Black woman composer. It was a monumental achievement, but not one that Price achieved alone. She was supported by a sisterhood of Black women who created an environment in Chicago in which composers and performers like Price and Margaret Bonds could find success. Joining me in this episode is musicologist and concert pianist Dr. Samantha Ege, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and author of South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Dr. Samantha Ege performing Nora Holt’s Negro Dance, composed in 1921; the composition is in the public domain, and the recording is used with the permission of Dr. Ege. The episode image is a portrait of Florence Price, circa 1940, taken by George Nelidoff; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional sources:“Now Hear This ‘Florence Price and the American Migration’ [video],” PBS with host Scott Yoo, April 15, 2022.“About Florence,” International Florence Price Festival.“How Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance Changed Classical Music Around the World,” by Stephen Raskauskas, WFMT, April 10, 2018.“The Curious Case of ‘Naughty Little Nora,’ a Jazz Age Shape Shifter,” By Samantha Ege, The New York Times, November 12, 2024.“Nora Holt: The Most Famous Woman You've Never Heard of,” by Imani Perry, The Atlantic, December 1, 2021.“Maude Roberts George facts for kids,” Kiddle Encyclopedia.“A trailblazing Black, female composer’s work is revived by Opera Philadelphia,” by Peter Crimmins, WHYY, January 31, 2023.“Margaret Bonds: Composer and Activist,” Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections.“History of NANM,” National Association of Negro Musicians.“125 Moments: 072 Price’s Symphony in E Minor,” Chicago Symphony Orchestra.“The Rediscovery of Florence Price: How an African-American composer’s works were saved from destruction,” by Alex Ross, The New Yorker, January 29, 2018.“The Chicago Black Renaissance is Harlem’s radical counterpart,” by Crystal Hill, The TRiiBE, February 10, 2022.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

As the Nazis rose to power in Germany, life became increasingly hostile for women scientists, especially women of Jewish descent, but also those who expressed anti-Nazi sentiments. The sexism in academic that had held them back in their careers also made escape from Germany difficult, as they didn’t look as strong on paper as their male counterparts. But four women physicists – Hertha Sponer, Hildegard Stücklen, Hedwig Kohn, and Lise Meitner – managed to flee, taking their scientific knowledge and rugged determination with them to the United States and Sweden. Joining me in this episode is writer Olivia Campbell, author of the forthcoming book, Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Classical Piano (Sad & Emotional)” by Clavier Clavier from Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Hedwig Kohn in her laboratory, 1912;” the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Timeline of the Holocaust: 1933-1945,” Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles.“Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” Holocaust Encyclopedia.“Albert Einstein’s Little-Known Correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois About Equality and Racial Justice,” by Maria Popova, The Marginalian.“Hertha Sponer,” Duke University Department of Physics.“Dr. Slucklen Retires In September,” Sweet Briar News, Volume 29, Number 24, 16 May 1956.“Hedwig Kohn, April 5, 1887–1964,” by Brenda P. Winnewisser, Jewish Women’s Archive.“Interview of Hedwig Kohn by Thomas S. Kuhn on 1962 June 7,” Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics,College Park, MD, USA.“Google Honors Pioneering Physicist Hedwig Kohn Who Fled Nazi Germany,” by Madeline Roache, Time Magazine, April 5, 2019.“Lise Meitner,” Atomic Heritage Foundation.“Lise Meitner – the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize,” by Timothy J. Jorgensen, The Conversation, February 7, 2019.“Why the ‘Mother of the Atomic Bomb’ Never Won a Nobel Prize,” by Katrina Miller, The New York Times, Originally published October 2, 2023, and updated November 8, 2023.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

As the federal workforce grew during the Civil War, department heads began employing women, without any explicit authorization from Congress that they could do so. When Congress finally acknowledged the employment of women in federal departments in 1864, it set their salary at $600 a year, half of what the lowest-paid men clerks were making. Surprisingly, though, a few years later Congress debated – and nearly passed – a resolution requiring equal pay for women employed by the federal government, something that wouldn’t become law for nearly another century. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jessica Ziparo McHugh, author of This Grand Experiment: When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War-Era Washington, D.C.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “I Love the Ladies,” composed by Jean Schwartz, with lyrics by Grant Clarke, and performed by William J. Halley on May 18, 1914, in Camden, New Jersey; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Among the Greenbacks – The Cutting and Separating Room the Treasury Building – Washington,” from Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capitol, as a Woman Sees Them, by Mary Clemmer Ames, 1873.Additional Sources:“History: A legacy of service to the Nation since 1861,” The U.S. Government Publishing Office.“History of the Treasury,” U.S. Department of the Treasury.“Behind the Scenes in Washington: Being a Complete and Graphic Account of the Credit Mobilier Investigation, the Congressional Rings, Political Intrigues, Workings of the Lobbies, Etc. ... with Sketches of the Leading Senators, Congressmen, Government Officials, Etc., and an Accurate Description of the Splendid Public Buildings of the Federal Capital,” by James Dabney McCabe, Continental Publishing Company, 1873.“Gendered Merit: Women and the Merit Concept in Federal Employment, 1864-1944,” by Cathryn L. Claussen, 40 Am. J. Legal Hist. 229 (1996).“FACT SHEET: On Equal Pay Day, the Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces Actions to Continue Advancing Pay Equity and Women’s Economic Security,” The White House, March 12, 2024.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Plantation owners in the Southern United States regularly furnished their enslaved workers with goods – clothing, shoes, axes, and shovels, that had been manufactured in the North. Many Northern manufacturers specifically targeted the Southern plantation market, enticed by the prospect of selling cheap goods on a regular schedule. While in some cases the Northern manufacturers supported surprising politics – joining the Republican Party and donating to Abolitionist causes – they had no qualms about making their money in an industry adjacent to the slave economy. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Seth Rockman, Associate Professor of History at Brown University and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Relaxing Enchanted Piano” by Mikhail Smusev from Pixabay and is used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Brogans, Manufacturer Little & Co., third quarter 19th century,” Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Herman Delman, 1955; image is in the public domain.Additional sources:“In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation,” by Matthew Desmond, The New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.“Industrialization and Conflict in America: 1840–1875,” by David Jaffee, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. “8. The Market Revolution,” The American Yawp.“Industry and Economy during the Civil War,” by Benjamin T. Arrington, National Park Service.“In search of slave clothes: A museum director’s hunt for a painful symbol,” by J. Freedom du Lac, The Washington Post, January 20, 2012.“Antebellum Tariff Politics: Regional Coalitions and Shifting Economic Interests,” by Douglas A. Irwin, The Journal of Law & Economics 51, no. 4 (2008): 715–41. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1879, a group of Spiritualists purchased 20 acres of land, halfway between Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania. The gated community they created, now a hamlet of Pomfret, New York, became known as Lily Dale. Each summer, people came to Lily Dale (and still come) to speak with the dead through Lily Dale’s many licensed mediums. In its early years, modern Spiritualism, which began with the young Fox sisters (Maggie and Kate), often intersected with Women’s Suffrage, and suffragists like Susan B. Anthony were frequent visitors to Lily Dale. Joining me in this episode to help us understand more about Lily Dale and Spiritualism more generally is Dr. Averill Earls, Assistant Professor of History at St. Olaf College, Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast, and one of the authors of Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Night Whisper,” by  by Sergio Prosvirini, Free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photograph of “The Lily Dale Museum,” by Plazak, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, and available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:Lily Dale Assembly“In Good Spirits: Lily dale, New York, is a curious little village where the still-quick commune with the once-quick,” by Bil Gilbert, Smithsonian Magazine, May 31, 2001.“Lily Dale, the Town That Speaks to the Dead,” by Bess Lovejoy, Mental Floss, August 26, 2015.“This Community Welcomes Mediums, but First You Have to Prove Yourself,” By Anna Kodé, The New York Times, October 27, 2023.“The Art of Belief: On Talking to the Dead in Lily Dale,” by Laura Maylene Walter, LitHib, March 23, 2021.“In the Joints of Their Toes,” by Edward White, The Paris Review, November 4, 2016.“The Mystery of the Three Fox Sisters,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic Science, October 1922.“The Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism,” by Abbott Kahler, Smithsonian Magazine, October 30, 2012.National Spiritualist Association of Churches.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Isabel Truesdell Kelly earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1932, with a dissertation on the “Fundamentals of Great Basin Culture,” having researched the Northern Paiute and Coast Miwok Indigenous cultures of Northern California. After graduating she led excavations in Mexico and then began a career as an anthropologist with the US State Department, which had a growing interest in assisting the scientific and technological development of countries like Mexico as a way of maintaining a toehold in the region during the growing cold war with the Soviet Union. Joining me this week is Dr. Stephanie Baker Opperman, Professor of History at Georgia College, and author of Cold War Anthropologist: Isabel Kelly and Rural Development in Mexico.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Hermoso Mexico,” composed by R. Herrera, arranged and conducted by Guillermo González and performed by Banda González (Victor Band) on May 16, 1919, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Isabel T. Kelly portrait,” DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.  Additional Sources:“Isabel T. Kelly Ethnographic Archive,” Southern Methodist University (SMU) Libraries.“Isabel Truesdell Kelly,” The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.“Isabel T. Kelly's Southern Paiute Ethnographic Field Notes, 1932-1934, Las Vegas,” compiled and edited by Catherine S. Fowler and Darla Garey-Sage, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.“Isabel T. Kelly: Pioneer Great Basin Ethnographer,” by Catherine S. Fowler, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 36, no. 1 (2016): 172–76..“With Grit and Determination: A Century of Change for Women in Great Basin and American Archaeology,” by Nicole M. Herzog and Suzanne Eskenazi, University of Utah Press, 2020. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

At the end of August 1787, after three long months of debate and deliberation, the Constitutional Convention had neared the end of its work. They were poised at that time to write into the Constitution that the President of the United States would be elected by the legislature, but at the last minute they referred the matter to the Committee on Unfinished Parts to resolve. It was that committee, guided by future president James Madison, that drafted a compromise Electors plan, answering the concerns of the small states and slave states who wanted to keep the advantages they held in the legislature but also, theoretically at least, avoiding the corruption likely in a system where the legislative branch chooses the chief executive. Of course, it didn’t take long for political actors – including some of the founders themselves – to find ways to exploit the system of Electors for their own ends. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Carolyn Renee Dupont, professor in history at Eastern Kentucky University and author of Distorting Democracy: The Forgotten History of the Electoral College--And Why It Matters Today.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 “Three Little Drummers from the George Washington Show,” by The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps,” performed by the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps on April 11, 2011; the audio is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication and is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode artwork is “Signing of the United States Constitution with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton (left to right in the foreground),” painting by Howard Chandler Christy; image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Constitutional Convention and Ratification, 1787–1789,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.“Electoral College History,” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“Article II Executive Branch,” National Constitution Center. “12th Amendment: Election of President and Vice President,” National Constitution Center.“10 reasons why America’s first constitution failed,” by NCC Staff, National Constitution Center, November 17, 2022.“Why Was the Electoral College Created?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally posted July 15, 2019, and updated October 7, 2024.“How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All,” by Devin Mccarthy, Fair Vote, August 21, 2012.“Letter from James Madison to George Hay explaining views on Electoral College,” August 23, 1823.“Federalist No. 68,” Federalist Papers: Primary Documents in American History, Library of Congress.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the 1870s, 120 Chinese boys came to New England as part of the Chinese Educational Mission. The boys studied at prep schools and colleges, and while they continued their lessons in Chinese language and culture, they also learned about the culture of their adopted homeland, including the local sports, like baseball. By the mid-1870s, some of the Chinese students had formed a semi-pro baseball team called the Celestials that competed on the regional circuit. With growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, though, the Chinese government recalled the students. On their trip home, the Celestials had one last chance to play as a team, when an Oakland, California, team, challenged them to a game. This week I’m joined by Dr. Ben Railton, Professor of American Studies at Fitchburg State University and host of The Celestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for 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 “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer, and recorded by Edward Meeker in September 1908; the recording is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is “The baseball players of the Chinese Education Mission,” from 1878, via the Thomas La Fargue Papers, MASC, Washington State University Libraries; the image is in the public domain.Additional Sources:“The Burlingame-Seward Treaty, 1868,” Office of the Historian, United States of America Department of State.“Considering History: Baseball, Chinese Americans, and the Worst and Best of America,” by Ben Railton, The Saturday Evening Post, May 11, 2020.“Yung Wing, the Chinese Educational Mission, and Transnational Connecticut,” by Ben Railton, Connecticut History, May 1, 2022.“Yung Wing’s Dream: The Chinese Educational Mission, 1872-1881,” by Barbara Austen, Connecticut History, October 26, 2021.“My Life in China and America,” by Yung Wing, via Project GutenbergCEM Connections.“Chinese Educational Mission at MIT,” from an 2017 exhibit at MIT's Maihaugen Gallery.“Journeys 旅途: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission,” Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.“Historical Context /历史背景/歷史背景: The Chinese Educational Mission (1872-1881),” Phillips Andover Academy.“Chinese Educational Mission, 1870s-1880s,” Phillips Exeter Academy.“The Workingmen’s Party & The Denis Kearney Agitation: Historical Essay,” by Chris Carlsson, FoundSF, 1995.“140 years ago, San Francisco was set ablaze during the city's deadliest race riots,” by Katie Dowd, SF Gate, July 23, 2017.“Chinese Exclusion Act (1882),” The U.S. National Archives and Records AdministrationAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Shortly after he was born in 1971, Ryan White was diagnosed with severe hemophilia. Ryan was able to reduce his hospitalizations from the disease through the use of in-home injections of Factor VIII concentrate, something he and other people with hemophilia saw as a lifeline. The downside of this lifeline was that it pooled blood and plasma from thousands of donors, increasing the user’s risk of exposure to diseases like HIV. In 1984, Ryan was diagnosed with AIDS. His fight to be allowed to attend school and live as normal a life as possible made him a household name and helped humanize the HIV/AIDS epidemic for many Americans, culminating in the passage of the Ryan White CARE Act months after Ryan’s death in 1990. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Paul Renfro, Associate Professor of History at Florida State University and author of The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in 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 is a clip from “Episode 259: Alyssa Milano,” Two Broads Talking Politics, July 23, 2019, used with permission of the original podcast. The mid-episode music is “The Beat of Nature” by folk_acoustic; the audio is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photo of Ryan White taken at a fundraising event in the spring of 1989 in INdianapolis, Indiana; it is available via Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.Additional sources:“Who Was Ryan White?” The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, Health Resources & Services Administration.“Remembering Ryan White, the teen who fought against the stigma of AIDS,” by Dr. Howard Markel, PBS Health, April 8, 2016.“Ryan White, Teen Who Contracted AIDS, Shifted Narrative Around the Disease,” By Paul Renfro, Teen Vogue, December 6, 2021.“Elton John credits Ryan White’s family with saving his life,” by Associated Press, PBS, April 3, 2022.“S.2240 - Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990,” 101st Congress (1989-1990), Congress.gov.“Celebrating 30 Years of the Ryan White CARE Act,” HIV.gov, August 18, 2020.“U.S. Statistics,” HIV.gov.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When she was just fifteen years old, in 1830, Sarah Martha Sanders was sold to Richard Walpole Cogdell of Charleston, South Carolina. Within a year she was pregnant with his child, and just after she turned 17, Sarah Martha gave birth to Robert Sanders, the first of nine children she would bear to then 45-year-old Richard Cogdell. Because the legal status of the children followed that of the mother, these nine children were also Richard’s property. None of this was unusual for the time. The unusual turn happened in 1857 when Richard Cogdell, for unknown reasons, purchased a property in Philadelphia and immediately signed it over to his five living children with Sarah Martha, immediately moving there with them for good. Joining me to discuss this story is Dr. Lori Ginzberg, Professor Emeritus of History and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University and the author of Tangled Journeys: One Family's Story and the Making of American History.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Cordelia Sanders (1841-1879), age 15, Charleston,” P.2014.51.2, Stevens-Cogdell-Sanders-Venning-Chew Collection, Library Company of Philadelphia. The mid-episode music is “Satisfied Blues,” composed and performed by Lemuel Fowler, recorded in New York City on July 19, 1923; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox.Additional Sources:Stevens-Cogdell-Sanders-Venning-Chew Collection, Library Company of Philadelphia.“Tracing Charleston’s History of Slavery, From a Burial Ground to a DNA Swab,” by Caroline Gutman and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times, April 11, 2024.“Old Slave Mart,” Charleston, South Carolina, National Park Service.“The Charleston Slave Badges,” National Museum of African American History & Culture.“Telling the complicated history of Charleston, South Carolina,” CBS News,” February 24, 2020.“Abolitionism,” by Richard S. Newman, The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.“Philadelphia and the Birth of the Nation’s First Abolitionist Society,” by Fidan Baycora, Historic America, April 14, 2021.“First American abolition society founded in Philadelphia,” History.com.“Big Idea 5: The Forten Family: Abolitionists and Reformers,” Museum of the American Revolution.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

At the dedication for a school for African American students in Manassas, Virginia, in 1894, Frederick Douglass said: “no greater benefit can be bestowed upon a long benighted people, than giving to them, as we are here earnestly this day endeavoring to do, the means of an education.” In the Reconstruction Era, throughout the South, and especially in the Washington, DC, region, formerly enslaved people fought for educational opportunities. Even as other advances of Reconstruction were clawed back by the forces of white supremacy by the late 19th century, much of the educational progress remained, so that Douglass in 1894 could still see “encouraging signs in the moral skies.” I’m joined in this episode by my son Teddy as co-host and by Dr. Kate Masur, the Board of Visitors Professor of History at Northwestern University and author of Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region.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 “I Want to Be Ready,” performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and recorded in New York City on December 22, 1920; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph from 1864 of the Jacobs Free School, founded by Harriet Jacobs; the photograph was distributed to Northern abolitionists who had helped fund the school and is now in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“The Blessings of Liberty and Education,” by Frederick Douglass, delivered in Manassas, Virginia, on September 3, 1894, The Frederick Douglass Papers Project.“How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery,” by Colette Coleman, History.com, Originally posted on June 17, 2020, and updated on July 11, 2023.“An Act to amend the act concerning slaves, free negroes and mulattoes (April 7, 1831),” Encyclopedia of Virginia.“Margaret Douglass,” Shaping the Constitution, Resources from the Library of Virginia and the Library of Congress. “Harriet Jacobs: Working for Freedpeople in Civil War Alexandria,” by Paula Tarnapol Whitacre, Journal of the Civil War Era, July 16, 2019.“Letter from Teachers of the Freedmen,” by Harriet A. Jacobs and Louisa Jacobs, National Anti-Slavery Standard, April 16, 1864, in Documenting the American South.“Lost Capitol Hill: The Little Ebenezer Church School,” by Robert Pohl, The Hill is Home, February 9, 2015.“The Freedmen's Bureau,” National Archives.“History,” Howard University.“General Oliver Otis Howard House,” National Park Service.“Jennie Dean and the Manassas Industrial School,” Manassas Museum.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In his bestselling childcare manual American pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock advised new moms:“If you begin to feel at all depressed, go to a movie, or to the beauty parlor, or to get yourself a new hat or dress.” Although puerperal insanity had been a recognized diagnosis at the end of the 19th Century, doctors in the early 20th century dismissed the postpartum onset of psychiatric symptoms as “pure coincidence.” It would take decades of activism by both parent groups and clinicians for the effects of postpartum depression, anxiety, and psychosis to be recognized and studied, with limited federal funding for programming finally being approved in late 2016. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rachel Louise Moran, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in 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 “Alone with the Darkness,” by NaturesEye; the music is available via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photo by Alexander Grey on UnsplashAdditional Sources:The International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental HealthPostpartum Support International“Postpartum Depression Support Groups in the U.S. & Canada,” Postpartum Progress.“Perinatal Depression,” National Institute for Mental Health.“Shedding More Light on Postpartum Depression,” by Rachel Ewing, Penn Medicine News, January 4, 2016.“New treatment for postpartum depression offers hope, but the stigma attached to the condition still lingers,” by Nicole Lynch and Shannon Pickett, The Conversation, October 19, 2023.“The Neurobiology of Postpartum Anxiety and Depression,” by Jodi S Pawluski, Joseph S Lonstein, and Alison S Fleming, Trends in Neurosciences, 2017, 40 (2), pp.106-120. ff10.1016/j.tins.2016.11.009ff. Ffhal01452985f.“Exploring predictors and prevalence of postpartum depression among mothers: Multinational study,” by Amer, S.A., Zaitoun, N.A., Abdelsalam, H.A. et al.,  BMC Public Health 24, 1308 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18502-0.“Federal Legislative History,” Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance (MMHLA).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Between 1921 and 1948, every Southern and border state, except Delaware, set up scholarship programs to send Black students out of state for graduate study rather than admit them to historically white public colleges or build graduate programs in the public HBCUs. While the individual Black students often benefited from graduate education at top-tier universities, the segregation scholarships created hardships for those same students and took money that could have been used to build up the public HBCUs. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Crystal R. Sanders, Associate Professor of African American Studies, at Emory University and author of A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs.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 “He’s a College Boy,” composed by Theodore F. Morse, with lyrics by Jack Mahoney, and performed by the American Quartet on September 3, 1910, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “As University of Oklahoma dean of admissions J.E. Fellows, Thurgood Marshall, ad Amos T. Hall look on, Ada Sipuel again applies for admission to the University of Oklahoma Law School in 1948;” Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.Additional Sources:“Segregation Scholarships,” PBS Chasing the Dream.“Major Landmarks in the Progress of African Americans in Higher Education,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.“History of HBCUs,” Thurgood Marshall College Fund.“Reconstruction-Era Politics Shaped Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” by Leigh Soares, Progress: A Blog for American History.“STATE OF MISSOURI et rel. GAINES v. CANADA et al.,” Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.“Fisher, Ada Lois Sipuel (1924-1995),” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma State HIstorical Society.“4 decades of desegregation in American colleges, charted,” by Jeff Guo, The Washington Post, December 17, 2014.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands