Dig: A History Podcast cover art

All Episodes

Dig: A History Podcast — 233 episodes

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Title
1

The KGB’s Queer Honeypots and the Cold War

2

American Idealist in Stalin's City of Steel: A Pre-History of the Cold War

3

Love Canal, or How Toxic Capitalism Poisoned a Neighborhood and How "Housewives" Fought Back

4

Rachel Carson and a Spring Without Nature: Science, Love, and Politics

5

Gwich’in, Food Sovereignty, and Environmental Justice in the Arctic Coastal Plain

6

Bonus: Conversation with Amplified Podcast

7

Save it for the Rag-and-Bone Man: The Premodern History of Recycling, Salvage, and Reuse

8

The Constitutional Convention of 1787

9

Bonus Episode: Best of 2025, What's Coming in 2026!

E
10

Orange Slices, Simmer Pots, and Naked Dancing: A Brief and Incomplete History of Modern Witchcraft

11

Re-Release: A Ghost Story for Christmas!

12

Martian Visitors in the Gilded Age

13

Beasts and Believers: A History of Werewolf Trials in Early Modern Europe

14

You're Bound to Die: The Long History of the American Murder Ballad

15

Suffer a Witch to Live? Religious Conflict and Witchcraft Persecutions; or, No One Expects the Inquisition

16

Yellow Rose of Texas: Myth-making and Race in the 19th Century

17

Whispers and Wives' Tales: A History of Women & Gossip in Premodern Society

18

Women and Slavery: How Harriet Jacobs Revealed Women's Experience of American Enslavement

19

Sati: The Virtuous Woman, the Chaste Wife, and the Immolated Widow in Colonial and Postcolonial India

20

The Pansy Craze

21

Anne Lister's Search for a "Great Love": Reading the Diaries of the First Modern Lesbian

22

Female Husbands, or People Have Always Transed Gender

23

Just Friends: The Ladies of Llangollen

24

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Medical Ethics & Race

25

Cripping Contagion: A Long History of Epidemics as Mass-Disabling Events

26

The Section 504 Sit-In: The Protest that Demanded Civil Rights for Disabled Americans

27

Sexuality and Psychiatry

28

Executive Orders, Dog Whistles, and the Lavender Scare

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29

The Sleepy Lagoon Trial and Zoot Suit Riots: Los Angeles's Season of Violence During WWII

30

The Unjust Execution of the Dakota 38

31

From Respectability to Ruin to Ripper Victim: The Whitechapel Murders and the Precarity of Poverty in Victorian London

32

Ghosting the Patriarchy: Spiritualism and the Nineteenth-Century Women’s Rights Movement

33

Plastic Shamans and Spiritual Hucksters: A History of Peddling and Protecting Native American Spirituality Re-Release

34

Julia’s Bureau: The Temperance Virtuoso, the Father of Journalism, and Life after Death in the Spiritualist Anglo-Atlantic Re-Release

35

Spiritualism's Beginning: Kate and Maggie Fox

36

Kitsune and Kitsunetsuki: A History of Japanese Fox-Witches and Fox Possession

37

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692

38

Spectral Evidence, Floating Witches, and Angry Neighbors: The Other Witch Panic of 1692

39

Love and Magic: A History of Violence

40

History of Thin: The Changing Meaning of Thinness in the Modern World

41

The Battle for Deaf Education: Clashing Methods, Minds, and Cultures in the Nineteenth Century United States

42

One-Sex, Two-Sex, or …?: Thinking About the Sexed Body in History

43

Bonus Episode: The Nineteenth-Century Feminist and Writer that You’ve Probably Never Heard Of: Elizabeth Oakes Smith

44

La Mutine: Gender and France's Forced Migration Schemes

45

Red Power Progressivism: A Biography of American Indian Rights Activist Zitkala Ša

46

“Came home in our droves for you”: Abortion in Ireland

47

The Sentimental State: Book Talk

48

The Leaky Body: Fluids, Disease, and the Millennias-Long Endurance of Humoral Medicine

49

Continuity & the Gender Wage Gap: Or, How Patriarchy Ruins Everything Part II

50

From Slave Patrol to Street Patrol: Police Brutality in America

51

The Invisible Engine: Capitalism's Reliance on Reproductive Labor and a Gendered Wage

52

Islam and the Frankish “Wall of Ice”: Contingency and the Battle of Tours, or Poitiers, or Whatever…

53

How the Homophile Movement Could Have Been Intersectional and Antiracist, But Wasn’t: Magnus Hirschfeld and Li Shui Tong’s Love and Loss Story

54

Rise and Fall in the Queen City: Contingent Moments in Buffalo, New York

55

Crappy Healthcare is Not Natural: the U.S. Health System is Contingent on a Lot of Bad Decisions

56

Chinese Medicine: The Complex Balance of Individual, State, and Cosmos

57

Puerto Rican Citizenship: A Complex Status

58

Vaudevillian, Countess, Spy, Activist: The Complicated Life of Josephine Baker

59

The History of Fat: The Complex Attitudes Toward Fatness in the Pre-Modern West

60

From Orality to Literacy: A Global History of Writing

61

Feminisms: The Interconnected Rights Revolution

62

The History of America's Changing Political Parties

63

Irish Hero, Queer Traitor, Gay Icon: Roger Casement Over Time

64

The Equal Rights Amendment: Gender Equality? Nah...

65

Irrepressible Conflict, or Failure to Compromise? The Causes of the American Civil War

66

The Fall of Rome: Debating Causality and the Collapse of the Western Empire

67

For King, Country, and… Opium?: Thinking About Causality, Empire, and Historiography in the First Opium War, 1839-42

68

For F*ck’s Sake: A History of English-Language Swearing

E
69

The Controversial Life and Legacy of Margaret Sanger

70

Anne Moody: Context and Conflict in Coming of Age in Mississippi

71

The Women’s War of 1929: Igbo and Ibibio Resistance to British Colonialism

72

Race and Nation in Latin America: Whitening, Browning, and the Failures of Mestizaje

73

Nina Otero-Warren: Suffrage and Strategy in New Mexico

74

Little Laborers: Child Indenture in 18th- and 19th- Century America

75

A Spot of Tea: Empire, Commodities, and the Opportunities in Britain’s Tea Trade

76

Omm Sety and Bridey Murphy: A History of Reincarnation and Past Lives in Britain and America

77

Anna Howard Shaw: Doctor, Reverend, Suffragist Leader

78

The Kingdom of Matthias: Sex, Gender and Alternative Belief in the Second Great Awakening

79

Spectacle and Spiritualism in the Lives of Maggie and Kate Fox

80

Ghosting the Patriarchy: Spiritualism and the Nineteenth-Century Women’s Rights Movement

81

Plastic Shamans and Spiritual Hucksters: A History of Peddling and Protecting Native American Spirituality

82

Julia’s Bureau: The Temperance Virtuoso, the Father of Journalism, and Life after Death in the Spiritualist Anglo-Atlantic

83

Cheesecloth, Spiritualism, and State Secrets: Helen Duncan’s Famous Witchcraft Trial

84

Domesticity and Depression: Kentucky Coal Mining, Song, and Organizing During Bloody Harlan

85

One Medicine: Animal Experiments and the Making of Modern Medical Science

86

Canary in a Coal Mine - Literally

87

Remember Rutterkin? Witch’s Familiars, Religious Reformation, and Sexy Beasts in Early Modern Europe

88

War Elephants from Ancient India to World War II

89

Race in 1920s America: Hellfighters, Red Summer, and Restrictive Immigration

90

Apartheid in South Africa: A History

91

The Long History of Abolition in America

92

The Windrush Generation and the Mystique of British Anti-Racism

93

Rosa Parks: Myth & Memory in the American Civil Rights Movement

94

Tituba, The "Black Witch" of Salem

95

“La lengua”: Malintzin, the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica, and the Legacy of the Translator in Mexico

96

Dragon Lady of the South China Sea: Cheng I Sao, Woman Commander of China's Pirate Confederacy

97

Aunt Jemima: American Racism on Your Grocery Shelf

98

Marie Laveau: The Voodoo Queen and the Laveau Legend

99

Werewolves, Vampires, and the Aryans of Ancient Atlantis: The Occultic Roots of the Nazi Party

100

Mizuko: The History behind Vengeful Aborted Fetus Hauntings in 1980s Japan

101

The Demonologist and the Clairvoyant: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Paranormal Investigation, and Exorcism in the Modern World

102

None of Woman Born: Cesarean Birth before 1900, A Pre-History

103

A History of Childbirth in America

104

Birth of a Nation: Everyday Racism in 20th-Century America

105

Obstetric Violence: Childbirth and Symphysiotomy in Catholic Ireland

E
106

France's League of Nations Mandate in Syria and Lebanon

107

LULAC, Adela Sloss-Vento, and the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

108

Gender, Psychiatry, and Borderline Personality Disorder

109

Lost! Cabeza de Vaca Stumbles Through Southwestern North America in the "Age of Exploration"

110

Early American Family Limitation

111

Bodies of Evidence: Modern Policing, Sex, and the Intricacies of Authorized Crime and Deception

112

The OG Vaccine: Smallpox, Cowpox, and the Procedure that Changed the World

113

A History of Racial Passing in the United States

114

American Exceptionalism at Its Most Disturbing: The "1776 Report"

115

Yes! Same-Sex Marriage and History-Making in Ireland

116

1968: A Tumultuous American Year

117

Race, Politics, and Chaos in the Capitol: The Election of 1876

118

The Papal Election of 1492: Rodrigo Borgia and the Conclave that Made him Pope Alexander VI

119

Mother’s Little Helper: Psychiatry, Gender, and the Rise of Psychopharmaceuticals

120

"More like a dust heap than a nose": The Global History of Smokeless Tobacco

121

“The Americans Can Fix Nothing without a Drink”: Alcohol in Early America

122

The Sacred Bark: A History of Quinine

123

W.I.T.C.H.: Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell

124

“Wicked Practises and Sorcerye”: Cunning Folk, Witch Trials, and the Tragedy of Joan Flower and Her Daughters

E
125

Both Man and Witch: Uncovering the Invisible History of Male Witches

126

Doctor, Healer, Midwife, Witch: How the the Women’s Health Movement Created the Myth of the Midwife-Witch

127

Slavery & Soul Food: African Crops and Enslaved Cooks in the History of Southern Cuisine

128

The Black Panther Party and the Free Breakfast Program: Feeding a Movement

129

A History of Medicinal Cannibalism: Therapeutic Consumption of Human Bodies, Blood, and Excrement in “Civilized” Societies

130

Hot for Chocolate: Aphrodisiacs, Imperialism, and Cacao in the Early Modern Atlantic

E
131

Sex & Soldiers: Combating Sexually Transmitted Infection in the US Military

132

Steaming the “Nefarious Sin”: Bathhouses and Homosexuality from the Victorian Era to the AIDS Epidemic

E
133

Recogimiento: Virginity, Enclosure, and Female Virtue in Colonial Latin America

134

Honeymoon in Niagara Falls: Heterosexuality and Place

E
135

Three Years DIGGING! Live Recording

E
136

79 and Counting: Women of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising

137

Blood on the Ravenstone: Judicial Torture, Penal Violence, and Capital Punishment in Early Modern Europe

138

Honor, Manhood, Slavery: Political Violence from Alexander Hamilton to John Brown

139

Anti-Mexican Mob Violence in the Borderlands: A Lynching in Rocksprings, Texas

140

Slave, Contraband, Refugee: The Complicated Story of the End of Slavery in the United States

141

Bittersweet: Sugar, Slavery, Empire and Consumerism in the Atlantic World

142

Frankenstein's Monster: Science, Revolution and Romanticism in the Age of the Enlightenment

143

100 Years of Woman Suffrage

144

La Petite Mort: Investigating the History of Orgasm, aka The Little Death

E
145

Amy Robsart, Lady Dudley: The Death that Launched a Thousand Rumors

146

The Black Death: Dancing with Death in the Medieval World

147

Cult of the Dead: Anglo American Death Practices, Spiritualism, and Speaking with the Dead

148

For Heart and Hearth… and the Rights of Women: Radical Christianity in Pursuit of Conservative Ends in the Nineteenth Century

149

Dancing Toward Wounded Knee: The Hope and Tragedy of the Ghost Dance Religion

150

Duggie Mack, the Jamaican Delegation to Ethiopia, and the Rastafarian Movement

151

Wound Worship, “Enthusiasts" and "Sodomites”: A History of Radical Moravians

152

What’s In a Name? : North American Naming Conventions and the “Death” of Patrilineal Lines

153

Masculinity, Magic & the Meaning of Impotence in Patriarchal Societies of the Past

154

Papa Can You Hear Me? Fatherhood in 19th century US and Britain

155

Patriarchs, Brawlers, and Gentlemen: Manhood in the Civil War Era

156

Secret Societies of Sapphos: Faro Ladies, Bluestockings, and Gendered Insults of Women’s Societies in 18th- and 19th-Century Britain

157

Fragile Masculinity, Playing Indian, and Mechanical Goats: Fraternal Orders in the 19th Century US

158

Who Else but the Illuminati? Conspiracy Theories, French Revolutions, and Historian Heroes

159

Order of Assassins: Myth & Memory of the Nizari in Medieval Iran and Syria

160

Life Unworthy of Life: The Nazi Programs to Kill People with Disabilities

161

Choice, Sterilization, and Eugenics in Twentieth Century Puerto Rico

162

At the Crossroads of Modernity: Japan, the Blood-Type Fad, and Eugenic Science in the 20th Century

163

Eugenics in the Making: Human Typologies, Population Hygiene, and Racial Science in the 18th Century

164

Seduction, Prostitution, Bastardy, and Child Abandonment in Georgian London

165

Anthony Comstock: Sex, Censorship, and the Power of Policing the Subjective

166

Rape and Race in Early America

167

Locked Up and Poxxed: THE Venereal Disease and Women who Sold Sex in the Victorian British Empire

168

Miscarriage in Nineteenth Century America

169

Skull Collectors: Race, Pseudoscience, and Native American Bodies

170

Syphilis: Origin Story. Or, Early Modern Europeans Don’t Know Where It Came From, Current Scholars Don’t Know Where It Came From, and a Lot of Poxy Penises and Vulvas Suffered in Between

171

“Walking Corpses”: Life as a Leper in Medieval Eurasia

172

Hearts of Darkness: Victorian Imperialism and Travel of the African Continent

173

Black Cowboys: People of Color in the American West

174

The Final Frontier: History, Science, and Space Exploration

175

Fur Trading and Frontier Life in French Canada

176

Cannibalism, Frostbite, and The Quest for the Northwest Passage

177

Haunted Slavery: The Lalaurie Mansion

178

Witches Brew: How the Patriarchy Ruins Everything for Women, Even Beer

179

Forensic Pathology and the History of Death Investigation

180

Rebel Slaves and Resistance in the Revolutionary Caribbean

181

Slavery and Freedom in New York City

182

Slave Codes, Black Codes & Jim Crow: Codifying the Color Line

183

Devşirme: The Tribute of Children, Slavery and the Ottoman Empire

184

The Age of Crime! Civil War Veterans and Crime in America

185

The United States Children's Bureau: An Attempt to Curb Infant Mortality

186

Queer Politics: The Dublin Castle Scandal of 1884

E
187

Employment Agencies in 18c London... and Boobs

188

Underwear: A History of Intimate Apparel

189

Struggle for the Breeches: Pants, Women, and Power

190

Suit Up: Class, Economics, Manhood, and Menswear

191

The Labor of Fashion: Shirtwaists and the Labor Movement in the Early 20th Century

192

Tuberculean Chic: How White Plague Shaped Beauty Standards in the 18c & 19c

193

Trees that Fight Back: Shinto & the Environment in Japan

194

Mt. Tambora & The Year Without a Summer

195

National Parks in America: Health, Manhood, and Wilderness

196

The Rise of Natural History Museums

197

“No peace, No p*ssy”: Sex Strikes and the Recent History of Global Feminist Protest

E
198

Victoria Woodhull: Free Love, Feminism & Finance

199

Marriage in America: A Brief History

200

King Ahebi Ugbabe: Sex, Gender, and Power in Colonial Nigeria

201

Auburn System: Prisons & Punishment in 19c U.S.

202

Nuremberg Laws and Nazi Discrimination against Jewish Germans

203

Coverture: Married Women and Legal Personhood in Britain

204

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

205

Jane Roe and The Pill

206

Suitcase Murder: Abortion, Mystery and Murder in 20th Century America

207

Celia, A Slave: The True Crime Case that Rocked the American Slave Power

208

Child Abuse, Murder & Execution in Georgian London: Case of Elizabeth Brownrigg

209

Brutal Murder of Bridget Cleary in 1895 Ireland

210

Abortion and Birth Control before Roe v. Wade

211

Early American Family Limitation

212

Charles Dickens and Scary Winter Stories

213

Great White Hurricane of 1913

214

Heating and Illuminating Homes in Victorian Britain

215

Little Ice Age: Weird Weather, Witchcraft, Famine & Fashion

216

Death, Religion, and Euro-Native Encounters

217

Cock Lane Ghost: 18c London’s Haunting Hoax

218

Halloween, Samhain, and Moral Panics in the 1980s

219

Photos of the Dead: Victorian Postmortem Photography and the Case of the Standing Corpse

220

The Lost Cause: Texas Independence, Slavery and Historical Memory

221

Guerrilla Warfare: The American Civil War and Irregular Soldiers

222

Death, Mud & Guns II: Military Rev and Birth of Bureaucracy

223

Death, Mud & Guns I: Military Rev and Birth of Bureaucracy

224

George McGovern and the Elusive Christian Left

225

Puritan Sex: The Surprising History of Puritans and Sexual Practices

226

Selling Sex in 19th C. NYC

227

Marie Stopes’ Sex Guide for Marital Bliss

228

Sadism, Sex & the French Rev

229

Vietnam Protest and the Buffalo 9

230

Communism and Uteruses

231

Founding of AIDS Project of the Ozarks

232

Black Athena and the Battle of Historians

233

War of 1812 and the Burning of Buffalo