Her Half of History: Recent Episodes
Her Half of History
Why don't women's clothes have more pockets? When and where did someone decide that men shouldn't wear skirts? How does a girl go about seizing control of an evil empire? Did the Amazons really exist and why wasn't I born as one of them? In short, what have the women of the world been up to while not getting covered in the standard history books? I explore these and other questions in this thematic approach to women's history.
This episode is my 100th episode! As has been a theme during this research break, I have a special guest today, but this is my only nonhuman guest. No one seems 100% certain whether AI will usher us into a techno paradise or simply take over the world and eliminate us as superfluous. I decided to find out whether ChatGPT could write my podcast better than I can, so I asked it to write some episodes for me. I am pleased to report that I am not yet obsolete.
But with a great deal of prodding, rewording of prompts, regenerating the answers, setting strict length requirements, and occasional editing by me, I did get ChatGPT to more or less write me a comedy retrospective of all ten series that currently exist on Her Half of History. You'll hear about Harriet Tubman in Shakespearean verse, Mr. Collins explain why we love Jane Austen, a blistering take on who is the best female painter of all time, and more.
Music Credits:
- Original Recordings ("Go Down, Moses" and "Sumer Is Icumen In")
- Wikimedia Commons ("Skye Boat Song", "God Save the Queen", and "O Canada")
- Copyright Free Music on YouTube ("We Three Kings")
- Small incomplete clips of songs readily available on the Internet (theme from Pride and Prejudice (1995), theme from Mission Impossible, theme from Real Housewives of New York)
- I believe these to fall under the category of fair use, but I will remove if asked.
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August 21st will mark 242 years since an incredible woman named Elizabeth Freeman sued her owner for freedom and won. In celebration, I am going to play today an interview with her that I did with Kathleen Langone of the People Hidden in History podcast.
Kathleen began historical research by doing her own family history, and she has branched out from there, with episodes about Flora MacDonald, the 18th century revolutionary and Connecticut witch trials. She is a particular expert on the Gilded Age miniature portrait painter Amalia Kussner, which you may remember from an earlier episode she did for me in series 10.
You can find Kahtleen's show on her website or wherever you get your podcasts. She can also be reached through Twitter (X) or Instagram or LinkedIn. Please check her show out and give her a listen!
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction.
Join Into History for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
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History is made every day, and the History Daily podcast is too. For today's episode, I am bringing you two of their episodes: Nellie Bly Races Around the World and Queen Victoria Survives Assassination for the Eighth Time.
You can hear more of History Daily wherever you get your podcasts or on their website (https://www.historydaily.com/) or in the Into History Network. Many thanks to Lindsay Graham and his team for allowing me to use their content this week!
Meanwhile, I am deep in research for series 11, the history of girlhood. That will start again in September.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction.
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I am currently on a research break working on Series 11, but instead of going dark during this time, I have lined up a variety of content for you. This week I am playing an interview I did a few months ago with Mike Corradi of the fabulously entertaining History of Italy podcast. He starts with the Fall of the Roman Empire and has just recently completed the Middle Ages, meaning that he has already covered about 1000 years of history, which is epic. I learned about learning about Queen Amalansuntha, Matilda of Tuscany (the iron countess), and Joanna of Naples, by binging his show, but my hands down favorite episode is episode 159, a social history episode where Mike takes a look at what life was like in the middle ages for the average Giuseppe and Lucrezia. I love social history. Fortunately for me, Mike was willing to break out of the medieval timeline to talk about Artemisia Gentileschi, a great Italian Painter.
You can find Mike's show on his website or wherever you get your podcasts. He can also be reached through Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn. Please check his show out and give him a listen!
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction.
Join Into History for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
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Georgia O'Keeffe is the hardest to classify of all the painters I have covered. Her work is neither abstract, nor realistic, nor surreal. She is simply a modern painter, most famous for her gorgeous flower paintings and landscapes of New Mexico, which feature bold colors and swirling shapes. She made it big in the art world in a way that few other women have, and she also holds the record for the highest auction price ever paid for a female artist’s work.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
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I’m happy to announce Her Half of History is now part of the Into History podcast network, a brand-new subscription channel of podcasts made by history lovers for history lovers. You’ll get access to hundreds of ad-free episodes, plus exclusive curated feeds around a topic, a bookclub, a newsletter, and a community hub to keep the conversation going. In addition to Her Half of History, you will get outstanding podcasts such as History Daily, Wild West Extravaganza, American Elections: Wicked Game, History That Doesn’t Suck, Cold War Conversations, Shipwrecks and Seadogs, American Revolution, and more are being added! I’m probably out of date here already.
Her Half of History can still be found in all the usual places, no change there, but if you want to enjoy the perks of being an Into History subscriber, go to intohistory.supercast.com. And even better, get 50% off your first three months, now through July 31st! That’s the time sensitive part. Nine days, people, nine days for 50% off.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
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Are you a Fridolatrist? A fan of Fridamania? An admirer of the unibrow, the surrealism, and the shocking way in which Frida Kahlo portrayed the most private parts of her life on canvas? This week's episode explores the life of a woman who has been claimed as a secular saint by artists, feminists, Chicanos, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ communities. Whether you love her art or loathe it, she is truly one of a kind.
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One year to the day after Paula Modersohn-Becker died, her friend, the celebrated poet Rainer Maria Rilke, sat down to write a Requiem for her, and today’s episode is that requiem in translation. I suggest listening to last week's episode before this one because the poem has numerous references to Paula and her life:
· the amber necklace that appeared in many of her paintings,
· her pursuit of still life in which she arranged fruits in a way quite different from the traditional still life bounty,
· her pursuit of the nude genre, in which she portrayed women, not as desirable and available (that had been done), but as whole, complete, and creative,
· the restlessness with which she moved to and from Paris, to and from her family, to and from the traditional role for women, without fully settling wholeheartedly into any of them
· and finally the tragic way in which she died in childbirth, age 31, when she had both a painting career and motherhood to look forward to, both of them suddenly cut short.
I will freely admit that I do not understand everything that Rilke has put in this poem. It’s fairly long, at least by my poetry standards, and maybe rambles a bit, but I think that’s intentional. It is an expression of grief, and like grief itself, it ebbs and flows, sometimes poignantly sharp, sometimes just a dull throb, and it goes on and on until it finds not resolution, but maybe resignation.
Next week I will be back to my usual episodes with an episode on Frida Kahlo
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If Paula Modersohn-Becker had lived as long as Picasso, you might know her name as well as you know his. That is the claim of multiple art historians who celebrate her for her use of color and her breaking open of the nude genre. Her work is startling for portraying women as real women, with absolutely no regard for the masculine gaze. Her life was a struggle to find her way between the demands of her career, the demands of her society, and the demands of her own heart. Unfortunately, she died in childbirth at the age of 31, and so we will never know what else she might have done, if she had lived.
The poll on the next series topic is still open! Just visit my Patreon site (link below). It's free, you don't need to be a supporter.
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In the early years of the 20th century, an obscure woman in Sweden invented abstract art to reflect her spiritualist views in which the physical world we know was only the lowest plane of existence. Despite her mixed efforts, few people knew about her art for decades until it was rediscovered in the 1980s to high critical acclaim.
Also, the poll for the topic of Series 11 is available on Patreon and it is free for anyone to vote.
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Mary Cassatt was born in the US, but spent most of her life in France, where she became known as a prominent member of the Impressionist movement. She was known for her exquisite paintings and prints, many of them revolving around the intimate bond between mothers and children. She had a close working relationship with Edgar Degas. Her artwork can be found in renowned museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
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Uemura Shōen painted bijin-ga, a traditional Japanese style of art which featured beautiful women. She had her first international success at the age of 15 and continued with many decades of painting, right through two world wars and changing fashions.
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Today I welcome guest podcaster, Kathleen Langone from the People Hidden in History podcast. Kathleen talks about one of her own distant relations: Amalia Küssner, who painted the portraits of the wealthy and famous during the Gilded Age and traveled across three continents to do it.
You can see Kathleen's show at peoplehiddeninhistory.com or follow her on Twitter (@phihpod) or Instagram or LinkedIn.
I have personally appeared on her show twice: once to talk about Elizabeth Freeman, the 18th century slave who sued for her freedom and won, and once to talk about the experience of women in history podcasting.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
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Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a genius at portrait painter. She rose from obscurity to being Marie Antoinette's official painter, which was great right up until it wasn't. When the French Revolution came, Elisabeth fled to Italy, Austria, and Russia, painting portraits all the way. Later generations have denigrated her, largely on the theory that anyone painting something so appealing must not have been a serious artist. Listen to hear why I disagree and see what you think!
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In a world where words like "entomologist" and "ecologist" had not yet been coined, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) managed to be both. She was trained as a painter of flowers but was really more interested in the bugs on the flowers. Her adventures took her from her native Germany to Holland, across the Atlantic to Surinam, and back, where her paintings of wildlife were admired by scientists across Europe and contributed to Carl Linnaeus's system of scientific nomenclature.
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Art flourished in Ming dynasty China. Scolar-officials (and their wives and concubines) pursued the painting of birds, flowers, and landscapes as a sign of their cultural refinement. Li Yin was a celebrated painter of the 17th century, and during her lifetime over 40 other artists were imitating her work and selling it with her name on it. Her works can still be seen in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
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In the Dutch Golden Age, Judith Leyster was a Master Painter who ran her own workshop and created some of the greatest masterpieces of the age. Then she died, her name was completely forgotten, and her works were attributed to her contemporaries (all men). Until a lawsuit in the late 19th century sparked an investigation that dug her back out of the archives to great critical acclaim.
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Artemisia Gentileschi was a woman who would not be kept down. She created some of the greatest masterpieces of her time and some would say that she was the first in all of art history to portray women as realistic protagonists in their own story. Her most famous works include women with bloody swords. She was a card-carrying member of the #MeToo movement (or at least she would have been if it had existed then). And she once told a prospective male patron that he would "find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman."
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Sofonisba Anguissola was the first of the female Italian Renaissance painters. She studied with Michelangelo, worked as court painter for Spanish royalty, and continued to paint throughout a very long life. She pioneered still life and intimate family moments long before others made them a viable art form. Her status as a noblewoman actually raised the profile of artists. She is the first of many to achieve success as a female painter in this series.
If you're interested in the history of Italy, check out the fabulously entertaining History of Italy podcast by Mike Corradi.
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Paint doesn't last as long as some other art forms, so premodern painters of any gender are tricky to find. Nevertheless, there is scattered evidence of women painting everything from prehistoric rock paintings to Roman portraits to Indian villages to medieval illuminated manuscripts.
I also delve into why none of the women in this series will be on the same name-recognition level as Michelangelo, Monet, or Picasso. In the words of art historian Linda Nochlin, "our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles or our empty internal spaces, it's in our institutions and our education." Nevertheless, this episode kicks off a series of excellent female painters from around the world.
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The majority of women in western countries change their surnames when they get married, but for most of human history that would have been a totally foreign concept. In this episode, I explore the naming conventions of women in ancient Greece, Rome, and China, none of whom took their husband's names at marriage. Then I move on to why the practice got started in Europe, and how feminists in France, Germany, England, and the USA fought back. I also explore how Mistress became Mrs and then Miss and then Ms.
This is the final episode of series 9: The History of Getting Hitched. After today I am on break until April to prepare the next series.
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From the 21st century it is hard to grasp just how big an issue polygamy was in 19th century America. From this distance, slavery was the big moral issue. But at the time, slavery and polygamy were linked. The very first Republican party platform, written in 1856, declared their prime objective: ~~"~~“it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery~~"~~” (American Presidency Project).
This episode explores how Mormons began polygamy, how it evolved, why so many women defended it, and how it (mostly) came to an end, with stories and quotes from women who lived it.
I had so much material for this one, it was longer than my self-imposed length limit, so this is the cut version. But if you are interested, the uncut version is available on my Patreon page.
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In August 1619, a Dutch man-of-war came to Virginia shores with about twenty Africans. The Virginia colony was starved for labor. The sailors were starved for food, and so it began.
By 1850, the US census reported over 3.6 million black and mulatto people. In all that time and among all those people, there were technically very few brides. Because technically speaking, there was no such thing as a slave marriage. There were free blacks and they had brides, but only 11% of that 3.6 million were free, so for most little black girls, the future did not hold a white dress, a ring, or a handsome groom.
The absence of slave marriage was not just an unfortunate happenstance, it was foundational to maintaining chattel slavery at all. And yet a great many slaves said they were married. In this episode I discusses what they meant by marriage, why it had no legal validity, how that changed during and after the Civil War, and how Mildred and Richard Loving broke down the interracial marriage ban in the 20th century.
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Instead of telling you a story about what we can gather from historical documents, I am just going to actually read you a historical document. If that’s not your jam, give it a break and come back for the next regular episode on the African-American bride.
In 1549, Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, authorized the first Book of Common Prayer for use in the fairly recently formed Church of England. It included a section called “The Forme of Solemnizacion of Matrimonie.”
Cranmer is generally given credit for having written it. He certainly directed that it should be written. The Book of Common Prayer was subsequently revised several times, but I have compared multiple versions and the differences to this section are pretty minimal. The Church of England still likes the 1662 version today, and yes, the bride still promises to obey her husband in that version. The Anglican church in North America revised as recently as 2019, and no, the bride does not promise to obey in that version. But overall, the sentiment and much of the language remain the same.
Besides the slight revisions, there were times when the Book of Common Prayer was in favor and also times when it was out. The Catholic Mary I didn’t use it, of course, because it wasn’t Catholic. Ironically, the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell also didn’t use it because it had too much Catholic influence. Sometimes you just can’t win.
Except that it did win, because overall it was in favor more often than it was out. So as I read this, you can imagine many an English bride on her wedding day: Anne Hathaway who married William Shakespeare in 1582. Pocahontas (not English) who married John Rolfe (yes, English) in 1614. Martha Custis, who was still an English subject when she married George Washington in 1759. Queen Victoria, who married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Poet Elizabeth Barrett who married poet Robert Browning in 1846. I could go on with more and more brides up to and including Kate Middleton who married Prince William in 2011. The following service would have been familiar to all of them, with a few slight variations from time to time.
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There are as many different wedding ceremonies in world history as there are cultures, religions, and possibly brides. Technically, a couple may not really need a wedding ceremony. And yet, no one sends out invitations so everyone can come watch them sign some legal documents. There is a thrill to pretending that wedded life begins when someone says "I now pronounce you husband and wife" even if we all know that legally speaking it began with a signature a little earlier.
The wedding ceremony has a great deal of cultural significance. I cannot cover every culture's version, so I’m going to do a sample of only three: a pagan Roman ceremony, a Hindu ceremony from rural India, and then the evolution of the English ceremony that evolved into the one you've seen in countless Hollywood movies and maybe attended in person as well.
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The most noticeable thing about a modern wedding is often the bride's dress. And; yet in history, the bride's dress is rarely described. Nevertheless, here's a history of what the bride wore, from the six braids and veil of a Roman bride, to the silver and white ornateness of an early modern royal bride, to the service uniform of a bride in the World Wars, and right up to the gorgeous white fantasies so popular today.
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Rings have been associated with marriage since Roman times, but they didn't necessarily look like the modern ones. This episode tracks the history of the ring from the Romans, through the middle Ages (with a brief diversion to JRR Tolkien), by way of the Anglicans and the Puritans, and direct to a huge 20th century advertising success that led us to the now more-or-less obligatory diamond ring on so many married women's fingers.
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If you are a Jane Austen fan, you will know that being beautiful, witty, good natured, and accomplished is good, but having a dowry is better. Austen's impoverished heroines always get their man in the end, the sad truth is, it didn't work for Austen herself. She had no dowry. And she never married.
So what is this dowry thing? And why, as Mr. Bennett said, should a father have to bribe worthless young men to marry his daughters? Is it not incredibly insulting to a girl to think that the punk in question should need bribing? Are we women not enough as we are? Listen to this episode for the honest answer, the difference between dowry and brideprice, and why you (probably) don't need a dowry anymore.
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If you are a member of modern Western society, then you likely have a definite idea of the traditional marriage proposal, even if you yourself have chosen to ignore portions of it. But the traditional proposal is not all that old. Several of its elements are very recent. One is even a deliberate invention of the bridal industry, and many a historic couple would have been surprised or possibly horrified at the whole idea. In this episode, I explore the marriage proposal as it existed in ancient China, Icelandic sagas, and English literature until we arrive at our modern sentimental age where love generally does have something to do with it.
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The Christmas tree began as a German tradition. And it might still be just a charming local custom, if not for two English queens who elevated it to a global phenomenon. This episode will tell you about Queen Charlotte, Queen Victoria, and their Christmas trees.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235).
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction.
Follow me on Twitter as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Ethel Rosenberg was executed by electric chair for sending the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. America felt justified in view of the impending nuclear holocaust. But that holocaust has not yet happened, and documents and confessions have been declassified in dribbles over the decades, and the story is now very, very different than the one the jury heard.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
In the show, I mention the Rosenberg Fund for Children which awards grants to the children of parents targeted as activitists. Their website is https://www.rfc.org/.
Not all the British spies fit the prototype. Noor Inayat Khan had an Indian father, an American mother, a Russian birthplace, and a French education. She was a timid, peace-loving mystic with an alarming tendency to expect everyone around her to be decent and good. She was also a phenomenally successful undercover radio operator for Britain, exceeding everyone's expectations, until she was betrayed to the Nazis.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and more sources.
Lise de Baissac fled France when the Nazis marched in. But in Britain she went to genuine spy school, and then she parachuted back into France, where she helped arm and train the French Resistance.
If you are a Marvel fan, you'll love it. Her story (and others like her) are definitely the inspiration for Captain Carter.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Zheng Pingru is a Chinese heroine of World War II. Her story was tragically brief, and even today raises questions about the difficult role of women in war and occupation.
Check out the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Mata Hari fit society's profile of a female spy so perfectly: beautiful, seductive, and duplicitous. That's why the Germans, and the British, and the French all thought she must actually be a spy. Even when they couldn't find any evidence of it. Here is the story of a woman who had many faults, but almost certainly not the one she was executed for.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Last week we got Elizabeth to the point of working directly for the Union army from inside Richmond. This week, she and the other Unionists aid a great prison breakout, give a fallen Union colonel a hero's funeral, and survive to see the Union army enter the capital of the Confederacy. With the war over, she takes a job that has rarely gone to a woman up until this point, but also faces the enmity of her Southern neighbors for the rest of her long life.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
We have now arrived at the woman who inspired this whole series on spies! Because Elizabeth Van Lew is one of my absolute favorites, and her story is so good that I simply cannot squeeze it into only one episode. Elizabeth Van Lews was a daughter of the Old South, but also an ardent abolitionist. In this episode we take her from debutante to undercover agent in Richmond, Virginia.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
I first covered Harriet Tubman last year in my series A Slave, But Now I'm Free, but some women are just too multi-talented to be slotted into only one series. Tubman was also a spy, officially for the Union army. Even before that, her efforts to free her family had all the elements of espionage: fake identities, coded messages, traveling through enemy territory, and more.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Policarpa Salavarrieta is a heroine and martyr of Colombian independence. Good sources are scarce, but here's what we know and a bit about her legacy.
This episode is part of series 8, Women in Espionage.
See the website (herhalfof history.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
The Culper Spy Ring operated in British-held New York and funneled intel to General George Washington. Agent 355, the only woman among them, will probably never be conclusively identified. Was she Anna Strong? Was she a New York socialite? Was she someone else entirely? Here's the story of what we know.
Please visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
Aphra Behn is most famous as the first woman to support herself as a writer in English, but before she launched her literary career, she had a more secretive one. This episode is the story of her career as a spy.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for pictures, sources, and a transcript.
Espionage has been called the world's second oldest profession, and women were in the thick of it from the very beginning. Unfortunately, a spy's default mode is to hide her tracks, which means that in the ancient and medieval world I found hint after tantalizing hint, but very few fully-fleshed histories of female spies. So today's episode is a round up of those hints, along with a brief history of the profession itself.
See a transcript and pictures and sources at the website (herhalfofhistory.com).
Industrialization had already transformed the housewife's life, and it was not about to stop. Gas, electricity, running water, cars, ready-made clothes revolutionized everything all over again in the 20th century. And yet the hours women spent on household tasks did not budge for most of the century for a variety of reasons. I also touch on what it meant to be a housewife in communist countries like East Germany, Hungary, and China. But basically, no matter where you were, running a household boiled down to a whole lot of work.
See the website (herhalfhistory.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
Industrialization came in with a bang, and the housewife's life would never be the same again, but unfortunately, that does not mean her life got any easier. This episode covers what happened to housewives in the US and western Europe as industrialization got rolling in the 18th century and carried on through the 19th.
Vist the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, sources, and more.
Housewives are practically invisible in the historical record, so the general impression is that not much changed for them between the dawn of civilization and industrialization. That is almost certainly not true, and this episode is a discussion of what little we know about being a housewife in the pre-industrial era.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
Heating things up has been under humanity's control for millennia. But keeping things cool is a modern miracle, and this episode shows how housewives did (or mostly didn't) manage it.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
It is ridiculous to try to cover the history of cooking in one episode, but it would be equally ridiculous to ignore it in a series on housewives and housework, so here is the grand overview on how your dinner got cooked, from fire roasting all the way to the microwave.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and sources.
Some household chores are more or less a thing of the past, but taking out the trash is a task that has grown over time. It's also transformed beyond all recognition. This episode discusses what women of the past had in their trash and what they did with it.
See the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, sources, and pictures.
How many shopping trips does it take to keep the household running? And is it a man's job or a woman's? And what was it like when you got to the shop? Some of the answers are here in this episode.
Check out the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for a transcript, pictures, and more details.
Women have done an enormous amount of cleaning over the millennia, but precious few bothered to write down what that meant. The daily grind of housewives is largely hidden from history, but this episode covers some of what we do know about spring cleaning, whitewashing, carpet beating, and dishwashing, plus a few tidbits about the invention of the vacuum and the dishwasher.
See the website for a full transcript, sources, and pictures. herhalfofhistory.com
Keeping out the night was a substantial, and sometimes insurmountable task for housewives of the past. This episode talks about the hazy origins of artificial light through the centuries to a time when lighting your house is so easy you probably don't even think of it as housework.
See pictures, sources, and a full transcript on the website at herhalfof history.com
The drama of housewifery continues with the most time-consuming task there is: spinning, weaving, and sewing. There are four major natural fibers, and they are flax, cotton, wool, and silk. Each of the great civilizations, plus most of the not-so-great ones, had at least one of the those to work with, and women were (usually) responsible) for getting the fiber from plant (or animal) to fashion statement. Here's how the did (and also didn't) get it done.
See a transcript and pictures on the website: herhalfofhistory.com
Laundry has been on the household chore list ever since people first learned to spin plant and animal fibers into fabric. This episode traces its history from the days when a rinse in the stream was all you could do, to Romans pounding it with their feet, to Victorian women hauling and boiling 400 pounds of water for it. Until the 20th century when the automatic washer and dryer miraculuously relieved some (but not all) women of what one advice writer called the "most trying department of housekeeping."
See sources and pictures on the website.
Since I began this series with a discussion of how we got to the point where women could write novels at all, I thought it would be fitting to wind it down with a discussion of how far we've come since Murasaki Shikibu and the world's first (great) novel. I'll also give you an explanation of how I chose the ones I chose and a long list of the women I didn't cover, in case you're in need of your next great read. And really, who isn't?
See the website for sources and a transcript.
African-American women wrote novels in the 19th century, but Zora Neale Hurston brought the art to a whole new level in the 20th.
See the website for sources and pictures.
Agatha's mysterious disappearance is solved (sort of) and she goes on to become the bestselling novelist in history. Plus, a bit about why she is still so appealing, even a full century after her first books were written, and despite some heavy criticism from some quarters.
See the website for sources and images.
Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time. This episode takes her from an idyllic childhood, through multiple proposals, into a world war, out through her first several books, and into her own mysterious disappearance in 1926.
See the website for sources and a transcript.
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been given 118 times. Selma Lagerlöf was the first woman to win it. Listen to hear the story of the prize and the woman.
Sources and pictures are available on the website.
Back in the day, authors lost control of their work the instant it was published (and sometimes before). Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy, was an enormously successful author, and she insisted her stories belonged to her.
See more details and sources on the website.
Not many novels get more attention in History class than they do in English class, but Uncle Tom's Cabin is the exception. This episode tells the story of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Yankee white woman who fired up the North in the cause of emancipation.
See sources, details, pictures, and a transcript on the website.
Frankenstein is an instantly recognizable icon. This week I tell you the story of the woman behind the monster. Mary Shelley achieved only moderate success in her lifetime, but since that time has been called the mother of science fiction, and also of horror, and even the wicked stepmother of genetic engineering.
See more details, pictures, and a transcript on the website.
The teenage Jane Austen sometimes got tired of her textbooks. But instead of whining about it, she parodied them. In this episode I bring you a brief introduction followed by the full text of Jane Austen's "The History of England by a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian," which is a very good description of exactly what it is.
See more details and sources on the website.
Jane Austen wrote only a handful of novels, but they are so well-loved that 200 years on she still has an enormous number of readers, fan-fiction writers, and film adaptations. At the same time, her critics have accused her of being unbearably trivial and even boring. Listen to find out why she wrote the way she did and why so many of us still love her.
Check out the website for sources and more details.
The Tale of Genji is often listed as the world's first novel. Is it a novel? Is it the first? That's highly contentious, but whatever you decide, Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote this classic a very long time ago.
See sources and more details on the website.
This new series covers ground-breaking novelists, but today I focus on how writing got to the point where anyone could write a novel. The story covers thousands of years, four continents, and three ancient women: Enheduanna, Artemisia, and Xu Mu.
See more details and pictures on the website.
Mary's life is not well documented, but we know more about what life was generally like for Jewish peasant girls at the time, so listen in to hear about baking, weaving, farming, clothing, home-building, marriage, childbearing, and widowhood at the turn of the Millennium, with a brief foray into various conflicting means of dating the birth of Mary's first son.
Visit the website for sources and more information.
Whether you are religious or not, Mary's story is an important part of world heritage. She is obviously the great female figure throughout Christianity, but she is also highly honored in the Koran. There have been over 2000 sightings of her claimed since the year 40 BCE. Millions of people pray to her daily. Millions more read her story regularly. The modern world was shaped in part by people who believed in her whole heartedly. So many legends have grown up around her, and those legends have also shaped the world and are worth studying, but in this series I will focus on what history can tell us about her. Today I will set the scene, talking about the situation for the Jews in the early 1st century. And I'll discuss to what extent the Bible can or cannot be treated as a historical source.
See the website for sources and more details.
This woman is a superhero. She escaped herself and then put herself in danger many times to help others do the same. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse and educator and spy and commanded a charge of armed men. All without any formal education herself. After the war she continued to find so many ways to help her fellow human beings that if she were anybody else, that would be THE story. As it is, it feels like an afterthought to her underground railroad and civil war work.
See the website for sources and pictures.
In 1868 Elizabeth Keckly published a remarkable book called Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. It showed the horrors of slavery and also her subsequent success as a fashionable dressmaker and also her complicated friendship with Mary Lincoln. Listen in for the story of a woman as remarkable as her book.
Sources, pictures, and other information are available on the website.
Many slaves who ran away ended up sneaking through the woods at night. They were cold, wet, and hungry, heart thumping, ears ever strained for the sound of men or dogs in pursuit. But Ellen Craft managed her escape differently. For her it was first class trains and steamers and hotels all the way. Listen to hear how she disguised herself as a white, slave-owning man and ran over a thousand miles to freedom.
Visit the website for sources, pictures, and more information.
Harriet Hemings was the daughter of Sally Hemings and her owner, Thomas Jefferson. Legally, she was a slave. But when she "ran away" at age 21, it seems that she did so with Jefferson's permission. An enormous amount has been written about Sally, but Harriet remains elusive. This is her story as far as it can be pieced together from the scanty bits of evidence that survive.
See the website for sources, images, and more details.
Elizabeth Freeman (also known as Mumbet) was a slave in Massachusetts when she heard that all men are created free and equal. If that's so, she thought, why am I a slave? She sued, and she won.
See more details on the website.
Rosa was born in West Africa around 1720, but brought to Brazil in a slave ship when she was six years old. She lived as a slave and prostitute until her dedication to God and visions brought her to the attention of a local priest. Her freedom was purchased and she went on to write the first book ever written by a black Brazilian woman and found a refuge for women very much like herself.
See more details, sources, and images on the website.
If there ever was a real life Cinderella, Roxelana might have been it. She was torn from her home in childhood and sold into slavery, but she ended up as queen of an empire.
Check out the website for sources and images.
Details on ancient Greek women are scarce, but one of the few we do know about was Neaira, who grew up as a slave in a brothel in Corinth. In her twenties, she was able to purchase her freedom with a little help from some friends. Sadly, we know her story only from the court records against her, when she was accused of having the temerity to live with an Athenian citizen as husband and wife, which was illegal for a non-Athenian woman. Listen for a rare glimpse of life for an Ancient Greek woman.
See the website for sources and pictures.
Our brand new series is "A Slave, But Now I'm Free." Most of the series will be biographical spotlights on women who escaped slavery, but I find that many people have a mental image of slavery that is entirely based on the American antebellum south. Slavery is much older than that, and hasn't always looked like that, so this episode is an overview of the institution itself: when it began, how people became slaves, what rights slaves did (and mostly didn't) have, and how slaves fought back.
See the website for sources.
Maggie Lena Walker was the first African-American woman to run a bank (and almost the first American woman of any color to run a bank). She led it successfully through a world war, a pandemic, and the Great Depression, and after her death it went on to survive as a continuously black-owned bank for almost a century.
See the website for sources and more details.
Women have often had a hard time breaking into the world of high finance, but Hetty Green, the Queen of Wall Street, didn't let that stand in her way. She started with a fortune and ended with a much, much bigger fortune through her own efforts in the 19th century.
See the website for sources and more details.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton once gave a fiery speech urging all women to refuse to pay taxes until they got the vote. But that didn't really happen. Listen to hear why "No Taxation Without Representation" really wasn't the main argument for American suffragettes and why even after the 19th amendment, some American women couldn't vote because of a tax.
Check out the website for sources and more details.
Hortensia of Rome successfully argued for no taxation without representation 1800 years before the Founding Fathers of the USA. Listen to hear how she did it!
For more information, visit the website.
Listen to learn why in many cultures a groom must pay a brideprice to the bride's family, why in many others the bride's family must pay a dowry to the groom, why in many modern societies we don't do either, and why in some modern cultures dowry prices just keep going up.
See the website for sources and more details.
In this episode, I discuss how women used (and didn't use) credit in Mesopotamia, Rome, medieval Europe, 20th century USA, and finally into the microfinance world of southeast Asia and South America.
See more details and sources on the website.
GDP is a mysterious number on which politicians soar or sink, businesses thrive or tumble, and folks like you and me pay our bills or go bankrupt. Despite being considerably more important than the rules of football or the relationship status of your favorite celebrity, most of us know very little about its history. This episode explains how it came to be, how a whole lot of women's work got left out for multiple reasons, and some of the objections to our obsession with the GDP.
See sources and more details at the website.
Unless you live in the British Commonwealth, the bills and coins in your wallet are far more likely to be looking at men than you are at women. But it hasn't always been like this. This episode is a brief history of women featured on the currency.
See pictures and more details on the website.
Like it or loathe it, we live in a world dominated by money. In the coming weeks I'll take a look at how women have fared under that system. I will talk about women and credit, women and the GDP, women and marital property, women and taxation without representation, and women in high finance. But this episode covers how we got to this state in the first place, starting with ancient Sumeria, the switch to precious metals, and just how baffling some other cultures found the whole money concept.
This episode is part of the series Women and Money Matters.
For pictures, sources, and more details, visit the website.
This episode is a retrospective look at Cleopatra, Wu Zetian, Elizabeth I of Russia, Catherine the Great, and Ranavalona. I discuss a three-step strategy that all of them used to get to power. Along the way, we hear about Musa of Parthia who also seized control, and Jeanne II of Navarre, who didn't. This wraps up the series Women Who Seized Power.
Visit the website for more information.
Life: 1787 to 1861
Reign: 1828 to 1861
Extremely Brief Summary: Ranavalona was born an insignificant member of a low-status tribe. She married into the royal family and as a widow ousted her husband’s successor. She ruled Madagascar for 33 years with bloody, brutal efficiency. She successfully kept her country independent during a time of rampant European imperialism.
Find out more on the website.
Catherine got to power by overthrowing her husband. She ruled Russia as an Enlightened despot. She held many high principles but had mixed results on putting them into practice. Her main legacy to Russia was that she transformed it from a relative backwater to a major player on the European stage.
Life: 1729 to 1796
Reign: 1762 to 1796
One of many quotes: “What I despair of overthrowing, I undermine.”
For more info and sources, visit the website.
Life: 1709 to 1761
Reign: 1741 to 1761
Memorable Moment: As empress, Elizabeth held a ball every Tuesday night. The catch was the men had to dress like women and the women had to dress like the men. Oh, for a time machine and a camera!
Extremely Brief Summary: Elizabeth seized power in a bloodless coup that she seems to have done only reluctantly. She loved parties, dresses, and horses, and her main legacy to her country was putting Catherine in position to become the fifth female ruler of Russia in under a century.
See the website for more details and sources.
Empress Wu shattered the glass ceiling in her rise from low level wife to de facto ruler to Divine Ruler in her own right. Sources on Wu give vastly different accounts of her, ranging from proud, capable feminist to seriously evil dictator. Either way she dominated for more than fifty years and became the only female emperor in 4,000 years of Chinese history.
This episode belongs in the series Women Who Seized Power.
Check out the website for more details and sources.
Cleopatra inherited a joint throne, but pushed first one and then a second brother out of it to rule alone. In a world where rising Roman dominance was a fact of life, she managed to maintain control of her country by negotiating (in every possible way) with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Though she lost in the end, she still managed to close out 3000 years of Egyptian history on her own terms.
This episode belongs in the series Women Who Seized Power.
Check out sources and images on the website.
Most of this miniseries will be biographical sketches of a few of the more daring power-grabbers in history. But this initial episode is on why there are so few women in power anyway. I'll take a look at the evidence for more powerful women in pre-history, followed by the impact of the Agricultural Revolution and the rise of city-states.
This episode is part of the series Women Who Seized Power.
Please visit the website for sources and more info.
In this episode I take listener questions on women's fashion: When did athleisure become mainstream? What about the kimono? Why is pink for girls and blue for boys? How did women express themselves in times of heavy fashion constraints? When did designer brands emerge and what impact did that have?
This episode is part of the series What's in the Closet and How It Got There.
Please visit the website for more details and pictures.
Nothing says social status quite like ridiculous clothes, and throughout history, women have shown theirs with clothes that were sheer, huge, heavy, trailing, constricting, and otherwise totally impractical. In this episode I introduce you to sheer dresses, huge dresses, heavy dresses, dresses with sleeves so long they drag on the floor, headpieces with horns so high you can't get through the door, shoes that make it impossible to walk, various small, dead animals to wear on your person, and more.
This episode is part of the series What's in the Closet and How It Got There.
Please see the website for pictures and more.
Most women, if they swam at all, were probably skinny dipping. Regular beach goers with regular beach wear got going in the 19th century when they wore an unbelievable amount of gear. In the decades since, the swimsuit shrunk in fits and starts, and even an occasional retreat.
This episode belongs in the series What's in the Closet and How It Got There.
See more notes on the website.
Veiling was invented thousands of years ago. It became very common, if not always required, for Muslim women within a few generations of Muhammad. Wearing the veil became hotly contentious in the late 19th century. So much so, that at one point commentators thought it was dying out, but in fact the opposite has happened. Growing numbers of women wear the hijab, for a variety of religious, cultural, and political reasons.
The sari is so ancient that its origin is murky, but it too is at least 2000 years old. Dozens of draping styles and countless fabrics and patterns have been used in different regions around India and elsewhere in southern Asia, but the 20th century saw many of those differences retreat in the face of the ever popular nivi style. Today the sari is still widely worn, though Indian women also wear other traditional and Western clothing styles.
This episode belongs in the series What's in the Closet and How It Got There.
Check out my website for more details.
Large numbers of women in history went free and easy, wearing nothing that resembles modern underwear, though some of them wore plenty of undergarments that don’t resemble modern underwear. Knickers came in the early 19th century before evolving into briefs in the 20th century. Bras are generally also thought to be a 20th century invention, except it turns out that they may be quite a bit older than that after all.
This episode belongs in Series 1: What’s in the Closet and How Did It Get There?
Check out more details on the website here.
The modern woman’s wardrobe contains many little mysteries. Why so few pockets? Why so many heels? And why are the buttons different on men’s and women’s shirts? In this episode, I discuss the times when pockets were detachable, men wore heels, and buttons were a mystery (as they still are today).
This episode belongs in Series 1: What’s in the Closet and How Did It Get There?
Check out more details on the website here.
**Hemlines throughout history have ranged from nonexistent (that is, no clothes at all) to trailing 25 feet behind you, but for the most part they went to at least the ankle and often the floor. Starting in the early 20th century, they started ricocheting up and down and up and down again until finally we have arrived at a point where you are free to look good in a skirt of pretty much any length you choose.
This episode belongs in Series 1: What’s in the Closet and How Did It Get There?
Check out more details on the website here**.
Women wore various versions of skirts or robes for most of history. A few brave women in pants traumatized their neighbors in the 19th century, but it wasn’t really acceptable in the western world until the 20th century, when women in sports, women in film, and women in fashion design took the bifurcated risk and gave us the right to wear pants (almost) everywhere we want to go.
This episode belongs in Series 1: What’s in the Closet and How Did It Get There?
Check out more details on the website here.