Broad History

Witchcraft historian Marion Gibson, author of the just-released Witchland, guides us through the chaotic 1640s in England, a civil war out of which the country's bloodiest witch hunts arose. Would you have been an accused witch... or would you have accused your neighbours? 🇬🇧 Buy the books in the UK: Witchland and Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials 🇺🇸 Buy the books in the US: Witchland and W...

To listen to this episode in full, join at broadhistory.com/membership . Medieval historian and podcaster Eleanor Janega and I go deep on the Malleus Maleficarum , the bonkers demonology treatise written by a seriously misogynistic German monk in 1486, which laid out a lot of the "intellectual theory" behind the witch hunts. In this episode: The "worst century to be alive in" or how 14th century t...

To listen to this episode in full, join at broadhistory.com/membership . Historian Malcolm Gaskill helps us understand the "wrong but sincere" 17th-century folks behind witchcraft accusations and busts some myths about witches and the witch hunts. Where do the pointy hat and broomstick come from? Who was accused of being witches? How many trials even took place and how often were people convicted?...

Republican motherhood is a fundamental concept of the early American republic. Women's political power, it argues, is exercised not at the ballot box but in their own separate sphere, where they raise good little patriots. Carol Berkin concludes our series with a look at the long impact of the American revolution for women and connects the dots with the United States' current political landscape,...

Mercy Otis Warren was what the Revolution called a "female politician" – a woman who cared about and discussed politics, a wholly new archetype for American society then. Her poems, plays and pamphlets – and ultimately her 3-volume history of the revolution – established her as a key political thinker of the movement for independence. But she walked a fine line: she never meant to "transgress the...

Phillis Wheatley Peters was transported to America as an enslaved 7-year-old. She quickly became a literary prodigy and an international celebrity – the unofficial first poet laureate of a new nation, says her biographer Vincent Carretta. Together we explore her life, her legacy and recent findings that transform our understanding of the final years of her too-short life. 🇺🇸 Get the books :  (Affi...

When Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman overheard the opening of the new Massachussetts constitution in 1780 – "all men are born free and equal" – she knew the words had to apply to her, too. Elizabeth was the first enslaved woman to sue for and win her freedom in a US court. To talk about arguably the most impactful woman in this series and the true meaning of freedom and the American promise, I'm joined...

What really happened between Angelica and Hamilton? Did she really ask her sister to "lend him to me for a little while"? Why did Eliza sign her name to the Federalist papers? Did Angelica get a little too close to Jefferson? What about all the Schuyler siblings who didn't make the musical? Join me in conversation with the Schuyler sisters' Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Amanda Vaill for a look...

Vote for Broad History in the British Podcast Awards! Abigail Adams made a killing in war bonds (and possibly a bit of insider trading). She used John Adams' diplomatic posting to import luxury goods from France and resell them at an insane markup. She's the reason her civil servant husband, unlike many of the founding fathers, did not die in massive debt. But as a married woman, she could not own...

The most radical thing about the American Revolution? The sudden politicisation of colonial women, argues Dr Carol Berkin, author of "Revolutionary Mothers" and one of the preeminent historians of women in the early United States. Women were the main organisers of the boycotts of British goods, which fanned the flames of revolution. They were involved in every aspect of the war – except in high po...

In part 2 of our exploration of the American frontier, Megan Kate Nelson introduces two women who belie the homesteader image conservative "trad wives" like to harken back to. Polly Bemis was a Chinese immigrant who built a life and a community in Idaho, despite intense prejudice and stringent anti-Chinese immigration policies. Ella Watson was a self-made homesteader and small rancher, a so-called...

The Western frontier is a foundational myth of the United States. Historian Megan Kate Nelson is here to complicate it with the stories of women who do not at all fit the image of the American pioneer you probably imagine. In part 1 of this two-parter conversation, she (re)introduces us to Sacajawea, the Native American woman who led the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific, and Gertrudis Bar...

The ancient Greeks believed a woman's womb wandered through her body and made her ill. Medieval Europeans believed a woman's orgasm was necessary for conception. And the Victorians believed masturbation would drive you to madness. Sex historian Dr. Kate Lister — host of Betwixt the Sheets and author of Flick: A History of Sexual Pleasure — joins me for a tour through the wildly strange, often infu...

Paris, 1897. The Bazar de la Charité blaze killed 118 women and girls. Where were the men? ★ Support this podcast ★ On this episode: Isabelle Roughol - Host What do you think? Read & comment at broadhistory.com Email me: isa@broadhistory.com Watch & comment on Youtube Jump to: (00:00) - Intro (00:35) - Member shout-out (01:55) - Upcoming guests (03:04) - This week's story (04:25) -  Tuesda...

Don't work but don't get married and don't count on a living pension. This is an audio read of The gender pension gap of 1539, or how women got screwed by the Dissolution of Monasteries . ★ Support this podcast ★ On this episode: Isabelle Roughol - Host What do you think? Read & comment at broadhistory.com Email me: isa@broadhistory.com Jump to: (00:00) - The Gender Pension Gap of 1539 (01:17)...

Julia Cooke, author of Starry and Restless , joins me to bring back three women who were household names in their day — Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Mickey Hahn — pioneering journalists who covered wars, crossed borders, and revolutionised literary nonfiction decades before the men usually credited with inventing it. We talk about why these women's fame didn't survive them, the challenges of...

In the 1970s, Wages for Housework demanded pay for cooking and cleaning without any illusions about making it in the workplace. What if work was never our liberator?  On this episode: Isabelle Roughol - Host Emily Callaci - Guest Listen early and without ads. Become a member at www.broadhistory.com. ★ Support this podcast ★   🇬🇧 Buy the book in the UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9178/9780241502907...

"We raise them like saints, then hand them over like fillies," she said of 19th-century girls. Her best-selling novels were an indictment of arranged marriages and the female condition. At home in France, her contemporaries – Hugo, Flaubert, Balzac – considered her a giant of literature. In England, she outsold Hugo and inspired the Brontë sisters. Today, we don't read her. She's fallen out of the...

Forget the cliché that women suddenly joined the workforce in the middle of the 20th century. They've been active in the economy as long as there's been an economy and not anecdotally.  Guest: Victoria Bateman, economic historian and author of Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power. 🇬🇧 Buy the book in the UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9178/9781035415779  🇺🇸 Buy the book in the US:...