Dead Ladies Show Podcast

In this episode, DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens introduces us to a woman of many lives, many careers, and many misadventures. Victoria Woodhull worked a clairvoyant and faith healer, she opened a financial firm on Wall Street, she started a newspaper, campaigned for women's and worker's rights, and ran for President — all in late 1800s USA.   DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins host/producer Sus...

In this episode, we meet Alice Guy, a woman of filmmaking firsts. She was truly inspired by the moving image in its earliest form, and her innovations changed film and entertainment forever.  She became the first filmmaker to incorporate narrative, certainly the first woman director, and probably the only one until 1906. After moving to the US, she was then the first woman to own a studio, in the...

Episode 88: Una Marson   In this episode, we meet Una Marson, a Jamaican writer, journalist, and radio producer, who shared her talents and voice in poetry, plays, and on the BBC, after her ambition took her to London in the 1930s. She described as the first Black feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain.   We know little about her life post-1945, when she returned to Jamaica and...

We kick off Season Nine of the podcast by meeting a woman who could be called the godmother of true crime.     Producer/host Susan Stone tells the story of F. Tennyson Jesse, an English journalist, criminologist, and writer. The daughter of a vicar who dragged the family around the British empire, she trained as a painter before moving to London in 1911. Journalism beckoned, but she was not put of...

Episode 86 - Eileen Agar   It's our last episode of 2025, and the final episode of Season 8! Susan, Katy and Florian meet up to toast the end of another season, and of course to clink glasses in honor of our featured Dead Lady, Eileen Agar.   Eileen Agar was the sort of artist who looked at a hat and thought, What if it grew feathers, sprouted seashells, and started whispering secrets to strangers...

This time around we head back to New York to hear about Italian antifascist Carla Capponi. Professor Suzanne Cope, author of WOMEN OF WAR: The Italian Assassins, Spies and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis brings us Carla's lively tale, which is full of bombs, intrigue, and bravery. DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the talk. Find out more about Suzanne Cope...

We're back with a delightful episode about Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, the first female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Host Susan Stone dives deep into the history of the Seminole Indians and Betty Mae's unusual life and times, via a talk recorded in front of a live audience in Berlin. As a mixed-race child, Betty was 'born a crime' according to Seminole medicine men, but she endured to lead...

In this episode, DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens introduces us to Flora Tristan.  A French-Peruvian writer, socialist activist and feminist theorist, Flora was amongst the first to tie women's equality to social equality. Her personal life was touched by hardship, scandal, and the nefarious acts of various men. Seeking her own emancipation, she was moved to fight for universal freedom. And though...

In this episode, we hear a bit of our lovely 10th anniversary show in Berlin, and DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire gives us the rundown on  Caroline of Brunswick, who was officially Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover for three whole weeks before she died in 1821, long-estranged from her horrible husband, her cousin King George IV. They had separated shortly after the birth of their only child,...

In this episode, we hop over to New York to encounter our Dead Lady of the hour, May Ziadeh, a Lebanese-Palestinian poet, writer, translator, and feminist, whose work explored themes of love, identity, and the liberation of women. Books were her beloved companions throughout her life, and proved more steadfast than people. May began writing at an early age, started an important literary salon, and...

In this episode of our podcast, DLS co-host Florian Duijsens tells us about journalist, writer, and witness to history Dorothy Thompson.  As a foreign correspondent in Germany, she was among the first to caution against the growing tides of fascism, warning urgently against the Nazis and Hitler. Unfortunately, the world didn't listen. Dorothy continued to speak out throughout her life, and during...

We're back with Season Eight of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast!   In this episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings us the story of Boudica, an ancient British queen who fought the Romans. Though she led her Iceni tribe in a rebellion, the Romans prevailed, but wrote a fair bit about her in the history books.   In her afterlife, Boudica became a mascot for the suffragettes but also co-opted as...

It's our last episode of Season Seven, and our last episode of 2024, which means it's Rotkäppchen time! Join us as we toast to Dead Ladies with German fizzy wine, and hear the story of another fabulous woman.   DLS cofounders Katy Derbyshire and Florian Duijsens join the party as we get ready to hear the story of writer Paula Fox. As Florian explains, this talented author's personal plot twists an...

In this episode of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, we hear a story that feels sadly relevant—a miscarriage of justice.   Anna Göldi was the last woman to be legally executed after being accused of witchcraft in Switzerland, in 1782;   just seven years before the French Revolution, and a century after witch trials were rampant in Europe (as well as infamously in Salem, Massachusetts). Anna came from...

In this episode, Rachel Pronger of the Invisible Women film collective brings us the story of iconoclastic Czech film multi-talent Ester Krumbachová. Ester was a screen writer, costume and stage designer, author, and film director. Her work was quirky, colorful, and political, lashing out at patriarchy and authoritarianism. She had a defining influence on Czech New Wave cinema, collaborating on mo...

In this episode, we're live at PodFest Berlin! DLS co-founders Katy Derbyshire and Florian Duijsens do the introducing, while DLSP Producer Susan Stone tells us about the amazing life of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress (in 1968). Four years later, Shirley was the first Black person and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomi...

In this episode we run off to New York to get a post-Olympic sports fix! Writer and editor Sheila Enright-- who is both a former track and field runner and co-host of Dead Ladies NYC--brings us the story of American gold medallist Wilma Rudolph. Born into a family of 22 children in segregated Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with polio at a young age, and told she would never walk again. But...

In this episode of our podcast, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings us the story of   Therese Giehse, a German actor, pacifist and exile known for founding an anti-Nazi cabaret (which, really, we could all get behind these days). Therese had artistic and other adventures with her lover Erika Mann (daughter of Thomas Mann), was photographed by Annemarie Schwarzenbach, and embodied several of Bert...

In this episode, DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens introduces us to Dame Miriam Rothschild, a British zoologist, entomologist, and botanist. Coming from a wealthy family (yes, those Rothschilds) with an active interest in nature, she started collecting ladybirds and caterpillars and taking a tame quail to bed with her at the age of four. During a stint of WWII codebreaking at Bletchley Park, she pre...

In this episode, we take a jaunt to New York to find out about the talented and difficult Patricia Highsmith. You might know one of her most notorious characters, Tom Ripley, from your Netflix queue (the new series Ripley ) or via one of the many films based on what might be Highsmith's best-known novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith wrote several books that redefined the concept of the thril...

*** IMPORTANT NOTE: This episode's Dead Lady had a very challenging existence, particularly when she was younger, and her story is marked by multiple incidents of violence and sexual abuse. Please use caution when listening ***   In this episode, we join forces with the Ms Informed podcast to bring you the story of Phoolan Devi.   Known as "India's Bandit Queen," Phoolan Devi overcame a life of po...

Welcome to Season Seven!   In this episode, we bring you…the woman known as the "Mother Theresa of Reggae!   Sister Mary Ignatius, a white Jamaican Catholic nun dedicated her life to the Alpha Boys' School in Kingston, where she taught football, cricket, boxing, table tennis and dominoes – but most importantly, music. A lover of jazz and blues, she inspired hundreds of "wayward boys" to become pro...

We're working on our next season, which starts in March! So, in this bonus show, we're sharing a guest episode from the podcast Her Half of History.  Her Half of History covers women's history in short episodes that fit into a series, like Women Who Seized Power, Women Who Escaped Slavery, and Women in Espionage. Host Lori Davis also likes to delve into the lives of ordinary women by covering topi...

In this episode, the last of Season Six, we bring you a show live from  PodFest Berlin ! DLS-ers Susan Stone and Katy Derbyshire joined the city's fine and friendly podcasters at the yearly event in front of a small but perfectly formed audience.     From that event, producer Susan brings us the fascinating story of June Tarpé Mills, a comics pioneer and the first woman to create a female superher...

In this episode, we hear once again from our friends at Dead Ladies NYC.  Nafisa Ferdous presents Amrita Sher-Gil, a queer, feminist, Hungarian-Indian artist, writer, and art critic who left a profound impact on art despite her untimely death. Sher-Gil was an incredibly charismatic non-conformist whose work reframed discussions on art and feminism, orientalism, and colonialism, while merging Europ...