Dig: A History Podcast

BONUS EPISODE! Tuck into this episode by our badass intern Carly Bagley, a student at St. Mary's University in Texas. She wrote, recorded and produced this episode as a companion episode to Sarah's Slavery and Soul Food and Elizabeth's Birth of a Nation. Teaser: Last summer on June 17, 2020, the Quaker Oats Company announced its decision to rename its Aunt Jemima pancake brand after 131 years. Pub...

Occult Series. Episode #4 of 4. If you visit the city of New Orleans, Louisiana you will be regaled by stories of the magnanimous Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Join any of the hundreds of walking tours of the city and tour guides will weave tales of fact and fiction as you travel down the narrow streets of the French Quarter, and meander through the uneven grounds of NOLA’s famous...

Occult Series #3 of 4. Whether we’ve ever really given it any study, we’re all at least a little familiar with the link between the Nazi party and the occult. Movies like Captain America and Hellboy have plot lines that center on supernatural obsessions of Nazi leadership, desperately trying to find magical or supernatural ways of winning the war and establishing the Nazi worldview. Indiana Jones...

Occult Series. Episode #2 of 4. In 1980s Japan, mizuko spirit attacks, or hauntings by the spirits of aborted fetuses, were on the rise among middle school and high school girls. Listen to one Japanese teen's testimonial: “You probably won’t believe it, but mizuko spirit attacks are really frightful. Last summer, I got knocked up. I went to the hospital for an abortion, but about a week later, I s...

Occult #1 of 4. In the 1970s, Lorraine and Ed Warren had a spotlight of paranormal obsession shining on them. In the last decade, their work as paranormal investigators--ghost hunters--has been the premise for a blockbuster horror franchise totaling at least seven films so far, and more planned in the near future. So… what the heck? Is this for real? Yes, friends, today we’re talking about demonol...

Birth Series. Episode #4 of 4. In his occupation as a swineherd, Jacob Nufer had performed countless genital surgeries on his pigs. He was an expert gelder. He was convinced he could deliver his child abdominally so that both his wife and child would survive. For this, there was no precedence. Most observers must have believed that Jacob was about to murder his wife and that his child might alread...

Birth Series #3 of 4. Childbirth is such a routine part of life that in some ways it can become invisible, especially historically. History, people often assume, is made up of major events, political elections, wars, etc. – not routine biological processes. But for something so invisible, it has made up a significant portion of the lives of women across time. Through American history, birthing wom...

Birth Series. Episode #2 of 4. The 1915 silent-film The Birth of a Nation is one of the most popular and controversial films ever made. It’s success catapulted director D.W. Griffith into stardom while cementing the film, a piece of racist propaganda, into the annals of film history. It’s an amazing film with a horrifying message, which claimed that America’s rebirth after the Civil War was possib...

Birth Series, Episode #1 of 4. Symphysiotomy. Probably not a word you’ve heard before - and if you have, I’m sorry? Symphysiotomy is an obstetric procedure in which a person’s pubic symphysis cartilage is cut to widen the pelvis for childbirth. Yes. Gross. I know. For most of the 19th century, symphysiotomy was a new solution to difficult births, and, to some doctors, preferable to Caesarean secti...

Border Series. Episode #4 of 4. In 1919, the idealistic American President Woodrow Wilson brought with him to the Paris Peace Conference his 14 Points. Among these points were the doctrine of self-determination (the idea that all peoples have the right to determine the nature of their own governance) and an idea for a coalition that enhanced international security (the League of Nations). While pr...

Borders #3 of 4. If we look for women of color in national women’s rights organizations before the 1970s, we don’t see very many. Once it was assumed that women of color did not participate in twentieth century feminism. Of course that wasn’t the case at all and the historical record is righting itself, as historians and other social scientists complicate the narrative of twentieth century feminis...

Borders Series. Episode #2 of 4. In popular media, borderline personality disorder has become linked in particular to beautiful, unstable, and ultimately dangerous white women, most famously Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. As a diagnosis, borderline personality disorder went through various iterations before being declared a personality disorder enshrined in the DSM-III...

Borders #1 of 4. Like many of the Spanish conquistadors who made their way to the Americas, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca joined an expedition to explore “Florida” in search of glory and, ideally, an encomienda of his own. (“Florida” is what the Spanish called all of the land around the Gulf of Mexico, including the actual Floridian peninsula.) Unlike most Spanish conquistadors, Cabeza de Vaca ended...

Bodies Series. Episode #4 of 4. Birth control and abortion are constant flash points in contemporary politics, and they’re often described as signs of a rapidly changing society. But women have always had ways (though not always quite as effective) to control family size through contraception, and early American women were no exception. Understanding the role that reproductive rights has played in...

Bodies Series, Episode #3 of 4. While police investigations have adapted to new technologies, the basic premises of investigative police work have been pretty consistent since the 1880s in the UK, Ireland, and the US. But that does not mean that the philosophical and procedural organization of modern policing have not or cannot undergo revision or reform. For example, the ways that these national...

Bodies Series. Episode #2 of 4. At the tail end of a pandemic (we hope!) vaccines are in the news. There are huge disparities in COVID-19 vaccination rates marked by class, race, and geography. Critics question the system of tiered eligibility as many essential workers like those in the food industry are not yet eligible for the vaccine. Others don’t trust pharmaceutical companies to tell the trut...

Bodies Series, Episode #1 of 4. Late in 2020, a number of white academics were revealed to be passing as people of color, making the concept of racial passing a matter of national conversation. For these white folks, the benefits of being considered a person of color were based on a perception that minorities somehow have special access, abilities, or freedoms unavailable to white people – which i...

Sarah leads Elizabeth, Marissa, and Averill through a discussion and examination of the 1776 Report. Spoiler alert: it's complete garbage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elections Series #4 of 4. On May 24, 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to codify marriage equality through a popular vote. Significantly, the popular vote enacted a constitutional amendment, adding protection for two adult’s right to marry regardless of sex or gender. In a country that only just decriminalized same-sex sex in 1993, this turn of events might be surprising. 61% of...

Elections Series. Episode #3 of 4. 1968 was an extremely turbulent and painful year in the United States of America. The Vietnam War was in full swing, as well as the protest movement against it. Gallup Poll results in February of 1968 showed that fully half of the American populace disapproved of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s (LBJ) handling of the war in Vietnam. By March of 1968, LBJ notified hi...

Election Series, Episode #2 of 4. The consequences of 1876 were enormous. To end the the election limbo, Democratic and Republican politicians worked out a shadowy deal in which Rutherford Hayes was declared the president (by one electoral vote!) and the Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction in the former Confederacy. The results of the “Compromise of 1877” were a total abandonment of the proce...

Elections Series. Episode #1 of 4. On the morning of August 11, 1492, Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope, taking the name Alexander VI and yelling “I am Pope! I am Pope!” The throngs of Romans in the Piazza di San Pietro shared in his excitement. But for some, the Papal Election of 1492 seemed to indicate the downfall of the papacy, if not the end of days. Giovanni de Medici is recorded as saying, “N...

Drugs Episode #4 of 4. For centuries, psychiatrists searched for the cure to mental illness, frustrated that medical doctors seemed to be able to find the “magic bullet” medications to fight disease and infection. In the mid 20th century, though, a series of new major and minor tranquilizers revolutionized the world of psychiatry. Doctors doled out Miltown, Librium, and Valium to stressed business...

Drugs Series. Episode #3 of 4. Tobacco smoking is definitely the default way to consume tobacco. But in certain times and places, smokeless tobacco- such as snuff, chew, or tobacco tea- have found niches. Yes, snuff was practical for some, a pop phenomenon to others, but many of these historical niches for smokeless tobacco were medicinal. It’s difficult to imagine now, in a society raised on the...

Drugs Series. Episode #2 of 4. Today we’re going to discuss alcohol consumption in early America. Alcohol was very important to early Americans and it flowed freely through the colonies. Adults and children alike drank alcoholic beverages for a variety of reasons. One being that it was one of the few things that were safe to drink at the time. However, by the time of the Early Republic period, rou...