Dig: A History Podcast

Womyn #4 of 4. Sex striking is a method of passive resistance, a form of peaceful protest, and something attempted by American Indians in the early modern era, First Wave feminists in Europe and America, Bolshevik women in the 1920s, Chinese women in the 1940s, and perhaps most famously, by the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace in the early 2000s. Sex strikes are an effective way for disenfra...

Womyn, #3 of 4. Victoria Woodhull was an advocate of free love, an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and suffrage, a Spiritualist medium, a stockbroker, maybe a sex worker, an all-around force of nature. She might be one of the most controversial women in American history, which means she is one of our favorites. For this episode of our series on Womyn, we’re talking about the life of the grou...

Womyn, #2 of 4. Marriage - the word alone is loaded. Marriage is the butt of jokes, the “old ball and chain,” the end of fun. Marriage can also bring up images of fear, of abuse, of control. And marriage can invoke images of happy couples, of new beginnings, and of really really expensive parties and mediocre buffet lines. Today we’re going to do a quick exploration into the history of marriage in...

Womyn, #1 of 4. King Ahebi Ugbabe was unique among the men of Igboland in colonial Nigeria. There weren’t many kings in Igboland at all. But the infrequency of kingship is not what set Ugbabe  apart: more importantly, in a world dominated by councils of old men, where political, social, economic, and spiritual roles were meted out in a complimentary but rigid dual-sex system, King Ahebi Ugbabe was...

Law Series #4 of 4.  Ever wonder how the modern prison system came to be? Join us for a discussion of 19th century prisons, their history, evolution and the intended reforms they were intended to produce. We take a deep dive into exploring the Auburn Prison and how the "Auburn System" came to dominate the penal system throughout America. Find show notes, further reading and transcripts here.  Lear...

Law Series #3 of 4. In Germany in the 1930s, the state passed law after law to isolate, disenfranchise, and break down Jewish Germans. It is shocking how easily the German parliamentary government chipped away at Jewish citizenship, attacking the livelihoods and cultural contributions of small groups of Jews, before finally passing the series of laws known as the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jew...

Law Series #2 of 4. The doctrine of coverture deprived married women of legal status, merging her legal personhood with her husband’s. Today we’ll get into the complex ways that the doctrine of coverture shaped the lives of married women in the British Isles from the 11th to the 19th centuries. You'll find the bibliography and transcript for this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad...

Law Series #1 of 4. Studying the Fourteenth Amendment is like taking one thread of American history since the mid nineteenth century and following it through all of the major events of the period since then. It’s a great way to study history. So today we are going to discuss the Fourteenth Amendment. Explore what it is, why it became a Constitutional Amendment, and what legal decisions have shaped...

Bonus Episode #6 of 20. In the third episode in our series on women's reproductive rights in America, Jane Roe & the Pill, we finally get to two of the most important turning points in our story: the invention of the hormonal birth control pill, and the Roe v. Wade case in 1973. The mid 20th century saw some critical turning points for women's reproductive rights, but also created lasting poli...

True Crime Series #4 of 4. On September 21, 1905, a suitcase floated to the water’s surface in Winthrop Harbor, a shallow six-foot deep man-made channel, about three miles north of Boston Harbor. Stuffed inside the seemingly innocuous case was the torso of a “young and beautifully formed woman” whose intestines and stomach had been removed, along with her extremities... and her head. The Boston Gl...

True Crime Series #3 of 4.  Today, we’re talking about a very real murder that was committed by a very real woman who lived in Missouri in the 1850s. But while this murder had all the elements that make for a flashy and exciting true crime story – sex, rape, murder, dramatic court room scenes – it is a very different kind of true crime tale and must be understood within its historical context. Thi...

True Crime Series #2 of 4.  Most societies are fascinated by women murderers. On September 14, 1767, a massive crowd gathered round the road to Tyburn, thronging around the hangman’s cart, throwing vegetable peels and other refuse. They shouted profanity at the occupants of the cart, one of whom was Elizabeth Brownrigg, the most controversial criminal to grace the pages of the London papers. The j...

True Crime Series #1 of 4. After Michael Cleary murdered his wife Bridget Cleary, he wandered the Tipperary countryside in his best suit, telling everyone he met that he was going to reclaim her from the fairies. Three nights he waited for her to come out of the local fairy fort - the ring of stones that were settlements in Neolithic Ireland and have since fallen into ruin and legend. Of course sh...

Bonus Episode #5 of 20. At the Women’s Marches across the U.S. on January 21st, 2017, there were hundreds—maybe thousands—of women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who held up signs that conveyed their frustration with still needing to fight for rights like birth control and abortion. This is a battle that has waged for so, so long. On this episode, Sarah and Elizabeth look back at the late 19th and ear...

Bonus Episode #4 of 20. 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 ones) to control family size, and early American women were no exception. Understanding the role that reproductive rights has played in American history provide...

Winter Series #4 of 4. Charles Dickens may have capitalized on telling ghost stories at Christmas with A Christmas Carol, but this practice stretches well beyond the famous Victorian novelist. Join us as we explore the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmastime. Show Notes, Further Reading, and a full transcript available at https://digpodcast.org/2017/12/17/ghost-christmas-charles-dicken...

Winter Series #3 of 4. During the hey-day of Great Lakes shipping, when ships crossed these huge lakes loaded down with cargo, a fall storm could be – and often was - deadly. You might be familiar with one particular fall shipwreck, the 1977 sinking of the freighter, The Edmund Fitzgerald, or Big Fitz during a brutal November gale on Lake Superior. But today, we’re talking about another November s...

Winter Series #2 of 4. The warmth - and light - of the houses of 19th century Britain were a characteristic of Victorian life. While open coal hearths continued to dominate home heating, the Victorian era was also the first to use radiant boiler-powered heat, whole-house gas lighting, and even - infrequently, but innovatively nonetheless - electricity. It was a brave, sometimes dangerous, often ti...

Winter Series #1 of 4. Today we are discussing the ways the theoretical Little Ice Age impacted the people who lived through it. The study of past climates is highly politicized. Historical climatologists argue bitterly, writing scathing critiques of each other’s data and interpretations. Climate change deniers use historical climatology to argue that what the science community refers to as global...

Creepy, Occult & Spooky Series #4 of 4.  People are often surprised to learn that yes, even death has a history. In fact, death can be a powerful tool for unlocking the ways that people thought about themselves, their world, and one another – both for historians, and for people of different cultures trying to relate to one another. Today, we’re talking about death and how two vastly different cult...

Creepy, Occult & Spooky Series #3 of 4.  There wasn’t a soul in London, much less the neighborhood of Smithfield market, who hadn’t heard of the Cock Lane ghost. In 1762, the narrow London street was crowded with throngs of onlookers and busy-bodies who wanted to know if the rumors were true. A young girl at 20 Cock Lane , Elizabeth Parsons, was said to be possessed by a restless spirit. The Cock...

Creepy, Occult & Spooky Series #2 of 4.  In 1978, John Carpenter created a horror film that would arguably change the genre, certainly led the way in slasher films, and all on a $325,000 budget, with a 21 day shoot and no big star names to speak of. The second film was released in 1981; the third in 1982; four and five were ‘88 and ‘89, respectively. The 1980s were particularly ripe for a horror s...

Creepy, Occult & Spooky Series #1 of 4. We commemorate and document life through photographs, and have been doing so since the 19th century. But photography has also been used to document death. In this episode we are discussing Victorian postmortem photography. This has received a lot of interest on the internet lately as Victorian memento mori photographs have become rather popular on certain in...

War, Conflict and Violence Series #4 of 4. Today’s discussion is about the creation of historical memory and how one war in particular, The Texas War of Independence, is remembered. But also how historical memory of that war is profoundly colored by the memory of the Civil War through what is known as the Lost Cause.  Find Show Notes, Further Reading, and a complete transcript of this episode at h...

War, Conflict and Violence Series #3 of 4. Dealing with the history behind why we have Confederate memorials and what they mean, but also talk about something fun: guerrilla warfare – the irregular forms of war that took place largely in the Western reaches of the Civil War's borders.  For Show Notes, Further Reading, and a complete transcript of this episode, visit https://digpodcast.org/2017/10/...