Dirty Sexy History

Whales have been in the news all week, but it’s not the first time they’ve attacked ships. This week, Jess talks about the 19th century whaling industry, historical whale attacks, and the tragic sinking of the Essex in 1820. We cover the real-life inspiration for Moby Dick, an enormous white whale who sunk twenty ships off the coast of Chile. There’s even a bonus segment on whale products in Civil...

Many historical love stories take you up until the wedding with the presumed happily-ever-after, but what happens next? What if things go wrong? This week, our guest is Dr. Jacqueline Beatty, author of In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America. We cover 18th century marriage, divorce, financial dependence, women's networks, and how women played into society's percepti...

Between 1827 and 1832, one ship—the Black Joke—captured thirteen slave ships and freed an incredible 3,000 people. The true story of the Black Joke is about so much more than one ship; today we also talk about diversity among sailors, gay relationships in the British navy, Britain’s complicated relationship with the slave trade, and how slavery was finally abolished. Our guest is historian and Jeo...

We are kicking off Season Three with an extra-long episode with Andrea Janes and Leanna Renee Hieber, historical ghost tour guides and authors of A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts. From the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire to the Winchester Mystery House, we cover a lot of ground, discussing theoretical physics and the Stone Tape theory, famous ghosts, and the...

America is experiencing a crisis of “bad history,” with fake history being used to justify regressive policy decisions while real history is being removed from schools and libraries. Why is it happening, and what are the dangers of fake history? For the Season 2 finale, our guests are Princeton history professors Dr Kevin Kruse and Dr Julian Zelizer, editors of New York Times Bestseller Myth Ameri...

Eighteenth-century pornography was surprisingly progressive, challenging gender roles and the very definition of sex. This week, we talk to Dr Kathleen Lubey about that, plus dildos, gender fluidity, LGBTQ+ content, female empowerment, and the link to modern Romance novels. Dr. Lubey’s new book is What Pornography Knows: Sex and Social Protest Since the Eighteenth Century.

This week, we talk to Craig Seligman about the history of drag in the US and Australia and look at the extraordinary life of artist, filmmaker, and drag icon Doris Fish. We’re talking drag shows, drugs, glitter, Vegas in Space, and how San Francisco battled the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Craig’s new book is Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag.

At least 385 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced so far in 2023, targeting everything from books to gender-affirming care and even marriage equality. It all sounds a bit familiar, and that’s what we’re talking about this week. Today we talk to Dr Jake Newsome, author of Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust about anti-LGBTQ legislation in Germany from the 19th century...

The art of the Rider-Waite tarot deck is iconic, but not everyone knows the artist behind it, Pamela Colman Smith. This week, we talk to actress, tarot reader, and historical fiction author Susan Wands about Pamela’s life, her art, and her involvement with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Susan’s new book is Magician and Fool, a historical novel about Pamela Colman Smith

You know about the Women’s Suffrage Movement, but what you might not realize is how many of early suffragists were queer. This week, we talk dress reform, free love, jiu-jitsu, and queer love stories with Dr Wendy Rouse, author of Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Following on from Episode 2.8, Dr Nicole Dittmer joins us for a discussion about the Victorian view of women as inherently monstrous and how this widespread fear of women influenced the gothic fiction of the time, notably Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Literary nerds, rejoice! This week we’re talking Catherine Earnshaw, Bertha Mason, hysteria, demon uteruses, and…werewolves?! Plus, this episode...

We think of “friends with benefits” as a modern phenomenon, but it really isn’t. This week, we talk to historian Dr Cassandra Good about 18th century friendships between men and women, answering the important questions: Who sent the first “tit pic”? How did Benedict Arnold win over Peggy Shippen? And crucially, what was really going on between Alexander Hamilton and his sister-in-law?

Christmas shopping is hard, so this week, we’re taking the advice of 1930s holiday beauty ads and looking into radium! Our guest is Lucy Jane Santos, author of Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium and an expert in toxic beauty history. We’re talking about radioactive skincare, X-Rays in beauty salons, radium condoms, snorting radium, and other *very* bad ideas. As always—do NOT try this at h...

This week, we talk to Dr Anne Linton, author of the groundbreaking new book Unmaking Sex. The book focuses on intersex and gender-nonconformity in 19th century French life and literature, and we also discuss marriage laws, medical erotica, popular fiction, and permits for pants!

Fake news a modern problem, right? Not exactly. In fact, the US was founded on it. In this very special Thanksgiving episode, we talk to Dr Jordan Taylor about 18th century newspapers, the Revolutionary War, and how misinformation started everything.

Illegitimate children come up a lot in historical fiction, but how common was illegitimate birth, and what was life really like for these people? This week, we talk to Dr Kate Gibson about her new book: Illegitimacy, Family, and Stigma in England, 1660-1834.

You’ve heard Victorian women could get committed to mental institutions for reading books and thinking too much, but why did it happen, and what were these places really like? This week, Jess explains how being female was enough to get you labeled insane, looking at some horrific treatments used, as well as the experiences of Elizabeth Packard and Nellie Bly, two badass women who fought back.

Gender has been a hot-button issue for years, but the very concept only goes back to the 1950s. In this episode, we talk to Berkeley history professor Dr Sandra Eder about how the idea of gender developed from the treatment of children born with intersex traits in the first half of the 20th century.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Carmel-by-the-Sea was an idyllic artists’ colony in Northern California. At the center of the excitement was “King of the Bohemians” George Sterling and his wife, Carrie. But all was not as sunny as it seemed. When George’s secret lover, poet Nora May French, came to Carmel, it set the three on a collision course that would end in suicide by cyanide—three of t...

This week, we talk to historian and curator Hugh Ryan about the Women’s House of Detention, a prison in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village where countless women and trans men were incarcerated for all kinds of heinous crimes, like…smoking and wearing pants? It wasn’t too long ago that a woman on her own could be arrested for prostitution without proof and jailed for her perceived abili...

We constantly hear that trans and gender-nonconforming identities are a strictly modern concept. But are they? In this episode, we talk to historian Dr Kit Heyam about gender nonconformity in world history and how definitions and experiences of gender vary between time periods and cultures. Dr Heyam is the author of Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender, which is out now

Everyone loves Our Flag Means Death, but who was the real Stede Bonnet, and what exactly was going on between him and Blackbeard? On this week’s show, we talk to Stede’s biographer Jeremy Moss about this, plus libraries on ships, walking the plank, and what makes a good pirate flag

Violet Fenn returns to the podcast to talk about Lady Hamilton, Harriet Wilson, portable chamber pots, and the dateability of Regency dukes

In this great interview with Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, we discuss pioneering plastic surgeon Dr. Harold Gillies, his brave patients, and the multitalented medical heroes who made his work possible. You’ll never look at WWI quite the same way again.

From hot pink and fetish gear to fake eyelashes, tattoos, and nipple piercings, this week we’re talking about some surprisingly “modern” fashion and beauty trends of the 19th century. What did the Victorians wear apart from all that black? We can’t wait to tell you