Celia Sánchez Manduley was probably the most important woman in the Cuban Revolution – yet outside of Cuba, almost nobody knows her name. The first woman to fire a shot in the revolution, and the brains behind the revolution’s complex logistics, she is known in Cuba as the powerful heart of a movement to “make people’s lives better.” Discover this astonishing story with our guest, Tiffany Sippial. Director of the Honors College and Professor of …
Wangari Maathai was the first woman in Central Africa to earn a PhD, the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the mother of the Ecofeminist movement — and that’s just the beginning! Discover the life of this remarkable, brilliant, world-changing woman with our guest, author and environmentalist Virginia Phiri. The Green Belt Movement website is here. You can watch Wangari Maathai’s Nobel Prize speech here. Virginia Phiri is an author and …
Stefania Turkevych was one of Galicia’s most talented and prolific classical composers – and then the Russian Revolution turned her world upside down. When she fled the USSR to find a new home, through Italy, Ireland, and to her final home in England, her work was lauded all across the continent. But fame is fickle when nobody speaks your language! Discover this forgotten star – Ukraine’s first female classical composer – with our guest Dr. …
Helen Duncan was the last person in the UK ever to be convicted of witchcraft… in the mid-20th-century! Her story is one of fraud, fakery and – just possibly – actual communications with the dead!? Hear this fascinating and extremely unexpected story with special guest Nikki Druce, host of the Macabre London podcast! Hear the full-length audio from Helen Duncan’s conversation with “Albert” here. And hear Helen Duncan’s full “appearance” at a 1983 seance by …
Chances are, every one of us has seen Victorine Meurent. Her delicate, red-headed form appears in at least thirty paintings by the famous Parisian masters of La Belle Époque. It was long assumed that Victorine was a prostitute, who died young in some tragically romantic way. But when our guest Drēma Drudge saw Victorine staring out from Manet’s famous painting Olympia, she felt called to uncover the woman’s story. And now we know that none …
In 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon ran for state senate against her polygamist husband, and won! But becoming America’s first female state senator was only one chapter of Cannon’s story. A whirlwind of triumph and heartbreak dominated her life: wagon trains, Victorian medicine, the suffrage movement, evading federal prosecution, she lived it all! Our guest is Rebekah Clark, author of Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah Read Martha Hughes Cannon’s Speech to the …
In an abandoned house in St. Anne, Illinois, an astonishing treasure trove of handwritten sheet music was discovered in 2009. That cache was the life’s work of composer Florence Price, the first African-American woman to have her work performed by major orchestras. But Price’s story is so much bigger – and wilder – than even that headline-grabbing discovery could show, and her astonishing contributions to classical music are finally getting the praise they deserve. Our …
Tasha Tudor’s charming and warm-hearted illustrations of over 100 books, plus her nostalgic advent calendars and Christmas cards, earned her devoted fans around the world. But her way of life fascinated people as much as her illustrations. Even though she lived to 2008, she lived with conscious intention as if it were 1830. Her life was rooted in simplicity, creativity, and taking it slow. In this year’s Christmas Special, we read from her Christmas classic, …
When Helen Stephens was fifteen years old, a track coach saw her playing pickup basketball and asked her to run a time trial in the school driveway. In that first-ever 50-yard dash, Stephens tied the world record. Only a year later at the 1936 Olympics, she would win two gold medals and her record would stand for twenty-four years. Meet this “forgotten legend” of US track with Fast Girls author Elise Hooper. Helen Stephens’ world-record …
Before Ida Tarbell took on John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, the idea of a journalist bringing down the largest monopoly in the US would have been laughable. But her relentless investigation, passion for the truth, and innovative code of journalistic ethics wouldn’t just change the country’s businesses — it would revolutionize American journalism forever. Meet the original “Muckraker.” Our guest is Stephanie Gorton, author of Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell and the Magazine …
