When the mothers of Love Canal learned that their neighborhood was built on a chemical dump, they launched into the fight of their lives – first to find the truth, then to escape their own homes. But without biologist Beverly Paigen willingly putting her career on the line, it never would have happened. Discover this inspiring – and infuriating – story with returning guest Keith O’Brien, New York Times bestselling author of author of Paradise …
Frances Glessner Lee was 52 years old when she discovered the mission that would become her legacy – to “convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth.” After five decades as a prominent social hostess (and innovative part-time artist) this indomitable woman took on centuries of entrenched medical and legal tradition to become the Mother of Forensic Science. And she did it – at least partially – with dollhouses?! Olivia speaks to guest …
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 …
Mae Timbimboo was just eight years old when she entered a US federal boarding school designed to “kill the Indian to save the child.” The government hoped Native children like Mae would “assimilate” into Euro-American culture, but that certainly didn’t work on Mae. Instead, she harnessed her education to give voice to her people’s history. She told the world that they had the 1863 “Battle of Bear River” all wrong: it was a massacre. Our …
When Harriet Jacobs’ enslaver threatened to sell her children away to the plantation unless she accepted his sexual abuse, she decided the only way to keep them safe was to run. But with no resources and no way to get north, where could she go instead? The answer is an astonishing one. Jacobs’ story is one of the most dramatic and remarkable ‘slave narratives’ in United States history, yet for over 100 years, everyone believed …
In Nazi Germany, resistance was not just forbidden, it was deadly. But in 1942, a group of young college students went from enthusiastic supporters of the Third Reich to some of its most vocal opponents, publishing thousands of leaflets calling Hitler a criminal, and attempting to start a student revolt. Though their dream of a revolution never became reality, their courageous stance in the face of evil has become legendary in Germany, and their story …
Mae Mallory was a radical civil rights activist, Black Power movement leader, school desegregation organizer and strong proponent of Black armed self-defense. Her passionate dedication to “solving Black peoples’ problems” changed the world, but her name is mostly known because of her false arrest and conviction for kidnapping an elderly white couple in 1961. After the verdict was overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court, Mallory continued to work for freedom, autonomy and security for …
Claudia Jones (born Claudia Cumberbatch) was a journalist, Black Nationalist and prominent member of the American Communist Party. Emigrating from Trinidad to NYC at eight years old, she was an extremely well-known peace activist and worked toward civil rights and women’s rights in America. Arrested for giving a speech promoting peace and women’s rights, in 1955 she was deported to England. There she founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, continued her work fighting racism and …
