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 …
Loved this episode? Join us on our Lost Women of New England Tour in Oct 2023 for a private VIP tour of Orchard House and May Alcott’s art studio, visit Louisa May’s grave at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and so much more! May Alcott failed spectacularly countless times before becoming a great artist. Immortalized by her sister Louisa as the vain, vivacious Amy in Little Women, the real youngest “March” sister was a conscientious, creative, and …
Jane Marcet wasn’t a chemist. She wasn’t a physicist or a biologist or an astronomer – but she probably made a bigger contribution to science than anyone else in the 19th century. So why do none of us know her name? Guest Miranda Garno Nesler explains what made Jane Marcet’s contributions so unique and so important, and why so many of us might be thinking about science – and scientists – all wrong. Miranda Garno …
Freddie and Truus Oversteegen were just 14 and 16 years old when the Nazis invaded their hometown of Haarlem. Determined to do their part, the sisters joined the Dutch Resistance and began bombing trains, smuggling out Jewish children, and running refugee safehouses. But their most dangerous work was also their most unlikely: assassinating Nazi officers in broad daylight. Olivia interviews guest Sophie Poldermans, author of Seducing and Killing Nazis, to discover this astounding true story …
For a thousand years, March 14th has been celebrated as St. Matilda’s Day in Quedlinburg, Germany. She was celebrated as a Peacemaker in her time, and has been a unifying figure ever since. Discover with us the remarkable story of Queen Matilda, who inspires Protestants and Catholics to gather together to celebrate her, even today. (Hint: she wielded words to end violence, and once talked a deer into puking up a wine bottle.) Our guest …
Maria Branwell Brontë most famously exists as an absence — the mother whose biggest, or only, influence resides in her “not being there there” during the lives of her famous daughters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. For 200 years scholars believed there wasn’t enough material for a biography of Maria. But author Sharon Wright believed there had to be more to find, if only she “went looking properly.” And what she found is truly remarkable. Join …
What’sHerName presents our very first Mother’s Day Special! Come “meet the ancestors” as six What’sHerName listeners introduce some truly remarkable women from their own family history! From Ukraine to Japan, Uzbekistan to Mexico, we’re traveling around the world, and through 275 years, to discover these amazing ancestors in this special double episode. Our guests are What’sHerName listeners Irit Namatinya, Susan Stone, Lisa Williamson, Adrienne, Sachiko Burton, and Michelle Thorley. Rosalia and her daughter Sophia survived …
What would you sacrifice for a chance to chase your dream? Two hundred years ago in Ireland, penniless Margaret Bulkley shed her identity to live a big, bold, loud life as army surgeon James Barry, and took that secret (almost) to the grave. And by keeping his secret, Barry helped — even saved — suffering people across the world. Hear this incredible story recorded on location at the Old Operating Theater Museum and Herb Garret …
Anita Garibaldi is celebrated as a national heroine in three countries and on two continents. Yet the true stories of her remarkable, almost unbelievable life have seldom been told, and her legacy has been claimed, and used, by generations of men since her death in 1849. Hear the astonishing life of the “mother of Italy,” Brazilian gaucho revolutionary Anita Garibaldi. Our guest is Diana Giovinazzo, author of the forthcoming novel The Woman in Red. Diana …
Dive into the stinky filth of everyday Viking life as Katie presents Olivia with a mystery. It’s not so much a Whodunnit as a WhoWASit: the skeleton of a woman found in a shallow grave on the banks of York’s River Foss. What can her bones, and all the other delightfully disgusting bits of evidence from Viking York, tell us about the mysterious Coppergate Woman? Katie is on location at the Jorvik Viking Center in …
