In a deep dark underwater cave, Mexican divers found a mountain of prehistoric animal bones… and one human skeleton. It was Naia – the oldest skeleton ever discovered in the Americas. What can her bones tell us about our human origins? And more than that, what do they tell us about what it means to be human? Come with us on location to Dos Palmas cenote in Mexico, as Katie interviews returning guest Gabo Cemé. …
When Lusia Harris convinced her parents to let her try out for High School basketball, she never could’ve anticipated she’d end up scoring the first basket in Olympic Women’s Basketball history. Facing unprecedented hurdles at every step of her career, she broke records, made history, and changed women’s sports forever – and that’s just the beginning! Olivia interviews Andrew Maraniss, author of Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First Us Women’s Olympic Basketball Team. …
Germany was still burning witches when Maria Sibylla Merian daringly filled her 17th-century home with spiders, moths, and all kinds of toxic plants. Bold choices saved her from accusations of witchcraft–and from a mundane life. Merian’s fascination with metamorphosis led her all the way to the rainforests of South America, where she recorded countless new species, 130 years before Darwin! Katie interviews our guest Kim Todd, author of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets …
Loved this episode? Join us on our Lost Women of New England Tour in Oct 2023 – we’ll visit Glessner Lee’s New Hampshire home The Rocks and even see one of her mind-blowing Nutshell Studies in person! 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 …
An Egyptian child bride awakens to the reality of life in a harem, and dreams of revolution. And that’s just the beginning! Huda Shaarawi led thousands of women in a movement to liberate themselves from the harem, the veil, and all inequality. But in 1920s Egypt, how far could they get? Our guest is Professor Ayfer Karakaya-Stump at the College of William & Mary. Ayfer Karakaya-Stump was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. An Associate …
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 …
In 1895, Annie Cohen embarked on a quest to become the first woman ever to cycle around the world. Did she make it? Yes! Were the newspapers engrossed in her story? Yes! Did she actually… um, cycle? Sometimes! By sheer grit, Annie made her life into something (literally) unbelievable. Peter Zheutlin, author of two books about Annie, shares the tale of a woman who “didn’t run away to join the circus; she became the circus.” …
When most medieval Englishwomen wouldn’t travel more than five miles from home in their lifetime, Margery Kempe left behind her abusive husband and fourteen children to walk from France to Jerusalem and back – in the 1400s! Discover the amazing story of the mysterious “Weeping Mystic” who traveled the world, broke all the rules, and – luckily for us – recorded it all for history! Returning guest Mary Sharratt, author of the new historical novel …
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 …
