196. Seeking Home: Kassia St. Clair [reads] ‘Homing: On Pigeons, Dwellings and Why We Return’

The year is 1888. Queen Victoria is celebrating her 50th year ruling over an empire on which, famously, the sun never sets. Her loyal subjects, as well as colonizing the heck out of the world, are breeding. And to signify whether they've got a little girl or a little boy in the family, sometimes the offspring break out from the usual white gowns and get dressed in their gender-assigned colors. For girls, blue. For boys, pink. 

Blue, it was thought, is a more delicate and dainty shade and also the color associated with Mary Magdalene, the ultimate mother of Christendom. And pink, connected to red, is the stronger color with martial overtones. The British redcoats, after all, were the greatest fighting force of their time. And in fact, it wasn't until the 1940s that things got flipped and pink got stapled onto girls and blue to boys.

Today’s guest is Kassia St. Clair, a distinguished historian and author with a unique focus on color, textiles, and the everyday aspects of life that often go unnoticed. Her book, "The Secret Lives of Color," delves into the fascinating stories behind different colors throughout history. With a background in design and style writing, Cassia brings a blend of curiosity and discipline to her work, bridging the gap between academia and popular culture. 

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Kassia reads two pages from Homing: On Pigeons, Dwellings and Why We Return. [reading begins at 16:34]

Hear us discuss:

"I think the writer comes to the subject both because of this childhood experience, but also because he himself is struggling with the idea of home." - 00:20:55 | "Home is those friendships, many of which I still am lucky to have. Home is what I'm creating for my daughter. And home is London." [25:03] | "History books are given to subject matter experts and professional rivals. You will quite often see that mistakes are made. People don't tend to agree on the facts, and that's why history keeps on moving forward." [36:20] | "I think it's one of the fundamental dances, that dance between freedom and commitment." [38:56] | "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. You know, that sounds both lonely and also at times a little enticing." [39:07]