Dig: A History Podcast

Fashion #1 of 4. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is one of the most horrendous industrial catastrophes in American history. In all, 146 people, mostly women and children, died in the fire. It shocked New York City and the nation and led to some of the most sweeping labor and safety reforms in history. In this episode we explore the labor conditions that led to the Triangle Fire as well as the fashion that spurned such an industry - the shirtwaist. A garment that took the Gilded Age and Progressive Era by storm. Get Show Notes and a complete transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fashion Re-Release. Marissa and Sarah discuss Georgians’ and Victorians’ love affair with Tuberculosis and the tuberculean aesthetic in fashion and art. In Georgian London, some diseases started to seem fashionable, desirable even. Gambling was popular, elites were using snuff and drinking spirits, powdering their hair, whitening their faces with toxic creams, damaging their bodies with restrictive clothes and hairstyles. Ladies of fashion were perceived to be particularly vulnerable to disease and this made them even more attractive. This is the context where tuberculosis first began shaping beauty standards. The Victorians took this even further. Pre-Raphaelite painters, their models, and the discovery of the tubercle bacillus germ brought new classed and gendered meanings to the tuberculean chic.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Environmentalism #4 of 4. Shinto - In Japan, recognizing the spirit of all things - from trees to mountains to interestingly shaped rocks - is part of Shinto. Older than writing in Japan, Shinto is the root of Japanese values and ways of thinking. Shinto is why the concepts of purity and impurity govern daily life, in the simple acts of gargling, hand washing, and removing shoes upon entry to a home. Shinto grounds the rites of passage in an individual’s life, like blessing children at ages 3, 5, and 7, and all birthday milestones - 14 or 15; 20; 60, 70, and 88 - thereafter. Many of the major festivals still celebrated in Japan are Shinto, and the practice of opening ceremonies - annually opening hiking trails, annually opening the sea, or the purification of new buildings - are also Shinto. And, of course, the centrality of nature in art and literature are Shinto. The pervasiveness of Shinto is fascinating - and that’s what today’s story is about.Find the Show Notes and a complete transcript on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Environmental history #3 of 4. The 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora changed history. The year following the eruption, 1816 was known in England as the “Year without a Summer,” in New England as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death, and “L’annee de la misere” or “Das Hungerhjar” in Switzerland. Germans dubbed 1817 as “the year of the beggar.” The Chinese and Indians had no name for it but the years following the massive eruption were remembered as ones of intense and widespread suffering. Scientists are, only today, uncovering the historical impacts of this ecological disaster. Suddenly we have climatic data which have reshaped our understanding of the events of 1815 and the years that followed. Now it is historians’ job to explore the social, political, and cultural influence of this catastrophic event. All this and more today as we explore the eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815.Find show notes and transcripts here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Environmental History, #2 of 4. Sarah and Elizabeth discuss the conservation movement and the creation of Americas National Parks in the late 19th and early 20th century.Find the Show Notes and a complete transcript at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Environment #1 of 4. Many natural history museums, in America and in the western world, were developed during the nineteenth century. These museums are both places to view and understand nature, they are also places that have a history in themselves. Museum goers look at dioramas of rare or extinct taxidermied animals, perhaps realizing that some of those animals behind glass were among the last of their kind, solemnly gunned down so that they might not be totally lost to us here in the 21st century and beyond. Today we will be discussing the history of natural history museums in America and the Western World.Find show notes and transcripts here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Womyn #4 of 4. Sex striking is a method of passive resistance, a form of peaceful protest, and something attempted by American Indians in the early modern era, First Wave feminists in Europe and America, Bolshevik women in the 1920s, Chinese women in the 1940s, and perhaps most famously, by the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace in the early 2000s. Sex strikes are an effective way for disenfranchised women to make their voices heard but they are a relatively recent phenomenon despite several click-baity articles which argue the contrary. So why are sex strikes portrayed as having a long history? Why don’t they? And why did they burst on the global scene in the 20th century? Is this a form of sisterhood that spans time and space? Or is it an instance of women buying into the patriarchal system? All this and more as we discuss history’s most famous sex strikes.Find show notes and transcripts here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Womyn, #3 of 4. Victoria Woodhull was an advocate of free love, an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and suffrage, a Spiritualist medium, a stockbroker, maybe a sex worker, an all-around force of nature. She might be one of the most controversial women in American history, which means she is one of our favorites. For this episode of our series on Womyn, we’re talking about the life of the groundbreaking, rule breaking Victoria Woodhull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Womyn, #2 of 4. Marriage - the word alone is loaded. Marriage is the butt of jokes, the “old ball and chain,” the end of fun. Marriage can also bring up images of fear, of abuse, of control. And marriage can invoke images of happy couples, of new beginnings, and of really really expensive parties and mediocre buffet lines. Today we’re going to do a quick exploration into the history of marriage in America. From the founding of our nation until the present day.Find transcripts and show notes at https://digpodcast.org/2018/04/01/marriage-america Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Womyn, #1 of 4. King Ahebi Ugbabe was unique among the men of Igboland in colonial Nigeria. There weren’t many kings in Igboland at all. But the infrequency of kingship is not what set Ugbabe  apart: more importantly, in a world dominated by councils of old men, where political, social, economic, and spiritual roles were meted out in a complimentary but rigid dual-sex system, King Ahebi Ugbabe was a female who “became a man.” Find Show Notes and a complete transcript of this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices