Dig: A History Podcast

Law Series #4 of 4.  Ever wonder how the modern prison system came to be? Join us for a discussion of 19th century prisons, their history, evolution and the intended reforms they were intended to produce. We take a deep dive into exploring the Auburn Prison and how the "Auburn System" came to dominate the penal system throughout America. Find show notes, further reading and transcripts here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Law Series #3 of 4. In Germany in the 1930s, the state passed law after law to isolate, disenfranchise, and break down Jewish Germans. It is shocking how easily the German parliamentary government chipped away at Jewish citizenship, attacking the livelihoods and cultural contributions of small groups of Jews, before finally passing the series of laws known as the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of their citizenship, rights, and, in the end, their freedom. You'll find the bibliography and a complete transcript of this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Law Series #2 of 4. The doctrine of coverture deprived married women of legal status, merging her legal personhood with her husband’s. Today we’ll get into the complex ways that the doctrine of coverture shaped the lives of married women in the British Isles from the 11th to the 19th centuries. You'll find the bibliography and transcript for this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Law Series #1 of 4. Studying the Fourteenth Amendment is like taking one thread of American history since the mid nineteenth century and following it through all of the major events of the period since then. It’s a great way to study history. So today we are going to discuss the Fourteenth Amendment. Explore what it is, why it became a Constitutional Amendment, and what legal decisions have shaped how the amendment is used today. Get the bibliography and complete transcript for this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus Episode #6 of 20. In the third episode in our series on women's reproductive rights in America, Jane Roe & the Pill, we finally get to two of the most important turning points in our story: the invention of the hormonal birth control pill, and the Roe v. Wade case in 1973. The mid 20th century saw some critical turning points for women's reproductive rights, but also created lasting political divides and moral dilemmas. Join Elizabeth and Sarah as they continue the conversation.Read the complete transcript and find Show Notes for this episode at: https://digpodcast.org/2018/02/11/jane-roe-the-pill/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Crime Series #4 of 4. On September 21, 1905, a suitcase floated to the water’s surface in Winthrop Harbor, a shallow six-foot deep man-made channel, about three miles north of Boston Harbor. Stuffed inside the seemingly innocuous case was the torso of a “young and beautifully formed woman” whose intestines and stomach had been removed, along with her extremities... and her head. The Boston Globe splashed the headline across its front page the next day, “Dismembered Body of Girl Found in Suitcase Floating on the Tide at Winthrop.” Below the larger than life letters, the true nature of the crime was printed, “Death Probably Due to Peritonitis after Unsuccessful Operation of a Criminal Nature.” There it was, a dismembered body was found floating in the harbor in an unassuming olive-green suitcase, but the real scandal was that the body had recently undergone an illegal operation - an abortion. An operation so common that everyone reading the paper that day knew exactly what the headline referred to, but a crime so sensationalized, no one could utter its name. Find the bibliography and a complete transcript of this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Crime Series #3 of 4.  Today, we’re talking about a very real murder that was committed by a very real woman who lived in Missouri in the 1850s. But while this murder had all the elements that make for a flashy and exciting true crime story – sex, rape, murder, dramatic court room scenes – it is a very different kind of true crime tale and must be understood within its historical context. This is the case of Celia, an enslaved woman in 1850s America, and based on the work of  historian Melton McLaurin in Celia, A Slave. Find the bibliography and a complete transcript for this episode at digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Crime Series #2 of 4.  Most societies are fascinated by women murderers. On September 14, 1767, a massive crowd gathered round the road to Tyburn, thronging around the hangman’s cart, throwing vegetable peels and other refuse. They shouted profanity at the occupants of the cart, one of whom was Elizabeth Brownrigg, the most controversial criminal to grace the pages of the London papers. The jeering crowd followed the cart 3 miles to the public gallows where they continued to hurl abuse at the condemned. They watched, ghoulishly pleased, as she ascended the steps up the scaffold to be unceremoniously hanged. Her remains were then publicly dissected and exhibited for all to see. This humiliation was the final phase of her punishment. This trope of the murderous wife and mother can be found throughout most of recorded history but in 1767 London, it blew up in a big way. A community midwife and mother of SIXTEEN was charged with the torture and murder of the young apprentice girls she had been fostering for her local parish. Stories… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Crime Series #1 of 4. After Michael Cleary murdered his wife Bridget Cleary, he wandered the Tipperary countryside in his best suit, telling everyone he met that he was going to reclaim her from the fairies. Three nights he waited for her to come out of the local fairy fort - the ring of stones that were settlements in Neolithic Ireland and have since fallen into ruin and legend. Of course she didn’t. She was buried in a shallow grave not far from their home in Ballyvadlea, Ireland. Michael Cleary’s murder of his wife, Bridget Cleary, is a bizarre and horrifying crime. But it’s also a case study of domestic violence, the urban-rural divide, and a simultaneously modern and superstitious Ireland, rife - according to the contemporary British presses, at least - with barbarians unfit for self-governance. For the bibliography and a complete transcript of this episode visit digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus Episode #5 of 20. At the Women’s Marches across the U.S. on January 21st, 2017, there were hundreds—maybe thousands—of women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who held up signs that conveyed their frustration with still needing to fight for rights like birth control and abortion. This is a battle that has waged for so, so long. On this episode, Sarah and Elizabeth look back at the late 19th and early 20th century struggle for women’s rights. After our country finally granted women the right to vote in 1920, the emphasis of the women’s rights movement shifted to focus on another issue: access to methods of family limitation. Show Notes and a transcript are available at: https://digpodcast.org/2017/02/19/before-roe-v-wade/save in overcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices