Dig: A History Podcast

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

Bonus Episode #4 of 20. Birth control and abortion are constant flash points in contemporary politics, and they're often described as signs of a rapidly changing society. But women have always had ways (though not always quite as effective ones) to control family size, and early American women were no exception. Understanding the role that reproductive rights has played in American history provides critical context to today's debates. Have we always had these kinds of debates? How did Americans think about abortion in the late 18th century, or the 19th century? In this episode, Elizabeth and Sarah start a three part conversation about women's reproductive rights in United States history by talking about birth control methods and abortion in the 18th and 19th century. For Show Notes & Further Reading, visit https://digpodcast.org/2017/02/05/early-american-family-limitation/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Winter Series #4 of 4. Charles Dickens may have capitalized on telling ghost stories at Christmas with A Christmas Carol, but this practice stretches well beyond the famous Victorian novelist. Join us as we explore the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmastime. Show Notes, Further Reading, and a full transcript available at https://digpodcast.org/2017/12/17/ghost-christmas-charles-dickens/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Winter Series #3 of 4. During the hey-day of Great Lakes shipping, when ships crossed these huge lakes loaded down with cargo, a fall storm could be – and often was - deadly. You might be familiar with one particular fall shipwreck, the 1977 sinking of the freighter, The Edmund Fitzgerald, or Big Fitz during a brutal November gale on Lake Superior. But today, we’re talking about another November storm, one that took place sixty-four years earlier. That storm became known as the Great White Hurricane of 1913. This storm was so severe that it killed 250 people and caused millions of dollars in lost ships, cargo, and property damage. This was a winter storm that exemplifies the storms of the Great Lakes region: hurricane force winds, coupled with blinding blizzard conditions, heavy snowfalls and bitter cold.   Find show notes, further reading and episode transcripts here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Winter Series #2 of 4. The warmth - and light - of the houses of 19th century Britain were a characteristic of Victorian life. While open coal hearths continued to dominate home heating, the Victorian era was also the first to use radiant boiler-powered heat, whole-house gas lighting, and even - infrequently, but innovatively nonetheless - electricity. It was a brave, sometimes dangerous, often times poisonous, new world, but at least it was warm? Show Notes, Further Reading, and a complete transcript: https://digpodcast.org/2017/11/21/heating-homes-victorian-britain/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Winter Series #1 of 4. Today we are discussing the ways the theoretical Little Ice Age impacted the people who lived through it. The study of past climates is highly politicized. Historical climatologists argue bitterly, writing scathing critiques of each other’s data and interpretations. Climate change deniers use historical climatology to argue that what the science community refers to as global warming is merely a natural climatic variation. While believers in global warming use stories of climatic disaster uncovered by climatologists as warnings of our impending doom. By far the most hotly debated period in historical climatology is the Little Ice Age. It’s not only the underlying cause of some of history’s most critical moments: the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, the French Fronde, the English Civil War, and the French Revolution… just to name a handful… The Little Ice Age is also and an example of how CURRENT history can be. Find our show notes and full transcripts of this episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices