Dig: A History Podcast

Occult #1 of 4. In the 1970s, Lorraine and Ed Warren had a spotlight of paranormal obsession shining on them. In the last decade, their work as paranormal investigators--ghost hunters--has been the premise for a blockbuster horror franchise totaling at least seven films so far, and more planned in the near future. So… what the heck? Is this for real? Yes, friends, today we’re talking about demonology, psychic connections to the dead, and the patriarchy. Just a typical day with your historians at Dig.Get the full transcript, bibliography, and more at digpodcast.orgSelect BibliographySarah Bartels, The Devil and the Victorians : Supernatural Evil in Nineteenth-Century English Culture, (Taylor & Francis Group, 2021,)Dyan Elliot, Fallen Bodies : Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998)David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, (Princeton University, 2006)Ed. Joseph Laycock , Spirit Possession Around the World : Possession, Communion, and Demon Expulsion Across Cultures, (ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2015).Catherine Rider, Magic and Religion in Medieval England, (Reaktion Books, Limited, 2012).Cheryl Wicks, with Lorraine and Ed Warren, Ghost Tracks: What History, Science, and 50 Years of Field Research Have Revealed about Ghosts, Evil, and Life After Death (Graymalkin Media, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series. Episode #4 of 4. In his occupation as a swineherd, Jacob Nufer had performed countless genital surgeries on his pigs. He was an expert gelder. He was convinced he could deliver his child abdominally so that both his wife and child would survive. For this, there was no precedence. Most observers must have believed that Jacob was about to murder his wife and that his child might already be dead. Few people would have had confidence in his success. But Jacob was desperate. Using his gelding tools, Jacob made an incision in his wife’s abdomen, with no anesthesia and rudimentary sanitation, to deliver his infant daughter. Shockingly, the historical record asserts that both mother and child survived the operation. Even more shocking, Elizabeth is recorded as having five more children, all delivered vaginally. Their baby born by cesarean also thrived. She lived to the ripe old age of 77. This is the first recorded incidence of a cesarean section performed where both the mother and child survived the procedure. Or is it? You’ll have to keep listening to find out. Today we’re discussing the surprisingly long history of cesarean birth in western medicine.Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series #3 of 4. Childbirth is such a routine part of life that in some ways it can become invisible, especially historically. History, people often assume, is made up of major events, political elections, wars, etc. – not routine biological processes. But for something so invisible, it has made up a significant portion of the lives of women across time. Through American history, birthing women have advocated for the right to shape their own birth experiences, whether through home births surrounded by female kin or hospital births under twilight sleep. And the choices our foremothers made aren’t always the ones we might guess. Today, we present a history of childbirth in America.BibliographyLeavitt, Judith Walzer. <em>Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series. Episode #2 of 4. The 1915 silent-film The Birth of a Nation is one of the most popular and controversial films ever made. It’s success catapulted director D.W. Griffith into stardom while cementing the film, a piece of racist propaganda, into the annals of film history. It’s an amazing film with a horrifying message, which claimed that America’s rebirth after the Civil War was possible only through the power of white supremacy. The Birth of a Nation is still studied in film schools because of Griffith’s early use of dramatic camera and editing techniques. In 1992 the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Archives because it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” But why was such a blatantly racist film so popular and why is it still relevant today? That’s what we hope to shed light on in this episode. Let’s dive in….Find transcripts and show notes at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth Series, Episode #1 of 4. Symphysiotomy. Probably not a word you’ve heard before - and if you have, I’m sorry? Symphysiotomy is an obstetric procedure in which a person’s pubic symphysis cartilage is cut to widen the pelvis for childbirth. Yes. Gross. I know. For most of the 19th century, symphysiotomy was a new solution to difficult births, and, to some doctors, preferable to Caesarean section, and certainly to the gruesome craniotomy. By the 1930s, though, in countries where childbirth had been medicalized, the symphysiotomy was phased out in favor of the safer C section - except Ireland. While surgical solutions to difficult childbirths increased in American and European obstetrics throughout the twentieth-century generally, it was only in Ireland that the use of symphysiotomy increased. Why, for the love of God, WHY, you ask? Let’s dig in.For a complete transcript and bibliography, visit digpodcast.orgSelect BibliographyCara Delay, “The Torture Began”: Symphysiotomy and Obstetric Violence in Modern Ireland, Nursing Clio, May 31, 2016Cara Delay and Beth Sundstrom, “The Legacy Of Symphysiotomy In Ireland: A Reproductive Justice Approach To Obstetric Violence,” Reproduction, Health, and Medicine: Advances in Medical Sociology, Volume 20, 197-218 (2020).Marie O’Connor, Bodily Harm Report: Symphysiotomy and Pubiotomy in Ireland, 1944-1992, (2011) Adrian Wilson, Ritual and Conflict: the Social Relations of Childbirth in Early Modern England, (Taylor & Francis Group, 2013).Adrian Wilson, The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1770 (Harvard University Press, 1995). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Border Series. Episode #4 of 4. In 1919, the idealistic American President Woodrow Wilson brought with him to the Paris Peace Conference his 14 Points. Among these points were the doctrine of self-determination (the idea that all peoples have the right to determine the nature of their own governance) and an idea for a coalition that enhanced international security (the League of Nations). While progressives lauded Wilson’s ideas in principle, the European powers who had won The Great War were skeptical and bitter. Unlike the United States, Britain and France had suffered immensely during the war and they wanted reparations for their losses. Moreover, most of the officials who made up the French and British states were not ready to surrender their empires. Even though anti-colonial movements had gained strength during the war, they were still the minority, and very few activists were in positions of power. To limit colonial power in a world that was apprehensive about it, a liberalized colonial schematic was created and called a mandate. The mandate would be granted by an international coalition that would be known as the League of Nations. These events transformed the peace-making process into something that was quite different from those of the past… or WAS it? We’ll soon find out! This week, as part of our border series, we’re telling the story of France’s League of Nations mandates in Syria and Lebanon.Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders #3 of 4. If we look for women of color in national women’s rights organizations before the 1970s, we don’t see very many. Once it was assumed that women of color did not participate in twentieth century feminism. Of course that wasn’t the case at all and the historical record is righting itself, as historians and other social scientists complicate the narrative of twentieth century feminism, arguing that feminisms were at play. Sociologist Benita Roth even titles her book Separate Roads to Feminism, showing that women of color acted in feminist ways but were not largely involved with national and white feminist organizations. Historian Cynthia Orozco has a new book out titled Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican-American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist, which excavates the importance of a feminist figure of the Mexican American Civil Rights movement, adding to the scholarship that unearths the “forgotten” history of women’s importance in major American social movements. In today’s episode we’ll be exploring the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement of the early to mid-twentieth century and two women important to that movement, Adela Sloss-Vento and Alicia Dickerson Montemayor, whose work to establish women as authoritative figures in the Mexican American Civil Rights movement paved the way for the Chicana Movement of the 1960s and 70s.Find a transcript, complete bibliography, and teaching resources at digpodcast.orgSelect BibliographyHernandez, Kelly Lytle. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. University of California Press. 2010.Kaplowitz, Craig A. LULAC, Mexican Americans, and National Policy. Texas A&M University. 2005.Márquez, Benjamín. LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization. University of Texas.1993.Ngai, Mai. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press. 2004.Orozco, Cynthia E. No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. University of Texas Press. 2009.Orozco, Cynthia E. Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist. University of Texas Press. 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders Series. Episode #2 of 4. In popular media, borderline personality disorder has become linked in particular to beautiful, unstable, and ultimately dangerous white women, most famously Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. As a diagnosis, borderline personality disorder went through various iterations before being declared a personality disorder enshrined in the DSM-III in 1980. Psychiatrists described borderline personality disorder, or BPD, in broad terms, with symptoms including intense emotions, fear of abandonment, instability in relationships, impulsivity, distorted self-image, uncontrolled anger, and dissociation. The diagnosis is very commonly used – more than half of those hospitalized with mental illness have been diagnosed with BPD. But another statistic about BPD is more revealing: between 70 and 77 percent of all people diagnosed with BPD are women. BPD is a troubled and troubling diagnosis, one that’s been criticized and theorized and analyzed by feminists, disability scholars, and so-called “borderlines” themselves. In this episode of our ‘borders’ series, we explore the complicated history of a different kind of border: borderline personality disorder.Find show notes and transcripts at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Borders #1 of 4. Like many of the Spanish conquistadors who made their way to the Americas, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca joined an expedition to explore “Florida” in search of glory and, ideally, an encomienda of his own. (“Florida” is what the Spanish called all of the land around the Gulf of Mexico, including the actual Floridian peninsula.) Unlike most Spanish conquistadors, Cabeza de Vaca ended up lost in the area we now call Texas for the better part of a decade, naked, barefoot, unarmed, horseless, and at the mercy of the natives he encountered--most of whom he couldn’t communicate with beyond gesturing and hoping to be understood. Cabeza de Vaca’s experience of the Americas was brutal at times, as he teetered on starvation, was beaten by his enslavers, and suffered indignities for much of his eight+ years lost in Texas and northern Mexico. Still, his recollection of his “journeys” are nuanced, if inevitably colored by his background and biases. And by the end of his life, he became a champion of indigenous rights, demanding reform so loudly that the other Spaniards of South America had him arrested and sent back to Spain on trumped up charges. Though the writing and travels of Cabeza de Vaca are very much a part of the history of conquistadores, they also stand out.For the complete transcript, as well as links to our swag store and resources for teachers, visit digpodcast.orgSelect BibliographyThere are several English translations of Cabeza de Vaca’s text available. Fanny Bandelier’s is usable, but Adorno and Pautz’s is excellent, with thorough annotation and cross referenced footnotes utilizing Oviedo and other sources. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (transl. Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz), The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca (University of Nebraska, 2003).Rafael Varón Gabai, Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers: The Illusion of Power in Sixteenth-century Peru, (University of Oklahoma Press, 1997). Alex D. Krieger and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, We Came Naked and Barefoot : The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca Across North America, edited by Margery H. Krieger (University of Texas Press, 2002). Charles Gibson,  The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519-1810 (Stanford University Press, 1964). Dennis F. Herrick, Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. (University of New Mexico Press, 2018).Baker H. Morrow and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, South American Expeditions, 1540-1545, (University of New Mexico Press, 2011).Kathleen Ann Myers, Nina M. Scott, and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, Fernandez de Oviedo's Chronicle of America : A New History for a New World (University of Texas Press, 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bodies Series. Episode #4 of 4. 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) to control family size through contraception, 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? We’re here to shed light on some of these questions.Find show notes and transcript here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices