Unsung History

In the fall of 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull House on Chicago’s Near West Side, full of good intentions to help the poor people of the neighborhood. They were a force for good, providing education, cultural enrichment, and workforce development, while fighting for protections for women and children. But because of their backgrounds, they also missed important cultural dimensions of their immigrant neighbors and feuded with the ward’s Irish Catholic alderman. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Terrence J. McDonald, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of Nearly Neighbors: Jane Addams, Johnny Powers, and the Progressive Political Imagination.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Chicago (That toddling town),” composed by Fred Fisher and performed by the Georgians on November 29, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph of Jane Addams from circa 1896; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Swarthmore College Jane Addams Collection.Additional Sources:Jane Addams Papers Project, Ramapo College of New JerseyJane Addams Hull-House Museum “Jane Addams,” The Nobel Prize“Jane Addams: Together We Rise [video],” Chicago Stories, WTTW, October 20, 2023.Ellen Gates Starr papers, Smith CollegeThe Life and Times of Florence Kelley, Northwestern University School of Law“JOHN POWERS DIES AT 78.; He Served 38 Years as an Alderman in Chicago,” The New York Times, May 20, 1930.“Government, City of Chicago,” by Loomis Mayfield, Encyclopedia of Chicago. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Buddy Bradley, born in the Jim Crow South in 1905, made his way to Harlem at age 16 where he learned to tap dance and became a chorus boy. He was sought out on Broadway as both teacher and choreographer, but never got the credit he deserved, and he moved to London in the 1930s where he had a hugely successful career as a dance director on stage and in film. Although his name isn’t well known today, his influence lives on in dance. Joining me in this episode is Maureen Footer, author of Feel the Floor: Restoring the Life and Legacy of Jazz Choreographer Buddy Bradley.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “That 'jazz' dance,” composed by W. Benton Overstreet and performed by Handy’s Orchestra on September 21, 1917, in New York City; the recording is in the public domain and is available through the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is Buddy Bradley teaching at the West End dance school; the image is used under a Creative Commons license and is held in the Mander & Mitchenson Collection of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection. Additional Sources: “Buddy Bradley, Director And Choreographer, Dead,” The New York Times, July 25, 1972.“Harlem’s ‘Buddy’ Bradley, Tap Dancer And The First African-American To Run A British ‘White Company,” Harlem World Magazine, April 23, 2018.“Buddy Bradley: Unsung Hero of the British Musical Stage,” by Annette Walker, August 20, 2023;Published version available from Black Ink, Issue 4, 20 September 2023.“Buddy Bradley,” Tap Legacy.“‘Oh, You Black Bottom!’ Appropriation, Authenticity, and Opportunity in the Jazz Dance Teaching of 1920s,” by Danielle Robinson, Dance Research Journal. 2006;38(1-2):19-42.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

During World War II, afraid that major league baseball would need to pause while men were overseas fighting, Philip K. Wrigley, chewing gum mogul and owner of the Chicago Cubs, spearheaded a new professional ball league, this one made up of women players. In the twelve years of All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League play, over 600 women had the chance to play professionally, earning substantial salaries and delighting fans across the Midwest. Joining me in this episode is baseball historian Dr. Leslie Heaphy, Associate Professor of History at Kent State University Stark Campus, chair of the The Women in Baseball Committee of the The Society for American Baseball Research, and editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “That Baseball Rag,” composed by Clarence Jones with lyrics by Dave Wolff; this recording by vocalist Arthur Collins, from June 12, 1913, is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is Dottie Schroeder, catcher, shouting play ball, on April 22, 1948; the image is in the public domain and is available via the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.Discussed in this episode:Women’s Pro Baseball LeagueWomen’s Baseball World CupKelsie WhitmoreDenae Benites Ashton LansdellMo'ne DavisAdditional Sources:All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association“Before A League of Their Own,” by Sam Carr, National Baseball Hall of Fame.The Incredible Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, by Anika Orrock, Chronicle Books, 2020.When Women Played Hardball, by Susan E. Johnson, Seal Press, 1994.“All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews,” Grand Valley State University Libraries.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The Continental Congress voted to break from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, and approved the text of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, but it took weeks for the news to spread throughout the new country and even longer to reach the country they were breaking from and the countries with whom they hoped to find alliances. Along the way, people learned the news from printed broadsides, newspapers, public readings, and letters from friends. I’m joined in this episode by Dr. Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence Was News.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Yankee Doodle,” performed by the U.S. Army Chorus, featuring MSG Michael White and SSG Matthew Bell of The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps; the composition and audio are in the public domain. The episode image is the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, printed in John Dunlap’s Philadelphia shop on the night of July 4, 1776; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.Additional Sources:“Declaration of Independence (1776),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“Diary of John Adams, volume 3: Wednesday, May 15, 1776,” Adams Papers Digital Editions.“Virginia’s Independence Resolution, May 15, 1776,” Colonial Williamsburg.“Delegate Discussions: The Lee Resolution(s),” by Emily Sneff, The Declaration Resources Project, Democratic Knowledge Project, June 07, 2018.“Jefferson's ‘original Rough draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” reconstructed by Julian Boyd, from: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1, 1760-1776. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp 243-247.“The Declaration of Independence and the Pursuit of Equality,” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  “Watch How (Slowly) News of the Declaration of Independence Spread in Real Time,” by Ben Panko, Smithsonian Magazine, July 11, 2017.“Rare Book of the Month: A Revolutionary Woman and the Declaration of Independence,” by Wendi Maloney, Timeless: Stories from the Library of Congress, Library of Congress Blogs, May 19, 2018.“Mary Katherine Goddard's Declaration of Independence,” by Mark Boonshoft, New York Public Library, June 29, 2016.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building loom large in the American imagination, symbolizing the conflicting ideas of liberty and empire; their meanings and characters have shifted over time as the American ethos has shifted. Joining me in this episode is writer, historian, and freelance editor, Dr. Vaneesa Cook, author of Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Hail to the spirit of liberty,” composed by John Philip Sousa and performed by Prince’s Orchestra in New York City on January 11, 1912; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph of NASA’s prototype space shuttle Enterprise, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905, during a flyover of New York City on Friday, April 27, 2012; the photographer was Bill Ingalls, and the government image is in the public domain.Additional Sources:“Body of Iron, Soul of Fire: The Statue of Liberty,” by Jessie Kratz, National Archive Pieces of History, October 14, 2024.“Liberty Island Chronology,” Statue of Liberty, National Park Service.“Letter from Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904) to his mother, June 24, 1871,” Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.“Édouard Laboulaye and the Statue of Liberty: Forging the Democratic Experience,” by Stephen W. Sawyer, La lettre du Collège de France, 4, 2008-2009.“Gov. Alfred Emanuel Smith,” National Governors Association.“Oral history interviews with John J. Raskob family,” Hagley Digital Archives.“John J. Raskob Dies of a Heart Attack,” New York Times, October 16, 1950.“How the Empire State Building Was Built in Record Time,” by Tim Ott, History.com, Originally published October 10, 2024 and updated November 03, 2025.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today the US handbag market is estimated to be nearly $12 billion, with most of the purchasing done by women, but into the early 20th Century purses hadn’t yet become the nearly-exclusive domain of women. The integration of pockets into men’s clothing, and the marketing push of toiletry items to women in the 1920s and 1930s drove this differentiated market development. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Kathleen B. Casey, Professor of History and Director of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Furman University and author of The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,” composed by Felix Powell with lyrics by George Asaf” and recorded in Camden, New Jersey, on December 22, 1916; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the LIbrary of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Shoppers. Amsterdam, New York,” photographed by John Collier, Jr.; the photograph was taken in October 1941, and is available in the public domain via the Library of Congress.Related Episodes:Fashion, Feminism, and the New Woman of the late 19th CenturyFrench Fashion in Gilded Age AmericaAmelia BloomerThe Women who Entered the Federal Workforce during the Civil War EraThe History of Blue JeansEricka Huggins & the Black Panther PartyThe 1966 Compton's Cafeteria RiotAlice Roosevelt LongworthAdditional Sources:“Ötzi the Iceman: Examining New Evidence from the Famous Copper Age Mummy,” by: M. Vidale, L. Bondioli, D.W. Frayer, M. Gallinaro and A. Vanzetti, Penn Museum Expedition Magazine, Volume 58 / Number 2, 2016.“MALE ATTIRE.; Charlotte P. Gilman Inveighs Against It but Finds Redeeming Features.” From The Independent, New York Times, March 5, 1905.“What you may not know about the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire,” by Peter Liebhold, National Museum of American History, September 5, 2018.“The Surprising Origins of Kotex Pads,” by Kat Eschner, Smithsonian Magazine, Originally published August 11, 2017, and updated November 9, 2018.“Handbag Market (2026 - 2033),” Grand View Research, GVR Clothing, Footwear & Accessories Research Team, April 2026 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On the morning of Tuesday, October 6, 1964, the Lady Bird Special, a 19-car train carrying First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, her supporters, members of the press, and a security detail, departed Union Station in Washington, DC, for an ambitious 1,682-mile whistle-stop campaign tour of Southern States. In four days, Lady Bird gave 47 speeches to over 200,000 people, demonstrating that despite the growing resentment of white Southern Democrats to President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, neither LBJ nor Lady Bird were giving up on the South. Joining me in this episode is returning guest Shannon McKenna Schmidt, author of You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson's Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Lady Bird's Whistle Stop: Ahoskie, NC: 10/6/64, 4:22 PM,” from the LBJ Library; the audio is in the public domain. The episode image is Lady Bird Johnson posing with group of women aboard the Lady Bird Special, LBJ Library photo by Unknown #33317.Related Episodes:The Southern StrategyThe 1968 White House Fashion ShowThe 1968 Democratic National Convention in ChicagoThe Student Right in the late 1960sAdditional Sources:“Claudia 'Lady Bird' Johnson, 1912-2007,” Edited by Arlisha R. Norwood, National Women’s History Museum.“Obituary: Lady Bird Johnson, 94, former U.S. first lady,” by Enid Nemy, The New York Times, July 12, 2007.“The filibuster that almost killed the Civil Rights Act,” by NCC Staff, National Constitution Center, April 11, 2016.“‘We may have lost the south’: what LBJ really said about Democrats in 1964,” by Charles Kaiser, The Guardian, January 23, 2023.“Lady Bird Special: The first First Lady to hit the campaign trail without her husband,” by Meredith Hindley, HUMANITIES: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, May/June 2013, Volume 34, Number 3.“Mapping Lady Bird Johnson's Whistle-Stop Tour,” by Katie Peter, The White House Historical Association, August 18, 2023. “Lady Bird Johnson, At the Epicenter, 1963, 1965, The Whistle-Stop Tour (section III),” PBS.“50th Anniversary of Lady Bird Johnson’s 1964 Whistle Stop Tour of the South,” LBJ Library, October 1, 2014.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Enslaved Africans were forcibly shipped to Virginia starting in 1619 in response to a severe labor shortage. From the beginning, enslaved laborers resisted by fleeing and through violence, and white enslavers reacted by creating a racialized system of brutal policing, granting themselves authority based on skin color and a sense of superiority. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Gautham Rao, Associate Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C., and author of White Power: Policing American Slavery.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Good News,” performed by Tuskegee Institute Singers on August 31, 1914; the audio is in the public domain and is available through the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “The Effects of the Proclamation,” Harper's Weekly. Vol. 7, no. 321. February 21, 1863. p. 116; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources:Proceedings and Acts of the [Maryland] General Assembly January 1637/8-September 1664, Volume 1, Page 107.Proceedings and Acts of the [Maryland] General Assembly, April 1666-June 1676, Volume 2, Page 224. “An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections” (1680),” Virginia General Assembly, " Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, December 7, 2020.“The Stono Rebellion of 1739: Where Did It Begin?” by Nic Butler, Charleston County Public Library, September 9, 2022.“South Carolina Slave Code (1740),” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “The Emancipation Proclamation,” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.  “Thirteenth Amendment,” Constitution of the United States, Constitution Annotated, United States Congress.“On this day - Feb 24, 1865: Kentucky Refuses to Ratify Abolition of Slavery,” A History of Racial Injustice, Equal Justice Initiative.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner advanced his now-famous Frontier Theory, arguing that the American identity was forged through the process of exploring and adapting to new environments in the frontier west. Key to both Turner’s theory and the myth of the frontier that pre-dated it was the idea that brave white American men conquered a previously empty land through their grit in a relentless march west, but the land was populated long before white Americans arrived, and the people who lived, explored, and settled there were a far more diverse population than the myth acknowledges. Joining me in this episode is returning guest Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The west, a nest and you,” composed by Billy Hill with lyrics by Larry Yoell and sung by Lewis James on November 16, 1923, in Camden, New Jersey; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is the American Progress, painted by John Gast in 1872; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“Brief History of the AHA,” American Historical Association.“Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893),” by Frederick Jackson Turner, The American Yawp Reader.“How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start,” by Colin Woodard, Smithsonian Magazine, January/February 2023.“Sacagawea, c. 1788 - c. 1812/1884?” by Teresa Potter and Mariana Brandman, National Women’s History Museum.“Sacagawea: Intrepid Indigenous Explorer [video],” The New York Historical.“Lewis & Clark Expedition,” National Archives.“Indian Treaties and the Removal Act of 1830,” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State.“Indian Territory,” Library of Congress.“Indian Territory,” by Dianna Everett, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, January 15, 2010.“Cheyenne Sanctuary: The Northern Cheyennes’ Exodus, Mari Sandoz, and Lost Chokecherry Lake,” by Emily Levine, The Nebraska Sandhills, October 23, 2024.Northern Cheyenne Tribe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the Weimar Republic, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science and advocated for the repeal of legislation that criminalized sexual relations between men. At the Institute, pioneering gender-affirming surgeries were performed, and it was there that Dora Richter became the first known trans woman to undergo comprehensive male-to-female gender-affirming surgeries. But when the Nazis came to power, they labeled Hirschfeld an enemy of the state and destroyed the Institute’s immense library. Joining me in this episode is historian and novelist Dr. Brandy Schillace, author of The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story.Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Kleine Kammermusik, composed by Paul Hindemith and performed in February 1992 by the Soni Ventorum Woodwind Quintet; the recording is available by Creative Commons license and is available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is a portrait of Magnus Hirschfeld from 1928; the picture is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.Additional Sources:“The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic,” by Brandy Schillace, Scientific American, Mary 10, 2021.“The first Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933),” The Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V.“Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science,” by Gabrielle Bryan-Quamina, Science Museum, London, February 29, 2024.“Dora Richter (1892–1966),” Lili Elbe Library.“The Weimar Republic,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.“Hitler: Essential Background Information,” University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences.“How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?” National World War II Museum.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands