First Cow

This week we're keeping the spooky vibes going into November and traveling back to Edwardian England with The Woman in Black! Join us as we learn about stick figures, causeways, the Three Wise Monkeys, adoption, and more! Sources: CMF McAuliffe, "The First English Adoption Law and Its American Predecessors," Seton Hall Law Review 16: 656 Donna Papparella, "Knowing Children/Children Knowing: Nineteenth-Century British Law and Literature." Dissertation, CUNY, 2015 Sarah Abramowicz, "Adoption and the Limits of Contract in Victorian Adoption Case Law and George Eliot's Silas Marner," 2014. Available at https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/lawfrp/216/ Fred Cherrygarden, Atlas Obscura, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/three-wise-monkeys-of-toshogu-shrine  A. W. Smith, "On the Ambiguity of the Three Wise Monkeys," Folklore 104, no. 1/2 (1993): 144-50. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1260803  "Three Wise Monkeys," in A Dictionary of English Folklore, edited by Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, (Oxford University Press, 2003). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_in_Black_(2012_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_Film_Productions Roger Ebert Review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-woman-in-black-2012 https://www.histchild.org/resources/a-timeline-child-art-in-the-historical-record  Lapp, "Cylinder Seals and Impressions of the Third Millennium B.C. from the Dead Sea Plain," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1989, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1356770  Matlew and Connolly, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1131750  Maud Heath's Causeway: https://bremhillparishhistory.com/article/maud-heaths-causeway/ Article on Osea Island Causeway: https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/beautiful-secret-island-used-war-28632061

It's October, so it's time for a cannibal horror cult classic set in the 1840s! Join us as we learn about the Wendigo, military prisons, the origins of the term "Eat me", and more! Sources: Green's Dictionary of Slang entry: https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/fuhappq Google Ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=eat+me&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 Gail de Vos, "The Windigo as Monster: Indigenous Belief, Cultural Appropriation, and Popular Horror," in North American Monsters: A Contemporary Legend Casebook, edited by David J. Puglia (Utah State University Press, 2022), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv296mnsz.25. Anthony Wonderley, "The Story of Windigo," in At the Font of the Marvelous: Exploring Oral Narrative and Mythic Imagery of the Iroquois and Their Neighbors (Syracuse University Press, 2009). https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j5d789.10  Robert A. Brightman, "The Windigo in the Material World," Ethnohistory 35, no. 4 (1988): 337-79, https://www.jstor.org/stable/482140  J. Anthony Paredes, "A Case Study of "Normal" Windigo," Anthropologica 14, no.2 (1972): 97-116. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25604874  Roger Ebert, "Ravenous" (1999), https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ravenous-1999  Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenous_(1999_film)  https://www.mcall.com/1999/03/19/ravenous-for-fun-dark-humor-is-lifeblood-of-tale-on-cannibalism/ https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/film-they-all-but-ate-me-alive-1115720.html "Guardhouse-Military Discipline," NPS, available at https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/education/guarddiscip.htm . "Military Prisons." In Encyclopedia of Prisons & Correctional Facilities,  edited by Bosworth, Mary, 601-5. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2005. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412952514.n224. Leavenworth Visitors' Center, available at https://www.leavenworthks.gov/visitors/page/old-united-states-disciplinary-barracks Ciera Boyes, "The Realignment of Military Installations for Imprisonment," Available at https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1212f617608d41eaa26130a9f024fe03

This week we're going back to 1930s England with the very silly Fackham Hall! Join us as we learn about wedding music, cousin marriage, domestic worker unions, and more! Sources: Kelly Massicot, "The History of the Wedding March," New Orleans Magazine, available at https://www.myneworleans.com/the-history-of-the-wedding-march/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fackham_Hall Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fackham_hall/reviews/top-critics https://spartacus-educational.com/Domestic_Workers_Union.htm Laura Schwartz, "A Job Like Any Other? Feminist Responses and Challenges to Domestic Worker Organizing in Edwardian Britain," International Labor and Working-Class History 88 (2015): 30-48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43956663   Selina Todd, "Domestic Service and Class Relations in Britain 1900-1950," Past & Present 203 (2009): 181-204. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25580932   Anna Clark, "Domestic Servants and the Labour Movement, 1870s-1914" in Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present edited by Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Beliard (Manchester University Press, 2018). https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18b5dxr.12  SMITH MT. ESTIMATES OF COUSIN MARRIAGE AND MEAN INBREEDING IN THE UNITEDKINGDOM FROM 'BIRTH BRIEFS.' Journal of Biosocial Science. 2001;33(1):55-66. doi:10.1017/S0021932001000554 Dominic Wilkinson, "Banning first cousin marriage would be eugenic and ineffective," Practical Ethics, available at https://blog.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/2025/03/banning-first-cousin-marriage-would-be-eugenic-and-ineffective/ https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3907 Amy Cole and Emb Hashmi, "Couple defend first-cousin marriages amid ban call," BBC, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g38l07895o

In this unexpectedly NSFW episode, we're traveling back to 1900 Australia with Picnic at Hanging Rock! Join us as we learn about the curricula and scandals of girls' schools, the history of tourism at Hanging Rock, bananas, the poet Felicia Hemans, and more! Sources: Poem: Casabianca, available at https://allpoetry.com/poem/8471921-Casabianca-by-Felicia-Dorothea-Hemans Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), TAMU, available at https://odp.library.tamu.edu/victorianpoetry/part/felicia-hemans/ Behrendt, S.C. (2001). 'Certainly not a Female Pen': Felicia Hemans's Early Public Reception. In: Sweet, N., Melnyk, J. (eds) Felicia Hemans. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389564_6 "Alex Grammatikos, Carleton University.  "The Nothingness of Fame, At Least to Woman": Felicia Hemans and the Price of . Century Gender Studies. Issue 10.3 (Winter 2014)" "THE HANGING ROCK, NEAR WOODEND." The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil (Melbourne, Vic. : 1873 - 1889) 17 February 1877: 182. Web. 28 Aug 2026 . Larissa Romensky, "No Picnic at Hanging Rock: Campaign to Recognize Aboriginal Past Rather than "White Myth". ABC News, available at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-17/campaign-to-recognise-indigenous-history-hanging-rock/8187942 Marjorie Theobald, "Discourse of Danger: Gender and the History of Elementary Schooling in Australia, 1850-1880," Historical Studies in Education, 29-52.  Marjorie Theobald, "'Mere Accomplishments'?: Melbourne's Early Ladies' School Reconsidered," Women Who Taught: Perspectives on the History of Women and Teaching (1991), 71-91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442683570.7  Shelley Richardson, "Educating Daughters: The Melbourne Girls," Family Experiments: Middle-class, professional families in Australia and New Zealand c. 1880-1920 (2016), 259-84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crn1.17  Nicholas Surany, "The Australasian Banana Industry: Chinese, Australian, and Pacific Economic Connections," in Chinese Colonial Entanglements: Commodities and Traders in the Southern Asia Pacific, 1880-1950, edited by Julia T. Martinez, Claire Lowrie, and Gregor Benton (University of Hawai'i Press, 2024), https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.8441685.7  "Picnic at Hanging Rock," National Film and Sound Archive, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/picnic  Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(film)  Vincent Canby, "Picnic at Hanging Rock," https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/40-picnic-at-hanging-rock https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/41-dennis-lehane-s-top-10  https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-picnic-at-hanging-rock-1975

This week we're traveling back to 1820s Oregon Territory with First Cow! Join us as we learn about baked goods, "soft gold", cats, and more! Sources: Washington Irving, The Beauties of Washington Irving, 1825. Excerpt available at https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beauties_of_Washington_Irving_Esq/IgdCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=olykoek&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover Dan Kois, "I Made the Oily Cakes from First Cow,' Slate, available at https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/first-cow-oily-cakes-recipe.html https://inliterature.net/sleepy-hollow/traditional-dutch-1800s-olykoek-recipe/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Cow RogerEbert.com review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/first-cow-movie-review-2020 Preston Lewis, How Feral Cats Fared in the Wild West. Hint: It Usually Didn't End Well. Available at https://historynet.com/feral-cats-wild-west/ Barton Barbour, "Fur Trade in Oregon Country,' in Oregon Encyclopedia (August 2024), https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/fur_trade_in_oregon_country/  "Beaver Trap," Oregon History Project, https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/beaver-trap/  Melinda Jette, "Exploration & Fur Trade" Oregon History Project, 2003, https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/exploration-amp-fur-trade-by-robert-gray/  Jennifer Ott, ""Ruining" the Rivers in the Snake Country: The Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Desert Policy," Oregon Historical Quarterly 104, no. 2 (2003): 166-95. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615318 

We don't have a new episode this week, so we're opening the Patreon vault to take you back to 1980s LA with GLOW! Join us as we learn about the wild world of 80s professional wrestling, including Hulk Hogan, the audition process, and more! Sources: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/original-gorgeous-ladies-of-wresting-glow_n_5953ff80e4b02734df2f98f2 https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/06/159777/glow-characters-gorgeous-ladies-of-wrestling-80s-photos#slide-1 Mrspikeshaw "Hulk Hogan - Say Your Prayers, Eat Your Vitamins," https://youtu.be/0-dI4Sl2rzE  Sam Migliore, "Professional Wrestling: Moral Commentary Through Ritual Metaphor," Journal of Ritual Studies 7:1 (1993): 65-84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44398889  Conor Heffernan, "Representations of Hulk Hogan in the 1980s: Christianity, Masculinity, Xenophobia," Sport and Modern/Contemporary Visual Culture 12:1 (2023). https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/12/1/22  The Best Wrestling Promos of All Time, "Best Promos - Hulk Hogan "The ultimate sentence of Hulkamania," https://youtu.be/EA8ZAkvRgVo  WWE, "Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage join forces: Saturday Night's," https://youtu.be/rDWalFmERhY  WWE, "FULL MATCH - Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant - WWE Championship Match: WrestleMania III" https://youtu.be/rz8q5ZjboXY  Metacritic, Glow Season 1 https://www.metacritic.com/tv/glow/season-1  Julia Raeside, "GLOW review - a riotous portrayal of the piledriving world of women's wrestling," The Guardian (22 June 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2017/jun/22/glow-review-a-riotous-portrayal-of-the-piledriving-world-of-womens-wrestling   Rotten Tomatoes, "GLOW" Season 1 (2017); https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/glow/s01  IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770786/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 

This week we've got a listener-requested episode on Brooklyn! Join us as we travel back to 1950s Ireland and New York and learn about Irish dances, golf, Coney Island, 1950s immigration, and more! Sources: Source Paul Rouse, How Golf Took Root in Ireland, Irish Examiner, available at https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-20472471.html John T. Ridge, Dance Halls of Irish New York, available at https://nyirishhistory.us/article/dance-halls-of-irish-new-york/ Linda Dowling Almeida, Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 (Indiana University Press, 2001), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20060pn . The Beach in 1954: https://www.britannica.com/place/Coney-Island-amusement-area  Aaron Rose's Coney Island at the Museum of the City of New York: https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/24UAKVQPB41?&WS=SearchResults&Flat=FP  Marta Gutman, "Race, Place, and Play: Robert Moses and the WPA Swimming Pools in New York City," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no.4 (2008): 532-61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2008.67.4.532  Carolina Bank Munoz, Penny Lewis, and Emily Tumpson Molina, "Brooklyn," in A People's Guide to New York City (University of California Press), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2j6xfj4.8  https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/brooklyn  Glenn Kenny, "Brooklyn," https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brooklyn-2015     

In this definitely NSFW episode, we're traveling back to 17th century Italy with Benedetta! Join us as we learn about the trial of Benedetta Carlini, comets, convent theater, and more! Sources: https://daily.jstor.org/lesbianism-at-the-convent/ Judith C. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (1986, Archive.org) Rudolph M. Bell, "Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange," Renaissance Quarterly 40, no.3 (1987): 485-511. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2862521  Image of the comet over Heidelberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1618_W1#/media/File:Comet_1618_Heidelberg.jpg Nicholas Kollerstrom, "Galileo vs. 1618's Great Comet: Fly Like an Eagle," DIO 21, 2018 Elisa Neckar, "Sept. 6, 1618: The First Comet Seen Through a Telescope," Astronomy, available at https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/sept-6-1618-the-first-comet-seen-through-a-telescope/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedetta_(film) Rotten Tomatoes Reviews: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/benedetta Blank Check Podcast (Paul Verhoeven Series) Elissa B. Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

This week we're traveling back to Edwardian England with Kind Hearts and Coronets! Join us as we learn about man traps, municipal baths, executing nobility, suffragettes doing awesome stuff like smashing windows and flying hot air balloons, and more! Sources: National Trust Collections: Humane Mantrap with No Teeth: https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/832217 Henry Yau, "Student Spotlight #2: Man Traps," The Museum of English Rural LIfe: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views/student-spotlight-2-man-traps/ Keith Fitzpatrick-Mathews, Man Traps and Spring Guns and Burymead, North Hertfordshire Museum, available at https://northhertsmuseum.org/man-traps-and-spring-guns-at-burymead/ https://www.criterion.com/films/357-kind-hearts-and-coronets?srsltid=AfmBOoqI6mqHSaktbVr3VfmjtvrX_EoEHYVpCazVLklhDJtp_Vz21UaE  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets Philip Kemp, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/414-kind-hearts-and-coronets-ealing-s-shadow-side  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kind-Hearts-and-Coronets  David A. Ellis, Conversations with Cinematographers, 15.  https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=kind-hearts-and-coronets   https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/PLA01/03/0063  https://www.victorianturkishbath.org/F0GLOSSARY/SFglossPages/Slipper_w.htm  Dave Day and Margaret Roberts, "Working at the Baths," Swimming Communities in Victorian England (2019), 157-201.  https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/londons-public-executions/ https://capitalpunishmentuk.org/english-hangmen-1850-to-1964/  Colin Rhys Lovell, "The Trial of Peers in Great Britain," The American Historical Review 55, no.1 (1949): 69-81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1841088  Execution of Lord Lovat (1747), https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-96988/a-representation-of-the-execution-of-lord-lovat/  https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/the-beheading-of-clan-fraser-chief-watched-by-thousands-859749  Robin Eagles, "The Last Peer Hanged for Murder," https://historyofparliament.com/2022/05/10/the-last-peer-hanged-for-murder/  Andrew Thrush, "The execution of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk," https://historyofparliament.com/2022/04/28/the-execution-of-thomas-howard-4th-duke-of-norfolk/  https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-547960/glass-smashing-for-votes-suffragettes-as-window-breakers/ https://bowstreetmuseum.org.uk/shattering-suffrage/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/suffragettes-on-file/window-smashing-campaign/ https://balloonteam.net/montgolfier/on-this-day-the-suffragette-airship/ https://blogs.loc.gov/families/2022/09/venturesome-ladies-trailblazing-female-fliers/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Matters#/media/File:The_London_Illustrated_News_(7th_November_1908.webp  

We don't have a new episode this week, so we're releasing a Patreon episode from the vault: 2022's canceled-too-soon series, A League of Their Own. Join us as we learn about the AAGPBL's weird code of conduct, WWII-era mail censorship, and more! Sources: Full text available at https://www.aagpbl.org/history/rules-of-conduct https://www.aagpbl.org/teams/rockford-peaches/1944  Lisa Taylor/Justina Moloney, "Passed Censor," Folklife Today: American Folklife Center & Veterans History Project, Library of Congress (28 August 2017). https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/08/passed-censor/  "Victory Mail," National Postal Museum, Smithsonian. https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/victory-mail and https://youtu.be/tj_LoG7wStY  Myron Fox, "Censorship!" American Experience, PBS (2000). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/warletters-censorship/  "Letters Home: Wartime Correspondence from the Natale Bellantoni Papers," Hoover Institution Library & Archives https://histories.hoover.org/letters-home/#:~:text=Throughout%20World%20War%20II%2C%20the,hands%20should%20mail%20be%20intercepted. Devan Coggan, "Abbi Jacobson responds to angry reactions to A League of Their Own: 'Representation matters so much'" Entertainment Weekly (15 August 2022). https://ew.com/tv/a-league-of-their-own-reactions-abbi-jacobson-responds/  Rebecca Nicholson, "A League of Their Own review-- this gorgeous baseball drama is about something far bigger than sport," The Guardian (12 August 2022). https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/aug/12/a-league-of-their-own-review-baseball-drama-abbi-jacobson-madonna-movie-remake  Jenna Scherer, "A League Of Their Own serves up a whole new crop of Peaches," AV Club (10 August 2022). https://www.avclub.com/a-league-of-their-own-season-1-review-1849391265  Linda Holmes, "New Peaches, new problems: 'A League of Their Own' makes a successful move to TV," NPR (11 August 2022). https://www.npr.org/2022/08/11/1116855780/a-league-of-their-own-2022-amazon-prime-review  Riese, "32 Excerpts From Really Special "League Of Their Own" Reviews Written By Homophobes Who've Had Quite Enough," Autostraddle, (15 August 2022). https://www.autostraddle.com/32-homophobic-league-of-their-own-reviews/  https://youtu.be/1OvULWYcSjQ