On this week’s 51%, it's witching hour. We speak with a Massachusetts state senator about a bill to exonerate a woman convicted during the Salem witch trials. Author Kate Laity teaches us about the history of magic, and we also speak with author and podcaster Pam Grossman about modern witchcraft, and why witches are a feminist icon.

Guests: Massachusetts State Senator Diana DiZoglio; Rachel Christ-Doane, director of education at the Salem Witch Museum; Kate Laity; Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power

51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Our producer is Jesse King, our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

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You’re listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women’s issues and stories. Thanks for joining us, I’m Jesse King. 

The spooky season is upon us, and it’s one of my favorite times of the year. It means pumpkins, apple cider, leaf-peeping — and in upstate New York — a nice reprieve from the humidity of summer before diving into what is usually the months-long chill of winter. It also, of course, means Halloween, and growing up my go-to costume was a witch. I was a witch probably four or five times before I switched over to vampires and the occasional Little Red Riding Hood. 

Either I was ahead of the curve, or things really haven’t changed, because despite the popularity of shows like Squid Game and the latest offerings from Marvel, Google’s “Frightgeist” still predicts the most popular Halloween costume in 2021 will be the good, old-fashioned witch.

So today we’re talking about witches: why they’re so popular, what modern witchcraft looks like, and how we got here, because the history of witches in the U.S. can certainly be a difficult read. And where else would we start other than the Salem witch trials? Every year, crowds flock to Salem, Massachusetts to learn more about the 1692, hysterical witch hunt and trials that left 20 people dead. More than 300 years later, groups are still trying to clear the names of everyone convicted.

Democratic State Senator Diana DiZoglio is behind the latest bill, S.1016, to clear the name of Elizabeth Johnson Jr. 

"Actually, I heard about Elizabeth Johnson Jr. from a North Andover middle school class. Their teacher, Carrie LaPierre, had reached out to me and said that she and her students had been talking about somebody who was accused during the Salem witch trials," says DiZoglio. "She had never actually had her named cleared, unfortunately, even though all the others had actually had their names cleared. And I decided to file this bill at the request of the North Andover middle school students."

Johnson was born around 1670 and lived in a part of Andover that’s considered North Andover today. DiZoglio says S. 1016 would officially exonerate Johnson, adding her name to a resolve in Massachusetts general law that acknowledges that, while the Salem witch trials were lawful at the time, the laws by which they operated have long been abandoned. Until then, however, Johnson is technically the last remaining witch from the trials. 

There’s been a lot of speculation about what really caused the Salem witch trials in the first place — whether there were actually "witches," whether the accusers were outright lying, or whether they suffered from a neurological illness called “conversion disorder,” caused by extreme psychological stress. To learn more, I got the chance to speak with Rachel Christ-Doane, the director of education at the Salem Witch Museum. She says a combination of factors had already put the community under a lot of pressure. 

"It's a pretty chaotic time in Salem Village, and also if we can zoom out, just Massachusetts Bay Colony, generally speaking. Salem Village was in the process of trying to separate from Salem Town in the early 1670s. The