Amended

When the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, a large number of Native American women still could not vote. The U.S. government did not recognize them as citizens. And if having U.S. citizenship required them to renounce tribal sovereignty, many Native women didn’t want it. But early-twentieth-century writer, composer, and activist Zitkála-Šá was determined to fight for both.

In this episode, host Laura Free speaks with digital artist Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota) whose art is inspired by Dakota imagery and history, and by Zitkála-Šá’s legacy. Dr. Cathleen Cahill, author of Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement, returns to help tell the story of Zitkála-Šá’s struggle for a “layered” U.S. citizenship that included the acknowledgment of Native American sovereignty.

This final episode of the Amended series demonstrates once again how those who have been marginalized within U.S. democracy have worked, and continue to work, to hold the nation accountable for its promise of liberty and equality for all. 

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com. Visit the Amended store to get an Amended podcast mug, shirt, bag, phone case, and more. 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director & Episode Co-Writer

Vanessa Manko 

Sara Ogger 

Michael Washburn

Episode 6 Guests and Collaborators: Dr. Cathleen Cahill and digital artist Marlena Myles 

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music: “Cinnamon” by Tufawon, Sun Dance Opera clips from a documentary by Palisander Verlag, Michael-John Hancock, Emily Sprague, Pictures of the Floating World (CC), Yusuke Tsutsumi (CC), Meydän (CC), and Live Footage.

Sound library: Freesound.org

The work of Susan Rose Dominguez, Karen Hansen, and Tadeusz Lewandowski helped us immensely in framing our story. 

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart. 

Copyright Humanities New York 2021

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In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi to place themselves in the path of white supremacist power and violence. They issued a bold pro-democracy challenge to the nation and the Democratic Party. 

This week Amended host Laura Free introduces “Freedom Summer,” a special episode from a podcast called Scene on Radio, one of the sources of inspiration for Amended. Season 4 of Scene on Radio was called “The Land that Never Was.” It looks at the nation’s history from its beginnings to the present to understand the deep-rooted challenges that American democracy has never solved. “Freedom Summer” highlights an important chapter in the struggle for equal voting rights. 

Visit amendedpodcast.com for a transcript of the episode. Subscribe to Scene on Radio wherever you get your podcasts.  

“Freedom Summer” Credits:

Produced by John Biewen, with series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with John Lewis, Bob Moses, Unita Blackwell, Hollis Watkins, Dorie Ladner, and many others. The series editor is Loretta Williams. Freedom song recordings courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways. Other music by Algiers, John Erik Kaada, Eric Neveux, and Lucas Biewen. Music consulting and production help from Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. This episode was adapted from the 1994 documentary Oh Freedom Over Me, produced by John Biewen with consulting producer Kate Cavett. It was a Minnesota Public Radio production from American Public Media. Scene on Radio is a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. 

Original air date: April 1, 2020

The Amended Team:

Production Company: Humanities New York

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Vanessa Manko

Sara Ogger 

Michael Washburn

Art by Simonair Yoho

For this bonus episode of Amended:

Music: Live Footage and Pictures of The Floating World

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

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This bonus episode takes listeners behind-the-scenes of Amended. “Amended in Action” is a radio series hosted by Michael Riecke that expands on the themes of Amended and amplifies contemporary women’s voices. Michael’s a reporter for WRVO and assistant professor of broadcasting and mass communication at SUNY Oswego. For a recent broadcast, Michael interviewed Laura Free, Amended host and writer, and Reva Goldberg, producer, editor and co-writer, about what it’s like to make the podcast.

Visit amendedpodcast.com for more information about the series. 

“Amended in Action” Credits:

“Amended in Action” is produced and hosted by Michael Riecke. It was originally broadcast on WRVO Public Media with Amended Episode 2. Music by Fesliyan Studios.

The Amended Team:

Production Company: Humanities New York

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Vanessa Manko

Sara Ogger 

Michael Washburn

Art by Simonair Yoho

For this bonus episode of Amended:

Music: Live Footage

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1912, Mabel Lee, a teenaged immigrant from China, led a New York City suffrage parade on horseback. Ineligible for U.S. citizenship due to anti-Chinese immigration policy, Mabel nonetheless spoke out for American women’s political equality. She envisioned a world where all women had the right to vote—and she wanted white suffragists to pay attention to the discrimination and racism faced by Chinese American women. 

In this episode, producer Reva Goldberg travels to Chinatown to meet with Reverend Bayer Lee, who honors Mabel’s legacy as the pastor of the church community that Mabel and her parents dedicated themselves to building. Host Laura Free speaks with Dr. Cathleen Cahill, author of Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement, to learn about Mabel’s political goals for women and for China. In the end, it’s clear that Mabel Lee forged a bold life according to her values.

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com. Visit the Amended store to get an Amended podcast mug, shirt, bag, phone case, and more. 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director 

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Michael Washburn

Episode 5 Guests and Collaborators: Dr. Cathleen Cahill and Dr. Bayer Lee

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music by Michael-John Hancock, Emily Sprague, Pictures of the Floating World (CC), Yusuke Tsutsumi (CC), Meydän (CC), and Live Footage.

The work of Mary Chapman, Louise Edwards, Grace Li, and Timothy Tseng helped us immensely in framing our story. Special thanks to Connie Shemo, who consulted on this episode. 

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart. 

Copyright Humanities New York 2021

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On March 25, 1911, a fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, claiming the lives of 146 workers. Most of the victims were young immigrant women from Eastern and Southern Europe. In the wake of the fire, a group of women labor activists fought to ensure that the tragedy led to concrete change. 

In this episode, host Laura Free speaks with Dr. Annelise Orleck, author of Common Sense and a Little Fire, to learn about the women who agitated for better working conditions before and after the Triangle Fire. Rose Schneiderman, Pauline Newman, and Clara Lemlich had a shared vision for a more equitable society. Together, they organized unions, led strikes, and fought for labor legislation, combating sexist and classist attitudes every step of the way. To exercise their full political power, they needed to make an impact not just on the picket lines but also at the ballot box. They needed the right to vote.

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com. Visit the Amended store to get an Amended podcast mug, shirt, bag, phone case, and more. 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director & Episode 4 Co-Writer

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Michael Washburn

Episode 4 Guest and Collaborator: Dr. Annelise Orleck

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music by Michael-John Hancock, Live Footage, Emily Sprague, Pictures of the Floating World (CC), Yusuke Tsutsumi (CC) and Meydän (CC).

Archival footage courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives, WNYC, and the Kheel Center at Cornell University.

Special thanks to Janette Gayle, Susan Goodier, and Karen Pastorello whose scholarship helped frame the episode, and also to Davor Mondom, who consulted on this episode.

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart. We received special support for this episode from Susan Strauss and Karen Gantz. 

Copyright Humanities New York 2020

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Suffragists fought hard for the vote. They also knew that gaining access to the ballot was not the end of the struggle for political representation. This week Amended host Laura Free introduces a special episode from Civics 101, a podcast about how democracy works, to help us understand what a vote really means. The United States is a representative democracy. The idea is that we’re a government by the people (we vote officials into office) and for the people (the officials in office are supposed to represent our interests). But Civics 101 hosts Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice learn that it’s not so straightforward around here. Our guides to American voting are Nazita Lajevardi, author of Outsides at Home, Kim Wehle, author of What You Need to Know About Voting and Why, and Andrea Hailey, CEO of vote.org. 

Visit amendedpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode and additional resources. Listen to Civic Action: Voting, Part 2 here (or wherever you get your podcasts). 

Civics 101 Credits:

This episode of Civics 101 was produced by Hannah McCarthy with Nick Capodice. The staff includes Jackie Fulton and Felix Poon. Erica Janik is the Executive Producer. Maureen McMurray is the Head of Content Development. Music in this episode by Silicon Transmitter, Patrick Patrikios, Jesse Gallagher, Astron and The Mini Vandals. Voting and educational resources available at civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

The Amended Team:

Production Company: Humanities New York

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Kordell K. Hammond

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Antonio Pontón-Núñez

Michael Washburn

Art by Simonair Yoho

For this bonus episode of Amended:

Audio Editor and Mixer: Logan Romjue 

Music: Michael-John Hancock, Live Footage and Emily Sprague

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Copyright Humanities New York 2020

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The scope of women’s political history is so vast that it can’t be covered by one podcast. This week Amended host Laura Free introduces a special episode from And Nothing Less, a seven-part series from the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission and PRX. This episode is more than a story about women’s rights. It’s a story about civil rights. And women like Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell understood that the suffrage fight was as much about race as it was gender. Hosts Rosario Dawson and Retta speak with some great guests you’ll recognize from Amended—like Martha Jones and Lisa Tetrault—and some you haven’t met yet—like Michelle Duster, great-great granddaughter of Ida B. Wells, and historians Alison Parker and Marjorie Spruill.

Visit amendedpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode. Visit the National Park Service website for a Listener Companion to this episode of And Nothing Less. 

And Nothing Less Credits:

And Nothing Less was envisioned by WSCC Executive Director Anna Laymon, with support from Communications Director Kelsey Millay. Executive Producer: Genevieve Sponsler. Producer and Audio Engineer: Samantha Gattsek. Writer and Producer: Robin Linn. Original Music: Erica Huang. Additional Support: Ray Pang, Jocelyn Gonzales, Jason Saldanha, John Barth. Marketing Support: Ma’ayan Plaut, Dave Cotrone, Anissa Pierre. Booker: Amy Walsh. Logo: Stephanie Marsellos.

Original Airdate: August 19, 2020

The Amended Team:

Production Company: Humanities New York

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Kordell K. Hammond

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Antonio Pontón-Núñez

Michael Washburn

Audio Editor and Mixer (for Amended): Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music (for Amended): Michael-John Hancock and Live Footage

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Copyright Humanities New York 2020

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the Civil War, many abolitionists and women's rights activists saw an opportunity to team up and advance equality for all. 

African American author and orator Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was hopeful, too. But she also knew that politics and prejudice could shatter this tentative alliance, with devastating consequences. She wasn’t about to let that happen without a fight.

To help tell Frances’s story, host Laura Free meets up with Sharia Benn, a writer, researcher and theater artist who has spent a decade portraying Frances for public audiences. Laura also spends time with historian Bettye Collier-Thomas in Bettye’s extensive personal archive. Bettye’s research has helped recover Harper’s forgotten contributions to the abolitionist, suffrage, and temperance causes. In this exceptionally emotional episode, Sharia and Bettye paint a vivid portrait of a woman whose vision of liberation resonates deeply today—and whose spirit is still with those who continue the pursuit of justice and equality.

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Kordell K. Hammond

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Antonio Pontón-Núñez

Michael Washburn

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music by Michael-John Hancock. Additional music by Emily Sprague and Pictures of a Floating World (CC).

Sound effects this episode courtesy of freesound.org

Thanks to this episode’s guests and collaborators, Sharia Benn and Bettye Collier-Thomas. Special thanks to Alison Parker and Manisha Sinha, whose scholarship we relied on to help tell the story of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Copyright Humanities New York 2020

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The right to vote was only one of many demands that women made prior to the Civil War. Zooming in on another priority, the right to bodily autonomy, changes our understanding of who was at the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights.

Host Laura Free, a historian of women and politics, travels to Baltimore, Maryland, to spend a day with legal historian Martha S. Jones. They visit the Homewood Museum, a 19th century mansion once owned by a family of enslavers, to grapple with its legacy of slavery and sexual violence through the story of one enslaved resident, Charity Castle. Then Martha tells the stories of Celia (whose last name is unknown) and Harriet Jacobs, two other enslaved women who courageously fought for control of their own bodies within legal systems that denied them that right. Although few today know their names, Martha makes the case that all three women were part of the “vanguard” of women’s rights activism.

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Kordell K. Hammond

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Antonio Pontón-Núñez

Michael Washburn

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music by Michael-John Hancock. Additional music by Pictures of a Floating World (CC).

A special thanks to Amy Mulvihill and the Homewood Museum at Johns Hopkins University.

Additional thanks to this episode’s advisors for their feedback: Carol Faulkner, Dominique Jean-Louis, Martha S. Jones, Alison Parker, and Kishauna Soljour.

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Copyright Humanities New York 2020

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do we tell the story of the (unfinished) struggle for women’s voting rights? Who gave us the dominant suffrage narrative? And who gets left out? 

Our host is Laura Free, a historian of women and politics. She reflects on the suffrage story she learned as a child, one that centers a few white women. She speaks with historians Bettye Collier-Thomas and Lisa Tetrault about the work they’ve done to show there is much more to the story. Next, Laura travels to Seneca Falls, New York, site of the 1848 women’s rights convention, with guest Judith Wellman. Dr. Wellman describes a movement that was both complex and diverse, and helps us to see an old story in an entirely new light.

This episode serves as the prologue to the series, inviting listeners to amend their understanding of women’s suffrage history. 

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com. 

Our Team

Laura Free, Host & Writer

Reva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-Writer

Scarlett Rebman, Project Director

Kordell K. Hammond

Nicholas MacDonald

Joseph Murphy

Sara Ogger 

Antonio Pontón-Núñez

Michael Washburn

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue 

Art by Simonair Yoho

Music by Michael John Hancock and Live Footage

A special thanks to Stephanie Freese at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Greg Cotteral at WEOS Studios in Geneva, NY, and the team at WESA, Pittsburgh. 

Additional thanks to episode advisors for their feedback: Carol Faulkner, Dominique Jean-Louis, Martha S. Jones, Alison Parker, and Kishauna Soljour.

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices