Consolation Prize

Consolation Prize is going true crime! In today's episode, we're going to hear about a murder case that a consul had to do some investigation of. William Hooper had to piece together what happened in the death of Jephtha Jenney, on board the whaleship Nassau in the Pacific Ocean. In his role as consul in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hooper was charged with dealing with crime committed by Americans--and this was a particularly gruesome one. Listen to the story as told through the materials he collected. Find show notes, including full transcripts, at consolationprize.rrchnm.org. Consolation Prize is a podcast of R2 Studios at George Mason University. Support our work at r2studios.org.

Today we're going to a domestic destination–but it wasn't always domestic. The history of Monterey goes back hundreds of years, and it shows how empires and commerce come together in one prime location. We talk to Aaron Gilmartin, a guide at Monterey State Historic Park, who told us about Monterey and how Thomas Larkin fit into its history. Show notes, including a full transcript, at consolationprize.rrchnm.org. Visit Monterey State Historic Park as well: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=575.

As Americans moved into California, the U.S. government wanted to provide them with an official representative. But the government also wanted California for the United States. So when Thomas Larkin was appointed as consul to Monterey, Alta California, he had the job of keeping the peace with Mexico---while other Americans tried to make war. But Larkin also wanted to bring California into the United States. He became a consul who literally worked himself out of a job, when California became part of the United States in 1847. Show notes, including a full transcript, available at consolationprize.rrchnm.org.

In our first Beyond the Consul episode, we're talking to Patty O'Brien about Tahiti. We talk about the power structures present in Tahiti when Europeans come in, how gender plays a role in Tahiti's history, and why we shouldn't really call Tahiti a "paradise," with all its connotations. Plus we think together about how our sources color the story we tell. Show notes, including a full transcript, at consolationprize.rrchnm.org.

When the United States began to establish official commercial relations with Tahiti, the government and the sailors who visited there thought that the U.S. consuls would be able to help them get the most out of their visit. But instead, the first two U.S. consuls destroyed the reputation of the United States and actively sabotaged their changes of good relations with the sovereign Tahitian government. Either actively or passively, they helped the French take over Tahiti in 1842 and made Tahiti a much less friendly place for Americans. Full show notes, including a full transcript, available at https://consolationprize.rrchnm.org/s2e1-tahiti/. Support Consolation Prize by becoming a member at https://r2studios.org/support-us/.

Manifest Destiny is a term you hear a lot when you're learning about the history of the United States in the nineteenth century. But what is it, really? Several experts weigh in. You'll hear from Steve Inskeep, Matthew Raffety, Amy Greenberg, Gene Allen Smith, and Brian Rouleau--and then you'll hear a lot more from us on this season of Consolation Prize, where our first several shows will be dedicated to the consuls who went forth during the era of Manifest Destiny.

We're under "new" management! Not really, we're just joining a new division of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, R2 Studios.

In this second installment of our summer series on food and consuls, we shift our gaze to look at food ways from the bottom-up. Producers Deepthi Murali and Kris Stinson sit down with team member Megan Brett and executive producer Abby Mullen to taste such dishes as Boko-Boko, black bread, buttered shark, and mesquite beans! Together, we discuss the drastically different ways food is experienced depending on who and where you are as well as the many ways food and drink have changed over the last several hundred years. Show notes, including a full transcript, at consolationprize.rrchnm.org.

In this bonus episode, we look back on the stories from season one with an eye for food. Alongside a cast of guest taste-testers, producers Deepthi Murali and Kris Stinson both try and discuss many of the dishes and drinks that have appeared in the accounts of consuls from places like Jerusalem, Algiers, Martinique, and Canton. Together, they explore the many ways that food has been a powerful force in the history of consuls, belonging, and empire! Show notes and a full transcript available at consolationprize.rrchnm.org.

We've been to Mexico a few times this season, but we promised in the first episode that we'd return one last time, to talk about the relationship between Black Americans and the consuls in Mexico. So that's where we're closing out Season 1. In this episode, we're taking the perspective of the Black Americans who had to deal with consuls in the midst of incredibly difficult circumstances. We'll tell the story of Lucien Matthews, a free Black man who did business in Mexico before the Civil War, and the story of William Ellis, whose colonization scheme for Black Americans in the 1890s went horribly wrong. In each case, these Black Americans were sometimes unrecognizable to the American consuls--but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. Show notes: https://consolationprize.rrchnm.org/2021/05/05/episode-12-unrecognizable-citizens/