In the United States, the war against women took a particularly dark and secretive turn in the early 1900s—around the start of World War I. Under a government-sponsored “social hygiene” campaign, to protect newly recruited soldiers, tens of thousands of women were arrested on “suspicion” of having a venereal disease. Sex workers were the prime targets, but any woman who raised an eyebrow could be apprehended. The women were subjected to invasive gynecological examinations. If they tested positive for an STI, they were incarcerated in hospitals, reformatories, and prisons, without any semblance of due process.

Once imprisoned, the women became test subjects—receiving painful injections of mercury and other ineffective treatments. Many were beaten and forcibly sterilized. Most were held indefinitely until they were deemed “cured” or “reformed.” The program persisted for decades, well into the 1950s, and even shades of this discriminatory practice are present today.

Have you ever heard of the American Plan?

Credit:

It was an absolute pleasure to speak with Scott Stern, author of The Trials of Nina McCall, the first book-length history of the American Plan, and Jeana Jorgensen, a scholar and sex educator who has written extensively, from a feminist angle, on the impacts of the American Plan.

Sources:

The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women; Stern, Scott W.; Penguin Random House; May 15, 2018.

The American Plan: The U.S. Government's Forgotten Plan to Lock Up Women and Free the Country from the Scourge of Disease; Stern, Scott W.; Yale University; 2015.

The U.S. Detained 'Promiscuous' Women in What One Called a 'Concentration Camp.' That Word Choice Matters; Stern, Scott W.; TIME; May 15, 2018.

 The American Plan and World War I; Jorgensen, Jeana; Patheos; January 1, 2019.

The Impact of the American Plan; Jorgensen, Jeana; Patheos; January 1, 2019.

American Social Hygiene Association History and a Forecast; Virginia Commonwealth University, Social Welfare History Project; Retrieved May 2019.

Brief History of Syphilis; Tampa, M; Journal of Medicine and Life; March 25, 2014.

Sexually Transmitted Disease Control in the Armed Forces, Past and Present; Emerson, Lynn A.C.; Military Medicine; 1997.

This trailblazer became the most successful and significant black woman writer of the first half of the 20th century. In the 1970s, during the second wave of feminism, Alice Walker helped revive interest in this pioneer’s writings, bringing them back to public attention. Have you ever heard of Zora Neale Hurston?

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Credit:

It was a deep honor and absolute pleasure to speak with Valerie Boyd, author of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, and DaMaris Hill, a professor at the University of Kentucky and author of A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, for this episode.

Sources:

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston; Boyd, Valerie; Scribner; February 3, 2004.

Dust Tracks on a Road; Hurston, Zora Neale; Harpers; 1942, updated 2017.

A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland; Hill, DeMaris; Bloomsbury Publishing; January 15, 2019.

Zora Neale Hurston; Official Website; Maintained by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust; Retrieved February 2019.

Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography; Hemenway, Robert; University of Illinois Press, September 1, 1980.

In the US, doctors are held in high esteem. But that wasn’t always the case. There was time when the medical field was riddled with controversy and public scrutiny. Tensions between the world of medicine and society reached a boiling point in New York City during April of 1788, when resurrection, the common practice of grave robbing, came under scrutiny.

Have you ever heard of the New York Doctors Riot?

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Credit:

I want to give a special thanks to Andrea Janes, owner and founder of Boroughs of the Dead LLC, a boutique tour company dedicated to dark and unusual walking tours of New York City, and Bess Lovejoy, journalist and author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses.

Sources:

The Gory New York City Riot that Shaped American Medicine; Lovejoy, Bess; Smithsonian Magazine; June 17, 2014.

Doctors' riot, New York, 1788; Bell, Whitefield J.; American Association for the History of Medicine; December 1971.

Grave Robbing And The Doctors Riot of 1788; Hernandez, Miguel; The New York History Blog; December 20, 2016.

The Doctors’ Riot of 1788; Ancestry.com; Retrieved February 2019.

American resurrection and the 1788 New York doctors' riot’; de Costa, Caroline and Miller, Francesca; Perspectives, The Art of Medicine; January 22, 2011.

Prelude and Aftermath of the Doctors' Riot of 1788: A Religious Interpretation of White and Black Reaction to Grave Robbing; Swan, Robert J.; New York History, Fenimore Art Museum; Vol. 81, No. 4 (October 2000), pp. 417-456.

American Heritage Book Selection: The Body Snatchers; Gallagher, Thomas; American Heritage Magazine; June 1967.

In the days before modern medicine, the sick, injured, and expecting often relied on community healers to perform the services of doctors and midwives. Women largely fulfilled these roles. Whether their practices were rooted in scripture, nature, or common sense, there’s no denying their quintessential place in the history of medicine. Have you ever heard of the Ozarks’ Granny Women?

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Credit

Janet Allured, a professor of history and the Director of Women’s Studies at McNeese University in Louisiana, and Vincent Anderson, historian and author of multiple books on the Ozarks’ region.

Sources

Granny Women: Healing and Magic in Appalachia; Burns, Phyllis Doyle; RemedyGrove; March 11, 2018.

Women’s Healing Art: Domestic Medicine in the Turn-of-the-Century Ozarks; Allured, Janet L.; Gateway Heritage, Spring 1992, Vol. 12, No. 4; Missouri Historical Society; Retrieved January 2019.

The “Granny-Woman” in the Ozarks; Rayburn, Otto Ernest; Midwest Folklore, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), pp. 145-148, Indiana University Press; Retrieved January 2019.

Last of the Ozark Granny Women; Shannon Country Coordinators; Shannon County, Missouri GenWeb; Retrieved January 2019.

Mozark Moments: Tales of Granny Women and Yarb Doctors; Johns, Paul; CCHeadliner.com; March 20, 2011.

On July 27, 1890, a painter sustained a single gunshot wound to the abdomen and died a few days later. This infamous event has carried through time as a suicide. After his death, the deceased became one of history’s most iconic and celebrated artists. Yet, we are only now learning the truth about his life and untimely death. Have you ever heard of the mysteries surrounding Vincent van Gogh?

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Credit:

I want to give a special thanks to Dr. Irving Arenberg, a prominent (retired) ear surgeon and author of the new book Killing Vincent: The Man, The Myth, and The Murder, and Louis van Tilborgh of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Source:

Killing Vincent: The Man, the Myth, and the Murder; Arenberg, Irving Kaufman; Amazon Digital Services; October 24, 2018.

Van Gogh: The Life; Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White; Random House LLC; October 18, 2011.

Meet Vincent; Van Gogh Museum – Amsterdam; Retrieved December 2018.

Vincent Van Gogh; Historical Figures; BBC; Retrieved January 2019.

Vincent Van Gogh Biography; The Van Gogh Gallery; Retrieved January 2019.NOW

Throughout history there have been countless methods for forecasting the weather. In 1818, David Young, a poet and an astronomer from Morristown, New Jersey, launched a publication that would help take the guesswork out of this tricky task...and then some. Have you ever heard of the Farmers’ Almanac?

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Credit:

Peter Geiger, publisher and editor at the Farmers’ Almanac, joined me for this wonderful episode on the history of a timeless publication. I’m grateful for his insight and stories.

Image Copyright: Almanac Publishing Company

Sources:

Farmers’ Almanac History; Farmers’ Almanac; Retrieved December 2018.

Agriculture, Food, and the Environment; Brosnan, Kathleen A. and Blackwell, Jacob; Oxford Research Enclyopedias; April 2016.

What is an Almanac?; Wonderopolois; Retrieved December 2018.

Farmers’ Almanac Timeline; Farmers’ Almanac; Retrieved December 2018.

History of American Agriculture; Bellis, Mary; ThoughtCo.; October 3, 2018.

A Visit to the Past; Duncan, Sandi; Farmers’ Almanac; December 10, 2012.

Time Travel Anyone?; Duncan, Sandi; Farmers’ Almanac; November 12, 2013.

Greene County, Missouri was once home to many bustling communities that slowly withered away. One town had quite an intriguing story. There it was said the springs could cure; that a bit of heaven had fallen to earth. A respected doctor even banked his future on the town’s medicinal wonders. Have you ever heard of the lost town of Bethesda?

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Credit:

A huge thanks to author and local Greene County historian Shirley Gilmore who wrote a little book called Bethesda: Lost City in 1970, when she was a senior in high school and as part of a Girl Scout project. The book is in the reference section of the Springfield-Greene County Library in Springfield, Missouri. I also grateful for the historical insight of John Sellars, the Executive Director of the History Museum on the Square, dedicated to revitalizing and preserving the history of the Springfield, Missouri community.

Sources:

Bethesda: Lost City; Gilmore, Shirley; Girl Scout Troop #15 (Springfield, Missouri); August 12, 1970.

A Directory of Towns, Villages, and Hamlets Past and Present of Greene County, Missouri; Moser, Arthur Paul; Springfield-Greene County Library; Retrieved December 2018.

Robberson Township, Ebeneezer, Hackney, Bethesda, Glidewell; Greene County 1904; Missouri Publishing Co.

Glen M. “Heinie” Siegel; Obituary; Newsok.com; January 10, 2001.

The Lost Town of Bethesda and More on Springfield's Cryptid History; Urban Cryptids; December 14, 2012.

The Mysterious Goat Man; Urban Cryptids; May 19, 2013.

In the 1920s, one aviation pioneer launched a thank-you project for the families that keep coastal ships safe. He propelled a goodwill tradition that’s lasted longer than he ever imagined. One that has lasted to this day… Have you ever heard of the Flying Santas?

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Credit:

I’d like to give a huge thanks to the Friends of Flying Santa for their dedication and generosity in keeping this good-will tradition alive. If you’d like to donate to this wonderful cause, please visit their website at https://www.flyingsanta.com/Donations.html.

This story first appeared on Narratively.

Sources:

The Origins and History of the Flying Santa; Tague, Brian, Friends of Flying Santa; Retrieved November 2018.

No Reindeer Necessary; DownEast Magazine; December 2015.

The Flying Santa of Coastal New England; New England Historical Society; Retrieved November 2018.

History of Owls Head Light, Maine; D'Entremont, Jeremy; New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide; Retrieved November 2018.

After the Revolutionary War, at a pivotal moment when Washington and Spain were fighting for control of North America, one American war hero deflected from honor and signed a secret allegiance with Spain. President Theodore Roosevelt said, "In all our history, there is no more despicable character.” Have you ever heard of James Wilkinson?

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Credit:

A huge thanks to New York Times bestselling author, Andra Watkins, whose new book I Am Number 13 pairs international aid volunteer Emmaline Cagney with the unsettled ghost of James Wilkinson—the former American general who’s stuck in an in-between world called Nowhere. I’m also grateful for the scholarly insight of James Lewis, a professor of history at Kalamazoo College.

Sources:

An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson; Linklater, Andro; Walker Books; September 8, 2010.

Spaniards, Scoundrels, and Statesmen: General James Wilkinson and the Spanish Conspiracy, 1787-1790; Savage, James E; Hanover College; Retrieved November 2018.

James Wilkinson: America's Greatest Scoundrel; Jewett, Tom; Varsity Tutors; Retrieved November 2018.

Tarnished Warrior: Major-General James Wilkinson; Jacobs, James Ripley; Literary Licensing; May 26, 2012.

James Wilkinson; Encyclopedia.com; Retrieved November 2018.

For years, on Thanksgiving, one former railroad worker from Pennsylvania told his family a chilling tale. Well, they thought it was a tale—a grandiose and macabre account almost certainly rooted in fiction. Yet, as the story traveled through generations, the family would discover that some ghosts lead to the truth; that some of our darkest secrets lie below our feet.

This is a Thanksgiving ghost story…