Lithium Jubilee

There's nothing we here at Lithium Jubilee love more than a good mania and, thankfully, the Victorians were all about obsession! This week Jon and Erin dig up and brush off some of Egyptomania's oddest artifacts. Jon draws our attention to obelisks without once saying the word "phallic" and Erin finally gets to talk about "mummy brown" and other fun ways to use the spoils of a desecrated tomb!

Whether it's an astronomical wonder or an infamous hate group, some events will repeat ad nauseam, even during the Victorian era. Episode 6 focuses on that sense of de ja NEWS (get it?!). Jon will take us adventuring like true intelligent gentlemen on an expedition to research an 1800's Solar Eclipse while Erin mires in the antebellum swamp of Southern white supremacist organizations with very specific dress codes.

Ahoy! It's Episode 5 and you can not call us Ishmael. You can instead call us Lithium Jubilee and listen to us get waist deep in the multitude of uses for a dead whale! As promised on an earlier episode, Erin lists 25-30 ways to use these majestic carcasses while Jon dives into a supposed cure for rheumatism that, frankly, stinks.

While the styles and devices used to enjoy entertainment may constantly change, our unhealthy obsessions with entertainers never waver. Lithium Jubilee didn't need to look behind the curtain, all the best Victorian gossip was front page news. Erin gives a scintillating history of Little Egypt(s) and Jon describes a riot over competing Shakespeare performances.

We've reached the third episode, it's time to get gritty! We're celebrating heroes (heroines, rather) and villains of the criminal underbelly of Victorian society. Jon brings us the eerily modern tale of international fraudster Jabez Spencer Balfour while Erin fawns over the truly American success story of Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum.

Lithium Jubilee's second episode is celebrating Summer! Erin describes one of the most cumbersome aspects of a day at the beach for a refined Victorian lady and Jon takes you on a trip (the first of many) to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair! By the end, you'll feel significantly less guilty for staying home listening to podcasts all summer.

For our premiere episode, we look at some of the Victorian era's inventions from irrelevant to downright dangerous! Jon talks about the phonautograph, the earliest known sound recording device, while Erin discusses the elixir of life, a "holistic remedy" that's a little...nuts.