The Reference Desk

In this week's episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by the Arctic survival story of Ada Blackjack. 

Ada was a young, single mother living in Nome, Alaska when she was approached about joining an expedition to uninhabited Wrangel Island. The Inupiat woman was told she would live among other Inuit families as they assisted a crew of four explorers who were colonizing the remote island under the command of famous Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Instead, Blackjack found herself the only woman alongside a small crew of very inexperienced young men. What followed was two years of incredible survival in one of the most inhospitable landscapes on the globe. By the time the rescue ship reached Wrangel Island, Ada Blackjack was the lone survivor of the expedition. 

What we are reading: 

-The Good, the Bad, and the Dumped by Jenny Colgan

-Book Lovers by Emily Henry 

-When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord

Recommendations:

-Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Nivens

-Marooned in the Arctic: The True Story of Ada Blackjack, the 'Female Robinson Crusoe' by Peggy Caravantes

-A Line of Driftwood: The Ada Blackjack Story by Diane Glancy

-How to Survive in the North by Luke Healy

-How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

-The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister

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Hello, friends! This is Katie. Thank you so much for joining us here on The Reference Desk.Hailee and I started working on this podcast over a year ago as a way to connect during what we thought was going to be the end of a pandemic. It’s seriously been so amazing having this time with my best friend, and all of you each week. For my special re-release, I selected an episode from the first half of our first season, and I cannot believe how far we have come since then. I REALLY can’t believe that you all stuck with us despite the fact that it sounded like I was calling in on a Nokia from the middle of a cornfield. I mean….I kind of was.

I chose this episode where Hailee covers Victorian customs and entertainment because it is just SO Hailee. She could have easily been a Victorian, eating her picnics in the cemetery by day and holding seances by night. It also taught me my favorite ever exercise, arm waving. So, without further ado, here is Hailee, telling us what it was like to spend a day in the life of a Victorian, and me, commenting from the bottom of a well.

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This week, Hailee is bewitched by the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was more than just a pilot: she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic (though she wasn’t the pilot of that flight), pioneered woman’s aviation, worked as a nurse’s aid, writer, teacher, and social worker, was the first woman awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress among so much more. Her disappearance during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe has remained a mystery for almost a century.

• Amelia (2009) 
• Expedition Amelia (2019)

• East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler
• Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O'Brien

Kids

• Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming

• Great circle by Maggie Shipstead
• Her Last Flight by Beatriz Williams

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart

https://ameliaearhart.com/index.php/biography/

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/what-happened-to-amelia-earhart

https://yamanekobunko.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-338.html

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In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie gives up a Duggar family update in the form of an in-depth journey through Josh Duggar's recent CSAM trial. 

Josh Duggar has a long history of horrific behavior, from admitting to sexual abuse as a teen, to cheating on his wife, Anna, to admitting to a pornography addiction. But through it all, he has remained Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's golden child, the chosen son. In November of 2019, Homeland Security discovered Duggar had been accessing child sexual abuse materials on his work computer, and he has since been charged and convicted on two counts of receiving and possessing CSAM. It appears that the clouds of delusion, may finally be lifting within the Duggar family regarding Josh's crimes, as evidenced by the stark statements issued by his siblings and parents in the wake of his conviction. We'll talk about what's next for Josh Duggar, and give some recommendations for our favorite female-centered, cult-related literature. 

Books recommended on this episode (available in our bookshop): 

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce

The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns

We Can Only Save Ourselves by Alison Wisdom

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed

Links: 

Trial timeline

Jim Bob's bizarre testimony

Arkansas-based coverage of the trial 

Dillard family's statement

Jim Bob and Michelle's statement

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In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by the strange medical inventions and treatments of John Harvey Kellogg at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. 

John Harvey Kellogg was a Seventh Day Adventist darling who gained directorship over their medical facility in mid-Michigan just a year after becoming a doctor. What followed was Kellogg becoming the face of modern medicine, beloved by America for bringing a renaissance of health. But behind the famous celebrities and politicians that flocked to his facility is a darker story. Kellogg fought with his brother until his death, completed horrific surgeries on children in the effort to stop the "evil vice," and was a staunch eugenicist who fought to create a national race register. 

Books mentioned in this episode (available at our bookshop):

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Region of Biologic Living by Brian C. Wilson

The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel

The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine by Dr. Sydnee McElroy, Justin McElroy

The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle

The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenadore

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue 

The House of God by Samuel Shem

Links: 

The Secret Ingredient in Kellogg's Corn Flakes is Seventh-Day Adventism

Dr. John Kellogg Invented Cereal. Some of His Other Wellness Ideas Were Much Weirder

John Harvey Kellogg's Legacy of Cereal, Sociopathy, and Sexual Mutilation 

The Wild Story Of John Harvey Kellogg, The Eccentric Wellness Guru Who Invented Corn Flakes

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This week, Hailee talks about the Hicks Clinic, a small, community clinic in McCaysville, GA where a doctor sold over 200 babies and performed illegal abortions, sometimes against the will of the mother, in the 50s and 60s. 

Links:

A History Not Yet Laid to Rest - The Atlantic

How Many Babies Did Thomas Hicks Put Up for Adoption? - heavy.

'Hicks Baby' Adoptee Sold by Georgia Doctor 50 Years Ago Reunites With Birth Mother, Brother - ABC News

‘Black market baby’ meets biological father in Gallatin - Gallatin News

Black Market Babies Reunited After More Than 50 Years - New York Post

ReproductiveRights.org - World Abortion Laws

What If Roe Fell? Interactive US Map from Reproductive Rights

Abortion Access - Planned Parenthood

Recommended Media

Television

• Taken at Birth - TLC docuseries, available on Discovery+

Books

Non-Fiction

• Taken at Birth by Jane Blasio
• American baby: a mother, a child, and the shadow history of adoption by Gabrielle Glaser
• Booth Girls: pregnancy, adoption, and the secrets we kept by Kim Heikkila
• The girls who went away: the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler
• Before and After: the Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

Fiction

• Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

If you are interested in purchasing any of the books mentioned in this episode, please check out our affiliate shop on Bookshop.org!

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In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched with the story of Manhattan grifter-extraordinaire Anna Delvey (Anna Sorokin)

For several years, the New York City upper crust embraced a charming young German heiress named Anna Delvey. Delvey was a chic, bold entrepreneur who was pursuing funding for her brainchild the Anna Delvey Foundation when Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams met her. The pair formed an unlikely friendship involving celebrity trainers, infrared sauna treatments, and expensive meals in SoHo's hottest restaurants. But the pair's friendship turned sour when a so-called "dream vacation" to Morocco left Rachel with more than $60,000 in credit card debt, which Delvey refused to reimburse as promised. Rachel would soon discover that she was only one in a long line of victims Delvey defrauded.

Recommended titles (available in our bookshop) 

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams

How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller

The Curse Workers trilogy by Holly Black

The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

Conman: A Master Swindler's Own Story by J.R. 'Yellow Kid' Weil and W.T. Branson

Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel

Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb

Links: 

New York Magazine piece by Jessica Pressler

Vanity Fair piece by Rachel DeLoache Williams

Trailer for Netflix's "Inventing Anna" 

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This week, Hailee is bewitched by the New England Vampire Panic. During the later part of the 18th and 19th centuries, large amounts of people were dying from what they called consumption, what we know of today as Tuberculosis. In New England, they had a different idea about what was causing their friends and loved ones to waste away in front of their eyes: vampires. Though they never used the exact term, they thought that the undead were preying upon the living and they had some very interesting methods to stop the attacks.

Links:

The Great New England Vampire Panic - Smithsonian Magazine

Belief in Connecticut Vampires

The New England Vampire Panic

The Strange History of the New England Vampire Panic

Recommendations:

Media

Lore - Season 1 Episode 1: They Made a Tonic

Ask A Mortician - America's Forgotten Vampire Panic

Non-Fiction

Michael E. Bell's Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampire

Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul Barber

A History of Vampires in New England by Thomas D'Agostino

Fiction

Mercy: The Last New England Vampire by Sarah L. Thomson

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

If you are interested in purchasing any of the books we talked about in this episode, please check out our affiliate link to bookshop.org!

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In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched with the true story of the "first Thanksgiving."

American schools have long taught about the history of Thanksgiving with cringe-worthy pageants and re-enactments of happy pilgrims and Indians gathered around a table. In reality, the shared meal we've dubbed the "first Thanksgiving" was a pure coincidence of Wampanoag warriors joining in a meal they happened upon while expecting to find a full-scale battle. (why else would the woods be full of gunshots?!) The tenuous relationship between the colonizers and Indigenous people of New England quickly deteriorated after the feast, and what ensued was near total decimation of Indigenous life, land, and culture. After an accurate retelling of the accidental party, we share some suggestions on how to de-colonize your Thanksgiving celebration, as well as recommended books by Indigenous authors. 

Recommended titles (available in our bookshop):

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman

Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale

Eyes Bottle Drunk with a Mouthful of Flowers by Jake Sheets

There There by Tommy Orange

The Round House by Louise Edrich

1612: A New Look at Thanksgiving by Catherine O'Neill Grace

Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Jake Swamp

We Are Grateful: Otashlihelgia by Traci Sorell

My Heart Fills With Happiness by Monique Gray Smith

Links: 

Indigenous Digital Archive Treaties Explorer

6 Native Leaders on What it Would Look Like if the U.S. Kept its Promises

Native Land Digital

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