What'sHerName

What if you got to witness the birth of the American Revolution personally? If you got to hear the founding fathers debating liberty, rights, and the pursuit of happiness around the dining table? Eve heard and saw it all…because she was enslaved by one of the founding fathers. Eve kept her ears open, her eyes down, and then, she made her move. Join Katie on location in Williamsburg, Virginia for the astonishing story of Eve, GONE TO THE ENEMY.

You can take an amazing virtual tour of the entire site complete with re-enactors!

Illustration of "Eve" created for us by artist Mera MacKendrick.

Guest Julie Richter received her Ph.D. in American History from the College of William & Mary in 1992. Richter has worked as a Historian for the Historical Research and Architectural Research Departments at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in addition to working as the Project Manager for Virtual Jamestown. She teaches courses on colonial and Revolutionary Williamsburg as part of the National Institute of American History and Democracy. Richter’s interest in studying historic sites can be seen in her work as the Project Manager for the American Colonial Experiences, a forthcoming National Park Service website that links colonial history with the places where it happened. She is a consultant for “‘Full of Slime and Filth’: A Historical and Geologic Analysis of The Link between Water Quality and Death in Early America,” and has received two NEH Fellowships in African and African American History and Culture from the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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Wangari Maathai was the first woman in Central Africa to earn a PhD, the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the mother of the Ecofeminist movement — and that’s just the beginning! Discover the life of this remarkable, brilliant, world-changing woman with our guest - author activist and environmentalist Virginia Phiri.

Music featured in this episode provided by Winyo, and the Friends Church Kaimosi - used by permission.

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You’ve heard of the Gold Rush. You’ve maybe even heard of the Comstock Lode. But have you heard of the penniless Scottish lass who headed west, and while running a boarding house, struck the richest silver mine in American history? Eilley Bowers became one of the country’s wealthiest women. But Fortune is fickle, and the West was Wild! Join Katie on location with Tammy Buzick at Bowers Mansion near Carson City, Nevada for this surprising, cinematic tale.

Music for this episode was provided by Half Pelican, Andy Reiner and Jon Sousa, and Chris Haugen. Used by permission.

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Stefania Turkevych was one of Galicia’s most talented and prolific classical composers – and then the Russian Revolution turned her world upside down. When she fled the USSR to find a new home, through Italy, Ireland, and to her final home in England, her work was lauded all across the continent.

But fame is fickle when nobody speaks your language! Discover this forgotten star – Ukraine’s first female classical composer – with our guest Dr. Erica Glenn.

Erica Glenn is a current Fulbright Scholar and Director of Choral Activities at Brigham Young University – Hawaii. Previously, she worked at Arizona State University, conducting the Women’s Chorus, teaching Beginning Conducting (Teaching Excellence Award), and serving as chorus master for operas. She also co-founded the Arizona Women’s Collaborative and Phoenix Singing. Glenn holds a BM/MM in Music Composition and an Ed.M. in The Arts in Education (Harvard). She is the 2020 recipient of an American Councils Grant, a Knowledge Mobilization Award, a Creative Constellation Grant, and Melikian Center funding for her research into Stefania Turkevych, Ukraine’s first female composer. Glenn recently presented at the Ukrainian Institute of America and the Longy New Music Festival, and she has led interest sessions at ACDA and AATSEEL. Her original opera Dreamweaver won the International VocalWorks Competition, and her musical The Weaver of Raveloe was performed at both the NY Musical Theatre Festival and the American Repertory Theatre.

All music for this episode was composed by Stefania Turkevych and is used by kind permission of Erica Glenn.

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In 1895, Annie Cohen embarked on a quest to become the first woman ever to cycle around the world. Did she make it? Yes! Were the newspapers engrossed in her story? Yes! Did she actually… um, cycle? Sometimes! By sheer grit, Annie made her life into something (literally) unbelievable. Peter Zheutlin, author of two books about Annie, tells Katie the tale of a woman who “didn’t run away to join the circus; she became the circus.” 

Newsreel and newspaper footage performed by James Henderson, Marc Nelson, and Sam Henderson.

Guest Peter Zheutlin is a freelance journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Parade Magazine, AARP Magazine and numerous other publications. He’s the author of the New York Times best-seller, Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs, and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway and Rescued: What Second-Chance Dogs Teach Us About Living With Purpose, Loving With Abandon, and Finding Joy in the Little Things and The Dog Went Over the Mountain: Travels with Albie: An American Journey. He previously practiced law and taught legal research and writing at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School.

Music featured in this episode included: “Just Like a Rainbow” by the Columbians, “The Royal Vagabond” by Jockers Dance Orchestra, "The Entertainer," "Pine Apple Rag," and "Frog Legs Roll" by Scott Joplin, “Kletzklachka," “Tsigane,” “Polish Jokes are Funny,” and “Drunk in Paris” by Harry Fishpye and the Brown Sound, "Maple Leaf Rag" by Vess Ossman, and “Awen” by The Mind Orchestra.

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When most medieval Englishwomen wouldn’t travel more than five miles from home in their lifetime, Margery Kempe left behind her abusive husband and fourteen children to walk from France to Jerusalem and back – in the 1400s! Discover the amazing story of the mysterious “Weeping Mystic” who traveled the world, broke all the rules, and – luckily for us – recorded it all for history! Returning guest Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history.

Music featured in this episode by Solis, Choir of the Sun, Aaron Kenny, and Yanma Ensemble.

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1400 years ago, traveling through the Maya rainforest was terrifying and deadly (think snakes, jaguars, and crocodiles). Now, new LiDAR scans have revealed a network of elevated ancient roads so sophisticated, some folks give aliens the credit. But the truth is much more interesting! K’awiil, visionary ruler of Coba, one of the great cities of the Maya Golden Age, built the first roads in the Americas. But did she do it to conquer her neighbors, or to help them? Join Katie on location in Coba, Mexico, with our guest Ezequiel May.

Want to learn more? Here's an informative article on K’awiil from the Yucatan Times, an authoritative article on the stelae at Coba, and an article on how the people of Coba built the road.

Illustration of K'awiil created for us by artist Mera MacKendrick.

Guest Ezequiel May lives in the community of Coba Quintana Roo Mexico. He was born in 1989 and has spent his entire life here in this beautiful town. He has been working as a tourist guide for 9 years. He feels it has been an honor to share the different archaeological investigations and the important dates that they have raised during their discovery.

Music featured in this episode was provided by Dan Bodan, Amulets, Quincas Moriera, Joey Pecorano, and ELPHNT. Portrait of K'awiil by Mera Mackendrick.

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Helen Duncan was the last person in the UK ever to be convicted of witchcraft… in the mid-20th-century! Her story is one of fraud, fakery and – just possibly – actual communications with the dead!?

Guest Nikki Druce is the creator and host of Macabre London, the original podcast about London’s gruesome history. Created in 2016, combines the intrigue of horror and history and turns it into a unique storytelling podcast. Nikki’s stories on the show are inspired by a lifelong love of anything dark, gothic, creepy and unsettling. Through Macabre London, Nikki has dedicated herself to making sure the stories from the capital’s past are not forgotten forever and to bring them to a new generation of podcast listeners and YouTube viewers. Check out the Macabre London podcast, YouTube show, and make sure to follow Nikki on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Music featured in this episode provided by Amanda Setlik Wilson, Jeremy Dittus, Doug Maxwell, Half Pelican, and Kevin MacLeod.

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Chances are, every one of us has seen Victorine Meurent. Her delicate, red-headed form appears in at least thirty paintings by the famous Parisian masters of La Belle Époque. It was long assumed that Victorine was a prostitute, who died young in some tragically romantic way. But when our guest Drēma Drudge saw Victorine staring out from Manet’s famous painting Olympia, she felt called to uncover the woman’s story. And now we know that none of the assumptions were true — her life was far more marvelous!

Guest Drēma Drudge suffers from Stendhal’s Syndrome, the condition in which one becomes overwhelmed in the presence of great art. She attended Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program where she learned to transform that intensity into fiction. Her first novel, Victorine, was written in six countries while she and her husband wandered the globe. Drēma’s always happy to connect with readers in her Facebook group, The Painted Word Salon, or on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Music for this episode by Dana Boulé, Brent Hugh, and much of the music featured in this episode is from the album The Many Faces of Victorine, which was written and performed by Barry Drudge to accompany Drema Drudge’s novel, Victorine.

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In the late 18th century, Bibi Sahiba was one of the most important and influential people in the entire Afghan Empire. Honored as “the first and the most perfect” Sufi guide, Bibi Sahiba the Great’s spiritual and cultural influence can hardly be overstated. So how is it possible that she’s now as unknown in modern Kabul and Kandahar as she is anywhere else?

Bibi Sahiba’s story is astonishing enough on its own — but mind-blowing context from guest Professor Waleed Ziad, along with special musical guests Zeb Bangash and Shamali Afghan, helps us uncover why pretty much everything you know about Afghanistan is wrong.

Guest Waleed Ziad is Assistant Professor and Ali Jerrahi Fellow in Persian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to this, he was an Islamic Law and Civilization Research Fellow at Yale Law School. He completed his PhD in the Department of History at Yale University, where his dissertation won the university-wide Theron Rockwell Field Prize, one of two most prestigious awards across disciplines. In the last decade, Ziad has conducted fieldwork on historical and contemporary religious revivalism and Sufism in over 120 towns across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. His forthcoming books include Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus, In the Treasure Room of the Sakra King: The Native Copper Coinage of Northern Gandhara, Beyond the Khutba and Sikka: Sovereignty and Coinage in Sindh, and The Arch-Saint of the Afghan Empire, Her Teacher, and Her Son (in progress). His articles on historical and ideological trends in the Muslim world have appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, The Hill and major dailies internationally.

All music for this episode provided by special permission of Zeb Bangash, Shamali Afghan and Zain Ali.

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