What'sHerName

Marjorie Hillis’ surprise bestseller Live Alone and Like It was a sensation when it was published in 1936. Determined to shift the narrative around singleness and encourage women to make active choices about their lives, Hillis used the insights gained in her decades as an editor for Vogue to empower single women to enjoy their single years instead of viewing them as an embarrassment. Her innovative ideas about relationships, female empowerment, friendship and career are still relevant today, and her witty, irresistible writing made her books mandatory reads for everyone in the 30s, men and women, married and single alike. Discover how one woman’s common-sense ideas about what singleness could look like took a country by storm, and how history’s changing narrative turned her story into something she never could have expected.

Olivia interviews guest Joanna Scutts, author of The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It. Joanna Scutts is a literary critic, cultural historian, and the author of The Extra Woman, the story of the 1930s lifestyle guru Marjorie Hillis and the lives of single women in midcentury America. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Guardian US, among many other venues. She was the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society, and holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Music for this episode provided by Vintage Vocal Quartet, Daniel Henderson and His Big Band, and the New Hot 5.

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When your heart tells you to do one thing, and your parents tell you to do another, what do you do? 22-year-old Perpetua faced this dilemma 1,800 years ago in ancient Carthage. She faced a grisly death in an ancient Roman arena with her slave, Felicitas, at her side. Their tale is full of bizarre twists, gladiators, preemie babies, religious visions, and even a “most ferocious cow.” Katie interviews Eliza Rosenberg, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies at Utah State University, where she teaches courses in world religions, biblical studies, Judaism, Christianity, and Greek.

Browse a truly comprehensive collection of all resources related to the story of Perpetua and Felicitas, and explore the mysterious world of Ancient Roman music with guest musician Michael Levy. We are fascinated by his explorations into what the ancient world might have sounded like.

Guest Eliza Rosenberg is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies at Utah State University, where she teaches courses in world religions, biblical studies, Judaism, Christianity, and Greek. She holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from McGill University. Her recent publications include “Weddings and the Return to Life in the Book of Revelation” in the volume Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by F.S. Tappenden and C. Daniel-Hughes (McGill University, 2016) and “‘As She Herself Has Rendered’: Resituating Gender Perspectives on Revelation’s ‘Babylon,'” in the volume New Perspectives on the Book of Revelation, edited by Adela Yarbro Collins (Peeters, 2017). She is currently completing a book manuscript on the book of Revelation and violent theodicy.

Icon of Perpetua and Felicitas by Élisabeth Lamour - no other use allowed without written permission from the artist.

Music featured in this episode included: “Nero’s Lyre" “Gloria Belli,” “Contemplationis,” “Sorrow” composed and performed by Michael Levy, and “March of the Lizards” composed and performed by Unstoppable Farmer.

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Constance Fenimore Woolson was one of the most popular writers of the 19th century. Though her life was full of drama, excitement and fame, for nearly a hundred years she’s been known only for the story of her death. Our guest, Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux, is changing that with her biography of Woolson, Portrait of a Lady Novelist. We join forces to help put this astonishingly brilliant writer “back in the canon.”

Olivia interviews Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist.

Guest Anne Boyd Rioux is the author or editor of six books about nineteenth-century American women writers, including Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, and Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist, named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune. She is a professor of English at the University of New Orleans and the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, one for public scholarship.

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Caroline Herschel lived a real-life Cinderella story. Except instead of marrying a handsome prince, she became a world-renowned astronomer! Her brutal childhood of servitude and misery stunted her growth, disfigured her face and blinded her in one eye. But Caroline Herschel’s story is an incredibly beautiful tale of triumph and achievement. Her astonishing work in Astronomy (she discovered a planet, for one!) led to international renown. And she lived happily ever after.

Join Katie with Joseph Middleton on location at the Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath, England. This episode also features excerpts from Caroline Herschel’s memoirs wonderfully performed by Kevin E Green for Librivox.

Guest Joseph Middleton is manager of the Herschel Museum of Astronomy and has worked in museums in Bath for over a decade, including at the famed No.1 Royal Crescent. He studied Fine Art at Falmouth University.

Music for this episode provided by the Herschel Ensemble.

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Alma Schindler Mahler was a brilliant composer, pianist, and “influencer” who has largely been remembered only for the men with whom she had relationships. Her musical compositions are finally beginning to be recognized for their brilliance and performed on stage in the past few years, and her reputation as a “femme fatale” is long overdue for an overhaul. The “It Girl” of turn of the century Vienna, Alma Schindler was a famed wit, a renowned beauty, and a gifted pianist whose highest ambition, despite the restrictions put on her musical education, was to be a composer. After giving up her own work to marry “rock star” composer Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler supported his career for nearly a decade until a series of tragedies led her to reclaim her own identity and creative work. After Gustav’s death, Alma Mahler would have several relationships and two more marriages, and her life would span a dizzying breadth of world events from Golden Age Vienna to a Sound of Music-style escape from the invading Nazi forces in France to Hollywood at the height of its glamour.

Olivia interviews acclaimed author Mary Sharratt about her new novel Ecstasy, about the extraordinary life of Alma Mahler. This episode also includes excerpts from “Art Sung, a collaborative stage performance celebrating the life and works of Alma Mahler, featuring Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver.

Guest Mary Sharratt is the award-winning author of seven historical novels and is “on a mission to write women back into history.” Ecstasy, her book about the life of Alma Mahler, was published in April 2018. Born in Minnesota, Mary lives with her Belgian husband in Lancashire, England. Her books span women’s history from the medieval visionary Hildegard of Bingen to Elizabethan poet Emilia Lanier to the Pendle Witches. Mary’s articles and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, and Historical Novels Review. When she isn’t writing, she’s usually riding her spirited Welsh mare through the Lancashire countryside.

Music featured in this episode included: “Waldseligkeit,” “Ansturm,” “Bei dir ist es Traut,” “Hymne” and “Ich wandle unter Blumen” recorded live during a performance of Art Sung by Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver, and “Laue Sommernacht” performed by Dr. Amanda Setlik Wilson.

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Sally Lunn was born in France, but moved to Bath, England in 1680 to escape religious persecution. She brought with her a special skill: baking delicious brioche-style bread. Developing her own unique recipe, she sold her buns in the streets of Bath, soon becoming famous for the “Sally Lunn Bun.”Fast-forward 350 years to the 1930s: a baker in Bath with a love of archaeology decided to excavate the ground beneath his own house. What he uncovered resurrected the story of Sally Lunn and revealed in microcosm the whole history of Britain! Come along on a tour of the oldest house in Bath and wander the streets of the historic town through our vivid soundscape.

Katie interviews guest Simon Lloyd-Williams, general manager of the Sally Lunn’s House restaurant and museum, on the site of her original bakery in Bath, England. Simon Lloyd-Williams has been the General Manager of Sally Lunn’s House in Bath for about a year. He has lived near Bath for the past eight years and previously worked as a chef.

You can find a modern recipe for a Sally Lunn bun here. If you’d like to dig deeper into the “did Sally Lunn really exist” debate, The Food Timeline is a great resource.

Music featured in this episode included “None Shall Plunder But I”, “The Merry Milkmaid,” “Blew Cap,” “Now the Fight’s Done” and “Amarillis” composed by John Playford and performed by Philip Serna. Dr Serna also runs the fantastic nonprofit Viols in our Schools which is dedicated to bringing Early Music to a wide audience.

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Claudia Jones (born Claudia Cumberbatch) was a journalist, Black Nationalist and prominent member of the American Communist Party. Emigrating from Trinidad to NYC at eight years old, she was an extremely well-known peace activist and worked toward civil rights and women’s rights in America. Arrested for giving a speech promoting peace and women’s rights, in 1955 she was deported to England. There she founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, continued her work fighting racism and sexism, and founded the famous Notting Hill Carnival to promote understanding between white Londoners and their Caribbean immigrant neighbors.

Guest Dr. Carole Boyce-Davies is Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University. She has held distinguished professorships at a number of institutions, including the Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Professor of Comparative Literary Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (Routledge, 1994) and Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (Duke University Press, 2008).

Music featured in this episode included: “Afro-Cuban Lullaby” arranged by Daniel Henderson, performed by Daniel Henderson and his Big Band, “Evening Glow” composed by Daniel Henderson performed by Daniel Henderson and his Big Band, “Oasis” composed by Jennifer Duerden, performed by Crosscurrent, and “Blinded” and “Me” composed and performed by Jeff Cuno.

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Living in Saxony 1100 years ago, in a culture much like the Vikings, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim probably witnessed violence against women all the time. Violence was a part of society, and she retreated to an intellectual life. But there, too, she found violence against women in the ancient Roman plays she was reading. If she couldn’t change society, at least she could change the plays! She rewrote them, altering the plots so that the women emerged victorious! Katie interviews Mark Damen, Professor of Classics at Utah State University and translator of several of Hrotsvitha’s plays.

Guest Mark Damen began studying Latin in junior high and has been at it ever since. He completed his BA in Latin at the University of Florida and his MA and PhD at the University of Texas at Austin where he focused his work on ancient comedy, the subject of most of his publications. Following his wife Fran Titchener who joined Utah State in 1987, he has taught classes on a wide range of subjects, including ancient history, myth and drama, classical literature, language and etymology, and even playwriting. In 1998 he was Utah’s CASE Professor of the Year.

Music featured in this episode included: “Karitas” composed by Hildegard von Bingen, performed by Maria Jonas and Pina Rücker, various music performed by Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch, and “Waehaell” composed and performed by Hrōðmund Wōdening.

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Bessie Margolin grew up in the New Orleans Jewish Orphan’s Home, was one of the first women to graduate from Tulane Law School and earned her PhD in Law from Yale University in 1932. Her groundbreaking work as Assistant Solicitor of Labor for the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act championed many of the wage and hour rights Americans take for granted today and enshrined in law the basic human dignity of American workers. She still ranks sixth for most arguments at the Supreme Court by a woman, and her brilliance in banter with the Justices is legendary. Margolin’s passionate dedication to her life’s work made an indelible impact on American legal history and the lives of ordinary Americans.

It also shaped the life of our guest Marlene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin. Trestman followed Margolin’s guidance and her model from fellow ward of the New Orleans Jewish Children’s service to study at a prestigious law school, and finally to admission at the Supreme Court.

Guest Marlene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin (LSU Press), is currently at work on a collective biography, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The History of New Orleans’s Jewish Orphans’ Home, 1855-1946. Both books draw on experience. Lawyer-turned-author Trestman, who has won funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, American Jewish Archives, Supreme Court Historical Society, and Texas Jewish Historical Society, had a personal relationship with Margolin prompted by common childhood experiences; Margolin grew up in the orphanage and Trestman was a ward of the successor agency.

Music featured in this episode by The New Hot 5, Jeff Cuno, Peak Duo, and Trialogo.

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Maria Ruiz de Burton was a writer, entrepreneur and businesswoman, and the first Mexican-American woman to publish a novel in English. Born in 1832 in Baja California, Mexico to a prominent Spanish family, Maria Amparo Ruiz was fifteen when the Mexican-American war ended and California became part of the United States. She married the commander of the American forces that invaded Baja shortly after the end of the war, and his career took them all over the United States, giving her an insider view at every level of American society. Her sentimental novels disguised pointed critiques of American culture and policy inside thrilling tales of love and intrigue. She spent most of her adult life fighting to regain legal rights to the land her family had owned for generations (essentially all of San Diego county). After her death, her books were forgotten for over 100 years, but were rediscovered in the 1990s and are now recognized as important examples of early Chicano literature.

Olivia interviews guest Maria Carla Sanchez, who is associate professor of English Literature and Women’s Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She is co-editor, with Linda Schlossberg, of Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion (NYU P 2000); author of Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America (U Iowa P 2008), as well as essays on women writers, pedagogy, and race relations; and an associate editor for College Literature. Her book-in-progress looks at nineteenth-century U. S. and Mexican literature, slavery, and genre.

Music for this episode provided by Ana Laura Allende, the Earth Stringband, Fiddlesticks, Andy Reiner, Jeff Cuno, and Marc Nelson.

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