What'sHerName

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 1995 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. Our guest is Dr. Carole Boyce-Davies, Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University and author of Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones.

Living in Saxony 1100 years ago, in a culture much like the Vikings we are more familiar with, Hrotsvitha 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! Our guest is Mark Damen, Professor of Classics at Utah State University and translator of several of Hrotsvitha's plays.

Bessie Margolin grew up 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 the New Orleans Jewish Children's service to study at a prestigious law school, and finally to admission at the Supreme Court.

What'sHerName Women's History Podcast brings you fascinating women you've never heard of. 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. Our guest is Maria Carla Sanchez, associate professor of English Literature and Women's Studies at the University of North Carolina, Gree

A classic story of a young woman defying her parents to follow her heart, but with a fascinating Russian twist! Sahib Gizzatullina lived for the stage, introducing Russian audiences to theater for the first time in their lives. She and her penniless traveling theater troupe experienced all the passion, heartbreak, and drama that you’d expect from a roving band of actors. But they did it during Russia’s most turbulent time: through the reign--and murder--of Tzar Nicholas II, through both world wars, the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of the USSR. Our guest is Danielle Ross, Assistant Professor of Asian History at Utah State University where she teaches pre-modern and modern Islamic and world history.

Sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porter were wildly popular writers--among the most widely-read writers in Regency England. (Yes, more popular than Jane Austen!) Their novels were on every British bookshelf, their poetry was popular and acclaimed, and Jane Porter's historical novel The Scottish Chiefs would retain its popularity for nearly 150 years. So how did these bestselling icons of British literature end up nearly penniless and living as "professional houseguests" without a home to call their own? And why did the eternal fame they expected elude them in the end? In today's episode, meet the sister novelists whose lives were every bit as turbulent and dramatic as the historical novels they wrote. Our guest is Devoney Looser, author of the award-winning book The Making of Jane Austen and prominent Jane Austen scholar.

Are public debates like the feuds we see on Twitter and Facebook a product of modern society? Gargi Vachaknavi has long been remembered in India for her brilliant performance in a public debate 2,700 years ago. Her story offers a refreshing model for how to engage in heated ideological discussions: she didn’t just throw down an epic victory, humiliating her opponent. She did something much more clever! Our guest is Ravi M. Gupta, the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University and Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in England.

Rose Emily Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1973. After spending her childhood in Australia and New Zealand, she fled an abusive husband for California in 1907. Arriving in America, she promptly changed her name, her age, her nationality and her marital status and launched her new life as Lola Ridge, radical poet, anarchist organizer, and editor of the influential avant-garde magazine Broom. At her popular Greenwich Village salons she welcomed the country's most influential artists and thinkers and challenged them to define a uniquely American style of poetry and art. Her unconventional life, radical activist work and influential writing should have placed her alongside literary giants (and friends) William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Jean Toomer, but the shifting political climate and her first would-be biographer's failure to produce any actual writing meant that for decades she has been almost completely forgotten. Our guest, Guggenheim-award-winning writer Terese Svoboda, is working to remedy this tragic erasure. Her critically acclaimed biography, Anything that Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet is bringing Lola Ridge back into our American narrative.

Nine hundred years ago, Hildegard of Bingen was given by her parents to the Catholic Church as a child. She was literally “walled up” in a tiny convent, completely cut off from the outside world. But over the course of her long and varied life, she emerged from the walls to embrace the world. She founded her own convents, and traveled across Europe on preaching tours. She spent decades caring for the sick and infirm, resulting in her seminal medical text that endured for centuries. She is also much celebrated today as a composer: she wrote hauntingly beautiful music that was rediscovered just 100 years ago. But she is perhaps most famous for her vivid and prophetic religious visions. She did what her visions told her to do, even if it meant defying the Pope himself. Our guest is Professor Alice Chapman, author of Sacred Authority and Temporal Power in the Writings of Bernard of Clairvaux and Associate Professor of Medieval History in the History Department at Grand Valley State University.

Adelaide Herrmann ruled the stage for fifty years as one the brightest stars of the Golden Age of Magic. After the death of her husband, renowned magician Herrmann the Great, Adelaide took center stage and toured for thirty years as one of the most famous magicians in the world. She was more well-known than her contemporary Houdini, and she continued performing until her death at age seventy-nine, when she was inexplicably forgotten for nearly a century. Our guest is Merlin-Award-Winning Magician, Mentalist, and Anthropologist Paul Draper. Draper appears regularly on television and tours worldwide as a magician and entertainer.

Mary Lou Williams was one of the most innovative, creative, groundbreaking musicians in the history of jazz. She was a brilliant and prolific composer and uniquely gifted pianist whose influence spans nearly the entire timeline of jazz music, but her name is almost never listed among the "giants of jazz." Although prejudice kept her from achieving the recognition and fame she deserved during her lifetime, her contributions cement her legacy as a true pioneer of American music. Our guest is Carol Bash, producer and Director of the brilliant documentary Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band.

Four hundred years ago, Margaret Cavendish dared to contemplate the biggest philosophical questions of her day. Brilliant and bold, she wrote 21 books despite being dismissed or mocked by the almost entirely male intellectual community. A famously eccentric dresser, she and her husband hosted high-society parties at their fantastical castle, but she was also paralyzed by bashfulness and dreaded talking to people. She hoped that her intellectual works would lead to eternal fame, but she remained quite ignored until recent scholars dug her books out of the shadows. Our guest Dr. Rachel Robison-Greene is the co-editor of eleven books on pop-culture and philosophy and teaches philosophy at Weber State University.

Margaret Brown (who was renamed Molly after her death by the playwright Meredith Wilson) is often cited as the quintessential American rags-to-riches story. Born to poor Irish immigrants in Missouri, Margaret went on to become one of the wealthiest women in the country. She cemented her place in history through her heroism on the disastrous maiden voyage of the Titanic, but her life story is a compelling and unusual tale of character, compassion and just the right amount of bull-headedness. Her story is fully worthy of the many films, books and musicals which have borne her name (even if that isn't really her name, and most don't in any way resemble her real story). Discover the remarkable woman behind the myth of the "Unsinkable Molly Brown." Interview with Jamie Melissa Wilms, Education Director and Outreach Coordinator at the Molly Brown House Museum, recorded on location at the museum in Denver, Colorado.

Te Puea Herangi was one of the most important and influential Maori leaders of the 20th century. Born into the family of the Maori King, she was a tireless activist for her people. Her work to assure economic prosperity in the Waikato region, her fierce battles for justice for Maori communities harmed by illegal land seizures, and her passionate dedication to Maori cultural revival assure that she will long be remembered as a critical voice in New Zealand history. Dr. Gina Colvin of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand is our guest. Music by the students of Te Roopu Kapa Haka o Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi Marae.

What'sHerName Women's History Podcast: Mary Lemist Titcomb was a pioneering librarian at the turn of the 20th century, when public libraries were first appearing in America. Believing strongly in the power of books, especially for children in far-flung places, she invented America’s first Bookmobile: a horse-drawn, specially constructed book-wagon to bring books to remote farms in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her triumphs over prejudice and disaster resulted in nationwide bookmobile programs that continue to affect the lives of millions globally. Our guest is Sharlee Mullins Glenn, award-winning author of Library on Wheels, the new children's biography of Titcomb and her Book Contraption.