Her Half of History
Why don't women's clothes have more pockets? Who are the female writers and artists my education forgot to include? How does a woman go about seizing control of her government? What was it like to be a female slave and how did the lucky ones escape? When did women get to put their own name on their credit cards? Is the life of a female spy as glamorous as Hollywood has led me to believe? In short, what were the women doing all that time? I explore these and other questions in this thematic approach to women's history.
Episodes
April 24, 2025 • 26 mins
Gandhi is among the most documented figures of the 20th century. Most of these sources reveal astonishingly little about his wife Kasturba. But he actually credited her with teaching him the principles of nonviolent resistance. This episode tells the story of her transformation from an ordinary Hindu girl to a woman leading protests against the British Empire.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and ...
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April 17, 2025 • 25 mins
Robert Schumann is a big name in classical music. However, in his own lifetime, Robert Schumann wasn't “the” Schumann. His wife was the famous one. Clara Schumann was an internationally known virtuoso who delighted audiences for 60 years, including the periods before, during, and after her eight pregnancies, Robert's illness, and eventual death.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Suppo...
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April 10, 2025 • 23 mins
The Wright brothers invented the world's first powered flying machine. Sure, they were geniuses, but even geniuses need a little help. Their sister Katharine managed the bicycle business, managed the media, managed the public, and more than pulled her weight in the family.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page for bonus episodes, polls, and a general fe...
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April 3, 2025 • 1 min
It's a bye-week for the podcast, but I am announcing the winner of the gift certificate giveaway for Women's History Month, 2025. Many thanks to everyone who participated!
Come back next week for regular content and the story of Katharine Wright, sister of Wilbur and Orville Wright.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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March 27, 2025 • 21 mins
When her husband died, Jo was left with a small child, no job, not much money, and a lot of canvases that weren't worth very much. It was the effort of a lifetime, but Jo transformed van Gogh's artwork from something few people wanted to an international sensation.
If you're listening before the end of March, 2025 there's still time to get in on the Women's History Month Giveaway. Take a look at Patreon or my website below to sho...
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March 20, 2025 • 19 mins
Vincent van Gogh is one of history's best known artists, but he wasn't during his own lifetime. His rise to fame came slowly through the efforts of the woman who inherited the vast majority of his paintings. Jo van Gogh-Bonger was a Dutch girl who considered herself not very well educated about art, and yet she managed to weave her way through the art world and bring us Vincent's exquisite beauty.
If you're listening before the en...
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March 13, 2025 • 25 mins
Alfred Nobel's original plans for his famous prize included physics, chemistry, medicine, and literature. But not peace. He thought the peace movement was ridiculous, a bunch of dreamers with no workable plan. But his friend Bertha von Suttner was the most famous person in the peace movement, and she played a big role in changing his mind.
To celebrate Women's History Month, please support the show on my Patreon page (https://bit....
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March 6, 2025 • 8 mins
March has been Women's History Month for decades! But this year, some government agencies and corporations have thrown its existence into doubt. Today's episode is a break from my usual. It's an opinion-editorial on why I think we still need women's history. Badly.
This originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 1, 2025.
To celebrate Women's History Month, please support the show on my Patreon page (https://bit.l...
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February 27, 2025 • 26 mins
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the music for the Nutcracker, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, multiple symphonies, several operas, and more. He is among the most popular composers of the 19th century. But as usual he didn't do it alone.
He and his friend Nadezhda von Meck had a 13-year correspondence of 1200 letters. They shared (almost) everything with each other, but they never actually … met. ...
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February 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the quintessential child prodigy. He performed for European royalty at the tender age of six. But he wasn’t the only child prodigy in his family or even the first. Big sister Nannerl led the way as his first role model and collaborator. Some of his keyboard music was written with her in mind as the performer, and after his death she worked with his first biographer and publisher to preserve his legacy.
...
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February 13, 2025 • 25 mins
Ben Franklin was the most famous American of his generation. He had a glittering career as a printer, a writer, a statesman, a diplomat, an inventor, a scientist, and more. But he didn’t
do all of this without help, and he admitted as much himself. His wife Deborah was his partner in business when he was home, and kept it all running herself when he was not. She deserves enormously more credit than she usually gets.
Visit the webs...
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January 30, 2025 • 21 mins
Henry VIII was married to his first wife for 23 years. It took him only 15 years to blow through the next five wives. I covered the first two wives in episode 14.5. In this episode, I cover:
Wife #3: Jane Seymour, who died of childbirth after providing Henry with his heir
Wife #4: Anne of Cleves, who Henry called "loathsome" and was richly rewarded for going quietly
Wife #5: Catherine Howard, who in modern times would be called ...
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January 23, 2025 • 25 mins
If Henry had stopped at two wives, my guess is that your average person wouldn't know any more about him than they do about Henrys #1-7. But he did have six wives, and that made him so famous that people write award-winning musicals about him. Or rather about his wives. He is
the connecting thread, but they are the story.
This episode tells the stories of the amazing Catherine of Aragon, who was married to him for longer than the...
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January 16, 2025 • 27 mins
Isabella was a force of natura before Columbus ever set foot in her court. As a teenager, she negotiated her own marriage contract, married behind her guardian's back, and seized the throne of Castile with questionable legitimacy. As queen and in partnership with her husband, she defeated first Portugal and then Granada.
At a time when all of Christianity felt threated by the various Muslim countries, she made the Iberian peninsu...
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January 2, 2025 • 18 mins
Genghis Khan's daughters are shadowy figures: we don't know exactly how many there were or what all of their names were, but historians have pieced together bits and pieces of a story. Enough to know that Genghis valued his daughters highly and they played an essential role in his strategy. An army-on-the-move needs someone to rule the lands they've already conquered, and the Great Khan's daughters were born for that.
Visit the web...
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December 26, 2024 • 25 mins
Alexander the Great conquered much of the known-to-him world in lightning speed. But he probably couldn't have done it without the support of his mother, Olympias, who served as queen, regent, and many other roles. Her name was dragged through the mud by ancient writers who struggled with the idea of a powerful woman. That means it is hard to sort out the truth from the slander, but this is an attempt to do so.
Visit the website (h...
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December 19, 2024 • 23 mins
Constantine the Great had a long list of accomplishments, including making Europe Christian for centuries to come. But he didn't do it alone. He had a good mom. This is the story of Helena, a girl from a low-class background who rose to be the most important woman in the empire. And she had a lot to do with making Europe Christian too.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show...
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December 5, 2024 • 24 mins
For a very long time, Santa was a single man. His wife occasionally peeped out of the historical record, but not often. Until a host of magazine writers in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s decided that enough was enough. Mrs. Claus appeared with an astonishingly feminist stance on who was doing the real work of Christmas. (Hint: It wasn't Santa.)
The closing music is by Clavier Clavier, available at Pixabay.
I have a new shop full of me...
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November 21, 2024 • 43 mins
I am currently on break preparing Series 14, The Woman Behind the Man. For today, I am bringing you an interview I did a few months ago with Shea LaFountaine of the History Fix podcast. If you haven’t tuned into her show, you should give it a try! She and I connected over the surprisingly interesting history of laundry, but she has at the time of this recording, 86 other episodes on subjects that vary from the history of the Nazca ...
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November 7, 2024 • 4 mins
The voters have spoken! The topic of Series 14 will be: The Woman Behind the Man.
I’ll be looking at women across the ages who had a hand (sometimes a major hand) in the success of some very well-known men. I’m hoping you’ll have heard of the men: I’m choosing the blockbusters. But I suspect the women you have not heard of. Most of them anyway.
The research has already begun, but if you know of a woman who should be included, pleas...
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