What'sHerName
What’sHerName puts the women back into world history. Hosts Dr. Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle are professors-turned-podcasters (and sisters!) Weaving interviews with experts into vivid, nuanced biographies, What'sHerName women's history podcast tells the stories of fascinating women you’ve never heard of (but should have). Fascinating and funny, thought-provoking and insightful. New episodes biweekly Mondays.
Episodes
January 19, 2026 • 58 mins
On a day like any other in 1896, Shaaw Tláa was washing dishes in a Yukon creek. But something shiny caught her eye... and the Klondike Gold Rush began. It's an insane chapter of world history: 100,000 ill-prepared dreamers from all over the world trekked into the subarctic. But what would become of the indigenous woman who started it all? Shaaw Tláa, known to the world as Kate Carmack, was suddenly one the richest people in the wo...
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January 7, 2026 • 56 mins
Uno Chiyo rose to fame in 20th century Japan as a writer, designer, domestic goddess, and fashion icon - mostly by marketing herself as just a scandalous woman. But this "Bad Girl of Good Housekeeping" was so much more than just a writer of sexy stories. Guest Rebecca Copeland helps us uncover the secrets of this enigmatic, fascinating woman.
Music featured in this episode provided by Hirano Aiko, JackJack9, Zac Zinger, Doug Maxwe...
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December 15, 2025 • 55 mins
To snowy Ontario, Canada for our 2026 Christmas Special!
Living out the dream of countless exhausted women, Laura Lee Davidson retreated to an island in the middle of a lake, and lived there alone through a long Canadian winter.
But she wasn't really alone. Wild creatures became her friends, and she was constantly the recipient of neighborly kindness from folks on the mainland.
Laura Lee's 1922 book about her winter on the i...
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December 1, 2025 • 30 mins
At the recent Voices of Women Festival, we invited folks to pop into our ad-hoc recording box to record the 60-second story of their favorite historical woman. The results are a delight - and include some cast and crew members from Broadway's SUFFS!
The Voices of Women Festival was held in Salt Lake City, UT, in tandem with Broadway's SUFFS on tour. Thanks to Victor Hamburger and the Utah Women's History Initiative for making th...
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November 24, 2025 • 54 mins
Queen Mother Audley Moore was one of the most respected, most influential, longest-lasting influences on the US Black Nationalist movement, the Pan-African movement, the movement for Reparations, and the Black American organizing community in general across almost the entire 20th century.
So why have most of us never even heard her name?
Returning guest Ashley Farmer introduces Olivia to the incredible, unexpected force that was ...
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November 10, 2025 • 57 mins
In 1917, Katharine Gibbs rebounded from personal tragedy in an unusual way: she decided to train a subversive, feminist army. Nearly broke and with just a high school education, Gibbs trained women as executive secretaries, building a famous school in just a few years.
"Gibbs Girls" were so intelligent, competent, and polite, that no one could justify the dusty old notions that women belonged at home. The American workplace was c...
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October 27, 2025 • 56 mins
Catherine Crowe was a wildly acclaimed Victorian novelist,
playwright, social critic and …ghost hunter? Her novels were as popular
as Charles Dickens,’ and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Martineau, and
George Eliot were her ardent fans. And her pioneering catalog of ghosts
and the supernatural, The Night Side of Nature, was one of the first and most influential works to be adopted by the up-and-coming Spiritualist movement. So ho...
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September 30, 2025 • 57 mins
When a history-making Copper Age burial was unearthed in southern Spain in 2008, the world was stunned by the incredibly beautiful - and utterly unprecedented - artifacts found in the tomb of the so-called 'Ivory Man.' But fifteen years later, the archaeology world would be rocked by an even more astonishing discovery - that 5,000-year-old Ivory Man was actually an Ivory Lady! Archaeologist Marta Cintas Peña helps Olivia dig into t...
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September 15, 2025 • 58 mins
Violeta Parra needs no introduction in Latin America: not only did she record the greatest album in Chilean history, she also collected two thousand folk songs, danced in the Poor Circus, sang in the streets, and --incredibly-- exhibited at the Louvre. Over the years she also broke ...*checks notes*... 48 guitars over people's heads.
Discover the larger than life story of Violeta Parra with our guest Ericka Verba, author of Thank...
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August 21, 2025 • 59 mins
Leonora Sansay lived through the last chaotic years of the Haitian Revolution - but the book she wrote about it would tell an entirely unexpected story.
Join returning guest Dr. Maria Windell as we explore the fascinatingly "messy-complicated" life of novelist Leonora Sansay - and uncover a fascinating link with "almost-Founding Father" (and 21st century Broadway icon) ...Vice President Aaron Burr?
Music featured in this episod...
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August 4, 2025 • 58 mins
135 years ago, Norwegian immigrant Thea Foss lived in a ramshackle driftwood houseboat on the coast of Tacoma Washington. Kind, capable, and hard-working, she was an anchor for hundreds more immigrants during America's Gilded Age. Thea built the largest maritime company west of the Mississippi- but more than that, she was the heart of the community. (Plus there's a boat parade, a catastrophic fire, and a truly delightful cow.)
Jo...
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July 21, 2025 • 45 mins
In the 3rd century, a mysterious queen ruled the Kingdom of Yamatai (modern-day Japan) with a wise and steady hand. Her reign lasted almost 70 years - but what can we really know about her, when her people never wrote anything down? Anthropologist Laura Miller introduces Olivia to this elusive ancient queen.
Read more about Queen Himiko's continuing "rebirth" as a powerful cultural icon in Laura Miller's fascinating articles "Sear...
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July 7, 2025 • 56 mins
What if we could reopen a primordial spiritual portal, and summon peace on earth? For Eva Palmer Sikelianos in 1920s Greece, world peace wasn't a lofty dream-- it was an achievable goal. The key, Eva believed, was ancient Greek art, returned to Delphi. She had a bold plan, and if she could pull it off, she just might save the world.
Join Katie on location at the Benaki Museum in Athens, with Maria Dimitriadou, Historical Archives...
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June 23, 2025 • 57 mins
At the dawn of the Mughal Empire, a bold and brilliant Princess outlived three Emperors, and managed to create an adventurous, wildly unexpected life for herself during one of the most tumultuous eras in history. And luckily for the rest of us - she wrote it all down!
Award-winning historian Dr. Ruby Lal returns to the podcast to introduce us to the Vagabond Princess, Gulbadan Begum.
Music for this episode provided by Farya Fa...
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June 2, 2025 • 53 mins
The Roman Republic is collapsing and everything hangs in the balance. It's a political game of kill-or-be-killed, and Fulvia did not come to play.
You've heard of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra. But have you heard of Fulvia, who was in the eye of that infamous ancient Roman storm?
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Travel with us to ITALY, to walk in Fulvia's footsteps! Our new LOST WOMEN OF ITALY Tour is open for registration!
...
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May 19, 2025 • 44 mins
Queen Seondeok of Silla was revered for her wisdom, her compassion, and most importantly - her ability to use nature's signs to foretell the future! And with some truly audacious international diplomacy (and a resolute refusal to bend to patriarchal bullying) she would lay the foundations for the unification of The Three Kingdoms - now known as Korea. Karen Wang Diggs, author of The Book of Awesome Asian Women, helps us uncover the...
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May 5, 2025 • 49 mins
150 years ago, Irish farmer Johanna O'Brien created a secret recipe for black pudding. Today, her sausage is beloved by Michelin-star chefs across the world (and the recipe is still secret!).
Join Katie on location with Rory Copplestone at Clonakilty Blackpudding in Cork, to hear about a penniless girl who survived the Great Famine, built a thriving farm, and in her sunset years, created one of Ireland's iconic flavors.
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April 4, 2025 • 43 mins
Nobody knows her real name. But this "Uncontested Pirate Queen of the Western Mediterranean" certainly earned her title: the Sayyida al Hurra, the Free and Independent Woman. From child refugee fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, to ruling Governor of Tetouan, to the Sultana of Morocco - Sayyida was never one to follow the path society had laid out for her.
Author Laura Sook Duncome helps us uncover the mystery of the one and only ac...
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March 21, 2025 • 56 mins
She lived through the worst century in human history: the Black Death, famine, war, death and despair. So it was all the more surprising when Julian of Norwich rose from her deathbed saying she'd received a vision from God: All shall be well. How could that be true when the whole world seems to be falling apart?
Travel with us to 14th century England, to visit famed mystic Julian of Norwich. I know it sounds crazy, she says, but...
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March 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Mary Ware Dennett was one of the most important and influential activist for women's rights, contraception, free speech and sex education in early 20th century America. So why does her nemesis Margaret Sanger get all the attention?
Returning guest Stephanie Gorton helps Olivia unravel the mystery of this fascinating, forward-thinking woman.
Music featured in this episode provided by Asher Fulero, Kevin Macleod, The Mini Vandals,...
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