The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
Two women. Half the population. Several thousand years of history. About an hour. Join us on an award-winning journey through herstory! The History Chicks celebrates the lives of remarkable women from ancient times to the modern day, exploring women’s history in engaging episodes full of deep research, pop culture references, and the occasional tumble down a rabbit hole.
Episodes
November 25, 2025 • 62 mins
Once upon a time, an eleven-year-old girl named Sarah Rector struck it rich with a discovery that was perfectly timed for the rise of the automobile and the expansion of American manufacturing. After hitting the jackpot, she had to escape the minefields of greed, racism, politics, and public opinion in order to build a satisfying life for herself at last.
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November 12, 2025 • 104 mins
Viva l'Italia! We took 50 listeners on an epic journey filled with history, architecture, camaraderie and SO MUCH delicious food! From the ancient layers of Rome through the castles and hilltop villages of Tuscany, the art and influence of the Medici in Florence, to the romance of Venice, this trip was unforgettable!
The travelers join us, in their own voices, to tell you all about our adventures.
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November 6, 2025 • 23 mins
The American Revolution changed the way the world worked; the principles of governance in the new country laid the foundation for movements all over the world.
On November 16th, Ken Burns and his team premiere their 6-part documentary series on PBS called, as you might have guessed, "The American Revolution"
We had the opportunity to sit down with co-director Sarah Botstein to talk about the inspiration and impact of this confli...
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Betsy Ambler - and an interview with Sarah Botstein from the PBS documentary The American Revolution
October 24, 2025 • 124 mins
Life during the Revolutionary War was more than military strategy; there were plenty of battles to be fought at home. Betsy Ambler was a young teenager during the turbulent years, and through her records and letters, we can see the conflict though a perspective that has been little examined.
We also interview Sarah Botstein, the co-director (with Ken Burns) of the new documentary The American Revolution, premiering on PBS on Nove...
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October 8, 2025 • 118 mins
In 1860, Elizabeth Packard was committed to a mental institution by her husband - for YEARS - for the crime of speaking her mind . This practice was completely legal at the time, and she had no mechanism by which to free herself from confinement - despite the fact that she was completely sane. Her three-year ordeal would turn her into a powerful activist on behalf of rights for both the mentally ill and for married women, who at t...
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September 24, 2025 • 90 mins
We're going back to our 2013 coverage of this iconic artist who turned her pain, passion, fear, and unique outlook on life into remarkable and memorable art. Her bold subject and color choices (as well as her bold life choices) defied convention and sent her to the heights of international acclaim.
Our 2026 Field Trip to London sold out in record time, but you can get your name on the waitlist at Like Minds Travel.
Thanks to ou...
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September 10, 2025 • 140 mins
Catherine de Medici lived in a century defined by the the contributions of remarkable women, and she distinguished herself as one of the most remarkable of them all. No longer an apprentice in the art of intrigue, she was sharp and strategic and brave in ways that defied cultural expectations Whatever her reputation became, her capacity for calculated action was matched by her courage in the face of adversity, all focused on one...
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August 28, 2025 • 85 mins
As the last legitimate heir to a powerful family, Catherine de Medici was married at only 14 into one of the most powerful royal houses in Europe. The two halves of her story are VASTLY different, and here in Part 1, we are going to tell you about how she had no resources but INNER resources - and the character that developed from the circumstances in which she was placed.
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August 13, 2025 • 83 mins
It's field trip time again! We took 50 listeners with us to the cradle of our country - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Over the course of a long weekend, we absorbed the sites and stories we'd learned about in school, and learned about those figures whose vital contributions have faded over time.
Through our exposure to the artifacts, places and people at the heart of our country's founding, we began to comprehend that the freedoms...
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July 23, 2025 • 93 mins
Suzanne Valadon was born on the wrong side of the tracks, and the wrong side of the blanket, but grew up to be one of the It Girls of the Impressionist era. She traveled a unique journey to stardom by parlaying her career as an artist's model into an artistic career of her own.
This episode brought to you in part by:
Honeylove
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July 9, 2025 • 117 mins
The road to equality has never run smooth - in part 2, Alice Paul and the suffragists finally achieve their goal of a constitutional amendment giving women the vote - but not until a great deal of lobbying, schisms, sacrifice, and sheer willingness to go against the grain at every occasion.
Never one to rest for long, Alice then had a greater aspiration - an Equal Rights Amendment that would enshrine equality for women in the con...
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June 26, 2025 • 85 mins
Years before Alice Paul was even born, the women's suffrage movement began with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and others at the first women's rights convention in the US in 1848. The efforts of these early suffragists laid the groundwork for Alice Paul and her peers, and their stories will give you a better understanding of the long struggle to recognize a women's right to vote. This is a remastered revis...
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June 13, 2025 • 120 mins
Alice Paul was one of the most prominent activists of the 20th-century women's rights movement, who believed that moral authority always trumps the letter of the law; injustices must be called out and resisted as a matter of principle.
By hook or by crook; with personal sacrifice, determination, and a talent for spectacle, she moved the needle of public opinion through acts of resistance.
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May 28, 2025 • 93 mins
We lived the dream... and traveled to Paris in the springtime!
Fifty of our friends joined us in the City Of Light for forays into history, art, wine, architecture, shopping, camaraderie, and SO MUCH FROMAGE! Some of our friends join us here on the show to tell you the tale of our adventures.
(And the friendships we made along the way)
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May 14, 2025 • 142 mins
During our coverage of Miep Gies, we presented the story of the events that were happening in the world at large during WW2, closer in within the city of Amsterdam, and then to a smaller scale within the lives, offices and homes of the helpers.
Susan has in fact taken a pilgrimage to Amsterdam to visit the attic where Anne lived and Miep worked so hard to keep her safe.
But, since we cannot all be there in person, here is our A...
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April 23, 2025 • 123 mins
Miep Gies risked her life in order to help her Jewish friends hide from the Nazis during World War 2. In Part 2 of her story, we'll take you through the years of struggle and subterfuge, the dark day when the Secret Annex was raided, and how Miep saved Anne Frank's writings from destruction. Anne's diary is one of the most significant historical documents of the 20th century, providing a deeply personal account of life during the H...
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April 10, 2025 • 75 mins
In a land fraught with turbulence and oppression, Miep Gies helped to shelter and supply Anne Frank's family (and others) while they were in hiding from the Nazis; an act of civil disobedience that was, though illegal, the most moral of human endeavors.
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March 31, 2025 • 67 mins
To leave you with a bit of lagniappe for Women's History Month, we broke our usual format to sit down for a talk with Anne Sebba, author of the new book The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival. Anne tells us about some of the women in the only entirely female orchestra in any Nazi prison camp. She talks about her process of learning about these women, organizing their stories into this book, and about other biograph...
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March 26, 2025 • 196 mins
Puppet? Manipulating social climber? Misunderstood? Deeply in love? However you see her, the fact remains that a king abdicated his throne, defied his family, and lived in exile to marry the
twice divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. It sounds like a fairytale, but how does their happily ever after work out? This mega-episode combines both parts of our 2017 coverage of this controversial woman.
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March 20, 2025 • 98 mins
We continue the story of Nobel Prize winning environmentalist Dr Wangari Maathai, who defied convention, financial hurdles, and the violent opposition of her own government to make her Green Belt Movement into an enduring worldwide force for societal good. She and her colleagues planted almost 40 million trees and empowered tens of thousands of women across the world to discover their own power to improve their own communities… fro...
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