The Bones and Bobbins Podcast

S03E10: The Brattleboro Retreat Tower, a Victorian structure tucked away amongst the trees and boulders on a hiking trail in Vermont.

Haley goes solo this week with a tour of one of her new hometown's most notorious haunts, the Brattleboro Retreat tower. Note: The Brattleboro Retreat was formerly known as the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, and some historical references use that name.

Show notes: https://www.bonesandbobbins...

S03E06: The stories behind the names for full moons and how the moon does (or doesn’t) impact the human body.

Did you know that a blue moon is actually a thing, and that blood moons really do exist? Connect with your inner (North American) moon witch and prepare to be both baffled and delighted by the names we’ve decided to call each month’s full moon. Then, switch to your front-facing camera and examine the science and the spook...

S03E05: Abandoned Waterparks and Neverland Ranch.

The heyday of bad-idea waterparks, when the kids were probably drunk and their 1980s parents decided to just roll the dice on safety, and the dark and over-the-top remnants of Neverland Ranch. (Content warning: We primarily focus on the actual structures and items inside, but do acknowledge the abuse. If that’s something you’d prefer to avoid, skip ahead to Haley’s story.)

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S03E04: The Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain and a fascinating look into the history of fraternities and sororities in the United States.

Private clubs can be fraught with countless problematic behaviors, but our favorite find turned out to be charming, weird, and so successful that it ceased to exist. Meanwhile, back in the US, we learned that the story of the rise of fraternities is as old as the country itself.

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S03E02: The history of the valentine and the hypnotic love spell murderer, Dr. Carl Coppolino.

From penning sweet nothings to vinegar valentines, Natali explains why the history of these cards is far more creative–and more grown up–than today’s grade school-geared counterparts. Then, like a rain cloud over your lovenest, Haley ruins everything with a story of hypnosis, heartbreak (in the literal and figurative sense), two states,...

S03E01: “Princess” Alice Roosevelt, the irrepressible eldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, who was pretty much always up to no good, and Princess Alexandra of Bavaria, who was pretty much never up to no good, because she was quite sure that she’d swallowed an entire glass piano.

Choose your anxiety adventure: Attend an unchaperoned ball with Emily Spinach (the snake who is either a boa constrictor or a garter snake; u...

S02E23: Mary Sachs, the Merchant Princess of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Coco Chanel, who was very good at both designing clothes and being a horrifyingly terrible person.

Meet Mary Sachs, a single, immigrant woman who bought herself flowers and then built a department store empire that survived two world wars, and Coco Chanel (yes, that one), who is about two thousand percent more problematic and disappointing than we had imag...

S02E22: Historical ways to confirm death and the art and science of modern embalming practices.

It was really hard for people throughout history to tell exactly how dead the bodies of other people were, so some questionable decisions were made in the pursuit of confirmation. (Including one involving invisible ink and a very dramatic reveal!) But, now that we’re a bit better at making sure we’re not burying folks alive, that scien...

A Halloween bonus episode featuring Natali and the girls. ("The girls" being Natali's delightful and witchy teen daughters, who came to Haley's rescue!)

Once upon a Halloween week weary, a book deadline and a black cat shook things up dearly. So a witch grabbed her kids, all two, and lo chaos did ensue. Consider it a trick though meant as a treat, this episode comes with love and a bit un-neat. 

Show notes: https...

S02E21: Kate Warne, the heroic first woman Pinkerton detective, and Pearl Tytell, handwriting detective and trailblazing forensic document examiner.

When you need a tricky job done, you have to hire the best! As the first lady detective, Kate Warne’s work with the Pinkertons opened new investigative doors for the agency, helped foil a presidential assasination plot, and paved the way for the creation of the CIA. (We’re also told ...

S02E20: Slender Man and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Whether written at the dawn of a nation or crowd-sourced on the internet, all urban legends hold within them at least a tiny kernel of truth. Here’s what happens when those distorted stories stop being fiction and become real living nightmares.

(Heads up: The first story involves violence against children. Listen at your own discretion.)

Show notes:  https://www.bonesandbobb...

S02E19: Mrs. Margaret Smith-Wilkinson, nicknamed the Countess of Monte Cristo, and Lady Jane Lewson, the possible real life inspiration for Miss Havisham.

Come meet a hotel mogul turned high society con artist (who probably wasn’t a black widow), and the enigmatic walking fire hazard that might have inspired Dickens’ fictional jilted bride; two women whose actual lives are truly the stuff of fiction.

Show notes:  https://www.bon...