Spiritualism
Plastic Shamans and Spiritual Hucksters: A History of Peddling and Protecting Native American Spirituality
In the late 20th century, white Americans flocked to New Age spirituality, collecting crystals, hugging trees, and finding their places in the great Medicine Wheel. Many didn’t realize – or didn’t care – that much Read more…
Spiritualism
Julia’s Bureau: The Temperance Virtuoso, the Father of Journalism, and Life after Death in the Spiritualist Anglo-Atlantic
For three years before his untimely death on the Titanic, British newspaper man W. T. Stead gathered the bereaved and curious in a room in Cambridge House so they could communicate with the dead. Several Read more…
Spiritualism
Cheesecloth, Spiritualism, and State Secrets: Helen Duncan’s Famous Witchcraft Trial
Helen Duncan was charged under the 1735 Witchcraft Act, but her case was no eighteenth-century sensation: she was arrested, charged, and ultimately imprisoned in 1944. Of course, in 1944, Britain was at war, fighting fascism Read more…
Uncategorized
Domesticity and Depression: Kentucky Coal Mining, Song, and Organizing During Bloody Harlan
This is a special episode researched and written by one of our interns, Olivia Langa. To find out more about the everyday lives of women in coal mining families we must look at the songs Read more…
Animals
One Medicine: Animal Experiments and the Making of Modern Medical Science
The interplay between human and veterinary medicine was incredibly common by the second half of the 19th century. While human medicine and veterinary medicine were distinct professions, they were inextricably linked in the latest experimental Read more…
