When the Spanish conquered Mesoamerica, they conquered cacao. Mixing the bitter cacao seeds with sugar and other spices – spices that were often also obtained through European conquest – the Spanish created a commodity that stimulated the European comestible market. Read more…
Wherever you have a military, you will have sex. Whether it’s an occupied city, an encampment in a theater of war, or a military base here in the United States, anywhere you have a large population of young men, stationed Read more…
When and where public baths have been popular, they’ve meant different things to different cultures. They might be sites for socializing, religious purification, spiritual/bodily cleanliness, relaxation/pampering, public health/hygiene, homosocialiality, and, of course, sex, or some combination of those things. At Read more…
Listen, download, watch on YouTube, or scroll down for the transcript. Related Episodes: Coverture: Married Women and Legal Personhood in Britain Marriage in America: A Brief History What’s in a Name? North American Naming Conventions and the “Death” of Patrilineal Lines Read more…
Niagara Falls was once known as the Honeymoon Capital of the World. Join us as we explore this unique phenomenon. Everything has a history, even honeymoons. Listen, download, watch on YouTube, or scroll down for the transcript. Related Posts: Marriage in Read more…
Though they’re rarely at the fore of the story, the women of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising were essential to the rebellion. They carried messages and supplies, provided cover fire in battles, and served on the front lines. In this episode Read more…
This week we’re delving into penal violence in early modern Europe. For most people, we suspect, their familiarity with torture, corporal punishment, and execution for capital crime is confined to some gnarly anecdotes, perhaps a few graphic movie scenes, a Read more…
Dueling seems crazy to us today. Two men take ten paces, turn to face each other, and stand still while they shoot to kill, all the while following strict rules. But while it’s easy to think of duels as simply Read more…
In November 1910 two tragic events occurred in Rocksprings, Texas, a tiny rural community almost 200 miles east of Austin and San Antonio. Within the span of a few days, two individuals were violently murdered, one killed point blank by Read more…
Just over one month after the first shots of the Civil War were fired, three enslaved black men got into a row boat and paddled across the James River from mainland Virginia to the Union-occupied Fortress Monroe. Whether they knew Read more…
Assistant Professor of History at Mercyhurst University. Writes about sex, gender, and policing in modern Ireland, 2019 article in the Journal of the History of Sexuality. Other history side hustles include Nursing Clio and New York State Association of European Historians. Will tell you about maple creemees, just ask.
Clinical Assistant Professor of History for the University at Buffalo and Associate Director of UB Center for Disability Studies. Author of Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North. Editor at Nursing Clio. Has participated in Civil War reenactments, and still has the petticoats to prove it.
Visiting Assistant Professor at Niagara University and independent information professional. Studies lactating women for hire in the Atlantic world during the Revolutionary era. Has won lots of really cool grants and fellowships, 2015 article on wet-nursing ads in the Journal of Family History. Unhealthy obsession with true crime podcasts.
Assistant Professor of History at SUNY Brockport. Writes about Progressive Era women and the formation of the welfare state in the US. 2019 article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Texas native who married her tattoo artist (not just for the free tattoos).
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