Episode 224: Mary McCleod Bethune, Part Two

Posted 9 March 2023 by
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Circa 1949 via LOC

When we left Mrs. Bethune in Part One, she was improving and growing her school campus and helping her entire community along the way. Now she’s going to kick it into high gear: a national stage, increased organizational involvement, presidential appointments, and turning her school from one building and five students…to a co-educational college. She stood on picket lines, sat in committees, campaigned for the American Red Cross, and founded the National Council of Negro Women. She was an advisor to presidents, helped form the United Nations, ran a government agency during the FDR years, and was on the ground floor of civil rights issues that would build throughout the century and beyond…and those are just some of the things we talk about, there was so much more work she did that it made us wonder how she got it all done in a lifetime. Not everything she touched was a success, but as a model of how to warm hearts and minds to bring education and equality to the forefront of both, she was a lifelong success.

Mary McLeod Bethune died on May 18, 1955, at the age of 79, the work she did is still rippling around the world to this day. She is buried on the campus of her beloved institution, Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Time Travel With The History Chicks

Books!

Emma Gelders Sterne
By Rackham Holt
Dr. Ashley N. Robinson
Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long
Dr. Ida E. Jones
By Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune (Collection of her writing)

Andrea Broadwater

Web!

You can visit Mrs. Bethune’s former home in Washington, it’s a National Historic Site and while, at the time of recording, her former home on the campus of Bethune-Cookman is closed, it is set up for tours when it reopens if you find yourself in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Bethune-Cookman University not only has a lot of information on Mrs. Bethune, but it’s also a major part of her legacy! Here’s a starting spot, the history of the school, but poke around and you’ll see her all over the place. Check out the Athletics page for a delightful photo of her with the 1924 football team and there are tons of rabbit holes to tumble down in their Oral History Collection.

National Women’s History Museum has an entry for her, so one might assume once they become a brick-and-mortar, Mrs. Bethune will have a place. While they have an amazing website, the museum is staging it’s first physical exhibit this March 2023 at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in D.C. Here’s a page where you can get more information on that: National Women’s History Museum

The NCNW is still a very active organization, find out more at this link: NCNW

And here’s information and photos of her statue in Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.

You should read her beautiful last will and testament, it’s available on the Bethune-Cookman University website.

We talked briefly about nurse Frances Reed Eliott Davis, here’s a place to start learning more about her!

Moving Pictures!

Excerpt from Bethune21 documentary on Vimeo

There are still spaces to join us in London this September 2023, get more information and sign up at Like Minds Travel

End music, Keep On by Kat Web via iLicense Music. Listen on Spotify

Episode 223: Mary McLeod Bethune, Part One

Posted 23 February 2023 by
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Miss Bethune as a young teacher via LOC

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, or “Mrs. Bethune” because this is a woman who requires our respect, touched almost every aspect of women’s and civil rights in the first half of the 1900s. She was, quite simply, born to carry the light for others to follow. From African American voting rights to suffrage to education, social work, and beyond, she was there there for all of it and there is no way her life and impact can be put into one episode, we need two.

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Episode 222: Frances Perkins, Part Three

Posted 26 January 2023 by
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We left Frances as she ascended to a top spot as the Industrial Commissioner of the state of New York, under governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was going toe-to-toe in the press with President Herbert Hoover about the state of the economy. He said it was turning, she was proving he was lying. Pretty bold of her, non?

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Episode 221: Frances Perkins, Part Two

Posted 9 January 2023 by
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Frances and her tricorn hat du jour, in 1915. Library of Congress

We knew Frances’ life would take more than one episode, but we didn’t think that it would take three, boy were we wrong! Part Two begins just after Frances’ witnessing of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire and it’s impact on the deepening of her resolve to use her skills for the betterment of American citizens. She began in New York State government, first under Governor Al Smith and then Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She used her intelligence, honesty, and connections to help millions of New Yorkers, and setting an example for women along the way. We also explore her life as a married woman and as a mother, too, she wasn’t all business, you know!

First as a member of the New York State Industrial Commission, and then as the Commissioner of that 1800-employee department, Frances received a crash, hands-on course in workplace issues, specifically Labor v. Management disputes. She researched all the angles, faced a great deal of dangers, and created solutions (and laws to back them up) to make workplaces safe and compensation fair for employees. She also was able to focus a great deal of time on orchestrating legislation that gave women and children workers the safety nets that Unions were able to provide for men.

We take Frances through to her public battles with President Herbert Hoover as she saw the finances for the average family about to take a severe hit in the late 1920s, something he and his government denied. But, as we all know, it’s going to be really hard to deny what happened in that regard in 1929.

Like, impossible.

In Part Three, we’ll take her through the years when she was able to make significant and lasting changes on a federal level–changes still in place today. All media recommendations with be on the shownotes for that episode, although we do talk about this episode on Lillian Gilbreth from 2015 that you might want to listen to before then.

Episode 219: Frances Perkins, Part One

Posted 16 December 2022 by
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Frances Perkins led a very long, very active, and very productive life as a social worker and workers’ rights advocate, and as the first woman ever appointed to a United States Federal Cabinet position. One episode just won’t cover it all, and, trust us, you need to hear it all!

Fannie Coralie Perkins was born on April, 10, 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the oldest of two daughters of Frederick and Susan Perkins. In this episode we’ll take you first through her early life, mostly based in Worcester (it’s pronounce “wus-ter,” trust us) Massachusetts and at the Perkins family homestead in Newcastle, Maine, where her very wise and influential Grandma Cynthia lived.

Next we talk about her college years at Mount Holyoke College where she really had the ultimate college experience. Educated, driven, and brave, she went forth to a life as a social worker…only to be turned away. She wasn’t done learning yet!

We’ll take you through her teaching days in Chicago where her mind was blown by all the amazing work done at Chicago Commons and Hull House, two settlement houses, where she volunteered her time and cut her social working teeth. We’ll follow her to her first paid social work gigs in Philidelphia and New York City, her post-graduate education, her first experience in worker’s rights advocacy and up to the tragedy that not only changed her life, but laser focused her work.

We leave you as she has built her experience to know what she doesn’t know, know how to learn what she doesn’t know, and who to work with to turn her ideas for social change into law. She’s fueled and empowered to go ahead and build her vision of a better country, enacting reforms that affect each of us, even today.

Time Travel With The History Chicks

We referenced several former podcast subjects during this, but the two episodes that we would like to point you to right now are our coverage of Jane Addams, and The Bowery Boys episode and article about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

The rest of the links and media recommendations with be on the shownotes for Part Two of Frances’ story! JK, look for them in the shownotes for Part Three!

Episode 217: Pocahontas, Revisited

Posted 23 November 2022 by
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The only image of her done in her lifetime and this was toward the end of that. Marketing materials of the Virginia Company

In honor of both Native American Heritage Month and American Thanksgiving, we are taking a look back at the life of this woman who did save lives, but not the one the (very popular animated) movie wants you to think.
For the shownotes to this episode, please click on over to 2017 HERE
For information and activities focused on Native American Heritage Month, here is a great one.

Episode 217: Ida Lewis

Posted 14 November 2022 by
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Ida Lewis circa 1870 via wikicommons

Ida Lewis was a heroine…but she was also a sister, daughter, friend, and dedicated lighthouse keeper, a job where she was uncommonly dedicated and uniquely qualified in the best way imaginable.

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Episode 215: New England Field Trip Travelogue

Posted 2 November 2022 by
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In October of 2022, 44 travelers (and a flock of Seagulls) set off to head back in time to autumnal New England. These are their stories (and mini-history lessons, heartwarming life moments, trivia, and societal observations)

The leaves were peaking in golds and reds; the air was crisp (or cold if you were from a warmer climate) when Boston and Newport opened their doors for us. From our intro dinner at America’s oldest tavern, Bell in Hand, to a sailboat cruise of Newport Harbor, to our final dinner together at Ristorante Fiore in Boston we gobbled up history with each step.

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Episode 214: Nell Gwynn

Posted 6 October 2022 by
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Nell, circa 1675 by Peter Lely

First off, please know that this episode contains a very loud LITTLE EARS warning, so we do ask that adults preview it to decide if it’s appropriate for the kids in their life. Nell was a woman who grew up in poverty, learned how to charm people from a very young age, and found success in the culture in which she lived as an actress and a mistress to King Charles II of England. (There is a lot of sex and quotes have words in them that we don’t ordinarily use but it’s impossible to tell her story without these elements.) (more…)

BONUS! A Conversation with Liza Powel O’Brien

Posted 28 September 2022 by
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Our new podcast girlfriend and host of Significant Others Podcast, Liza Powel O’Brien (Conan is her husband) (Yes, that Conan O’Brien.)

 

This isn’t a new thing for us, we just thought that it would be fun to have a conversation with another female history podcaster, and Liza graciously accepted. It’s not an interview, we don’t do those, it’s more like listening to the conversation at the next table in a coffee shop. We talk podcasting and interests and…well, just give a listen. (more…)