Bertha Palmer
Bertha Palmer wore a lot of hats: Chicago socialite, patron of the arts, real-estate magnate, and all-around Gilded Age powerhouse. Her leadership of the Women’s Building of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition drew praise from all over the world. (and criticism, too!) We’ll also tell you about her influence on Impressionist art in America, and her surprising third act as a Sarasota land developer.
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Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland did not have the longest reign, nor was she a dynamic ruler full of personality and dazzle, but she was better than that. She quietly had a long and loving marriage, suffered the emotional toll of 17 pregnancies and the deaths of the only three children that survived infancy, and instituted changes that are still relevant today. She was a popular and thoughtful monarch who brought stability to a country that had seen more than its share of chaos, and she did that despite England’s involvement in a war that lasted nearly the entirety of her reign.
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We finish up our do-over coverage of the (very long) life of Laura Ingalls Wilder! This episode covers the years when she was writing her iconic Little House series- from conception within the pages of a memoir, to the business of writing the books, to the many years it took her to write the series. And we talk about the involvement of her daughter, the prolific writer Rose Wilder Lane, in the creation of the books.
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In this episode, we cover Laura’s life outside her Little House series, from her early and traumatic years of marriage, to her, Almanzo, and daughter Rose’s life in Mansfield, Missouri. After the family’s tough years of settling in the Ozarks and establishing their farm, Rocky Ridge, Laura began a work as both a newspaper columnist, a Farm Loan officer, and manager of their family farm. While Almanzo worked farming and building a cozy house for the family, Laura worked her tushie off taking in boarders, cooking for railroad travelers, selling eggs and butter…anything that would create an income.
In Part One we talked about her childhood. In this, Part Two, we cover the years as she established herself as a writer and developed a writing partnership with her world traveling, freelance writer daughter, Rose. In Part Three, we will get to the writing of the books that would engrave Laura’s name in history, and their own story that lived long after Laura’s ended.
All media recommendations and sources will be listed on the final shownotes in two weeks.
End song: When all is done by OTE
