The History Chicks

Imagine that you had ideas that were so radical for your time that it would take a couple of hundred years for them to be accepted? Can you imagine that your lifestyle would be given more attention in those years than your message? Can you imagine that your most important work was often mispronounced? Such was the life of the woman we spoke of this week, Mary Wollstonecraft.

In this minicast, we have a little discussion about the history of Betty Crocker. (You know she wasn’t real, right? We’re going with the fictional character theme.) You may just end up wanting to go bake something. Why don’t you bake something WHILE you listen?

Once a season we take a slight break from reality and sit down for a chat about a fictional woman. This season we chose not one, but a group: The 50’s TV Mom - and their slightly more real counterparts, the 50's suburbanite.

Clara Barton. We have received a lot of requests to discuss the life of this teacher, nurse, founder of the American Red Cross and legendary humanitarian. In this episode we finally get to do just that.

Our friend Queen Victoria would probably not have existed without the story of a Princess that came before her—Charlotte Augusta of Wales. Charlotte would have become Queen had she outlived her father and grandfather, but she died during childbirth.

Welcome to the second part of our conversation about Queen Victoria. So much to talk about, we just couldn’t keep it to an hour!

We begin our second season with a woman whose life will take us two episodes to discuss. She wasn’t just black dresses, and talking about herself in the third person, you know! She led a very colorful and unique life! This woman was so influential that she had an entire AGE of improvements, fashion, behavior (and some really fantastic houses) named after her.

Just a quick introduction to the next few months of shows; including the results of our Guaranteed Content Poll!

In our second vacation postcard, Beckett takes you through a day of visiting local museums. And pie. Wish you were here!

Our first postcard, from Susan: Greetings from Missouri! I didn’t get too far from my house before I stumbled across our first postcard subject. Beautiful, multi-hued Victorian homes are just waiting to be admired all over the country, and I got to do just that in Plattsburg, a small town halfway between Kansas City and St. Joseph.

This season wrap-up and FAQ episode is a question and answer grab bag. We posted a call for questions which we answer in this episode, as well as some odds and ends we thought would be fun.

We wrap up our Gilded Age series with a lively discussion about one of the first wave of Gilded Age Heiresses- an American born woman who gave birth to a son who would eventually be known as one of the greatest Britons in history.

Not everyone in the Gilded Age had a wardrobe of Worth dresses and the luxury of boredom; an army of servants were required behind the scenes to ensure the Dollar Princesses' success.

Call them whatever you want; Gilded Age Heiresses, Dollar Princesses, Buccaneers... Spanning about a twenty-year time period, wealthy American ladies of marrying age headed across the pond to snag the ultimate in opulent accessories: a noble title.

We try an experiment - and discuss Martin Scorsese's 1993 movie "The Age of Innocence" - a film based on a book by Edith Wharton, and set within the formal world of Mrs. Astor's Gilded Age New York.