Our Favorites: Margaret Watts Hughes

Womanica

Acast Creative Studios

History, Society & Culture, Education

4.3 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Margaret Watts Hughes (c.1847-1907) was a Welsh singer, songwriter and scientist. She invented the eidophone, which allowed her to observe and visualize the human voice.

For Further Reading:

For the past six years, we’ve been telling the stories of women you may or may now know– but definitely should. This month, we’re bringing back our favorite Womanica episodes from across our back catalog. These are women throughout time and around the world who made their mark.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
0:07.3	For the past six years, we've been telling the stories of women you may or may not know about,
0:12.0	but definitely should. This month, we're bringing back our favorite Womanica episodes from
0:16.9	across the back catalog. These are women across centuries and around the world who made their mark.
0:24.0	With that, here's one of our favorite episodes.
0:30.0	Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
0:34.7	This month we're talking about women of sound.
0:39.7	These women dominated the airwaves,
0:45.7	innovating, documenting, and creating the audio landscape we live in today. Today's Wamanica knew a thing or two about high fidelity sound. In fact, she put her own voice to paper through
0:51.6	her invention of the idophone. Her new instrument straddled the line
0:55.8	between art and science, sound, and picture. Let's talk about Margaret Watts Hughes.
1:03.9	Margaret was born in Daoless Wales in the 1840s. At a young age, she discovered her gift for singing.
1:13.1	Her voice was so promising that local foundations pooled money for her to get professional training. When she was around 17 years old,
1:18.8	she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Margaret grew up as a young woman of Welsh
1:25.3	Society. She continued singing, got married, and founded a boy's home.
1:30.9	Margaret was also deeply religious and showed that devotion in her music.
1:35.6	She wrote Welsh church hymns and always opted for a religious gathering overperforming in a concert.
1:42.1	In the 1880s, Margaret found a new medium for her singing,
1:45.7	visual art. Margaret heard about physicist and musician Ernst Clodney and his work making
1:53.0	Claudney figures, patterns formed by resonance. By running a bow along a metal plate,
1:59.3	he could create intricate geometric patterns.
2:02.6	Margaret realized she could make her own patterns by visualizing the intensity and variety of her own voice.
	...

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