Women of Controversy: Marie C. Bolden
Womanica
Acast Creative Studios
4.3 • 920 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2024
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marie C. Bolden (1894-1981) was the winner of the first-ever national spelling bee in 1908. As a Black student competing against segregated schools, her victory was an important but largely forgotten moment in history.
For Further Reading:
- NPR: When she won the first national spelling bee, Marie C. Bolden dealt a blow to racism
- Cleveland: Cleveland girl's spelling victory created racial controversy, national headlines in 1908
- Longform: The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee
This month we're talking about women who found themselves at the center of controversy -- whether deserved or not.
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, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Hannah Bottum, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, and Vanessa Handy. Special thanks to Shira Atkins. Original theme music composed by Miles Moran.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before there was internet fraud and phone scams, there were always swindlers. |
| 0:05.4 | Female swindlers too. |
| 0:07.4 | Discover the stories of women from the past who not only survived, but thrived as con-artists and thieves. |
| 0:16.6 | How did they use their feminine characteristics to swindle in a world where men made the rules? |
| 0:24.0 | Join me, Lucy Worsley, historian and author, and my all-female team in ladies swindlers, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:37.1 | Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. |
| 0:42.5 | This month we're talking about women who found themselves at the center of controversy, |
| 0:46.3 | whether deserved or not. Today, she won the nation's first ever national spelling bee, |
| 0:53.0 | outspelling hundreds of other students from across the country. |
| 0:56.5 | Her victory was a major blow to the segregationist and racist superintendents who'd tried to keep a black student from participating at all. |
| 1:04.2 | And yet, her own family didn't even learn of her victory until after she'd passed. |
| 1:09.5 | Let's meet Marie C. Bolden. |
| 1:15.1 | Marie C. Bolden was born in 1894. Her father was a postman and her mom ran a home for senior |
| 1:21.4 | citizens. Marie was 14 years old in 1908 when people from cities across the country were invited to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, to participate in the first ever national spelling bee. |
| 1:32.3 | Students from 34 cities in total traveled to the Midwestern city to spell. |
| 1:38.3 | But trouble was brewing before the competition even started. |
| 1:42.3 | Just 50 years after the Civil War, much of the South was governed by Jim Crow laws. |
| 1:48.0 | These laws were a formal system of racial apartheid that encompassed every aspect of life for black people in the U.S., including school segregation. |
| 1:56.0 | So when administrators from the southern city of New Orleans learned that Marie, a black student, was going |
| 2:01.5 | to participate in the competition along with her white counterparts. They threatened to drop out. |
| 2:07.1 | The Cleveland superintendent refused to remove Marie from the team. Marie prepared for the |
| 2:13.0 | competition, and the New Orleans educators decided to move ahead as well. So on June 29, 1908, Marie joined more than 500 other 8th grade students from across the country in Cleveland's lavish hippodrome theater. |
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