Stuff You Missed in History Class

Holly waxes rhapsodic about fruit. Tracy talks about planning an episode about William Henry Dorsey but then finding she needed to include his father.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2025

Thomas J. Dorsey liberated himself from enslavement and became one of the most sought-after caterers in Philadelphia. His son William Henry Dorsey was born a free Black man before the Civil War, and became an artist, collector and scrapbooker.

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

This installment of eponymous food stories is entirely about fruits. We’ve got a berry, a pome, and a citrus, all with varying degrees of documentation.

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2025

This 2019 episode covers Hatshepsut, who sent a huge expedition to Punt in the 15th century B.C.E. The expedition to Punt is also an important and illustrative part of Hatshepsut’s reign.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2025

Holly shares a theory on why Wanda Gág didn’t drink. There is also discussion of Gág’s medical issues and how they were handled by doctors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2025

After struggling to raise her siblings and start an art career, Wanda Gág’s life changed almost instantly with the publication of her first children’s book. Part two of her story looks at how her books sustained her financially so she could also make the art she wanted.

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

As an artist and writer Wanda Gág is well known for her children’s books. But this first of two parts about her life covers her own unusual childhood, which went from quirky fun to intense hardship when her father died.

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

This 2022 episode covers Theda Bara, often referenced as the first sex symbol. Photos of her are synonymous with the word vamp, and 100 years later, still have a certain mysterious appeal. But what was she really like?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2025

Tracy talks about how current events are causing disruptions in work on the podcast. She also discusses the way headlines often misrepresent alleged discoveries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2025

Part two of the spring 2025 installment of Unearthed! features the potpourri category, plus drones/radar/lidar, books and letters, animals, edibles and potables, shipwrecks, swords (sort of) and cats.

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2025

The first part of our springtime edition of Unearthed! for 2025 features so many updates! There are also finds related to Egypt and artwork.

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2025

This 2016 episode covers George Wallace, one of the most prominent voices against the Civil Rights Movement and its objectives. He spent multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly pro-segregation platform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2025

Tracy shares how she went from concern that there wouldn't be enough research material for an episode to developing this week's topic into two. Both Tracy and Holly discuss their family connections to the war. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2025

Vandalism at draft board offices as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was escalating was deeply divisive. Opponents of the war were stereotyped as dirty hippies and sanctimonious white college kids, but the anti-Vietnam-war movement in the U.S. was really broad.

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

The draft board raids were part of an antiwar movement, largely grounded in Catholic religious convictions, that spanned almost four years. Part one covers the basic context of the Vietnam War and why the U.S. was involved in the first place, and the earliest raids on draft boards.

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

This 2017 episode covers Lucille Ball, the grande dame of American comedy. The famed star worked in modeling, radio and film, but she really made her mark in television, and her work set the standard for the TV sitcom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2025

Tracy and Holly talk about Dorothy Arzner's reluctance to talk about her past projects. Holly questions some of the statistics about strawberry consumption. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2025

The story of how strawberries went from small forage item to one of the world’s most popular fruits – though they're technically not a true fruit – involves lots of crossbreeding experimentation, as you might expect, but also a bit of spy craft.

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2025

Dorothy Arzner wasn’t the first female film director in the U.S., but she was really the only one working in the studio system during most of the period that’s known as the Hollywood Golden Age. Her short career was still incredibly prolific.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2025

This 2017 episode covers the early days of Hollywood, and its reputation for debauchery. When a high-profile director was murdered, it added to that image, and revealed that Taylor, like so many in Hollywood, had lots of secrets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 29 March 2025

Tracy talks about the difficulty of finding English-language writing about another strike she'd like to cover. Holly talks about why Kurt Vonnegut appeals so deeply to teenagers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

Holly is joined by guest host Bryan Young for a live show at Indiana Comic Con, focused on the life and work of the author Kurt Vonnegut, known for his dark humor and dystopian visions of the future.

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2025

The 1946 Oakland General Strike was part of a massive wave of strikes that took place in the U.S. in 1945 and 1946. Over two days in Oakland, California, and the surrounding area, thousands of strikers shut the city down.

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2025

This late 2021 episode covers a strike in Flint, Michigan, which was at the heart of auto manufacturing for General Motors in 1936. And while the strike was largely centered around Flint, it also involved workers at GM factories all over the U.S.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 March 2025

Holly and Tracy discuss the creepy nature of the Children's Morality Code project. Tracy covers the varied conflicts that Mary Hunter Austin had with numerous people. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2025

Mary Hunter Austin was a U.S. writer known for walking throughout the American Southwest. But her life of activism was far more complicated than brief bios usually  mention.

Transcribed - Published: 19 March 2025

In 1916, the National Institution for Moral Instruction had a contest to see who could come up with the best morality code. For kids. Evolving views on childhood, child labor laws, patriotism, and eugenics influenced this effort.

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2025

This 2019 episode looks at Couney's incubator sideshows of premature babies. This is complicated; Couney made money from this, and his medical experience was questionable. But premature babies weren’t getting a lot of care otherwise.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 15 March 2025

Tracy notes the wild array of incorrect information that circulates about Lillian Exum Clement. Then she and Holly talk about childhood reading habits. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 14 March 2025

Hi, Stuff You Missed In History Class Fans! We want to share a new season of SNAFU with Ed Helms.  About the show: This is the story of Prohibition you haven't heard. Sure, Prohibition was a gigantic SNAFU to begin with. But it turns out Prohibition was actually darker than any of us could have imagined. Flappers and jazz? Not the full picture. Season 3 of SNAFU follows an unlikely pair of sleuths trying to uncover what was behind a mass wave of deadly poisonings that killed thousands of people during Prohibition. Why were so many people dying when they imbibed? And what do gun-slinging Prohibition agents, Washington politicians, and a raging culture war have to do with it? Find out on SNAFU Season 3: Formula 6.  Listen here and subscribe to SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 14 March 2025

Gertrude Chandler Warner's most well known writing is "The Boxcar Children." But that series is far from the only professional writing Chandler did – she made a career as a writer while also teaching elementary school for decades.

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2025

Lillian Exum Clement Stafford was one of the first women in North Carolina to practice law, and the first woman in the South to be elected to a state legislature.

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2025

This 2020 episode covers the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The Lost Cause was a distortion of the history of the U.S. Civil War that’s still affecting the world today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 8 March 2025

Tracy shares issues she has with overly reductive internet videos that misrepresent the story of nixtamalization. She and Holly also discuss the various ways they like to eat corn.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2025

This episode on the pellagra epidemic focuses on its prevalence in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Some of the scientific work done to understand it involves self-experimentation, and some of it is ethically problematic by today’s standards.

Transcribed - Published: 5 March 2025

The pellagra epidemic of the early 20th century may have been the deadliest epidemic of a specific nutrient deficiency in U.S. history. Part one covers what it is, its appearance in 19th-century Italy, and the first reports of it in the U.S.

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2025

This 2020 episode covers the first protest march on Washington, D.C., led by Jacob Sechler Coxey in the 1890s. His plan was job creation for the nation's unemployed population with projects that would build the country's infrastructure.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 1 March 2025

Holly talks about how impossible it is to build a spite house now, thanks to municipal building codes. She also shares some uncertain stories of the childhood of Robert Morris.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2025

Robert Morris is one of the lesser-mentioned founding fathers of the U.S. When he is mentioned, he is called the financier of the Revolutionary War. But his story is more complicated than that.

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2025

A spite house is a structure that is built by one party to irritate another, or to cause some sort of difficulty or even damage. And there have been a lot of them built over the years, though there aren’t a huge number remaining.

Transcribed - Published: 24 February 2025

This 2020 episode covers direct action demonstrations and protests that have some similarities to the sit-in movement.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2025

Holly talks about her gardening efforts and an amusing machine reading error. Tracy talks about her expectations of researching the epizootic of 1872, and My Little Pony toys turning 40. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2025

The epizootic of 1872 was a massive outbreak of a flulike illness primarily among horses in North America, Central America, and some islands in the Caribbean.

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

The practice of growing plants in water rather than soil isn't new, though early examples are difficult to substantiate. In the 1930s, hydroponic plant culture made headlines, but the field also had conflict among researchers.

Transcribed - Published: 17 February 2025

This 2021 episode covers William Montague Cobb, who was the first Black person in the U.S. to earn a PhD in physical anthropology. He was also an activist and an anatomy professor at Howard University. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 15 February 2025

Tracy discusses the inherent challenge of talking about topics that relate to current events. She also shares more information about Emma Reynolds that didn't really fit into the Dr. Daniel Hale Williams episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2025

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams is often described as the first person to successfully perform an open-heart surgery. That's not entirely accurate, but he was still a surgical innovator, and he was also a huge part of the Black Hospital Movement.

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2025

The 1898 supreme court case called United States vs. Wong Kim Ark had affected enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act, because the court found that people born in the U.S. to Chinese parents were U.S. citizens.

Transcribed - Published: 10 February 2025

This 2021 episode covers the Chinese Exclusion Act, the United States’ first major immigration law. As its name suggests it specifically targeted people from China, and it led to Supreme Court cases that set the stage for later restrictions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2025

Tracy shares how much she loves the work of Helen McNicoll and how the gaps in her biography posed a challenge during research. Holly talks about Harry Craddock and his efforts to combat prohibition in Britain.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2025