Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
Episodes
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.
Research:
- Abate, M.A. Not Hoovervilles, But Hooch: Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Boxcar Childrenand The Roaring Twenties. Child Lit Educ 47, 257–266 (2016). ht...
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.
Research:
- “Letter from Elias Eller Stafford to Lillian Exum Clement, 1920.” North Carolina Archives. https://fromthepage.com/ncdcr-ncarchives/women-s-history-v5/pc-2804-lillian-exum-papers-b2f25-corr-eller-1920
- “Lillian Exum Clement." NCpedia. Acces...
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.
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.
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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.
Research:
- Akst, Daniel. “Pellagra: The Forgotten Plague.” American Heritage. December 2000. https://www.americanheritage.com/pellagra-forgotten-plague
- Baird Rattini, ...
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.
Research:
- Akst, Daniel. “Pellagra: The Forgotten Plague.” American Heritage. December 2000. https://www.americanheritage.com/pellagra-forgotten-plague
- Baird Rattini,...
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.
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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.
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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.
Research:
- “18th Century Currency.” Valley Forge National Historical Park. National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=42877E64-155D-451F-67DACC05A2515349
- Bill of Rights Institute. “Stamp Act R...
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.
Research:
- Bailey, Steve. “A Tiny, Beloved Home That Was Built for Spite.” New York Times. Feb. 29, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/travel/escapes/29away.html
- “Ch...
This 2020 episode covers direct action demonstrations and protests that have some similarities to the sit-in movement.
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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.
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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.
Research:
- "WHEN A FLU REINED IN NEW YORK." States News Service, 28 Apr. 2020. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A622209555/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=2bf7de71. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.
- Andrews, Thomas G. “Influenza’s Progress: Th...
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.
Research:
- Bacon, Francis. “Sylva sylvarum; or, A natural history, in ten centuries. Whereunto is newly added the History natural and experimental of life and death, or of the prolongation of life.&...
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.
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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.
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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.
Research:
- "Daniel Hale Williams." Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 2, Gale, 1992. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1606000260/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS...
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.
Research:
- Graber, Mark A. "United States v. Wong Kim Ark." American Governance, edited by Stephen Schechter, et al., vol. 5, Macmillan Reference USA, 2016, pp. 228-230. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/app...
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.
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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.
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