Show Notes
In 1860, Elizabeth Packard was committed to a mental institution by her husband - for YEARS - for the crime of speaking her mind . This practice was completely legal at the time, and she had no mechanism by which to free herself from confinement - despite the fact that she was completely sane. Her three-year ordeal would turn her into a powerful activist on behalf of rights for both the mentally ill and for married women, who at this time had few legal protections against those that would oppress them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
We just got back from a brand new field trip that we have nicknamed “Helleaux Chateaux!”
Gertrude Jekyll could turn her hand to anything; deeply involved with the Arts and Crafts movement, she mastered dozens of specialties in her quest to explore the relationship between human lives and their environments.
In this revisit from 2019, we wonder: was Annie Londonderry a flim-flam artist or a true pioneer? Maybe both? Her trip around the world on a bicycle may have been controversial - but she was always up for both an adventure and a tall tale.
Virginia Hall wanted to be a diplomat, but the State Department kept shutting doors in her face …and then she lost her leg in a hunting accident, which seemed like she’d reached a dead end. Never one to accept defeat, she learned how to walk again on a wooden leg nicknamed “Cuthbert,” and headed straight into the world of espionage.Once she got to France, she ran circles around the Nazi intelligence services during WW2. The Gestapo actually called her “the most dangerous Allied agent in France”; her actions, and those of her compatriots, changed the course of the war.
Rosa Bonheur was a wild, animal‑obsessed kid who drew before she could read, and knew she was meant for the world of art from an extremely young age.