History Unplugged Podcast

Naval warfare is an overlooked factor of the Civil War, but it was a vitally important part of overall strategy for North and South, especially from the perspective of the Union, which used naval blockages from the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River to deny critical resources to the Confederacy, forcing them the ultimately surrender. But the naval war was about much more than blockages. One Confederate ship managed to harass Union supply lines around the globe and sink dozens of merchant vessels. Its fate was sealed on June 19, 1864, after a fourteen-month chase that culminated in one of the most dramatic naval battles in history. The dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the death, and the outcome would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. To talk about this story is historian Tom Clavin, author of the new book To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South's Most Feared Ship―and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War.We look at historically overlooked Civil War players, including John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, as well as Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Alabama. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the secretary of the navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama." Winslow pursued Semmes in a spectacular fourteen-month chase over international waters, culminating in what would become the climactic sea battle of the Civil War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most historians think of Warren G. Harding as a jazz-age hedonist who was much more of an empty suit than a serious president. Once in the White House, they argue, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government. His secretary of the interior allowed oilmen, in exchange for bribes, to access government oil reserves, including one in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, the namesake for the scandal that hangs over Harding’s legacy today.But one American history professor thinks that this narrative is hopelessly simplified andsimplistic. In fact, Walters, author of the book The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding, that he belongs in the Top Ten list of U.S. chief executives.He credits Harding with the following: • Inheriting a postwar depression, Harding turned it into an economic boom. On his watch personal prosperity soared and unemployment fell to 1.6 percent• He reversed Wilson’s grandiose plans to hand over American sovereignty to ambitious internationalist organizations• He healed a nation in the throes of social disruption, releasing citizens imprisoned by the Wilson administration under the controversial Sedition Act of 1918 and using the bully pulpit to promote civil rights in the heyday of Jim CrowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press, Europe changed irrevocably. What happened was a shift in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, which created an information revolution. But it wasn’t just the printing press that caused this. Today’s guest, historian and author Paul Dover, argues there would have been a revolution in information in early modern Europe even without Gutenberg’s invention. Most of the changes in institutions and mentalities were caused by a massive increase in manuscript writing, which injected massive amounts of information into society.Everything changed. Europe saw the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters. Dover is author of the book “The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe.” He interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Russian Revolution is thought to have everything to do with the writings of Karl Marx. He predicted in the 19th century that history was marching inevitably toward a proletarian revolution and workers would overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. To many observers in Moscow, that’s exactly what was happening. But one Russian scholar disagrees. He believes the Russian Revolution had nothing to do with Marx and everything to do with, paradoxically, the Russian Orthodox Church. Namely, Russia’s century-old history of Orthodox monasticism. Today’s guest is Jim Curtis, a Russian scholar, professor emeritus, and author of In Stalin’s Soviet Monastery. The story begins with the young Iosif Djugashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who was studying to be a priest in an Orthodox seminary. He took on the role that defined his political career, that of a sadistic elder who imposed fiendish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on hapless Soviet citizens. This led to Stalin’s policies essentially copying passion-suffering, a practice in which one takes on the sufferings of Christi to achieve sanctification, which he used to force gulag slave labor to work on useless infrastructure projects to purify them as a proper Soviet.Applying Russia’s heritage of Orthodox monasticism to Soviet history gives coherence and meaning to what is often portrayed as a chaotic and contradictory period. Thus, by ignoring Marxist rhetoric and emphasizing Russia’s monastic heritage, it arguably makes sense that Russians would perceive Lenin as a Christ figure with appropriate symbolism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During World War II nearly one billion letters were sent to the front, but none struck more fear in the heart of the average soldier than the one that began with the following: “Dear John: I don’t know quite how to begin but I just want to say that Joe Doakes came to town on furlough the other night and he looked very handsome in his uniform, so when he asked me for a date…” Such is an example of the “Dear John” letters that World War II G.I.s received from sweethearts or wives at home who had decided to politely, but unceremoniously, end their relationship. Though the phrase “Dear John” was coined during World War II and the break-up letters have found their way into every American war since then, the exact origins of the term have always been shrouded in obscurity. In her new book Dear John: Love and Loyalty in Wartime America, historian and today’s guest Susan L. Carruthers details the history of the “Dear John” letter and explores wartime relationships and breakdowns from multiple perspectives—civilian and military, male and female, historical and contemporary. Using a diverse range of research, using personal letters, declassified documents, press reports, psychiatric literature, movies, and popular music, Carruthers also shows how the armed forces and civilian society have attempted to weaponize romantic love in pursuit of martial ends, from World War II to today. Though many U.S. officers, servicemen, veterans, and civilians would agree that “Dear John” letters are lethal weapons in the hands of men at war, Carruthers explains that efforts to discipline feelings have frequently failed. We discuss the interplay between letter-writing and storytelling, breakups and breakdowns, and between imploded intimacy and boosted camaraderie. Incorporating vivid personal experiences in lively and engaging prose—variously tragic, comic, and everything in between—this compelling study will change the way we think about wartime relationships.As Carruthers explains, “Making romantic intimacy serve the cause of victory has never been straightforward for the military. Nor has making love work in wartime been simple for individuals and couples. The reasons why can be discerned by reading the subtexts and contexts of ‘Dear John’ letters, and by listening attentively to what men and women have had to say about the fragility of love at war.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Of all the self-made millionaires of the Gilded Age (and there were many, such as John Rockefeller, son of a literal snake oil salesman who became the world’s first billionaire), nobody can rival bootstrapping tenacity of Cassie Chadwick. She was a drifter from Canada who set herself up as wife of a rich doctor in Cleveland before moving on to a much bigger con involving the richest man in the world, Andrew Carnegie. With little education, no financial training, and at a time when women didn't even have the vote, Cassie Chadwick (Elizabeth Bigley) moved up the chain of bankers, getting each banker to loan her more than the one before telling each one a simple lie, she was none other than the illegitimate daughter of Carnegie and she was due to inherit his entire fortune. By the time the police caught up to her she had wrecked the banking system of Cleveland, sending one unfortunate banker to his grave and causing the collapse of a major bank. When the trial was held it was a media event that pushed the trial of Teddy Roosevelt off the front pages with a climactic moment when Andrew Carnegie appeared to face his accuser. Cassie was eventually convicted but not before taking others with her and leaving a legacy as the biggest con woman in the United States only to be eclipsed by Charles Ponzi.Today’s guest is William Hazelgrove, author of the book Greed in the Gilded Age: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick. We explore the excesses of this age, and the very thin line between radical reinvention and outright deception.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. Today’s guest is Prof. Jing Tsu, author of “Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern.” She argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the Chinese language—with its many dialects and complex character-based script—accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. We discuss the connection between language and power, challenges China faced to ensure their language remained dominant/widespread, the innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world defined by the West and its alphabet, AND it was so important for China to preserve its ancient character set, even though it was seen as such a hindrance to their technological development.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the United States, questions of how we celebrate – or condemn – leaders in the past have never been more contentious. In 2017, a statue of Robert E. Lee was removed – leading to a race riot and terrorist attack. But in 2020, statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and even Ulysses S. Grant were defaced or toppled. All of this comes to the question of how we judge the past. When are the morals and ethics of people born centuries earlier excusable for the conditions of their birth, and when are they universally condemnable? What separates a Thomas Jefferson from an Emperor Nero?To discuss this incredibly challenging topic is someone perhaps nobody better qualified: Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. He is an emeritus classics professor and author of books on the Peloponnesian War or assessing the ancient world’s best military leader. He was also awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and was a presidential appointee in 2007–2008 on the American Battle Monuments Commission.We discuss the following:•Times when American’s feared the removal of Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt statues in 2021 (or their toppling in riots). But we have also celebrated statue removal, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein’s statues after the fall of his regime in 2003 or the removal of Marx/Lenin Statues in Eastern Europe in 1991. What is the difference?•The criteria for a community to remove a statue in a healthy way•How we judge those of the past and determine that some character flaws are due to their times of birth, while other character flaws are universally condemnable – Essentially, what makes a slave-owning Jefferson a product of his time while, say, a Nero, is universally understood as cruel•The dangers of canceling anyone who doesn’t meet our 21st century standards; conversely, the dangers of slavish worship of them•Who deserves more statues todaySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two presidents and a social worker. Each took a different path to prominence, yet the three progressives believed the United States must assume a more dynamic role in confronting the growing domestic and international problems of an exciting new age.Following the outset of World War I in 1914, the views of these three titans splintered as they could not agree on how America should respond to what soon proved to be an unprecedented global catastrophe. To discuss their approaches is today’s guest Neil Lanctot, author of “THE APPROACHING STORM: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams, and Their Clash Over America’s Future by Neil Lanctot. We explore the story of three extraordinary leaders and how they debated, quarreled, and split over the role the United States should play in the world. By turns a colorful triptych of three American icons who changed history and the engrossing story of the roots of World War I, this episode explores a surprising and important story of how and why the United States emerged onto the world stage.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s episode is a look at the life of Frances Peter, a Civil War-era Kentuckian who witnessed all the major events of the conflict, and watched her hometown switch hands from the Confederacy to the Union multiple times. She was one of the eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a surgeon for the Union army. The Peter family lived on Gratz Park near downtown Lexington, where nineteen-year-old Frances began recording her impressions of the Civil War. Because of illness, she did not often venture outside her home but was able to gather a remarkable amount of information from friends, neighbors, and newspapers. Peter's candid diary chronicles Kentucky's invasion by Confederates under Gen. Braxton Bragg in 1862, Lexington's month-long occupation by Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, and changes in attitude among the slave population following the Emancipation Proclamation. Today’s guest is Prof. John Smith, editor of Peter’s diary, which has been published under the name “A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky.” As troops from both North and South took turns holding the city, she repeatedly emphasized the rightness of the Union cause and minced no words in expressing her disdain for the hated ""secesh."" Her writings articulate many concerns common to Kentucky Unionists. Though she was an ardent supporter of the war against the Confederacy, Peter also worried that Lincoln's use of authority exceeded his constitutional rights. Her own attitudes towards blacks were ambiguous, as was the case with many people in that time. Peter's descriptions of daily events in an occupied city provide valuable insights and a unique feminine perspective on an underappreciated aspect of the war. Until her death by epileptic seizure in August 1864, Peter conscientiously recorded the position and deportment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, incidents at the military hospitals, and stories from the countryside. Her account of a torn and divided region is a window to the war through the gaze of a young woman of intelligence and substance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.