The Key
Plus: Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis in the ultimate western
So here’s one of my favorite possessions: it’s a very simple house key. If you look closely, you’ll see the Kansas City Royals logo on it which has worn away over time. Anyway, 11 years ago, I’m going through my divorce and I don’t really have a place to stay. I go back to Wichita of all places at least so I can finish my masters degree and figure out what would come next. My buddy Levi demanded I stay with his family while I got back on my feet. God knows they did not need some mopey guy hanging around. But that family nursed me back to life. And that dude would never hear any talk of me not having a home or a family insisting, my home and family was right there in Wichita. Anyway, I was cleaning the house today and decided to take some old keys off of the ring. But not this one. This one stays with me wherever I go.
P.S.- Kansans are like that. I’ve lived all over the country and I’ve seen most every state. There are a few people that rival Kansans for their hospitality and willingness to give of themselves to others. I need to get back to Wichita sometime soon and give you guys a real look at one of the hidden gems in the United States. The fall would be nice I think. Stay tuned on that.
Reckoning with Jason Herbert
Right now we’re in the middle of scheduling a bunch of new podcasts to release after Labor Day. And because I’ve been so busy working with tribes recently now it is an opportune time to go back and revisit some of my favorite episodes that maybe you haven’t had a chance to hear. So this week I want to introduce you to one of our earliest episodes that we taped with two of my absolute heroes in the history profession: Jacki Antonovich and Lauren MacIvor Thompson. They’re amazing scholars and I’m proud to call them dear friends of mine.
Their episode kind of symbolizes a lot of what this podcast has always tried to be. I invited on two women to talk about a movie about women. (I’m proud that we’ve actually had more women than men as guests on the pod, so I think the ratio is pretty close.)
About our guests:
Jacki Antonovich is a historian of health and medicine in the United States, with particular interests in how race, gender, and politics shape the medical field and access to health care. Her teaching interests include histories of public health, alternative medicine, disability, reproduction and childbirth, and epidemics. She also focuses on the history of the American West, nineteenth-century America, and the Gilded and Progressive Eras.
Her recent publications include "White Coats, White Hoods: The Medical Politics of the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s America," which received Honorable Mention at the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians for "Best Article in the Field of The History of Women, Gender, and/or Sexuality," and "Feminist Doctors and Medicine Women: The Lady Physician in the American Western," in Diagnosing History: Medicine in Television Period Drama." Currently, she’s working on a book with Rutgers University Press, focusing on the history of women physicians and their political activism in the early twentieth century. She’s also the creator and executive editor emerita of Nursing Clio, an online journal connecting historical scholarship to present-day issues of gender, health, and medicine. Her research and teaching have been featured in The Washington Post, BBC, Chronicle of Higher Education, NPR, and the podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness.
Lauren MacIvor Thompson is a historian of reproductive health, women's rights, and the law. She is an Assistant Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University and also serves as the faculty fellowat the Georgia State University College of Law's Center for Law, Health, and Society.
Her book, Rivals and Rights: The Politics of Contraception and the Making of the American Birth Control Movement is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press in 2025. She has published numerous academic articles and op-eds including work in Law and History Review, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Society for the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, among others. Thompson is also a frequent public speaker, including presentations at the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the American Society for Legal History, and the American Association for the History of Medicine, as well as national and international symposiums on suffrage and legal rights, reproduction, health, and medicine. She is a member of the national Scholars Strategy Network.
The pod:
Without further ado, find their episode on Apple and Spotify below, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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