Vulgar History - Author Interview： Therese Oneill (The Forgotten Sluts and Shrews Who Shaped America)

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00:00:44.500 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, the feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne

00:00:49.580 Foster. And today's a special day because we have a New York Times bestselling author here

00:00:55.100 joining us on the podcast. It's Teresa O'Neill. And I was really excited to be approached by,

00:01:00.900 I forget if it was her or her publicist to have her on the show because I love her books. I've

00:01:04.340 read her two previous books, which are Ungovernable, The Victorian Parent's Guide to

00:01:09.460 Raising Flawless Children, as well as Unmentionable, The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex,

00:01:14.180 marriage and manners. And her new book is called Unbecoming a Lady, The Forgotten Sluts and Shrews 0.96

00:01:20.700 That Shaped America. And it's a book that talks about several different women from American

00:01:25.300 history, specifically like the late 1800s, early 1900s, who you may or may not have heard of,

00:01:30.420 most of them you probably haven't heard of, who were complex and interesting and sometimes shitty

00:01:35.280 people, just like we like to talk about on this podcast. Like we vibe exactly, Teresa and I,

00:01:40.880 when we had this conversation. And yeah, so without further ado, I'm just going to let you

00:01:45.780 hear her and me talking about these like messy bitches from American history and why it's 1.00

00:01:51.660 important to learn about them. So I'm joined today by Teresa O'Neill, author of, oh, I'll just look 1.00

00:02:01.860 up the title, the full title. I want to honor it. Unbecoming a Lady, The Forgotten Sluts and

00:02:06.180 shrews who shaped america my copy says shrews and sluts and i'm in canada so maybe they switch 0.86

00:02:13.420 things really say sluts and shrews yes i'm looking at an arc actually maybe they changed it

00:02:19.840 yeah wow wait i didn't even know it was separately published in canada anyway we'll skip on from that

00:02:26.480 i was gonna babble about something super important oh how the book came to be how the book came to

00:02:30.900 be is a great starting point yeah so um i had a whole different book planned that we were trying

00:02:37.800 to sell my agent and i and um it was i still want to write it it was a it was a choose your own

00:02:43.180 adventure book of how to survive being a woman in 1900 but um it was it was in 2020 and everything

00:02:50.640 was in such a violent shift especially in new york where everybody was trapped inside their houses

00:02:54.580 and they're very sensitive to what's socially acceptable that year

00:02:59.480 and the trends and what's needed to be done.

00:03:02.860 And Simon & Schuster, their imprint, Simon Elliman, acquired my book.

00:03:06.780 And the way that happens is an editor takes a liking to it and buys it.

00:03:12.120 And then because it's nonfiction, you get to write it after they buy it.

00:03:16.520 For fiction, you have to write it first.

00:03:17.900 But for nonfiction, they'll work with you.

00:03:20.360 She acquired my book, and it's standard in publishing.

00:03:23.340 They say, well, we love the we love the jetpack and the tap dancing, but we're going to need more triple axles and a little bit less footwork.

00:03:32.000 Can you give it to us? And I say, sure. But this acquiring editor said, OK, this entire book that you gave me.

00:03:39.380 I like the idea. I'm like, oh, great. She says, but we're going to do a completely different book.

00:03:43.640 And she said, I'd like a book, a list book. I call them listicle books because that's what I used to write when I wrote for blogs and stuff.

00:03:53.340 and I said listicle and she said you know like the badass bitches of history and all those books 1.00

00:03:58.600 and my heart just sank because that book's been done and it's been done well and I mean the top 0.97

00:04:05.180 ones are still for sale and topping the list and you know the Clintons Hillary and Chelsea were

00:04:10.480 coming out with a series of she persisted it's just it's it's it's a good formula but it's been

00:04:17.400 done and I didn't want to add to it there was no space for me there and I could see why she wanted

00:04:22.140 it because our attention span as a society has changed and we even I prefer to dip in and out

00:04:28.020 because that's how we take in most of our information and I was pretty distraught though

00:04:32.140 I didn't want to write it and I came back and I said okay I can do this I can write the book you

00:04:37.540 want but can I do it my way and I said don't make me put in anyone who's already basically

00:04:44.700 Jonah Bark and

00:04:46.600 Mary Curie and Ada Lovelace 1.00

00:04:49.100 okay these women aren't role models 1.00

00:04:51.360 and they're not badass 1.00

00:04:53.120 bitches of history 1.00

00:04:53.900 they're legends 1.00

00:04:55.860 they come along once and every 400

00:04:58.900 or 500 years as somebody who can do what they did

00:05:01.300 they're

00:05:02.060 I don't want to write them 0.85

00:05:04.960 I said let me find a bunch of really 1.00

00:05:06.580 questionable women 1.00

00:05:08.380 and let me tell you how cool 1.00

00:05:11.080 they were without any judgment giving

00:05:12.640 pro or con just let me present them to you as they were flawed but awesome and they kind of

00:05:19.280 liked the idea i know they liked it a lot at first until i started giving them women who really were

00:05:23.780 questionably and who weren't saviors who weren't sacred um i when i first presented victoria

00:05:31.060 woodhall i said and of course she was really into the early eugenics movement they put me at a dead

00:05:36.240 stop they said teresa no one in this book was interested in eugenics and i just dropped my

00:05:42.140 paperwork and just sort of went dead behind the eyes because all my ladies come from the turn of

00:05:46.540 the 20th century where every single educated person nobody'd heard of hitler every single

00:05:53.120 educated person believed in eugenics that was preventative medicine to them i mean i said okay

00:05:57.960 well that's going to take away everybody from i mean i wasn't going to put charles darwin in the

00:06:02.640 book but darwin frederick douglas i'm like helen keller helen keller was an outspoken eugenicist

00:06:08.780 for goodness sake. So to speak, she actually didn't talk, but she was still an outspoken 1.00

00:06:13.100 eugenicist. I said, so that's everybody. I don't know what you want from me. And I kept coming up 0.60

00:06:19.100 against walls like that where they really wanted, yes, they wanted unbecoming women, but they didn't 0.97

00:06:24.340 want them to be unbecoming. I need to jump in because this is so fascinating to me and so

00:06:29.200 interesting because it's similar to what I do when I'm choosing subjects for my podcast,

00:06:33.300 because I every now and then I'll do somebody who's quite well known but I like to look at the

00:06:39.560 lesser known like someone who there's it's a bit more challenging to research them because there's

00:06:43.700 not there's not the biography about them but also they're not in those compendiums and like all

00:06:48.380 respect to those books that are that are like Joan of Arc Elizabeth first like whatever I'm like

00:06:53.480 those were really good baby steps for a lot of people yes an intro to just like oh there's women

00:06:58.600 in history and they're interesting but if you present every woman in history as being like

00:07:03.440 great yeah then it's kind of like that's not that's not true really a role model attain it's

00:07:09.340 not true but it's also telling like young girls or women or whoever's reading them everybody

00:07:13.700 they're just kind of like you have to be a freaking saint to be remembered you don't you 1.00

00:07:18.540 can't be a mess and i love talking about messy bitches on my show of history because a lot of 1.00

00:07:25.060 that women in history are so just like even if they do have like Helen Keller for instance it's 1.00

00:07:29.880 like people don't talk about that side of her but it's like but that also was there and if we're

00:07:34.280 just like she was so great and so lovely then that's not genuine and I don't think that's

00:07:38.120 helpful oh my god be my best friend yes thank you yes and the thing is in New York in the big

00:07:44.980 publishing houses they have to recoup a lot of money and they don't have wiggle room for that

00:07:49.340 they need to appeal to a mass audience and so you wanted to i'll give you an example is i wrote um

00:07:57.280 i wrote about three ladies of color in my book because since the book was set at the turn of the

00:08:00.940 20th century they were hard to come by and one of them reindeer mary i had to fight to use the word

00:08:08.120 eskimo mary because that's what they called her in the newspapers at the time they said you can't

00:08:12.120 call her that i'm like i'm not i'm quoting a newspaper because that was her name and they're

00:08:17.180 not jerks they just that was her name because they didn't know it was a mean thing to say they loved

00:08:20.900 her it was a compliment to them that was the minor one then I came to Iada Walker Ida Overton Walker 0.95

00:08:27.420 she was the the woman who revolutionized the Broadway theater and and and women performers

00:08:32.560 and black performers and of course Ida I don't oh my goodness I'm blanking Ida Walker sorry I had

00:08:40.540 her Barbie next to me for like two years and I gave it to my daughter who collects awesome Bobbies 0.89

00:08:45.560 awesome Ida B. Wells thank you Ida B. Wells my brain is yeah you said the Barbie and I'm like

00:08:52.220 I know this yes an inspiring woman edition she's a really awesome Barbie I had those two and my 1.00

00:08:59.560 agent and my editor came to me and they and they said you need to remove these two women from your 0.98

00:09:06.860 book and i said i'm like you're you're joking what and they said it's 2021 we you can't you're not

00:09:16.260 black you can't write about them i'm like you're out of your you want me to make the book less

00:09:21.700 racist by making it only white ladies and they they kind of had like their hands in the air like

00:09:26.580 we know but we don't know what to do it's 2021 and and the way we came to a resolution so i could

00:09:32.960 basically write the thriving love letters I wrote these women because they're amazing

00:09:37.680 but I got to put them in and they didn't like they didn't like um that Aida she leaned into 0.76

00:09:44.960 racism to make her to make her place in history I mean she played the long con she did a brilliant

00:09:50.260 job can you tell like give everybody sort of like a let me tell you about Aida a bullet point because

00:09:56.560 she was I loved reading that chapter yeah she was awesome so so Aida came up in the vaudeville

00:10:01.920 circuit in the before the turn of the century say 1880s it was a time where um really popular

00:10:08.040 was the minstrel show which is white men in blackface making fun of how goofy and immoral 0.96

00:10:12.760 black folks are haha but at the time whatever they their sense of humor was terrible but iada 0.98

00:10:18.380 did is she partnered up with the one of the best-selling acts on vaudeville she teamed up 1.00

00:10:23.940 with williams and walker she ended up marrying walker and they were two of the most successful

00:10:28.580 uh volleyball performances uh two of the most successful volleyball players on the circuit

00:10:32.880 and their thing was besides being good comedians and all that and songsters and singers they did 0.98

00:10:39.540 the best blackface show in the world and the fun part was they were black they were right so like 0.80

00:10:45.300 blackface shows did they put blackface on their own black skin they put on blackface on black skin 0.99

00:10:52.100 and they did the same jokes but better because um walker her husband said i see there's a need

00:10:58.360 for my skin color on the stage and i figured i could cut out the middleman and use what god gave

00:11:02.740 me and that's that was just the beginning of what they packed the house they hired aida because she 0.91

00:11:08.780 could do a dance called the cakewalk which i always thought was a carnival game but it's

00:11:12.780 actually a dance first and a cakewalk was a you know in the old days they did reels where you

00:11:17.820 the men and the women line up and you dance down this human hallway and you've seen it in old

00:11:22.280 movies the cakewalk was kind of a satire of that you pretended you were super fancy and you did

00:11:27.680 all these little fancy kicks and fancy twirls to show how how highfalutin you were and it was fun 0.99

00:11:32.860 but she did it so gracefully it was barely a satire she was like delicate of wrist and movement 0.93

00:11:38.220 was fluid they hired her because she was so not a blackface vaudevillac she was class she was like 1.00

00:11:44.980 a gibson girl which most black ladies didn't go for at the time but she didn't do any of the 1.00

00:11:50.240 the trashy stuff they expected her to do she was a lady because she was a lady and that mattered 1.00

00:11:55.540 back then so that progressed and they kept packing the house with her as their as their 0.60

00:12:01.180 bit of culture to show that you know deep down we're kind of making fun of you people

00:12:05.200 and they kept getting more and more money until they were had enough money to write stage and

00:12:11.460 produce and star in the three of them the first all black cast uh broadway shows ever and again

00:12:18.660 they packed the freaking house they were they were they were amazing and they were so popular

00:12:24.180 they got they did command performances for the the king and queen in england king edward the 0.92

00:12:30.100 oh gosh pick a number fifth fourth seventh i don't know but i love i love this i love this

00:12:35.960 detail that they did this performance for the king and queen and then i believe you say in your book

00:12:39.600 then like after the performance they stayed behind so she like taught them the dance

00:12:43.180 yes which was the greatest irony of all time because that dance is making fun okay the dance

00:12:48.900 started as slaves making fun of their masters to their master's faces and the master's like oh this

00:12:53.880 is fun whatever and then but the masters were imitating nobility of the british of the british

00:13:00.680 houses and and nobility of the british houses were imitating the king and queen and the king

00:13:05.400 queen were now in their own living room being taught to imitate themselves and make fun of

00:13:09.860 themselves by aida and it was just it's just so satisfying it's awesome and she and the thing is 0.50

00:13:17.760 the people that most disagreed with what she was doing were, um, upper class black Americans.

00:13:24.500 They're like, you have great gifts. Why are you using them to be so sorted on the stage? Because

00:13:29.480 it was kind of sorted back then. And she's like, I'm not sorted. I'm class. I'm so classy that,

00:13:35.220 you know, high society, white mothers are now sending their daughters to me to be taught how 0.98

00:13:39.760 to dance nicely. And she said, you've got to take it. She said this much more elegantly than I'm 0.70

00:13:45.660 paraphrasing she's like watch you're going to see that the area of entertainment is going to 0.82

00:13:50.160 integrate faster than any other job in america and she was so right you know by the 20s black

00:13:55.860 performers were in demand all over america and places they weren't allowed to sit in but they

00:14:00.420 were commanding the stage and it it was like that really strong olive branch that started to unite

00:14:05.940 races and we're still working on it today but the first people to make the difference were the

00:14:10.280 entertainers and she was the first of them i mean and she just changed everything and she did it by

00:14:16.540 being she didn't do it by being in your face look at me i'm gonna make trouble she and and that's 1.00

00:14:22.260 what we tend to like our feminists to be nowadays she did it by being very demure and very steadfast 0.97

00:14:27.980 and talented i just that was important it's small but it's so important it goes against the narrative 0.53

00:14:35.520 of what we'd like to see in our feminist today.

00:14:38.400 But she was such a feminist. 0.99

00:14:40.260 If you go down to the core term of what a feminist is. 1.00

00:14:43.260 And I wanted people to see that.

00:14:45.660 And I'm so glad I got to tell that story.

00:14:47.280 And I hope some people liked it.

00:14:49.260 Well, and I really appreciate it.

00:14:50.860 Like her, but like everybody in your book,

00:14:52.260 like the time period of them,

00:14:53.520 it's all sort of like late 1800s, early 1900s, mostly.

00:14:57.740 And so these are what I really appreciated

00:14:59.320 was like, there's sort of the big names

00:15:01.020 that are in those other books.

00:15:02.540 And you're kind of like filling in the gaps

00:15:03.980 of like other people who were just as interesting but like less but they didn't get memorialized

00:15:08.700 for many and never and i started looking as to why why like i have a one if she's got the best 0.80

00:15:14.960 name in the book winifred sweet black bonfie which should be like a louisiana blues singer 1.00

00:15:21.060 but she was she was the same as nelly bly and the same and she was like one of the first ever 0.91

00:15:27.780 dear abby's or agony ants and she made this huge she she she invented she didn't invent she i don't

00:15:35.280 know yes i'm gonna go for it she went to the human interest stories i mean we got too much now but

00:15:40.440 she was like the first person to say hey what if papers weren't boring what if news story was

00:15:45.560 entertaining and she did these fantastic stories about important you know lepers and molotai and

00:15:51.440 you know getting the first ambulance in in um san francisco by pretending to be

00:15:56.940 um a sick woman on the streets to see how they treat her and nelly you know who we remember is

00:16:02.900 nelly bly yeah and why do we remember nelly bly because she's really pretty i mean there's more

00:16:10.360 to it than that but she was photogenic and fun and and and okay fairness she did it first

00:16:15.620 but Winifred did it more and longer and more intense and I've got a picture of Winifred in 1.00

00:16:21.360 there she's blousy with frizzy hair and a big cape and she's awesome but she's not appealing 0.99

00:16:27.220 yeah no I agree I mean here here but also that they're like Aida you know is a gorgeous woman

00:16:35.800 and like there's other people in your book who are also you have pictures so I know what they

00:16:39.020 look like and there's also illustrations but yeah I was thinking part of of the women in history who

00:16:43.600 are who are remembered they're often it's like oh she was so smart and she's also so beautiful it's

00:16:47.620 like well but what about all the people who did cool stuff and were not so beautiful like they

00:16:51.500 just they don't get the barbies yes no barbies um think of i mean like this is out of my time area

00:16:58.880 era but everyone by now knows that rosa parks reenacted something that already happened with 0.87

00:17:06.080 a really unappealing black woman because she was a pregnant she was a teenage mother who was 15 and 1.00

00:17:11.200 mouthy and she wasn't pretty she was the first one to say i'm not getting up and she got arrested 1.00

00:17:16.400 for it and the the civil rights movement said well we have to reach as many people as possible

00:17:21.640 and we know the best way to do that is to redo this event with rosa because she was dignified

00:17:27.360 she was light-skinned she was there's just you look at her in the newspaper and you wouldn't 1.00

00:17:31.880 really say what in the world did you arrest this fine woman for they had to make it palatable

00:17:37.040 and and it's not just that they're out to get us it's human nature likes what's palatable that's 0.60

00:17:42.700 that's our nature and i just said you know what i think we're advanced to the point now that we can

00:17:47.420 take a little unpalatability i think we can take a couple heady green to just you know who exist

00:17:55.180 and screw you that's why i i want to be a billionaire and i don't want to share it what

00:18:00.120 are you gonna do and i'm not saying she's good in fact i'm i think i'd say she's not that good 0.97

00:18:05.960 but she existed and she made a difference and she mattered and we chose not to remember her 0.93

00:18:10.720 because she was she was kooky and unattractive and she wasn't i mean women are supposed to be

00:18:17.720 charitable and and gracious and giving and she said screw you i'm heady and i love that i love

00:18:24.100 having a couple anti-heroes among our women in history we have so many anti-hero guys you know

00:18:29.280 we all love you dress up as jesse james for halloween for your kid or a pirate

00:18:33.800 but you don't have anti-heroes in the female history community i i i think there's room for

00:18:40.520 them it reminds me of um i know you're not a big podcast person but there's a podcast that's called

00:18:46.120 bad gays that's a it's a fun show too and they published a book as well called bad gays g-a-y-s

00:18:52.140 and part of what they're doing is talking about like a lot of people in like lgbt history it's 0.99

00:18:57.040 like let's look at these trailblazers who are like like you were talking earlier like these

00:19:00.660 iconic mythic figures who were great and we admire them and on in bad gaze they're like and

00:19:06.040 what about the like shitty people yes because most people are a mixture of both especially

00:19:11.600 people who do things big enough to be historical their motivations are not for the grace of god 0.78

00:19:17.440 and country hardly ever their motivations are i want attention and power and out of that comes

00:19:24.200 good things and it's a dichotomy we're ready to recognize horrible people often do great things

00:19:31.900 and your book is i think it's sort of like the if people have read those like the rebel girls

00:19:37.680 and stuff it's like well let's here's the real story kind of like let's learn about like um

00:19:42.860 what were these people who else was there and what were they up to like not the the less

00:19:48.000 photogenic yeah i will tell you it was a fight my my publishing house wasn't too pleased they

00:19:53.360 eventually kind of they kind of gave up and said fine just write it can i can i ask you i'm just

00:19:59.220 gonna prompt you can you talk about celesta geyer oh so celesta is close to my heart um i'm a fat

00:20:06.360 woman and i come from a long line of fat women like i'm the late child of a late child so my

00:20:11.400 grandmother was in 19 there's a picture of her in my collection from 1912 or so and they're poor 1.00

00:20:19.160 and they're up in the mountains of Oregon.

00:20:21.480 They're loggers.

00:20:22.680 And my little nine-year-old grandma's fat. 1.00

00:20:24.880 She's a fat little girl in a family 1.00

00:20:27.620 where you had to chase down your food 1.00

00:20:29.300 and kill it before you could eat it.

00:20:31.040 So we're just made to be fat. 1.00

00:20:32.980 And I went looking for a story of a fat lady 0.82

00:20:35.200 who was happy to be fat and had a successful fat life. 0.99

00:20:38.880 And I couldn't find one. 1.00

00:20:40.760 The only fat lady I found with any history from this era 1.00

00:20:43.560 was Celeste. 0.98

00:20:44.920 And Celeste came to my attention 0.78

00:20:47.000 because she held the Guinness Book of World Records 1.00

00:20:48.780 for weight loss. And I was like, no, that's contrary to what I wanted to find. I'm going

00:20:53.340 to dismiss it. But that's not what we should do. When we learn that we're wrong, we should adjust

00:20:57.740 for the new information. So I read her carefully and she was so fascinating. And again, it wasn't

00:21:04.020 big. She didn't emit radium or anything. She just lived this really good life, even though she was

00:21:10.080 600 pounds. And then she decided, oh, I'm going to lose my life and I love my life. I better not

00:21:15.980 be 600 pounds anymore and she did that i don't know how that happened god bless her but she did 1.00

00:21:21.280 it and i just i loved her she she didn't do anything huge but she existed again more women 0.95

00:21:31.680 need to know more people need to know just existing well that's more than most people

00:21:37.240 manage in their lifetimes i was reading your book and i'm the sort of person where like i read a

00:21:41.800 book and then i'm just like i go to work and i'm like hey guess what i just read this book i need

00:21:45.480 to tell you about this thing and because it was like each chapter is a different person i'm like

00:21:48.240 here's the next person i just learned about so i was just like celeste guy and she was like so

00:21:52.780 beautiful and she was fat but like the makeup manufacturers were like your face your face is

00:21:56.880 so big we can put the makeup on this big face that's so beautiful and sell makeup and i was

00:22:02.280 like that's so smart well apparently i don't know if it would work nowadays but my god i love that i

00:22:09.680 love the approach yeah so she was who she was she was a happy little girl born to german immigrants

00:22:16.040 and her dad had a yummy german food restaurant and she spent her childhood bopping around the

00:22:21.280 tables being adorable and they'd say you're so cute here have some streusel and so you know we

00:22:27.480 can see where this is going love and attention it no food plus attention equals love so and also 1.00

00:22:34.160 she must have been just in genetically programmed to be to save all that energy she was getting

00:22:39.740 and she began to gain a lot of weight and this was the early 20th century so it was a little

00:22:46.180 bit more rare to be fat because we all had to do so much promotion just to live and she was also

00:22:51.140 like you you said like she's eventually 700 pounds but she was like four foot nine or something she 1.00

00:22:56.460 was like she's a little butterball she was she was very short and yeah so like any weight would 1.00

00:23:01.980 show up on her a lot because she was so short and she still tried to have a good life even

00:23:07.740 it's really i've been a fat teenager in the 90s where kate moss was like queen it was rough no 0.87

00:23:13.420 more rough than the 1920s for goodness sake um but she still tried to have a good happy life 0.57

00:23:18.520 she still tried to go out and have fun and ride horses and go on car rides and cars had just been

00:23:23.740 invented so that was a big deal and she did it even though they made fun of her so bad in school

00:23:30.020 that she had to leave uh they may they wouldn't let her work as a she went to work to earn her

00:23:35.660 wage but like um you're too big to sit on these stools we can't employ you here and it was legit

00:23:41.860 because nobody was her size back then and she just like said okay and would take a deep breath and

00:23:47.260 she had a loving family and she even a guy she fell in love with a guy who she didn't quite trust

00:23:53.300 his love because who would want somebody her size so she made him get a ring and a house and

00:23:58.280 furniture to prove he really wanted her. And he did. And they stayed married forever. He was

00:24:02.460 awesome. By the way, there's a lot of really nice men in this book. I like men. Some of my favorite

00:24:08.320 sons and husbands are men. And I wanted that to be clear whenever possible that

00:24:13.880 good men existed and supported these women in all sorts of ways.

00:24:18.140 I appreciate that. I will say in my podcast, I've done like, I don't know, 200 episodes or

00:24:21.680 something. And there's been like three okay men in the whole time. So when I find one, I'm happy

00:24:26.540 to celebrate them too and again sometimes it's just the absence of being a jackass sometimes 0.98

00:24:32.400 you just get a pat a guy on the shoulder and say thank you you could have been a total turd about 0.92

00:24:36.600 this but you weren't you were nice uh anyway so she she um kept gaining just and and you know

00:24:45.020 300 pounds is bad now but it was you're ready to be in the circus sideshow back then and that in 0.82

00:24:51.020 the depression era that's just when you're four foot again when you're four foot nine 300 pounds

00:24:55.240 she's a big girl and so her husband were out during the depression or in the 30s or the 30s 0.61

00:25:00.700 and they went to a they scraped together some money and they went to a circus and she challenged

00:25:06.240 the fat lady tent the barker outside he said come on in she said oh yeah well whatever you got in 0.94

00:25:11.800 there it's not as big as me i'm your real fat lady because when you're fat and everyone attacks you 0.95

00:25:16.300 all the time you learn to lean into it and grab them first and that's what she did he said oh

00:25:21.580 come on in and that's where she met her mentor her name was jolly pearl and she was about 700

00:25:27.220 pounds and she said you know what honey they're already laughing at you why don't you make them

00:25:32.540 pay for it and i love that i love that i can't find the words for it of all things right now i

00:25:38.620 really should have them they're already laughing at you make them pay for their fun and she said

00:25:43.980 you're right and she did just that she became a circus fat lady and she was special because she

00:25:49.180 was so pretty and she handmade these silky garments and she sang the songs and she truly

00:25:55.060 enjoyed herself i mean we could deeply analyze how much joy she truly felt but he didn't do that 0.88

00:26:01.100 in the 1930s she's like oh my god just being a performer yeah like not every fat lady would do 0.98

00:26:07.740 well like even a really pretty fat lady wouldn't necessarily be gifted as a performer like she had 1.00

00:26:12.200 that as well like she clearly had that really good interest and ability yeah yeah and so she

00:26:17.360 rode out of the depression in private cars, private Pullman cars in Hawaii, and it was pretty good. I

00:26:23.140 mean, it's not like she was sacrificing her dignity because society didn't afford her any

00:26:27.400 dignity. Her options were stay home alone and hide, which she did at times during her life,

00:26:33.380 or go out there and live, even though nobody wants you to, and they don't really think you

00:26:37.320 have the right to. She's like, no, I'm going to do this. And she did for decades. She got up to

00:26:43.380 over 500 pounds I think and that's when all her co-workers and friends started dying because

00:26:49.540 I hate to admit this myself but fat does kill it killed my parents it's it's going to take me

00:26:55.840 before anything else and she's like oh gosh so she started doing these weight loss regimes

00:27:00.700 but it was the 40s and 50s and if you wanted a weight loss drug oh they'd give you a weight

00:27:06.320 loss drug like what like meth or basically exactly methamphetamines we call it meth now

00:27:12.560 but back then it was subscribed by a doctor and boy was it effective but you know her and her

00:27:17.520 sister-in-law went on a diet together with these fantastic through the mail diet pills which i

00:27:23.860 assume was industrial grade or army grade methamphetamine and it sure worked her her

00:27:29.800 her sister-in-law was quite svelte when the drugs blew out her heart valves and she died

00:27:35.440 and um celeste thought she had water retention and she did but it was actually a demon which

00:27:41.600 means her organs were shutting down so she went off those and she's like oh what am i gonna do

00:27:46.700 and doctor said diet or die and she's like oh well if those are my options i don't want to die

00:27:52.500 i love my life so i'll be happy skinny too and she did it i you can go on youtube and find one

00:27:58.840 adorable video of her touting her semi-reasonable weight loss plan in the 50s it's kind of cute she

00:28:05.000 was like one of the first people to make the circuits of um talk shows and stuff as they

00:28:09.920 existed in the 50s and 60s advocating a healthy living diet plan. She was quite a celebrity.

00:28:15.780 I found that turn interesting also, just in terms of like she found a way to just be like 1.00

00:28:19.700 living her life and turn that into a money making enterprise. It's like she lost weight 1.00

00:28:23.620 and then made that her job. She kept doing it in between all this. Also, I forgot to mention 0.85

00:28:28.540 between the circus lady and the weight loss thing, she was a psychic in the backwoods of Florida. 1.00

00:28:35.320 and she knew she wasn't psychic but she could that's when she became madame celesta and her

00:28:42.660 largest clientele were poor african americans which matters because it was the 40s and it was 0.81

00:28:47.560 deep south and she just she was so used to not being liked because of how she looked she wasn't 0.66

00:28:53.560 eager to transfer that on to anyone else and the folks that came to her you know most of them back

00:28:58.860 then had no education and and and were confused about everything so she really was just a psychiatrist

00:29:04.300 and sort of a common sense person like she restored one of the little girl's hearing you

00:29:08.940 know her parents were distraught she'd gone deaf she put her on her lap and and melted the wax in

00:29:14.280 her ears because it was so thick and so heavy and the parents didn't know but she did she just did

00:29:19.500 kindness and then she'd read the cards or whatever mostly she just listened and guided and helped

00:29:24.700 and she made money from that enough to live happily she's just such a cool person yes thank

00:29:30.160 you and yes she didn't move mountains she didn't invent anything huge she just lived so well even

00:29:37.040 though everything was against her she's like no i'm gonna be okay because i choose to be

00:29:41.360 yeah and that's like the lesson women should take everybody should take you can make so much

00:29:49.840 goodness out of what you've been given no matter how crappy you think your hand is and there are

00:29:54.760 some crappy hands out there that you've been dealt you don't have to settle you get to turn

00:29:59.600 in your cards for new ones if you choose. You have to make the effort. And then you have to

00:30:03.880 think hard and take action. You can make so much goodness out of so little. We all can.

00:30:09.980 And we don't have to wait for the perfect circumstances. We don't have to bemoan that

00:30:13.700 we weren't granted perfect DNA or whatever. We have enough. We have enough. We make good things.

00:30:21.860 And that's what these women did. They made good things with what they had. 1.00

00:30:25.740 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:32:50.200 well and that's what you said like you know at the very beginning i keep coming back to this but

00:32:53.900 it's such a good example you know it's like the joan of arc or whatever it's like yeah there's

00:32:57.060 people who harriet tubman like people who did incredible amazing things and the women in your

00:33:01.220 book had like a smaller life is what i'll call it but it's like but but that was impactful in its

00:33:06.560 own way and it really was not like what like 0.1 of all people are going to like change the world

00:33:12.980 but if you can just kind of like focus on yourself and your own life and what can you do and that's

00:33:17.080 what these people did in good ways and bad um like again you've got some anti-heroes in here

00:33:21.920 but i just find that that's the sort of history that i that i like as well like not the not the

00:33:27.100 like earth shattering person because there's so much writing about those people already i like to

00:33:31.260 do like a treasure hunt and like be tracking down little articles to like learn about somebody

00:33:36.200 who no one knows about and try and make so other people know about them people they wanted to know

00:33:42.220 why i put hetty in there because she didn't do anything good like yeah talk okay talk about 1.00

00:33:46.420 Hedy, explain, because we've mentioned her a few times.

00:33:48.340 Okay, so Hedy Green was the world's first self-made billionaire, well, by 1800s money.

00:33:54.600 She was an investor on Wall Street. 0.88

00:33:56.980 She was called the Witch of Wall Street. 0.99

00:33:58.820 She says it's because she was a Quaker, but more likely she had like a miser slash probably 0.98

00:34:04.900 a little bit of mental illness.

00:34:06.500 But back then, unless it really incapacitated you, it didn't count as mental illness, which 0.70

00:34:11.300 is for the best.

00:34:11.960 and she never spent a dime even when she should have like she didn't properly take care of her 1.00

00:34:17.920 kids and and stuff like that wasn't it one of her kids needed to get some sort of surgery and she's 0.79

00:34:23.440 like no i'm not gonna yeah i'm not gonna pay for that surgery yeah now granted there's only one or

00:34:28.120 two resources about that and and some people argue it but the story goes that ned her son when he was

00:34:34.100 a teenager he got hit down by a small cart in the street and his leg got really infected and she

00:34:40.440 she didn't like hospitals and it was like 1870 hospitals weren't stellar so she just said quit

00:34:48.120 whining ned and gave him some vegetable oil but you know that didn't that's not the great

00:34:52.860 greatest preventative for gangrene which he developed and leg had to be amputated and she

00:34:58.060 didn't pay for that either because apparently the free hospital wouldn't see her because they knew

00:35:02.500 who she was and they're like no no out out out but he had um his father they were separated but

00:35:09.380 never officially divorced because it was again it was the 1800s his father who didn't have a lot

00:35:14.060 of money took care of Ned but Hedy Hedy was very rich she was not generous there's some evidence

00:35:22.300 now that she gave to a couple charities but she died with billions by today's standards and she

00:35:28.860 didn't she left it all to her kids who didn't use it wisely either and so people are like well she's

00:35:36.240 not worth telling the story of because she was bad. Oh, I just can, can you remind me slash

00:35:41.400 tell everybody how she made this money? Like it was, why was she so good at investments? Like 0.98

00:35:45.680 she was very, very stingy, but lots of people were. She was a contrarian investor. She was

00:35:50.040 incredibly patient. She could see, okay. Like my example in the book is let's say a railroad

00:35:56.900 crashes into an orphanage. That railroad stock is going to plummet, right? But Hedy would say,

00:36:03.860 yeah it's going to plummet for now and it's going to be super cheap but in five years everyone's

00:36:08.680 going to forget this and they're going to remember that this kid smash rnr railroad is got the only

00:36:15.600 water rights to a bridge over an important river so i'm just going to buy this all up and quietly

00:36:20.080 wait five years and then i'm going to own everything to do with this railroad and that's

00:36:24.520 what she did over and over and and some people even think that's very unpleasant she was almost

00:36:29.540 like she was somehow making money off the suffering of others which is fair that's kind of how you 0.90

00:36:34.720 make money in the business world i assume i'm actually really bad with money but she wasn't

00:36:40.020 and and everybody wants to then say okay well we can't say anything about her unless we can prove

00:36:47.100 she did something good and i said you know what she was heady that was her job on this planet

00:36:52.940 she didn't do anything good she did something amazing she was living in an era where you had

00:36:58.320 to have your husband's or father's co-sign to open a savings account yeah exactly because the

00:37:03.100 whole thing like people keep talking about that now it's like it wasn't until like the 1970s that

00:37:06.820 women could get a mortgage and she was a self-made billionaire of her own like the 1900s yeah and

00:37:12.600 she might have been mentally ill i think she was she had i don't know if you'd call them paranoid

00:37:16.880 delusions because when you're that rich people probably do want to hurt you genuine yeah but 1.00

00:37:22.060 she would do she would like not pay for hot water in her apartments even when she had her kids with 0.96

00:37:27.520 her and she slept with a gun tied to her wrist and she had this terrible bulging hernia that she 1.00

00:37:34.020 wouldn't pay 200 bucks to have repaired she just kept it in place with a stick jammed in her

00:37:38.060 underpants um the one person who recorded it was the doctor we don't know he could have been

00:37:42.800 exaggerating but also it tracks yeah he is my anti-hero she didn't she she she her only

00:37:53.000 redemptive quality is that she could have been worse and also yeah he did something that was

00:37:58.380 really hard to do i don't care if it was unpleasant and and not nice she she broke she shattered the 0.82

00:38:05.560 male sphere of money making she's like screw you all i'm gonna do what i want to do and she didn't

00:38:12.140 actively hurt anybody but her own kids and in fairness they inherited millions upon millions 0.74

00:38:16.000 upon millions of dollars and they seemed okay for the most part and i i just don't want to defend

00:38:22.520 heady i want her to exist i want to set her free and say look at her look what she did what do you

00:38:26.740 think of that and everybody has your own opinions but acknowledge she existed and acknowledge she

00:38:31.620 did something no one else could do and if she wasn't the nicest person most of us aren't nice

00:38:36.380 people but most can't do what she did and i really resented being told no she's not worth remembering

00:38:43.000 because she's not nice and that was almost the exact quote of my first editor i feel like you

00:38:48.520 you need to put that put that on the cover of the book that would have been a great title 1.00

00:38:53.280 these women don't belong in a book that would have been such a good title quotes on the cover

00:38:57.200 but yeah it it that's my book and i really enjoyed writing it i i love these people delighted me 0.98

00:39:06.080 and also taking really finding people that we already kind of know about like victoria wood

00:39:12.040 hall was the first woman to run for president that's what i knew about her and i looked into 0.92

00:39:16.240 where i'm like oh my god she's a mess a beautiful chaotic mess and she she ended life as not 1.00

00:39:22.440 remotely a feminist she was up like she went back to catholicism or not even back she became a 0.95

00:39:28.560 catholic and moved to a tiny village in england where it was nice and quiet you know that's that 0.99

00:39:33.060 was her life arc and nobody wants to have that ending because they wanted to be a fierce badass

00:39:37.380 and blah blah blah she wasn't she was a damaged child who did the best she could with what she had

00:39:42.360 And it was a really cool ride. It was fascinating. And she brought down Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother, who was like the biggest hypocrite and the most famous preacher ever in America. And she's like, you know what? He's horrible, and I'm going to tell you how.

00:39:56.960 so she got erased from the current history contemporaneous history because she did that

00:40:02.820 too you don't start a morality war with the woman who wrote uncle tom's cabin and her brother 0.99

00:40:09.140 you're not going to win and she didn't but she still did it she was right he was a hypocrite 1.00

00:40:15.220 he was a total total whatever the male term for slutbag is i think we should call the beacher 0.99

00:40:20.520 because that was his name yeah yeah feature and he should have been held to account for it and he 0.96

00:40:27.920 really wasn't even though she exposed him and life was hard and and she lived it she did great things

00:40:34.540 not great things and that was her life and that's good that matters do i make sense tell me i make

00:40:40.980 sense no it totally makes sense and i'm gonna like special coffee talking my folders crystals

00:40:46.060 but not that fancy no it reminds me of um well i think especially for women in history the amount

00:40:56.440 of people that have to be on board to make like a new movie like a biography movie about a woman

00:41:01.240 from history like the story ends up being so distorted to make them seem like this wonderful

00:41:06.240 heroine and i think the same thing happens to men sometimes too but especially so i just i appreciate

00:41:11.700 that you fought to get these just, like, messy 1.00

00:41:13.680 bitches in your book. Thank you. And why do you 1.00

00:41:15.760 think we do that? Why do we need that

00:41:17.940 as a society? Why do we need...

00:41:19.760 Like, we want the women to be these sort of perfect 1.00

00:41:21.800 heroines. I mean, we all need our heroes. I don't know. 0.94

00:41:23.980 I don't know. 0.63

00:41:25.520 We don't want to watch a movie celebrating a dirtbag. 1.00

00:41:27.960 That's fair. But why are we 1.00

00:41:29.860 so opposed to just somebody who's

00:41:31.840 a mixture of yin and yang and good

00:41:33.760 and bad? Like, we all are.

00:41:35.720 Is it like we don't want to face that we all have

00:41:37.680 this darkness in us? Because if we

00:41:39.660 deny it, it's just going to get stronger.

00:41:41.700 if we embrace it, we have a chance. I think it's something like, I just know, especially like with

00:41:47.820 women's history, cause that's most of what I do too. I think it's like people want to be like,

00:41:54.180 no women were heroes too. And it's almost like trying to make like women, like a pantheon of

00:42:00.880 women heroes that sits up there with like, I don't know, God knows Napoleon and George Washington

00:42:07.380 or these other like men who I hate.

00:42:11.240 But like, you want to get like the women who are up there

00:42:13.920 who are these like pristine, perfect, you know,

00:42:16.400 and if they were rebels, it's kind of like,

00:42:18.380 but in like a cute way and they were pretty.

00:42:20.100 And it's so diminishing.

00:42:21.640 And more than that, it's a lie.

00:42:23.940 I'm tired of lying.

00:42:25.460 It's not necessary.

00:42:27.640 Why are we all pretending we're going to be good?

00:42:30.240 Let's just admit we're messy and we're chaotic

00:42:32.640 and we're still okay.

00:42:34.820 And we can still be kind

00:42:36.280 we can still contribute but we don't have to be phenomenal you know i don't know yeah exactly i

00:42:42.700 think there's a book like again like we're talking about like these books and again like i have all

00:42:47.120 love for these books that came out i don't know 10 years ago there was a whole bunch like the 1.00

00:42:50.540 rebel girls they've been done i know like phenomenal women and then there's the like

00:42:56.560 she persisted and it's like look at the and i understand the motivation is to be like look at

00:43:00.700 these women and like women did great and for a long time there was no women's history popularly

00:43:04.920 published. So it's like, that was like, that's like the first step. But then eventually it's

00:43:09.500 like, you know, like I have on my fridge, I'm sitting next to my fridge and I have these

00:43:14.200 magnets I bought one time that are like women from history. And like, I don't, I didn't put

00:43:18.160 them all up. Cause I'm just like, I don't want to celebrate all these people necessarily. There's

00:43:21.740 like, I won't say who I didn't put up, but, um, but it's kind of like, okay. Like, you know,

00:43:27.160 even like Elizabeth the first, I'm like, I'm not a big fan, but it's like, well, she was a woman,

00:43:31.740 but it's like we don't need to celebrate every woman

00:43:33.860 just because she did something

00:43:35.080 anyway I appreciate that you have these like messy 1.00

00:43:37.940 sluts in your book and I appreciate 1.00

00:43:39.840 that the title of your book is The Forgotten 0.90

00:43:42.020 Sluts and Shrews

00:43:43.140 I didn't pick that title actually

00:43:45.500 so thank you again to Simon

00:43:47.640 Elevent for that one because they know

00:43:49.640 what people will actually want to pick up and buy 1.00

00:43:51.720 I wanted to use the word slatterns 0.75

00:43:53.880 and my editor's got like her head 1.00

00:43:55.920 in her hands and she's like Tracy nobody even knows

00:43:57.800 what that is I'm like the people who buy my book

00:44:00.160 would wouldn't they

00:44:01.340 they know she said it's not going to hit seo content i'm like what the hell is that and she's

00:44:07.500 like just let me do my job and i did and it worked she had the right idea i did not because it's a

00:44:14.340 good word for people who like the kind of stuff i write like you i'm so flattered thank you so

00:44:19.460 much for sharing all this with me you you have such an amazing podcast your deep dives are so

00:44:26.320 intricate thank you i was going to just compliment you as well and say just there's so many books 0.87

00:44:32.700 that are like these women made a scene and you read a book and it's all it's like rosa parks and 1.00

00:44:36.680 people who did important stuff but it's kind of like it's not the messy bitches and your book is 0.99

00:44:41.220 your title your book delivers on that promise you're not just being like here's the same people 1.00

00:44:45.480 you've heard about a hundred times who are kind of like demure and nice it's like no these are

00:44:49.260 these are people who are like assholes and they're great and i've enjoyed this so much thank you for

00:44:55.080 being so interested in this. It's so neat to meet somebody who likes the weird stuff you do, you 0.98

00:44:59.520 know? Yeah. Well, I think the very first email that we exchanged, we were talking about Lola

00:45:03.780 Montez. Yeah. You knew Lola Montez. I was so excited about that. Oh my gosh. She was in my

00:45:09.440 first book. She was like the only female I could find from Victorian era who had any book or input

00:45:15.440 or anything to say about women's health conditions or society. Everything else was old men who were 0.99

00:45:21.480 off their freaking rockers which was hilarious but like lola montez is like the last person you 1.00

00:45:27.500 should turn to for advice about anything really she just she totally with great flair she made 1.00

00:45:35.040 crap up like you but they were all doing that she just did it with yeah with great flair and 0.93

00:45:39.320 to become an irish dancing hall girl and end up a baroness or a countess that takes some skill 0.99

00:45:46.140 i don't know if it's good skill but i'm gonna give her proper credit for that that's awesome

00:45:51.140 I think when Lola Montez, I think I did like three hours of podcasting about her because I had to talk about every single thing she did. 0.93

00:46:00.720 Oh, my gosh. I have to go back and find your stuff then because she she was my special treasure.

00:46:06.420 And she's another example of you kind of play by certain rules that society is giving you in the time and the place you live. 0.97

00:46:12.900 And Lola, I think, had her heyday in the early part of the 1800s 1.00

00:46:19.060 And she simply wasn't going to change the world through politics 0.90

00:46:25.040 And she didn't have maybe the brain to change it through literature and all that 0.98

00:46:29.400 So she did it by being just an awesome booty call 0.63

00:46:34.900 And then taking it from there

00:46:36.340 And good for her, that was what she had

00:46:38.920 And she made it rock

00:46:40.020 She made it grand

00:46:42.440 she made it great and then she was an accomplished writer by the end of all this stuff she worked

00:46:47.940 with what she was given and made it beautiful she was well it's sort of like celeste she had her

00:46:52.920 career like dancing and then when she couldn't dance anymore she's like well i guess i'll just

00:46:57.400 write some books now like celeste is like i guess i'll just talk about my weight loss now because

00:47:00.920 i can't be a fat lady anymore it's like people who just like especially like poor slash working

00:47:05.080 class people it's like well you got to keep grifting like you can't what are they going to 0.99

00:47:09.500 do like go be a secretary like you gotta keep coming up with something new okay what i'm gonna

00:47:15.800 say we're gonna do an official podcast wrap up so theresa o'neill your book that we were just

00:47:20.880 talking about is called unbecoming a lady you your previous two books which before i met you 1.00

00:47:25.580 you know on the computer i had read and loved so you have ungovernable and you have unmentionable

00:47:31.400 so this is kind of your oh i like titles are all similar they're funny yeah and they're fun

00:47:36.300 there and that's the thing and that's what i try to do in a podcast too is like talking about

00:47:40.720 history but telling make it make it making jokes too i think is important people ask me what i

00:47:46.560 write and i always stare at them with no answer even after all these years i'm like well history

00:47:52.080 humor and they're like that's the genre and i'm like no but it's what i write it's it's a genre

00:47:56.660 of like your books my pretty much me there's like one other woman who writes kind of like this and

00:48:02.540 I'm like, okay, okay. It's a genre. Now there's three of us. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I really love

00:48:09.600 my job. I love the world is funny. Sometimes we laugh so that we do not cry, but the world is

00:48:16.920 really funny and the chance to bring it up and show it to everyone how fun it is. I love my job.

00:48:22.400 And I'm happy you're writing these books and I'm glad that through this labyrinthine process,

00:48:26.600 this book came into existence. Thank you, dear. I can't wait till I'm a proper crone and I can

00:48:33.120 just call everybody sweetie. Yeah. I don't know. I've been, I consider myself, and I've said this

00:48:38.860 on the podcast, like a young crone. Like I feel like I'm in my early crone era. And I like that.

00:48:47.460 Yeah. Yeah. Like I live alone with a cat. I feel like this is like, I'm just like

00:48:52.320 tiptoeing into crone i'm gonna embrace it i'm gonna wear the tackiest tie dyes you can find

00:48:58.620 and i'm gonna i'm gonna call everybody sweetie and i'm gonna the things that aren't even free

00:49:04.260 samples at the grocery store i'm still gonna take a taste it's just gonna be glorious it's gonna be

00:49:08.980 glorious i'm honestly looking forward to to my full-blown crone era they can get mad but how mad

00:49:15.100 can you get a crone because they're just yeah yeah what are you gonna do what are you gonna do

00:49:19.340 our power comes from strange places, but that doesn't mean we should reject it.

00:49:25.000 I agree. Well, thank you, Teresa, for joining me today on the podcast.

00:49:29.200 I'm so happy to be here, Anne. Thank you. I had a really good time.

00:49:37.060 So if you're in a situation where you are looking to buy a present for somebody,

00:49:42.040 or you are suggesting presents that you want someone else to buy for you because of holiday

00:49:47.040 related reasons. This book is a fantastic choice. I'm becoming a lady, the forgotten sluts and

00:49:51.860 shrews who shaped America by Teresa O'Neill. It's a lovely book to give as a gift because it's a 0.89

00:49:57.560 beautiful looking book. It's got photographs in it of the various sluts and shrews, but also it 0.97

00:50:02.680 has beautiful illustrations. There's beautiful illustrations on the cover. It's just, it's a 0.98

00:50:06.180 nice time. I think it'd be a nice gift to give or to receive this holiday season or just for a gift,

00:50:12.400 give yourself a gift, buy it from the library, read it yourself. And we're going to be back

00:50:15.480 next week with another gift suggestion, author interview, like another fantastic book that

00:50:20.560 actually coincides with this one in interesting ways, which you'll find about next week when you

00:50:25.260 hear that episode. And yeah, this is Vulgar History, the podcast. So usually we're talking

00:50:31.940 about the shitty women from history. And these next few weeks, we're talking about some books 0.99

00:50:38.160 that are about that same thing. So you can also keep up with me in the podcast. I'm on Instagram

00:50:43.380 um at vulgar history pod i'm also on threads at vulgar history pod i'm on blue sky vulgar history

00:50:47.980 pod you know wherever you are on the internet i'm probably there except for not on twitter so i also

00:50:55.660 am on substack which is where i have my um it's like every other week what do you call it fortnightly 0.94

00:51:01.120 newsletter which is basically just me yelling about feminist shit on substack um in a written 0.95

00:51:07.160 format so it's called vulgar history a la carte and if you go to substack and subscribe to that 1.00

00:51:12.160 then you get those little newsletters.

00:51:14.640 You can get them in your inbox,

00:51:16.040 like they get emailed to you.

00:51:17.200 Or if you just go in the Substack app,

00:51:18.720 then they'll just pop up there being like,

00:51:20.300 hey, Anne wrote a new thing

00:51:21.140 and you can read it and it's all free.

00:51:22.940 So again, it's Vulgar History a la carte on Substack.

00:51:25.600 You can also support this podcast on Patreon,

00:51:28.120 which again, you can go to on your device,

00:51:30.500 go to patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

00:51:32.840 Or if you have the Patreon app,

00:51:34.000 just look me up there.

00:51:35.100 And what happens there is on Patreon for free members,

00:51:38.120 you get just various updates I share,

00:51:40.360 you know like interesting links or articles i find or like what's what's up what's new what's

00:51:44.380 happening um i put value added content there like photos of some of the people we talk about on the

00:51:49.560 show and stuff like that and i like to put that stuff on patreon because it doesn't rely on an

00:51:53.420 algorithm um people who actually want to follow the stuff that i'm talking about can actually

00:51:57.400 find it there for free and then also if you want to pay a little bit of money for one dollar a

00:52:03.060 month you get all of the above but also you get early ad free access to all episodes of vulgar

00:52:08.180 history including the past episodes you can get ad-free versions of those too and if you pledge

00:52:15.160 five dollars over a month you get also all of the above and bonus episodes of things like the after

00:52:20.960 show where i talk with some of my guests when we when we get going um and we talk about other 0.95

00:52:26.480 topics but also so this asshole i talk about shitty men from history there's a bunch of those 0.89

00:52:30.160 you can listen to vulgar peace theater the currently on hiatus but coming back soon um 0.98

00:52:35.800 bonus show where myself, Alison Epstein, and Lana Wood Johnson talk about costume dramas from

00:52:41.360 history. There's a huge backlog, not backlog, archive, archive, a valuable archive of episodes

00:52:47.960 of Vulgar Peace Theater if you want to listen to those as well. And also if you join the Patreon

00:52:52.500 for $5 or more a month, you get to join our exclusive Discord group, which is just like a

00:52:56.860 giant group chat for the Tits Out Brigade, which is what listeners of this podcast are called if

00:53:01.120 you didn't know, or we just chat about anything. And you can access the Discord when you join the

00:53:05.320 patreon at five dollars or more a month and if you want to get in terms of gift giving suggestions

00:53:10.780 um we also have our gorgeous brand partner common era jewelry who tori the owner has just been like

00:53:16.580 dropping new things uh left right and center lately there's some beautiful new designs and so

00:53:21.500 this is a small woman-owned business that makes beautiful heirloom pieces of jewelry inspired by

00:53:26.220 classical mythology and women from history and so they have their difficult women collection

00:53:31.320 of course, which features lots of women we've talked about on the show. None of them are women

00:53:35.580 from like 20th century America. So it's not specific crossover with Teresa's book, but we've

00:53:39.760 got like old time women who are complex and interesting. Agrippina is there. Anne Boleyn 1.00

00:53:45.420 is there. Cleopatra is there. Lots of goddesses from classical mythology are there as well.

00:53:53.080 Artemis is there. Lots of people. And if you want to buy some stuff from common era jewelry,

00:54:01.320 their pieces are available in solid gold as well as a more affordable gold vermeil

00:54:05.220 and vulgar history listeners get 15 off everything you buy from them by going to

00:54:09.980 commonera.com slash vulgar or using code vulgar at checkout and again gift giving suggestions

00:54:15.800 vulgar history merchandise which you can get at vulgarhistory.com slash store if you're in the

00:54:20.440 us if you're outside the us go to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com there's a lot of funny things

00:54:27.200 there. Beautiful designs made by artists whose work I have paid for and were not created using

00:54:32.960 AI. You can also get in touch with me using the form at vulgarhistory.com. It's like contact me

00:54:38.900 button there if you want to get in touch with me for some reason. And next week, we're talking

00:54:43.340 with an author of a book. And in that book, there is some connection with one of the people we

00:54:48.080 talked about today with Teresa. So it's interesting how things all overlay with each other. And until

00:54:53.360 next time, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out. Vulgar History is researched, 1.00

00:54:59.680 written, and hosted by Anne Foster. That's me. The editor is Christina Lumagi. Theme music is 0.97

00:55:05.840 by The Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Debra Wong. Transcripts are written by

00:55:11.740 Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com.

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Vulgar History - November 27, 2024

Author Interview： Therese Oneill (The Forgotten Sluts and Shrews Who Shaped America)

Episode Stats

Transcript