Unsung History Kelly Therese Pollock

Fictional depictions of Southern plantations often present romanticized visions of genteel country life, but for the people enslaved on plantations the reality was that of a forced labor camp. At the same time the plantation was also their home. And although they had no choice in where or how they lived, enslaved people did work to make their residences home, for instance by sweeping their yards, keeping items like books and ceramics, and even hiding personal objects in the walls or under the floor where they couldn’t be found by enslavers.

Joining me in this episode to help us understand the importance of homemaking by enslaved plantation workers is historian Dr. Whitney Nell Stewart, assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at Dallas, and author of This Is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Welcome, Honey, to Your Old Plantation Home,” composed by Albert Gumble with lyrics by Jack Yellen, and performed by the Peerless Quartet in New York on June 19, 1916; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox Project. The episode image is “Picking cotton on a Georgia plantation, 1858;” the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.

Additional sources:
“‘Gone With the Wind’ is also a Confederate monument, but on film instead of stone,” by Nina Silber, The Washington Post, June 12, 2020.“How Gone With the Wind Took the Nation by Storm By Catering to its Southern Sensibilities,” by Carrie Hagen, Smithsonian Magazine, December 15, 2014.“Why Confederate Lies Live On,” by Clint Smith, The Atlantic, May 10, 2021.“The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” Jefferson Davis, D. Appleton and Company. 1880.“The Plantation System,” National Geographic Education.“Slavery, the Plantation Myth, and Alternative Facts,” by Tyler Parry, Black Perspectives,  December 6, 2017.“The Myth of the Peaceful Plantation,” by Wayne Curtis, The Daily Beast, Originally published on August 4, 2020, and updated on November 30, 2021.“Plantations could be used to teach about US slavery if stories are told truthfully,” by Amy Potter and Derek H. Alderman, The Conversation, March 15, 2022.“Inside America’s Auschwitz,” by Jared Keller, Smithsonian Magazine, April 4, 2016.


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Shortly after New Orleans became a US city (via the Louisiana Purchase), the municipal council established one of the country’s first professional salaried police forces and began operation of Police Jail, both efforts aimed at the capture and control of enslaved people who had run away from or otherwise disobeyed their enslavers. The history of New Orleans and Louisiana is an intertwined history of slavery and incarceration, the effects of which can still be felt today.

Joining me in this episode is Dr. John Bardes, Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University and author of The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The Best Jazz Club In New Orleans,” by PaoloArgento, available for use via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Slave prison (Calabozo), New Orleans,” by photographer A. Genthe, taken between 1920 and 1926; the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.

Additional sources:
“Timeline: New Orleans,” PBS American Experience.“Third Treaty of San Ildefonso,” by Elizabeth Clark Neidenbach, 64 Parishes.“Louisiana Purchase, 1803,” United States Department of State Office of the Historian.“‘Confined in the Dungeons’: Orleans Parish Prison and Self-Emancipated People,” Lauren Smith, Kathryn O’Dwyer, Editor, and with initial research contributions by Brett Todd, New Orleans Historical, accessed May 12, 2024. “Before the Civil War, New Orleans Was the Center of the U.S. Slave Trade,” by Joshua D. Rothman, Smithsonian Magazine, April 19, 2021.“Lincoln’s 'laboratory': How emancipation spread across South Louisiana during Civil War,” by Andrew Capps, Lafayette Daily Advertiser, June 18, 2021.“Why slavery as a punishment for crime was just on the ballot in some states,” PBS News Hour, November 18, 2022.“‘You’re a slave’: Inside Louisiana’s forced prison labor and a failed overhaul attempt,” by Cara McGoogan, Washington Post, Published January 1, 2023, and updated January 3, 2023.“Louisiana's over-incarceration is part of a deeply rooted pattern,” by Hassan Kanu, Reuters, February 1, 2023.


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Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie came of age in a deeply segregated country, battling racism to become celebrated musicians, composers, and band leaders whose music lives on. Joining me this week to discuss the lives and careers of these three musical geniuses is writer and journalist Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Riverside Blues,” performed by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in 1923; the song is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode images are: “Count Basie,” taken by James J. Kriegsmann in 1955, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; “Louis Armonstrong,” Herbert Behrens / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; and “Duke Ellington,’’ Associated Booking (management), 1964, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:
“MLK Jr. on Jazz, The Soundtrack of Civil Rights,” by Mark Taylor, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, January 14, 2022.“Duke Ellington, a Master of Music, Dies at 75,” by John S. Wilson, The New York Times, May 25, 1974.“Seven facts to learn about Duke Ellington,” by Cristiana Lombardo, PBS American Masters, July 18, 2022.“Duke Ellington,” Songwriters Hall of Fame.“Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies,” by Albin Krebs, The New York Times, July 7, 1971.“Louis Armstrong Biography,” Louis Armstrong House Museum.“9 Things You May Not Know About Louis Armstrong,” by Evan Andrews, History.com, Originally published August 4, 2016 and updated June 1, 2023.“Count Basie, 79, Band Leader and Master of Swing, Dead,” by John S. Wilson, The New York TImes, April 27, 1984.“Count Basie Biography,” Rutgers University.“William ‘Count’ Basie,” National Endowment for the Arts.


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In its earliest years, the National League was not segregated, and a few teams included Black ballplayers, but in 1887 major and minor league owners adopted a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” that no new contracts would be given to Black players. In 1920, pitcher and manager Rube Foster founded the first of the Negro Leagues, the Negro National League, to organize professional Black baseball, which was played at a very high level. Other professional Negro leagues followed, and for decades the stars of the game played in the Negro Leagues, until the National League and American League began to slowly accept Black players, starting with Jackie Robinson in 1947.  

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Leslie Heaphy, Associate Professor of History at Kent State University at Stark, Vice President of the Society for American Baseball Research, founding editor of Black Ball, and author of The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Boogaboo (Fox Trot),” composed by Jelly Roll Morton and performed by Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers Camden, New Jersey, on June 11, 1928; the music is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is from the fourth Negro League East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago on August 23, 1936; the photograph is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:
“The History Of Baseball And Civil Rights In America,” National Baseball Hall of Fame.“Bud Fowler’s Life Blazed A Trail From Cooperstown,” by Isabelle Minasian, National Baseball Hall Of Fame.“6 Decades Before Jackie Robinson, This Man Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier: Moses Fleetwood Walker played for a Major League Baseball team in the 1880s,” by Farrell Evans, History.com, Originally published April 27, 2022, and updated January 22, 2024.“The Great Migration (1910-1970),” National Archives.“The League [video],” Magnolia Pictures.“A 20th Century Baseball Institution,” by Matt Kelly, MLB.com.“The Negro League revolutionized baseball – MLB's new rules are part of its legacy,” by Dave Davies, NPR Fresh Air, July 10, 2023.“The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball,” National Baseball Hall of Fame. 

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In 1977, a California state senator named John Briggs took to the steps of City Hall in San Francisco to announce a ballot initiative that would empower school boards to fire gay teachers based only on their sexual orientation. In response, gay activists around California mobilized, including gay Republicans, who formed among the first gay Republican organizations. In 1990, several of those California groups, together with groups across the country, combined into the Log Cabin Federation, which by 1992 had grown to 6000 members across 26 chapters.  

Joining me in this episode to discuss this story and the longer history of Gay Republicans is historian, writer, and podcaster Dr. Neil J. Young, author of Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Funky_30sec” by Grand_Project from Pixabay; the music is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Arguments at the United States Supreme Court for Same-Sex Marriage on April 28, 2015,” taken by Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED.

Additional Sources:

“How 1970s Christian crusader Anita Bryant helped spawn Florida's LGBTQ culture war,” by Jillian Eugenios, NBC News, April 13, 2022.“Column: How 2.8 million California voters nearly banned gay teachers from public schools,” By Nicholas Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2021.“How Log Cabin Republicans Keep Out Of The Closet,” by NPR Weekend Edition Saturday, April 20, 2011.“Kevin McCarthy should meet the Ronald Reagan of 1978,” by John Kenneth White, The Hill, June 3, 2021.“Our History,” Log Cabin Republicans.“The bizarre history of Log Cabin’s presidential endorsements,” by Chris Johnson, The Washington Blade, August 21, 2019.“Melania Trump is set to make a return to her husband's campaign with a rare political appearance,” by Stephany Matat, The Washington Post, April 20, 2024.


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For several decades in the 20th Century, American universities, including elite institutions, took nude photos of their students, sometimes as often as twice a year, in order to evaluate their posture. In some cases students had to achieve a minimum posture grade in order to graduate. How did that practice develop, and how did it end? This week we’re discussing Americans’ obsession with posture with Dr. Beth Linker, the Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Debutante Intermezzo,” composed and performed by Howard Kopp in 1916; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from “The posture of school children, with its home hygiene and new efficiency methods for school training,” from 1913, by Jessie H. Bancroft; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional sources:
“Correct Posture League.; Will Educate Children and Adults to Stand Up Straight,” The New York Times, April 2, 1914."College Slouch" Proved By Orthopedic Tests,” The Harvard Crimson, March 8, 1917.“The Rise and Fall of American Posture,” by David Yosifon and Peter N. Stearns, The American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (1998): 1057–95. “The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal,” by Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Times Magazine, January 15, 1995, Section 6, Page 26.“It’s Not Too Late to Fix Your Posture,” by Thessaly La Force, Vogue Magazine, January 18, 2024.“Six ways to improve your posture,” by Rebecca Newman, Financial Times, March 26 2024.“Learn how to correct your posture in only 60 seconds,” by Ron Kaspriske, Golf Digest, February 9, 2024.“How to promote good posture and avoid becoming hunched over,” by Michele Stanten, The Washington Post, December 11, 2023.

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