Episode 57 – The Supreme Court After 1898

Photo of Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site Monroe Public School in Topeka, Kansas by Jay Galvin, 2021. Used under CC.

Brown v Board of Education, Roe v Wade, Loving v Virginia – Supreme Court decisions in the 20th century have affected the lives of Americans in a myriad of ways. There were repudiations of prior decisions and expansions of how Constitutional protections were understood. There were unanimous decisions and ones more fraught with dissension in the court. Join us for this episode as we touch on a few of the most important decisions.  

Episode 56 – The US Supreme Court from Taney to Plessy v Ferguson

CC from Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to part two of our three-part series on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. In this episode we discuss the Taney court (1836-1864) through the Fuller court (1888-1910). We break down two of the most landmark decisions of these courts with a discussion of Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857) and Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). Join us for a discussion of judicial overreach, precursors to Civil War, and the codification of racial segregation in the Jim Crow era.

Episode 55 – The US Supreme Court – Jay to Marshall

John Marshall by Henry Inman via Wikimedia Commons

The justices that sit on the US Supreme Court may be nine of the most powerful unelected officials in the world. Join us for the first of a multi-part deep dive into the story of the US Supreme. We’ll cover that origins of the court as well as critical people and cases that fundamentally shaped the contemporary legal, political, economic, and social landscape of America.

This week we discuss the origin of the court and the tenures of John Jay, the first Chief Justice, and John Marshall, arguably the most importandt Chief Justice in the history of the court.

Episode 54 – Presentism

AdiJapan, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

Join us as we kick off An Incomplete History season 3 with a discussion of presentism. This week, we do a deep dive into the divisive debate happening within the field of history as the result of the American Historical Association’s president who wrote an opinion piece regarding our role as historians. The piece received extreme backlash leading to the AHA having to lock their Twitter account and many members canceling their memberships to the association. This week we talk about the concept of presentism, why the accusation was offensive to many historians, and what we could or should be doing to promote respectful debate and an open sharing of ideas in such a politically charged moment.

Links to articles mentioned in the episode –

James Sweet Article

Lynn Hunt Article

Caroline Walker Bynum Article

Episode 52 – More About the News

Michael Bennet and Wolf Blitzer, December 2019

We continue our series on the history of the news and journalism in the United States with a look at the CNN Effect and the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle. How has it changed the way American’s receive and respond to the news? Join us this week to find out.

Episode 51 – Newspapers and the News

Herald of Freedom (Boston), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Politicians and journalists alike often claim Americans are more divided now than at any point in the nation’s past. Pundits and commentators point to the stark divisions in the news media we voraciously consume. MSNBC and Fox present strikingly different views on almost every subject. But is this really something new? Join us as we take a dive into the tawdry and titillating history news and newspapers in America. From colonial broadsides criticizing the British crown to abolitionists tracks to scandalous tales of foreign intrigue and even domestic violence, the news from America’s past seems strangely familiar in the 21st century.

Episode 50 – Civil War Medicine

Chimborazo hospital richmond civil war death certificate.png
By Collins, William A., 1841-1862 – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Public Domain, Link

In this episode Hilary and Geoff discuss common misconceptions about medicine during the Civil War. They also talk about key advances that take place in medical professionalization, surgery, the treatment of diseases, and even the expanding role of women in medicine.

Episode 48 – September 11 Twenty Years Later

World Trade Center with hotel, May 2001

In this week’s episode we look back on the events of September 11, 2001 and ask how we grapple with memory and recounting historical events. This is a unique episode because Geoff was there! he provides his own narrative of the day’s events and readily admits his own recollections are incomplete.

Episode 47 – The Stonewall Rebellion

Uncredited Photo from the protests that occurred in the wake of Stonewall.

On June 28, 1969, what would normally have been a rather routine police bust of an unlicensed bar on New York City’s west side, sparked a series a riots and protests that birthed the modern Gay Pride movement. Who was there, who started the riot, who did the police target and many other details surrounding the night of the 28th as well as the subsequent nights of rioting has been a point of contention within the LGBT community ever since. Join us this week as we discuss the origins of Pride Month and the complicated beginnings of the LGBT rights movement.

Episode 46 – Great Awakenings

Camp meeting of the Methodists in N. America
/ J. Milbert del. ; M. Dubourg sculp. 1819. LOC

This week we delve into a topic we’ve been promising to cover for some time, the Second Great Awakening. This was the religious movement in the United States that spawned the Mormons and Adventists as well as the evangelical factions of more mainline churches. It truly was a time when American Christianity came into its own. As always, though, we’ll complicate things a bit and talk about the First Great Awakening and other religious movements before the founding of the United States.