In the mid-19th century Étienne Cabet had an idea to establish a utopian society in Texas, and he moved his followers from France to do it. Things went badly, but he persisted, and established multiple communities in North America.
Mar 4
Théophile Steinlen Beyond 'Le Chat Noir'
“Le Chat Noir” is one of the most famous pieces of late 19th century European art, but the artist behind it was also very active in France's anarchist and socialist political groups of the time. Research: Asimakis, Magdalyn. “War, Socialism, and Cats: Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen ... Show More
38m 27s
Mar 2
Hercules Posey & the President’s House
The President's House was the first home of the U.S. president in the temporary capital of Phildelphia. While George Washington lived there, he had nine enslaved people that we know of., including the cook, Hercules. Research: “George Washington to Tobias Lear, 12 April 1791,” Fo ... Show More
45m 15s
Feb 2023
Malcolm Harris, "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World" (Little, Brown, 2023)
Palo Alto is nice. The weather is temperate, the people are educated, rich, healthy, enterprising. Remnants of a hippie counterculture have synthesized with high technology and big finance to produce the spiritually and materially ambitious heart of Silicon Valley, whose products ... Show More
1h 1m
Jan 2019
Farina King, "The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century" (UP of Kansas, 2018)
When the young Diné boy Hopi-Hopi ran away from the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School in the early years of the twentieth century, he carried with him no paper map to guide his way home. Rather, he used knowledge of the region, of the stars, and of the Southwest’s ecology instilled ... Show More
1h 4m
Jul 2021
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, "Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in wa ... Show More
1h 10m
Sep 2025
A Time Slip in Versailles: The Moberly-Jourdain Incident
On a warm, overcast summer’s day of 1901, two English school mistresses strolled through the gardens of Versailles, unaware they were about to step into a defining moment in their lives. One minute in the present and the next in the past, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourda ... Show More
49m 28s