The Fugitive Brewer

01/12/22 • 29 min

4 Listeners

A skill for brewing beer and $100 reward for her capture. Those were the clues in an old newspaper ad that got Smithsonian brewing historian Theresa McCulla hooked on the story of Patsy Young, an enslaved African American woman who fled to freedom in 1808 and made a life for herself brewing beer. In this episode of Sidedoor, we follow McCulla as she scours historical documents to retrace Young's life and find out who she was...and what happened after her escape.

Guests:

Theresa McCulla, Curator with the Smithsonian’s American Brewing History Initiative at the National Museum of American History

Mary Elliott, Curator of American Slavery at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Frank Clark, Master of Historic Foodways at Colonial Williamsburg

Guests:

Theresa McCulla, Curator with the Smithsonian’s American Brewing History Initiative at the National Museum of American History

Mary Elliott, Curator of American Slavery at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Frank Clark, Master of Historic Foodways at Colonial Williamsburg

Previous Episode

Edison’s Demon Dolls

In 1890, Americans were delighted when they heard the news that Thomas Edison was using his phonograph technology to give voice to porcelain dolls. But their delight soon turned to horror. In this episode of Sidedoor, we’ll hear a short story that imagines what happens when two little girls receive one of Edison’s talking dolls as a holiday gift. And we’ll speak with an expert from the National Museum of American history to learn what went wrong with Edison’s invention.

Next Episode

The Robot in the Mirror

It’s easy to think artificial intelligence is objective. It doesn’t have emotions. It operates based on cold hard calculations. But artificial intelligence is built on human intelligence, and it may be carrying our old prejudices into the future with us. In this episode of Sidedoor, we step into the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition to meet a very special robot who asks us to consider: whose image will be reflected in our AI future?

Speakers:

Stephanie Dinkins, transdisciplinary artist and professor at Stony Brook University

Twitter: @dinkinsstudio @stephdink

Instagram: Dinkins.studio, stephanie.dinkins

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.stephaniedinkins.com

Ashley Molese, a curator of the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition

Social media: @smithsonianAIB, #TheFUTURES