Unsung History
Kelly Therese Pollock
1 Creator
5.0
(4)
A podcast about people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet.
7 Listeners
2 Comments
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Top 10 Unsung History Episodes
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Introducing Unsung History
Unsung History
06/03/21 • 1 min
A podcast about the people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet. With host Kelly Therese Pollock.
In each episode of Unsung History I’ll start us out with a short narrative answering the Who, What, When, and Where to introduce you to the topic, and then I’ll talk to someone who can help us learn the Why and How: a historian or other academic, a journalist or researcher, or someone who was there when history as history unfolded.
Launching June 7, 2021.
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3 Listeners

Knitting Brigades of World War I
Unsung History
06/07/21 • 34 min
5.0
Between America’s entry into World War I and the end of the war less than two years later, Americans knit 23 million articles of clothing and bandages for soldiers overseas, directed by the American Red Cross. How was this knitting organized? Who did the knitting? And why don’t more people know about this impressive feat? Kelly digs into the story of World War I knitting efforts and interviews Holly Korda, author of The Knitting Brigades of World War I: Volunteers for Victory in America and Abroad to find out more.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode Image: Women knit at the Red Cross Knitting Booth while waiting for their trains at New York’s Grand Central Station, 1918. NATIONAL ARCHIVES/ 20802094.
Episode Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-1
Sources:
- The Knitting Brigades of World War I by Holly Korda.
- "The Wool Brigades of World War I, When Knitting was a Patriotic Duty," Atlas Obscura.
- "Knitting for Victory — World War I," History Link.
- "Showing support for the Great War with knitting needles," Smithsonian.
- "'Knit Your Bit': The American Red Cross Knitting Program," Center for Knit and Crochet.
- "Wilson's Sheep," The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum.
- "Knitted Articles for the American Red Cross," The Delineator, V.91 1917. [Knitting Patterns]
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1

The 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot
Unsung History
06/27/22 • 51 min
On a hot weekend night in August 1966 trans women fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. Although the Compton’s riot didn’t spark a national movement the way Stonewall would three years later, it did have an effect, leading to the creation of support services for transgender people in San Francisco, and a reduction in police brutality against the trans community.
Joining me to discuss the riot, its causes, and its aftermath, is historian Dr. Susan Stryker, co-writer and co-director of the Emmy-winning 2005 documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, and author of several books, including Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image origin is unknown; it is used as the cover image of the documentary, and appears in many related news stories without attribution.
Additional sources:
- “At the Crossroads of Turk and Taylor: Resisting carceral power in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District,” by Susan Stryker, Places Journal, October 2021.
- “Compton's Cafeteria riot: a historic act of trans resistance, three years before Stonewall,” by Sam Levin, The Guardian, June 21, 2019.
- “Ladies In The Streets: Before Stonewall, Transgender Uprising Changed Lives,” by Nicole Pasulka, NPR Code Switch, May 5, 2015.
- “Don't Let History Forget About Compton's Cafeteria Riot,” by Neal Broverman, Advocate, August 2, 2018.
- “Compton's Cafeteria Riot,” by Andrea Borchert, Los Angeles Public Library, April 16, 2021.
- “How lost photos of a defining landmark in LGBTQ history were rediscovered on Facebook,” by Ryan Kost, San Francisco Chronicle, May 25, 2021.
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01/24/22 • 46 min
The rise of Nazism before World War II wasn’t limited to Germany. The German-Americna Bund (Amerikadeutscher Volksbund) formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1936, to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany. It quickly grew to 70 local groups around the country, with 20 training camps where kids aged 8-18 practiced military drills and wore Nazi-style uniforms. By 1939, 20,000 people attended the Bund’s Pro American Rally in Madison Square Garden.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, Jewish American gangsters who had been running liquor businesses suddenly had more time on their hands, and they decided to fight back against the Bund. In Newark, New Jersey, Abner “Longie” Zwillman formed a secret organization called the Minutemen to fight the Nazis. The Minutemen, who operated from 1933 to 1941, would break up Bund meetings using their fists, baseball bats, and stink bombs. The Minutemen were based in New Jersey, but Jewish gangsters around the country fought the Bund, including in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles.
To help us learn more, I’m joined on this episode by Leslie K. Barry, author of the historic novel, Newark Minutemen: A True 1930s Legend about One Man's Mission to Save a Nation's Soul Without Losing His Own, whose uncle was a Minuteman in Newark in the 1930s.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The image is: “German American Bund parade in New York City on East 86th St.,” World-Telegram photo, New York, 1937, Public Domain. The audio clip is from the German American Bund Rally on February 20, 1939, and is in the Public Domain.
Additional Sources:
- “There Were American Nazi Summer Camps Across the US in the 1930s,” by George Dvorsky, Gizmodo, November 19, 2015.
- “American Nazis in the 1930s—The German American Bund,” by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, June 5, 2017.
- “When Nazis Took Manhattan,” by Sarah Kate Kramer, NPR: All Things Considered, February 20, 2019.
- “American Nazis and Nazi Sympathizers Have Been Around Since the 1930’s,” by Eric Ginsburg, Teen Vogue, November 26, 2018.
- “American Nazism and Madison Square Garden,” The National World War II Museum, April 14, 2021.
- “Field of Vision - A Night at the Garden [video],” directed by Marshall Curry.
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Freedpeople in Indian Territory
Unsung History
02/28/22 • 39 min
When the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee (or Creek), and Seminole Nations – known as “The Five Civilized Tribes” by white settlers – were forcibly moved from their lands in the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), they brought their possessions with them, including the people of African descent whom they had enslaved.
After the Civil War, these slaves were freed and freedpeople were included in the allocation of Native lands undertaken by the Dawes Commission, making them the one group of former slaves to receive some reparations. However, like freedpeople in the South, their status and rights were often precarious and changed over time, especially with the establishment of Oklahoma statehood in 1907.
To learn more, I’m joined by Dr. Alaina E. Roberts, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, and author of I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, Date Unknown; Oklahoma Historical Society.”
Additional Sources:
- “Freedmen History,” Oklahoma Historical Society.
- We're not going anywhere': Choctaw Freedmen cite history, ties to Tribal Nation in fight for citizenship, by Allison Herrera, KOSU, September 22, 2021.
- “Black Freedmen struggle for recognition as tribal citizens,” by Sean Murphy, AP News, May 1, 2021.
- “7 questions about Freedmen answered,” by Brian Oaster, High Country News, October 11, 2021.
- “Tribes to Confront Bias Against Descendants of Enslaved People,” by Chris Cameron and Mark Walker, The New York Times, May 28, 2021.
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Yellowstone National Park
Unsung History
03/07/22 • 57 min
One hundred fifty years ago, President Ulysses S. Grant signed an act establishing Yellowstone National Park into law, making it the first national park in the United States, and a cause for celebration in a country still recovering from the devastating Civil War. Not everyone celebrated, though, including Native Americans who had called the land home for thousands of years before white trappers and explorers first experienced the wild majesty of the landscape.
To learn more about the men who championed the creation of the park and the Indigenous resistance to it, I’m joined by historian Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of the new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The between-segment song is “The Fellow in Yellowstone Park,” written by Gilbert Fogarty and performed by Kitty Kallen, assisted by Four Chicks and Chuck, in 1949. The song is available in the public domain through the Internet Archive.
The episode image is: “Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park,” Painted by Thomas Moran in 1873. The painting is in the collect of Smithsonian American Art Museum, a gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III, and is in the public domain.
Additional Sources:
- “How Sitting Bull’s Fight for Indigenous Land Rights Shaped the Creation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Smithsonian Magazine, March 1, 2022.
- “The Big Business Politics Behind the Formation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, March 1, 2022.
- “History and Culture,” Yellowstone National Park, National Park Service.
- “Yellowstone turns 150. Here's a peek into the national park's history,” by Jaclyn Diaz, NPR, March 1, 2022.
- “Yellowstone National Park celebrates 150 wild years -- and what a history it's been,” by Forrest Brown, CNN, February 28, 2022.
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Chesapeake Bay Pirates & the 19th Century Oyster Wars
Unsung History
08/23/21 • 32 min
In Chesapeake Bay in the late 19th century, oyster harvesting was a big business. There were so many oyster harvesters harvesting so many oysters that the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia had to start regulating who could harvest oysters and how they could do so. Creating the regulations was the easy part; enforcing them was much harder. The illegal harvesting of oysters by oyster pirates continued, even after the creation of the Maryland State Oyster Police Force in 1868 and a similar force in Virginia in 1884.
The first of the Oyster Wars was in Virginia in 1882 when Governor William E. Cameron himself joined the expedition to raid the pirates. The first raid was a success, but Cameron quickly learned that pirates wouldn’t stay defeated for long, and the oyster wars continued. By the late 1880s the Oyster Wars turned deadly.
The Oyster Wars remained an important part of Chesapeake Bay history all the way until the “official” end of the Oyster Wars in 1959, although even that may have not truly been the end.
In this episode, Kelly briefly tells the story of the Oyster Wars and (with a little help from her son, Arthur, interviews Jamie Goodall, author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “The oyster war in Chesapeake Bay,” Drawing by Schell and Hogan. Harper's Weekly, Mar. 1, 1884, p. 136. Library of Congress.
Transcript available at: https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-episode-12.
Sources:
- Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars by Jamie L. H. Goodall
- National Geographic Pirates: Shipwrecks, Conquests & Legacy by Jamie L. H. Goodall
- The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay by John R Wennersten
- The daily dispatch. (Richmond, VA), 04 March 1883. Library of Congress.
- "Oyster Wars," Baltimore Sun, February 10, 2015.
- Oyster Question: Scientists, Watermen, and the Maryland Chesapeake Bay Since 1880 by Christine Keiner
- "An Evolving Force: Natural Resources Police Celebrates 150th Anniversary," Maryland Department of Natural Resources, March 30, 2018.
- “Landscapes of Resistance: A View of the Nineteenth-Century Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery” by Bradford Botwick and Debra A. McClane. Historical Archaeology, vol. 39, no. 3, 2005, pp. 94–112.
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Who was Carol Lane?
Unsung History
01/31/22 • 48 min
5.0
In fall 1947 the Shell Oil Company hired a Women’s Travel Director named Carol Lane, who served in the role until she retired in 1974. Lane’s job was to encourage women to travel, showing them the joys of touring the country by car. Lane herself traveled around the United States and Canada, speaking to women’s clubs and on radio and TV, giving travel tips and packing demonstrations. Eventually, she even awarded women who developed local travel safety programs with the Carol Lane Award.
So who was Carol Lane? To learn the answer to that question, I’m joined on this episode by historian Melissa Dollman, author of the digital dissertation, Changing Lanes: A Reanimation of Shell Oil’s Carol Lane, which was the source I consulted in writing the introduction to this episode.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The image is from the booklet Carol Lane’s Dress-O-Graph, from 1953, which is in the public domain.
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Women-Led Slave Revolts
Unsung History
12/27/21 • 44 min
Enslaved Africans in what is now New York State and in the Middle Passage resisted their enslavement, despite the risk of doing so. In the previously accepted history of these slave revolts, the assumption was that men led the resistance, but Dr. Rebecca Hall dug deeper into the records and read against the grain to find the women warriors who fought for their freedom.
Joining me to help us learn more is Dr. Rebecca Hall, a scholar, activist and educator, who writes and speaks on the history of race, gender, law and resistance, and author of the recent highly-acclaimed graphic novel, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Episode image: “Negro quarters, T.J. Fripp plantation, St. Helena Island (near Beaufort), S.C.” from the Library of Congress.
Selected Additional Sources:
- Benton, Ned. “Dating the Start and End of Slavery in New York,”New York Slavery Records Index: Records of Enslaved Persons and Slave Holders in New York from 1525 though the Civil War, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
- Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, “Middle Passage, Transatlantic Slave Trade,” Slavery and Remembrance.
- Hall, Rebecca. “Not Killing Me Softly: African American Women, Slave Revolts, And Historical Constructions of Racialized Gender,” Vol. 1, Issue 2 of The Freedom Center Journal, a joint publication of University of Cincinnati College of Law and the National Underground Railroad Center, June, (2010).
- National Park Service, “The Middle Passage.”
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The Townsend Family Legacy
Unsung History
07/25/22 • 44 min
5.0
When Alabama plantation owner Samuel Townsend died in 1856, he willed his vast fortune to his children and his nieces. What seems like an ordinary bequest was anything but, since Townsend’s children and nieces were his enslaved property. Townsend, who knew the will would be challenged in court, left nothing to chance, hiring the best lawyer he could find to ensure that his legatees received both their freedom and the resources they would need to survive in a country that was often hostile to free African Americans.
To learn more about the Townsend Family, I’m joined in this episode by public historian Dr. R. Isabela Morales, the Editor and Project Manager of The Princeton & Slavery Project, and author of Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Fugitive African Americans fording the Rappahannock,” photographed by Timothy H. O’Sullivan in August 1862. The image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division
Additional Sources:
- “An enslaved Alabama family and the question of generational wealth in the US,” by Isabela Morales, OUP Blog, June 15, 2022.
- “Estate of Samuel Townsend,” The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections, Septimus D. Cabiness papers.
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Podcast Q&A
Which episode should someone start with?
Each episode is a stand-alone, so it's fine to listen in any order. The most popular episodes are The Wampanoag & the Thanksgiving Myth, Yellowstone National Park, and Agatha Christie.
Which have been your favourite episodes so far?
That would be like naming my favorite kid!
Which episode are you most proud of?
I really enjoy putting together short series of episodes on related topics, and I'm trying to be sure to really push myself on covering stories in US history that get too little attention. In May 2022 I did a series of episodes on Asian American and Pacific Islander History that I'm really proud of. States are only just starting to acknowledge the importance of covering this history in the classrooms, and my guests stressed just how little this history is discussed.
What is your favourite other podcast that isn't yours?
My very favorite podcast is Lovett or Leave It; it gives me a much-needed laugh break each week.
How did you come up with the name for your podcast?
I briefly called it in the Unnamed History Podcast, which I still find amusing. :) I decided on Unsung History because I wanted to indicate that these aren't the history stories you've heard your whole life. I focus on less-commonly told stories. But I thought hidden or untold wasn't quite right either; I'm not *discovering* the stories, just helping to get them to a wider audience. So Unsung History it is.
Tell us a bit about yourself
By day I'm a university administrator, which is a never-dull job. I spend a lot of my non-work time podcasting (reading history books, recording interviews, writing intro narratives, booking guests, posting on social media, etc), but I have several other hobbies too. I have been knitting for over a decade and LOVE it. I also run (when I'm not injured), read & watch mystery stories, and go to theater, symphony, & museums in Chicago with my husband & kids.
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5.0
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Rich Bennett
@rocker
Oct 13
This is a great podcast. I thought I knew a lot of history, but I'm learning about things that I had no idea about.
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Kelly
@feministkelly
Feb 8
Thrilled that Unsung History is now on the Goodpods charts for History and Education!!
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