Rinse and Repeat: Show Segments
The following are individual show segments from the BackStory episode “Rinse and Repeat,” broadcast in February 2013. You can listen to the entire episode here.
Unclean Hands
Charletta Sudduth talks with the guys about the contradictory ways cleanliness was understood in the Jim Crow South.
Knowledge in the Time of Cholera
Owen Whooley tells the guys about the bad science that prompted New York City’s first major clean-up campaign — and why the clean-up helped stamp out cholera anyway.
“Wett all over.”
The guys investigate why a well-to-do woman at the turn of the 19th century would choose to go twenty-eight years without a bath.
The Dirt on Soap
BackStory producer Jess Engebretson gives us a glimpse into soap’s upward mobility: from the laundry maid’s bucket to the middle-class bathroom sink. And art historian Jenn Marshall tells us about a 1920s marketing gimmick that helped make soap a permanent fixture in Americans’ lives.
Listener Call
Brian, Ed, and Peter take a call from a listener.
Listener Calls
Brian, Ed, and Peter take a couple more calls from listeners.
Herland is My Land
Kristen Egan walks us through a creepy utopian novel from 1915, and explains why environmentalism and eugenics went hand in hand in the early 20th century.
This was a fascinating program all the way through, an aspect of history rarely discussed. Charletta’s reading of one of the maid narratives is especially interesting.
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