Episodes

  • 13.8 Cosmetics in the Pre-Modern World

    13.8 Cosmetics in the Pre-Modern World
    Sep 12 2024
    Cosmetics are nothing new. Women (and sometimes men) were using them in Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and India. This is an overview of the art of making up your face across the millennia with white lead, poppy juice, mercury, and more. Also what the menfolk thought about it. (Hint: They were largely against the idea.) Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    23 mins
  • 13.7 A Bad Hair Day in Ancient Rome

    13.7 A Bad Hair Day in Ancient Rome
    Sep 5 2024
    I hope you’ve never had a hair day quite like that of Corinna, the mistress to whom the Roman poet Ovid wrote Amores, or The Loves. Corinna dyed her hair so hard, it all fell out. And of all the strange things, Ovid wrote a poem about it. It's possible that Corinna was not a real person or that this wasn't a real incident. But the poem ranges from hair dye, to hair texture, to ancient Roman curling irons, and the proper treatment of hairdressers, so it is enlightening about Roman women and their hair anyway. Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    13 mins
  • 13.6 The History of Hair

    13.6 The History of Hair
    Aug 29 2024
    To cover the history of hair would be a podcast in and of itself, and the host should not be me. But hair has been very, very important to a great many women, both past and present, so I am going to give it a go, hitting only the points that caught my eye. Topics included are: Cornrow braids Romans who sewed their hair into place Medieval women who prized a receding hairline French women who put battleships on their heads Slave women who brushed their hair with the tools meant for sheep The Marcel wave The bob and more Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    21 mins
  • 13.5 The Quest for a Hairless Body

    13.5 The Quest for a Hairless Body
    Aug 22 2024
    Surely I am not the only woman who has ever eyed the razor and the shaving cream and wondered "Why?" Women have been questing for hairlessness at least since Egyptian times, and though the record is mostly silent on this question, there are occasional hints about why and when and how women through the ages did it (mostly painfully and sometimes lethally). Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    20 mins
  • 13.4 Chinese Footbinding

    13.4 Chinese Footbinding
    Aug 15 2024
    The origins of footbinding are lost in time, but I think it is safe to say that the first woman to do it could not possibly have imagined what was coming. This episode covers the earliest evidence (in the 1100s) through to the final demise of the practice in 1957. The historical records are heavy on hormone-inspired odes to beauty. They are relatively light on the actual lived experiences of hundreds of millions of women, but to the extent that I can, I talk about how it was done and why it was done, and finally why it finally stopped. Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    24 mins
  • 13.3 To Boost or to Bind: A History of the Bust

    13.3 To Boost or to Bind: A History of the Bust
    Aug 8 2024
    The mostly male writers of historical records were reasonably interested in breasts, but quite uninterested in the day-to-day management of them. For most of history, there's not much to go on, but this episode covers time periods where women bound up their breasts to make them as small as possible. It also covers time periods where women used incredible ingenuity to create devices that boosted those breasts up to as large as they could possibly go, and then some extra on top of that. Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    25 mins
  • 13.2 The Corset

    13.2 The Corset
    Aug 1 2024
    Corsets are infamous as torturous devices, specially designed to keep women in their place and helpless. But reality is a little more complicated than that, as it always is. This episode discusses: the origin of the corset the evolving function of the corset the 19th century corset how small could a woman go? who enforced this idea anyway? how bad for your health was it? where did the corset go? Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    26 mins
  • 13.1 The Ideal Body Shape, Historically Speaking

    13.1 The Ideal Body Shape, Historically Speaking
    Jul 25 2024
    Women have been chasing impossible beauty standards for at least hundreds of years and probably longer. But just what we think is beautiful keeps changing. This is an overview look of what body shape different historical cultures found desirable. Whether you are stick thin or medically obese, well-endowed or small-breasted, firm or fleshy, it has all been beautiful at some point. Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures. Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content. Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows. Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    26 mins