You think you know what happened in the American Revolutionary War. But how could you, when so many of the stories were left out?

Did you know the Cherokee were involved? That women led boycotts? That enslaved people played a part in the war, and that Native Americans showed up to fight at Bunker Hill? So many people did so much, despite how little power was given to them.

Denise Kiernan has spent three decades researching and writing about the forgotten stories of American history. In her newest book, Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution (Dutton), she brings those voices back into the story of our nation’s founding.

On a show like ours, we believe that stories shape reality. If the only stories you’ve heard about the Revolution are about a group of white men, it makes sense that you’d picture them as the whole “reality” of it. Read Denise’s book about everyone else who contributed, and your understanding of how this nation began will change.

In this episode, Denise shares:

• How she found marginalized voices that history left out
• Some of her favorite discoveries from her research
• How her journalism training shapes the way she researches
• The roles women, Native Americans, and enslaved people played in the fight for independence

“To look at a moment in history like the Revolutionary War, or any other significant moment, for that matter, and leave out more than half the population, for the most part, lacks context, if nothing else. It’s just incomplete.”
— Denise Kiernan

Get the book: Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution by Denise Kiernan (Dutton)

You know how the Hindenburg story ends. Or you think you do.

This week, historian Catherine Grace Katz, acclaimed author of The Daughters of Yalta, joins us to talk about her gripping new book, Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War (Viking). Written in the vein of narrative history master Candice Millard, it reads like a thriller, even though you know exactly where it’s headed. Along the way, it’s full of surprises that may show you didn’t know this story as well as you thought.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How a beloved Christmas movie and a tenacious little brother convinced Catherine to write the definitive history of the Hindenburg

• Her no-outline writing process, and what Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie taught her about building suspense when every reader knows the ending

• How the great airship became a floating symbol of Nazi Germany’s ambitions as the world drifted toward war

• Why so few people know the disaster happened in Lakehurst, New Jersey

• How the reporters on the ground that night helped invent breaking news as we know it

• Why mass tragedies are always deeply personal, told through the passengers and crew on board

• That brief moment in history when no one knew whether the future of air travel belonged to airplanes or airships

Shadow Before the Flame is available now from Viking wherever books are sold.

Follow Catherine: @catherinegracekatz Links: Shadow Before the Flame · Catherine Grace Katz's Website

Women make up half the population, but only about 28% of Congress. What would change if more women held office? At In Walks a Woman, we believe stories shape reality, and if we change the stories, we can change who gets a voice. This episode asks what happens when we rewrite one of the biggest stories of all: who represents us.

Our guests are Lauren Reinhold, the Democratic candidate for Kansas’s 1st Congressional District, and Matt Beat, better known to his millions of viewers as Mr. Beat, a former social studies teacher turned YouTube educator focused on history, government, and politics. Together they take us inside “the Big First,” the sprawling district that stretches from the Colorado border all the way to Lawrence, near the far eastern edge of Kansas. We also get into the big structural questions about how Congress works, and why it so often doesn’t.

Lauren brings deep experience in how federal services actually reach people, and a belief that Kansans have far more in common than our politics suggest. If elected, she would join a long tradition of Kansas women who have offered the state vision and leadership. Matt brings the history, the numbers, and some genuinely innovative ideas for opening the doors of government to more ordinary people, including women, and he explains the growing movement to Uncap the House.

Voting is one of the most powerful ways we have to change the story. Our own co-host, Sonja Czarnecki, serves as vice-president of the Douglas County, Kansas, chapter of the League of Women Voters, and we can’t say it enough: register, check your registration, and make a plan to vote on November 3.

A note on “care privilege”: this term comes from economist Misty Heggeness’s Swiftynomics. It means having someone else handle the kids, meals, and household, freeing you for things like running for office. Hear Misty explain it on our live Kansas Book Festival episode!

References and Resources

• Lauren Reinhold for Congress: laurenforcongress.com

• Mr. Beat on YouTube: youtube.com/@iammrbeat

• Mr. Beat’s website: iammrbeat.com

• Uncap the House: on his website, Matt points listeners to the No Cap Fund, nocapfund.org, to learn more about the movement to expand the House

• Swiftynomics by Misty Heggeness: amazon.com/dp/0520403118

• League of Women Voters of Douglas County, Kansas: LWV Lawrence-Douglas County

• Center for American Women and Politics (data on women in office): cawp.rutgers.edu