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New Books in Women's History

New Books in Women's History

By: New Books Network
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 This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkNew Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Science Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

    Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)
    Feb 27 2026
    During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended, lost, and stole, Americans expressed their allegiances, showed their love, confronted their social and economic challenges, subverted expectations, and, ultimately, preserved their history. As the collections they left behind make clear, Civil War Americans believed clothing was not merely a reflection of one’s class, gender, race, military rank, political ideology, or taste. Instead, Northerners and Southerners alike understood that clothing—from the weave of a fabric to the style and make of a coat—had the power to affect people’s way of living through the war’s tumult.In A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2026), Dr. Sarah Jones Weicksel reveals the meanings clothing had for Civil War Americans. Contributing to the growing body of scholarship on the material culture of the Civil War, Dr. Weicksel invites readers to understand how the war penetrated daily life by focusing on the intimate, visceral, material experiences that shaped how people moved through the world. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Leah Astbury, "Making Babies in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Leah Astbury, "Making Babies in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
    Feb 26 2026
    Leah Astbury's new book, Making Babies in Early Modern England (Cambridge UP, 2025), explores the ideals and realities that governed generation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Astbury uses the family as her unit of study to understand how people approached fertility, pregnancy, preparing for birth, delivery, and the recovery process, as well as early infant care. As she argues, making babies was a family concern, one in which both women and men had a stake. Drawing on a wide range of manuscript and print sources, Making Babies is a lively read and sure to appeal to anyone interested in the history of the family, medicine, birth, or gender in early modern England. Elspeth Currie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Boston College where she studies women’s intellectual history in early modern Europe. Profile here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins
  • Gail D. Zona, "Dearest Clara: The Correspondence of the Nichols Sisters, 1858-1898" (Palmetto, 2025)

    Gail D. Zona, "Dearest Clara: The Correspondence of the Nichols Sisters, 1858-1898" (Palmetto, 2025)
    Feb 24 2026
    Meet the Nichols sisters-Clara, Alice, and Cornelia "Nell"-and discover the thoughts and sentiments of three commonplace, working-class women through their never-before-published correspondence. Clara, the eldest and most responsible sister, whose ambitions are thwarted by her gender; Alice, the middle sister, dependable and independent minded, who finds herself living far from Michigan on the Kansas frontier; and Nell, the youngest and most headstrong of the three, whom we come to know the best. Her letters from 1858 to 1898 show her evolution from an opinionated eighteen-year-old young woman to middle-aged wife and mother, determined despite legal and cultural obstacles to maintain her dignity in a troubled marriage and difficult family. In Dearest Clara: The Correspondence of the Nichols Sisters, 1858-1898 (Palmetto, 2025) through their letters, we witness how the sisters navigate personal struggles, family responsibilities, and economic hardships. We are privy to the depth of their affection for one another, their shared confidences, and the dynamics of their sometimes complicated relationship. The sisters give us a glimpse into a time when clothing was handmade, when childhood diseases were rampant, when women rarely had autonomy or agency, when distances were measured not in hours but in days, and when family was paramount. Family letters are an enormous, untapped resource for historians and genealogists alike. In Dearest Clara, independent researcher Gail D. Zona analyzes the Nichols sisters' correspondence individually and as a whole. Women have been overlooked by history, and ordinary women have been overlooked to an even greater extent. While the Nichols sisters' writings reveal their characters and individuality, their letters also shed light on the common values and norms by which their generation lived. The very ordinariness of the Nichols sisters makes their letters remarkable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
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