In this episode, Katie is bewitched by Cassie Chadwick. In 2021, everyone learned the name "Anna Delvey," fake heiress and SoHo grifter extraordinaire. But over a century before Anna partied with pharma bros and Fyre Fest scammers, Cassie Chadwick was laying the foundation for all female con artists; setting a bar so high for fraud and fakes few would ever come close to achieving her level of Master Swindler. Born Elizabeth "Betty" Bigley on a rural Canadian farm, this gilded-age grifter would g...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 3Ep. 5
In this episode, Hailee is bewitched by the Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. But is that what really happened? On August 4th, 1892, Andrew and Abbie Borden were murdered in their home by an axe in broad daylight. Lizzie, Andrew's daughter, was the only suspect in the murder but she was acquitted through a trial sensationalized in the media and lived the rest of her life as a free, though publi...
Dec 21, 2022•1 hr 57 min•Season 3Ep. 4
On this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by Key West. As the southernmost point in the continental U.S., Key West, Florida, takes some work to get to. But you'll find this place of weirdness, inclusivity, and strange history well worth the voyage. From its beginnings as a shipwreck paradise to its current vibrant mix of American, Spanish, and Caribbean influences, Key West is full of great stories. We'll cover the history of this cayo Hueso from its indigenous people to Spanish ...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 45 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In this episode, Hailee is bewitched by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was a music festival that happened from August 15-17 in 1969 on a dairy farm in Bethel, NY. It was billed as an Aquarian Exposition providing three days of music and peace. Thirty-two acts performed for the nearly 500,000 attendees over the three days and Rolling Stone Magazine lists it as one of the top 50 moments that changed Rock and Roll history. There have been attempts to recr...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 46 min•Season 3Ep. 2
In this episode, Katie is bewitched by lobotomies. The U.S. has a long and tragic history of barbaric and inhumane treatment of people living with mental illnesses. From overcrowded institutions to painful experimental treatments, patients were subjected to the unthinkable. Admittance to a state hospital was tantamount to a death sentence served in inhumane conditions. Then, a promising young neurologist introduced a new procedure inspired by the work of a Portuguese physician. Walter Freeman an...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 48 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Happy Halloween! The Reference Desk is back with a spooky, special Halloween episode! Turn off the lights, grab some Halloween candy and settle in as Hailee tells you one of Virginia's creepiest urban legends and Katie enthralls you with a haunted house story that is anything but typical. Plus, get some spooky reading recommendations for any level of scare. The Reference Desk will be back for Season 3 on November 9th! Want to listen (or watch!) episodes 2 days early? Support us on Patreon ! Reco...
Oct 31, 2022•1 hr 39 min
Join us in the stacks for our final episode of SEASON 2! This week, and always, we are bewitched by libraries! Learn about how we got into the library profession, listen to some listener stories, and check out some of our recommended readings about these magical places we love so much. We have had the best time researching and telling each other (and you!) all about the strange things that keep us up at night and can’t wait to see you again soon! Recommendations I Work at a Public Library: A Col...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 26 min
In this episode, Katie is bewitched by the tragic story of the Radium Girls. Hundreds of young women were thrilled at the chance to paint clock faces and dials with a new kind of glow-in-the-dark paint in the 1920s. Factories that produced these new products paid three times as much as similar employers, with the added bonus of free access to the highly valuable radium that gave its paint its signature glow. At the time, radium was being added to everything from water to makeup and was touted as...
May 04, 2022•1 hr 33 min•Season 2Ep. 21
This week, Hailee is bewitched by the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jean in 1926, she was moved from foster home to foster home, living for a time in an orphanage and never having a stable home base. She was married off when she was only 16 years old and was discovered by an Army Airforce photographer sent to take morale-boosting photographs of female workers during WWII. Marilyn worked tirelessly on her craft, reading books and taking classes but she struggled with her past and with...
Apr 27, 2022•1 hr 40 min•Season 2Ep. 20
This week, we continue telling the story of Julia Child. After returning to America, Julia Child became a star within the culinary world, thanks to her best-selling cookbook. But it was a local television studio that made her a household name. After a successful guest appearance, Julia was given her own series on PBS. For nearly four decades, Julia remained a constant presence in American homes, thanks to her down-to-Earth, fun-loving approach to home cooking. This week's recommendations: Curren...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 19
This week, Katie is bewitched by the one and only Julia Child. Beloved for her warm and inviting presence on screen that made her a star, Julia Child's life before she became America's favorite French cook is less well known. Abandoning her career as a copywriter to serve her country during World War II, Julia traveled to Asia, working for the OSS, where she met her husband, Paul Cushing Child. Together, the pair moved to Paris and Julia fell in love with French cuisine. In this first of two epi...
Apr 06, 2022•55 min•Season 2Ep. 18
This time last year, we released what remains my absolute favorite episode I’ve researched to date. I got SO into this topic, and since we seem to have quite a few new listeners, I wanted to re-release this episode. So please enjoy as I continue to be completely bewitched by Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ In this episode, Hailee is bewitched by rock and roll myths, legends, and curses. Who c...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 34 min
Dearest reader, As the social season draws near and the second season of Bridgerton is ready to premier this week, we are rereleasing Katie’s episode on Debutants and the London Season! Consider this your exclusive invitation to learn all about this bizarre ritual dating back hundreds of years and shockingly still happening in some capacity today, along with all of its problematic history of sexism, classism and racism. Please enjoy Katie’s deep dive into the realm of the ultra-exlusive debutant...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Join us as we finish the story of Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger Disaster. In part 2, Hailee tells us how Christa won the Teacher in Space position out of thousands of applicants, how she trained for weeks and gives brief bios for the rest of the Challenger crew. We will also learn how this disaster very well could have been avoided. What We're Reading Verity by Colleen Hoover The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan The Love Hypothesis by A...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 17
This week, Hailee tells us about Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger disaster in this two-part episode! In part 1, Hailee gives us a (brief, layman’s version) history of the beginnings of the space age and the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. You will also learn about Astronaut Group 8, the most diverse group of astronauts NASA ever employed up to that point and we will learn about the decision to begin the Teach in Space program that will introduce us to the amazing C...
Mar 09, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 16
In this FIRST-EVER in-person episode of The Reference Desk, Katie and Hailee talk about banned books. In recent months, the number of challenged books has skyrocketed. Politicians and parents across the country have called for the removal of books that feature LGBTQIA+ references and material that may make white students feel uncomfy. Katie and Hailee tell you the history of book bans, talk you through how challenges are handled, explore current challenged material, and share their thoughts on a...
Mar 02, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 15
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by unexplained disappearances. Each year, nearly 90,000 people are listed as missing in America. People of color and Indigenous women make up a large percentage of missing people, despite accounting for smaller percentages of the population. No one group is immune from disappearances, but statistically, BIPOC people are more likely to remain missing. In this week’s show, Katie tells us about some of the unexplained disappearances that hav...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Many people know and recognize the name Florence Nightingale and recognize her as the founder of modern nursing. And, while she did some amazing things for the field of nursing there was another woman who many argue was actually the first nurse practitioner, largely forgotten by history. This week, Hailee is bewitched with Mary Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman and one of the pioneers of modern nursing. Also mentioned in this episode: the extremely problematic "tip line" create...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 13
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by the incredible story of Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine. Following the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, all school districts were instructed to begin integrating public buildings. But in Little Rock, Arkansas, the resistance to integration became a national spectacle. As Governor Orval Faubus went to extreme lengths to keep Little Rock's Central High segregated, nine brave African American students s...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 12
This week on the Reference Desk, Hailee is bewitched by stories of children who remember having a past life. While reincarnation is a common belief and philosophy in Eastern religions and traditions, it is not as common in the West. Yet, two researchers have investigated over 2000 cases of children in the United States who have reported experiencing memories of a past life. What We Are Reading Graveminder by Melissa Marr Songteller by Dolly Parton Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty Recommendati...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In this week's episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by the Arctic survival story of Ada Blackjack. Ada was a young, single mother living in Nome, Alaska when she was approached about joining an expedition to uninhabited Wrangel Island. The Inupiat woman was told she would live among other Inuit families as they assisted a crew of four explorers who were colonizing the remote island under the command of famous Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Instead, Blackjack found herself th...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Hello, friends! This is Katie. Thank you so much for joining us here on The Reference Desk.Hailee and I started working on this podcast over a year ago as a way to connect during what we thought was going to be the end of a pandemic. It’s seriously been so amazing having this time with my best friend, and all of you each week. For my special re-release, I selected an episode from the first half of our first season, and I cannot believe how far we have come since then. I REALLY can’t believe that...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 2 min
We are at just over 11K plays which is just astonishing, thank you all so much for your support! It seems like we also have some new listeners, so we thought it would be fun to go through our back catalog of episodes and each pick a favorite that the other host has done. Hailee chose an episode this week that she thinks is different than almost any of the other episodes. She found it fascinating and had so much fun listening to Katie talk about this topic. Plus, it has one of her all-time favori...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This week, Hailee is bewitched by the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was more than just a pilot: she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic (though she wasn’t the pilot of that flight), pioneered woman’s aviation, worked as a nurse’s aid, writer, teacher, and social worker, was the first woman awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress among so much more. Her disappearance during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe has remained a mystery for almost a century....
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 46 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie gives up a Duggar family update in the form of an in-depth journey through Josh Duggar's recent CSAM trial. Josh Duggar has a long history of horrific behavior, from admitting to sexual abuse as a teen, to cheating on his wife, Anna, to admitting to a pornography addiction. But through it all, he has remained Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's golden child, the chosen son. In November of 2019, Homeland Security discovered Duggar had been accessing child se...
Dec 29, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 8
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched by the strange medical inventions and treatments of John Harvey Kellogg at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. John Harvey Kellogg was a Seventh Day Adventist darling who gained directorship over their medical facility in mid-Michigan just a year after becoming a doctor. What followed was Kellogg becoming the face of modern medicine, beloved by America for bringing a renaissance of health. But behind the famous celebrities and politicians that f...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Season 2Ep. 7
This week, Hailee talks about the Hicks Clinic, a small, community clinic in McCaysville, GA where a doctor sold over 200 babies and performed illegal abortions, sometimes against the will of the mother, in the 50s and 60s. Links : A History Not Yet Laid to Rest - The Atlantic How Many Babies Did Thomas Hicks Put Up for Adoption? - heavy. 'Hicks Baby' Adoptee Sold by Georgia Doctor 50 Years Ago Reunites With Birth Mother, Brother - ABC News ‘Black market baby’ meets biological father in Gallatin...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched with the story of Manhattan grifter-extraordinaire Anna Delvey (Anna Sorokin) For several years, the New York City upper crust embraced a charming young German heiress named Anna Delvey. Delvey was a chic, bold entrepreneur who was pursuing funding for her brainchild the Anna Delvey Foundation when Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams met her. The pair formed an unlikely friendship involving celebrity trainers, infrared sauna...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 5
This week, Hailee is bewitched by the New England Vampire Panic. During the later part of the 18th and 19th centuries, large amounts of people were dying from what they called consumption, what we know of today as Tuberculosis. In New England, they had a different idea about what was causing their friends and loved ones to waste away in front of their eyes: vampires. Though they never used the exact term, they thought that the undead were preying upon the living and they had some very interestin...
Dec 02, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 1
In this episode of The Reference Desk, Katie is bewitched with the true story of the "first Thanksgiving." American schools have long taught about the history of Thanksgiving with cringe-worthy pageants and re-enactments of happy pilgrims and Indians gathered around a table. In reality, the shared meal we've dubbed the "first Thanksgiving" was a pure coincidence of Wampanoag warriors joining in a meal they happened upon while expecting to find a full-scale battle. (why else would the woods be fu...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 2Ep. 3
