Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:04 <inaudible>.
Speaker 2 00:19 Hello and welcome to an incomplete history. I'm Hillary and Jeff were your hosts for this weekly history podcast. Oh right. Whoa. I'm Hillary. I know one of your favorite holidays is coming up soon. It's not when you, when you asked me to like do this podcast, your first idea was like, well we should do something about Halloween. And I'm like, I really don't like Coleen at all. I mean I like what we're going to discuss today, but I'm just not a Halloween fan. So it was interesting that you pitched that to me. I mean you hate orange and black together. I think it's the worst color combination. Grieving red is pretty hideous. I don't like that either. And I like if gingers were green, I think that it's not a good look. Like if I wear red, so I have blonde hair and if I wear red, I think I look like ketchup and mustard and I don't think that's a good look either.
Speaker 3 01:31 All right, so well, I mean today's episode is, is Halloween related kind of a little bit, but not really, right?
Speaker 2 01:39 No, it's not Halloween related. I'm going to just keep saying it's not Halloween related, but I guess it's the madic because you know, if we talk about Halloween in witches and stuff, I mean it does make sense. No,
Speaker 3 02:02 I promise I won't play that sound effects you match. Uh, today we're talking about to Salem witchcraft trials and that's part of the kind of a bigger conversation we want to have about kind of public memory, but kind of how historians do what they do and how our approaches to historical events change over time. And I think we want to get to a place where we kind of talk about an event that really is centered around the bodies of women in a lot of ways and how male historians have approach that differently than female historians. Right?
Speaker 2 02:37 Right. And, uh, we're going to talk about the Elizabeth Reese book, Dan women centers in wishes and pure to new England to kind of center our conversations. What we had discussed. And what I really enjoyed about reading this is, cause we're talking about you said the Salem witch trials, but also just like what is and what is the memory of it in the United States and is it placed outside of Salem as well? And Reece does a nice job describing that, you know, it's in Connecticut, um, even before the late 17th century crisis that we are familiar with in our public memory. Um, and it's important also to remember that this is something that is happening throughout Europe all throughout, um, the early modern era. So covering that and tink, thinking about women's bodies and how women are accused of this. It's interesting too to think about what that means for historians and how we've looked at it. Right.
Speaker 3 03:41 Well, I mean, so you want me to start off with kind of a Jeff story time?
Speaker 2 03:44 Yeah, I would love that.
Speaker 3 03:47 So, um, it's a little, get a little on the downstair.
Speaker 5 03:52 Um, <inaudible>
Speaker 3 03:55 I promised Hillary I wouldn't do many sound effects. Uh, so anyway, uh, January, 1692, uh, Reverend Paris, so he's the Reverend of Salem township. Uh, his daughter Elizabeth, she was nine, and his niece, Abigail Williams, who was 11, started having these fits and they would scream, they would throw things, they would utter peculiar sounds. They would also place themselves in really strange positions. And a local doctor said, well, this is obviously the result of supernatural, uh, affects something supernatural is going on here. Um, about the same time, another girl in the town and Putnam also 11 experienced similar episodes and by February of 29th of 1692 so by the end of the next month, um, town magistrates, John Corwin and John Hawthorne have paid thorn, um, kind of may have pressured the girls to name who was afflicting them. So this supernatural event was caused by people. That was the kind of the conclusion.
Speaker 3 05:01 And the girls blamed three women. So they blamed Sarah Osborne and she was an elderly woman. She was impoverished living in Salem township. They blame Sarah Goode, who may have been a homeless Becker. And then they blame titova and tend to, bill was the Paris's how slave. She was a Caribbean woman and all three of these women were brought before the magistrates, an interrogator for several days starting March 4th, 1692. So when you talk about the Salem witch trials, if you actually want to talk about when the trials start, March 1st, 1692, that's a good date. Uh, Osborne said she was innocent, so did good but titty, but come past that. Um, she'd engaged in an elaborate rituals, um, and that the devil had come to her and bid him, bid her to serve him well. Uh, she talks about black dogs, red cats, yellow, and a black man who wanted her to sign his book.
Speaker 3 06:00 And she admitted that she signed the book and said there were several other witches looking to destroy the Puritans. All three women were subsequently put in a jail. So with the seed of paranoid kind of planet accusations started streaming all over the town. Over the next few months, Martha Corey, a loyal member of the church, um, was accused. And once Corey gets accused, the floodgates kind of opened. Basically anybody can be accused of witchcraft at this point. They even questioned good's four year old daughter and her timidity during questioning was construed as a kind of tentative confession of service to Satan. And it got more serious. In April when governor Thomas Danforth and his assistants attended the hearings, dozens people from Salem and adjoining Massachusetts villages were brought in for questioning. Finally, in may of 1692, William Phipps, who was the governor of Massachusetts, ordered the establishment of a special court, um, to hear and decide these cases, um, and it would cover Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties.
Speaker 3 07:12 The first case brought to the special court was Bridget Bishop. She's an older woman, no for her gossipy habits and she may have been promiscuous as well. And when she was asked if she committed witchcraft, bishops, Bishop responded, I'm as innocent as the child unborn. However, uh, she was still found guilty on, on June 10th, she became the first person executed during the Salem witch trials. She was hanged at a place called gallows Hill. Five days later, cotton Mather wrote a scathing letter imploring the court not to allow spectral evidence. This is evidence that's based on dreams and vision testimony. The court ignored this request and five people were sentenced and hanged in July five more in August and another eighth. By the end of September, by October 3rd of 1692 following in his son's footsteps increase Mather then president of Harbor again denounced the use of spectral evidence and he said it were better that 10 suspected, which is should escaped them.
Speaker 3 08:12 One innocent person be condemned. So remember, Phipps had kind of encouraged the trials up to this point, but in response to Mather's plea, but in my opinion, in response to his own wife being accused of witchcraft, ma, uh, FIPSE prohibited further arrest, released many of the still living accused witches and dissolve the court. On October 29th, 1692 he placed, he replaced it with his superior court, which disallowed spectral evidence and only conf condemned. Three of the remaining 56 defendants eventually pardoned all who are in prison on witchcraft charges by may of the next year. But the damage had been done. 19 people had been hanged on gallows Hill. I'm a 71 year old man. Galls Corey had been pressed to death with heavy stones. Several people had died in jail and nearly 200 people had been accused of practicing the devil's magic.
Speaker 6 09:10 Now,
Speaker 3 09:12 even before 1700, there had been kind of apologies that had been made and kind of people trying to distance themselves from this whole thing. In fact, by 17, 11, the colony, uh, restored rights and good names of all those accused and granted a 600 pound restitution to heirs of those who had died. Then it's not until 1957, 250 years later that the state of Massachusetts formally apologized for 1692.
Speaker 2 09:43 Wow. That took a long time to acknowledge. It's kinda like, like the Catholic church apologizing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 09:53 Yeah. It's mind boggling that it took like, well, what's surprising is they apologize so quickly. Right after it happens. They do kind of an initial apology and within a couple of decades they're offering a pretty sizable amount of money to people
Speaker 2 10:06 we got executed. That's another thing though. I mean, what is the explanation for this that they give at that moment?
Speaker 6 10:16 Okay.
Speaker 3 10:18 Like, well, I mean, people believe Satan was active. Right? Um, and there was the suspicion, I mean, even cotton Mather and increased Mathers even there's kind of, they're kind of rejection of spectral evidence. They still believed Satan was active. Um, their problem was they did not want innocence caught up in this web. And, you know, their mindset was such that Satan worked in such kind of devious ways that he could be tricking. The people of Salem in Massachusetts were broadly into executing people who are innocent, who were got God for your and Christians.
Speaker 2 10:54 Right. Well, and in addition to that, I mean the, I, I think that they started to perceive the people even if they were active in, you know, performing some form of witchcraft as victims themselves. Right, right, right. They couldn't help that they had succumbed to,
Speaker 6 11:13 okay.
Speaker 2 11:14 This, I mean, I,
Speaker 3 11:16 well that's, yeah, I think that's where Reece eventually gets right. And history and the history of AgriFood eventually gets to kind of recognizing that. But I think early on, um, it's very much, um, considered a mistake. And I think after that, kind of as a story in starch and wrestle with this issue, kind of the first big wave is this idea that looks Salem in 1692 is a pre enlightenment space and it's an easy way for people in the 19th century to look back at 69 82 and say where modern. They weren't, you know, they
Speaker 2 11:54 had this old way of viewing the world. They believe that, which is where active, they believe that Satan could trick people into signing this book. And that persisted for a long time. In fact, a lot of historians would argue that still dominates the public discourse over the Salem witchcraft trials. It's a, it's a comfortable way for us to feel we're very different than those people. <inaudible> yeah. I mean, but thinking about current politics, not to get too into it, but I mean, you still hear the, the phrase witch hunt, right? Right. It's like, it's the connotation of it of itself is just like that. It's some form of mass hysteria that takes place. Right. And I think, go ahead.
Speaker 3 12:43 Well, Sarah rivet writes about this. Um, William Mary quarterly. In 2008, she wrote an article called our Salem ourselves where she kind of says, we want to see Salem as this uniquely American thing because we want to use it to say what we are, how we react to it. So basically Salem and kind of these, which trial hysteria is that follow. I'm including things like McCarthyism and even contemporary accusations of, of which trials, um, is an opportunity for us to, once we resolve it to say, Ooh, weren't we really backwards in our thinking before we fixed that. And I think particularly McCarthyism, which is most closely linked to the Salem witchcraft trials via, you know, the crucible among other things, um, is this idea that, look, those people were so ridiculous in what they did
Speaker 2 13:39 well, but I think it's important to point out too though, that it's not uniquely American. It's actually well-situated, you know, I mean, it's, when it happens in Salem is a little bit later than what had been happening throughout Europe. It's not uniquely American. And actually it's kind of witchcraft trials light because there's just not even a huge number of people who are tried and executed for it. Whereas in Europe, I mean it's just thousands and it's very much tens of thousands. Yeah. And it's very much motivated though, uh, by the Catholic church and what's different about it in the United States. So as it comes out of this puritanism and I think that's what Reese gets up so well is talking about the function and role of religion in this period, in this space and how it functions for the people living in Salem and in Connecticut. Um, you know, that, that are on trial for witchcraft.
Speaker 3 14:44 Right. So I think, I think recess is really interesting. She sits kind of in the middle of the historiography and I think it might be useful to kind of talk about who comes before her and what they say because I think it really makes what she starts to say even more important. Um, so usually the person who's kind of highlighted as the one who kind of changes the, starts to change the way we approach Salem is GL Kittredge in 1929 with witchcraft and old and new England. And he starts to do this bottom up approach and he's got this great, great quote in the book where he says, um, things like the witchcraft trials never flourished and left the co unless the common people are equally eager for it. So I mean, what he says is this isn't a product of elites making this happen in a town.
Speaker 3 15:38 In fact, he argues the elites are very reticent to do this, that he argues, this is just the work at ACE Salem. I who kind of drives this. And he says it's their political anxiety manifesting in accusations against people that they see as, as violating community standards, which is why you get, um, Tituba accused why you get Sarah Good, who's a beggar, why you get Sarah Osborne, who's this elderly impoverished woman. Um, it's why they get accused, right? Uh, and that's, he starts to kind of move the conversation a little bit about, well, let's actually talk about where these accusations are coming from. He's talking, he's making a little bit more of a cost-based argument too. And he is not quite at the gender space, but no, no Def. I mean, I mean there's an interesting thing. Does he accidentally start to approach it from a more gender perspective accidentally?
Speaker 3 16:40 Yeah, definitely. Maybe, right. He's an accidental gender story maybe. I think for the 1920s, I mean, any, any mention of it is sort of pioneering of course. Right? The old of American history. So I think it's important to extend some credit there. Right? And then I think the next big thing to talk about, or are Keith Thomas, Alec Muff, Alan McFarlane, and then Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. And these are all early 1970s historians, um, Boyer and Nissenbaum co-write Salem possessed the social origins of witchcraft. And it's really this for historians, for academics. It really is like the bedrock on which we build, how we approach this. Right? I still see this referenced in textbooks. I still hear historians when they talk about it, focus on this and they argue it's a rural urban conflict and then it's that it's this pro Paris group who's in favor of the trials in this anti Paris group who don't like it.
Speaker 3 17:48 And they really push back against classes. The deciding factor, they actually argue if you're wealthy and you live in the town, you're much more likely to agree with poor people in the town versus if you live in the rural spaces, you have a different perspective. Right? Um, and I mean it's interesting that these, I mean these are male historians making these arguments and 74, I mean, it would have been a hard sell for them. Did you agenda and approach, but they kind of explicitly reject it, right? And they put Paris really at the center of this whole conversation.
Speaker 6 18:28 Um,
Speaker 2 18:31 but does she, it's really is difficult to ignore that it is predominantly women who are accused of tried and executed for witchcraft. And it's not until you see women who enter the Academy in larger numbers in the 80s and of course the nineties that you start having women, female historians ask questions about, well wait a minute, let's talk about why is this happening to women? And it's what I really like about Reese's analysis is it's not a victim approach.
Speaker 3 19:05 No, not at all.
Speaker 2 19:06 She's not going at it saying, well, men are just so evil and awful that of course they're persecuting women. It's so much more nuance than that. And it's, I really like her approach. Can I get into that a little bit?
Speaker 3 19:18 Well, let's, I mean let's, yeah, so Reese Cerise writes dangled when it comes out in 97, um, a Carol Carlson's devil in the shape of a woman comes up almost at the same time, 98 and these are the, I would argue these are the first two really strong gendered approaches to looking at this event. And it's interesting you said that, that Reece has this kind of a non victim approach to understanding it. Carlson on the other hand, she says, she calls these women demographic accidents, right? She says that these are women who, um, are violating gender norms in Salem for whatever reason. And it has to do with, you know, maybe they are the wife of a wealthy man with no inheriting males. Um, and they're causing this kind of economic stress in the community. Um, or that's part of her, part of her argument. But Reese is really different. Right. So let's, let's talk a little bit about what Reese's, what her big things are.
Speaker 2 20:22 Well, I really like how she nods to Olrick and, uh, her <inaudible> yes, Laurel Thatcher Orrick she, she nones to her analysis of, uh, in the midwife's tale by saying that people who are studying this period have actually uncovered that it's not as oppressive as we might have considered it to be women. That there was actually a little bit more fluidity in the types of things that women would do on a day to day basis, and that their, uh, participation in the social sphere could extend based on the needs of their family. And in this period in this space, because things are nascent in terms of being established, it does allow for a little bit more flexibility in the space of women. And because of that, I think that women become subject to more scrutiny perhaps. But she doesn't go in that direction to say it's about victims, uh, you know, a sense of victimness.
Speaker 2 21:28 But she goes in the direction to talk about, well, it's religion really that spurs this and it's women's beliefs about themselves. So this is a patriarchal society, but patriarchy only works with the participation of everybody. And it's just as much the participation of the women who are being accused and who are accusing one another. And it's just as much about their participation and understanding of religion and understanding of themselves or their perceptions of themselves. That helps for the hysteria as well. So she makes arguments about women perceiving themselves and when perceiving women to be more susceptible to influence from the spiritual world, therefore more susceptible to the devil being able to coerce.
Speaker 2 22:26 They're more, they feel that women are more susceptible because they're physically weaker, mentally weaker. But it's not just men who are assigning these characteristics to women. It's women who believe that about themselves and believe it about others. And so she gets into this really nuanced discussion about these deeply held beliefs about self that kind of propel this hysteria and incident into a, you know, it, it sort of snowballs out of control, but it's all very deeply rooted in these religious beliefs in this religious ideology about womanhood and what it means to be a woman and a Christian woman. Right. And I think that's,
Speaker 3 23:17 for me, this is why this stands out, is one of the outstanding works on the, on the events of, of 60 92 is that, um, when you and I first discussed this book years ago, um, I, I had said,
Speaker 2 23:32 okay,
Speaker 3 23:32 all the works prior to race had really seen religion as kind of this smokescreen for other things, whether it was economic, political, maintaining social order, punishing people as deviant to society's roles, that their religion was always kind of a smokescreen and Reece steps back and says, no, look, we have to take people on their own train on some level. And she's got this great quote I want to read really quickly. Um, and it's early in the book and this is when I first read this book. This is when I knew she was saying something original. Um, she says, because it's difficult to imagine the sensibilities of 17th century Puritans to understand the intensity of reality, their fares. I find the admittedly imperfect technology of the sexual abuse of children useful in today's world. We live with the knowledge that many children are victims of such abuse. As parents, we warn our children about the dangers and teach them how to respond to such situations. The charge that someone, a teacher, daycare worker, relative has made sexual advances cannot be taken lightly. The Puritans here of sane <inaudible> was just as real to them. The charge that someone was a which justice areas, although the demons are different, their sense of threat is the same and it kites similar
Speaker 2 24:48 action.
Speaker 3 24:50 I mean, for me, I think that sums it up perfectly.
Speaker 2 24:53 Well that's a really nice way to put it for modern readers, to understand it and to understand just how deeply embedded and real religion was to people in this moment, in this period, that it's not something that's happening just on Sunday, but it's something that's just very much a part of every moment of their lives. And I think that really does help sum it up.
Speaker 3 25:22 Well, I mean it's, it's the thing is, one of the problems historians have to figure out is why do we have someone confessing, right? We've got some women who seem to confess rapidly and why do they do that? And Reese's explanation is, look, they understood how Satan worked, right? And they knew that even though they might think there's no way I would have done this, this Puritan mindset says to them, you know, Ooh, this might be Satan's real trick and maybe I really am a witch. The,
Speaker 2 25:55 and there's also this idea and the title of the book really points to it is damned. Women is kind of the damned if you do. And damned if you tone sort of thing. I mean, if they admit to it and say, yes, I've had, you know, communion with the devil and you know, he's asked me to do X, Y, orZ and I've done it, this could help save her because then they can say, well, we're going to exercise you or something and then we're going to, you know, you asked for forgiveness and all that. But if she denies it, then they think that the devil still working in her and she's still subject to execution. So the title of the book really kind of gets at that also of just like, it's difficult to escape the accusation once it's launched. And women, when they're accused, I think they internalize it as being, well, this is definitely a possibility that this happened because again, the devil's real and working and you know, we're working against the devil all the time, but you know, so there's just this idea that they internalize it as a part of it, but also that they're so ready and willing to accuse others.
Speaker 2 27:10 They're ready to willing to accuse their neighbors even knowing of the consequences of it. But that because it's such a deeply embedded fear, they're willing to take that, that leap. Right, right.
Speaker 3 27:26 I mean, let's talk a little bit then about, so 97 Reese's book comes out, Carol Carlson's devil in the shape of the woman comes out in 1998. Um, and then we get kind of some other pieces. James Sharp writes witchcraft in early modern England in 2001 but in 2003 we get the devil's snare, Mary Beth Norton, and I know you have some strong feelings on this book as well, right?
Speaker 2 27:52 I do. What specifically are you asking? Well, she'll, I mean
Speaker 3 27:58 it doesn't reject a re a gendered approach. I will ever, she does kind of reject the religious approach that Reese takes. Right. And she actually situates it in the context of <inaudible>.
Speaker 2 28:09 Yeah,
Speaker 3 28:11 right. And she right. I mean this idea that Salem is, we had to view Salem as part of a broader world and look at connections and she actually argues more of this.
Speaker 2 28:24 Okay.
Speaker 3 28:24 Is a result of externalities, things happening outside of Salem specifically. I've been the main frontier. Right?
Speaker 2 28:32 Well, yeah, and I mean it, I think she also situates it in the broader scope, um, where she's, what I had kind of mentioned earlier of just like, this is something that's endemic globally and, Oh, I'm in the European world and the European space I guess, but it's just like this. Yeah. This is a product of something that's much larger than Salem or much larger than, you know, any region where there's, where there's a crisis occurring. Um, because she kind of revises the standard chronology of the trials and she enlarges it to be this a more political, um, context. And I don't think she's dismissive of religion, but I think she just sees there other external forces.
Speaker 3 29:23 Right? I mean it's, you can kind of S I summarize Marybeth Dorian's approach where I kind of talk to people about this. It's, she says it's post traumatic stress syndrome. Right? Right.
Speaker 2 29:34 Cause she's talking about the Wars and conflicts with native people and that this is creating just, yeah. Yeah. I guess they wouldn't call it that, but yes, in the 21st century context, it is somewhat of a posttraumatic stress.
Speaker 3 29:48 Right? And if you read, um, I think if you read early captivity, uh, if you read like Mary Rawlinsons captivity narrative, um,
Speaker 3 29:59 you can get to maybe a little bit of that mindset, right? I mean, I, if you read devil's snare and Mary Rawlinsons narrative and tandem with one another, I think you can kind of buy it and you can be like, wow, if that happened to me, maybe I'd be a little paranoid too. Um, and I mean, she does bring up an interesting political thing though because, um, George Burroughs who gets accused of witchcraft, he had been a minister in Salem that had removed to the Maine frontier and she makes an argument that there's a strong chance Abigail Hobbs, who was an accuser knew or had an encounter with burrows there. Right. And I think it's, it's interesting, these kinds of connections she creates.
Speaker 6 30:46 Um,
Speaker 3 30:47 and it's an interesting, broader connection to kind of the first and second Indian Wars and kind of how to society process that. It takes it in a very unexpected direction.
Speaker 2 31:01 Yeah. It's certainly a different conversation that's had, because even when you're talking about some of the historians of the 1970s and even back further, you've mentioned the story of the 1920 is like never has this approach been taken to explain the crisis as being not one of extreme religiosity or fervor and not one of women as victims. Um, and not one as a product of, you know, misogyny or patriarchy or something, but it's just poisoning. Yeah. It's just one of look at the context of the late 17th century that people who are living in this time and in this place, or being tariff, you know, terrorized, um, they feel, you know, like they're just constantly under attack. They're, you know, trying to rough it in, in the most, uh, you know, unfriendly of circumstances really. And, and that it, this hysteria is spurred by that context and that trauma and, and, uh, she does really expand the scope of the trial. She expands the scope of the trials as being part of a larger context in ways that I don't think other books do that. I mean, it's tough to do that. And I respect that though.
Speaker 3 32:27 Right? James Sharp does in his witchcraft in early modern, new modern England, he really argues that look to understand the witchcraft trials there. It's kind of variations on all these different themes and you kind, it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of that. And I mean that's kind of where I, how I teach it is, look, it's maybe all of these things combined and to kind of try to pinpoint any one cause is missing the point. Right. Um, you know, it's, but I think it's interesting to push back against teaching. This is the last moment of kind of early modern America because that really plays into this whole idea of, um, that rivet criticizes, right? That that, Oh look, we can point back to and say, weren't they primitive?
Speaker 2 33:18 Yeah. And suddenly there's this transformative moment or something, and it, this is used as sort of a sign post, which is
Speaker 3 33:25 right and 80, you know, 84 years later we're writing the declaration of independence and we've just left that awful history behind us. Uh,
Speaker 2 33:34 yeah. And then right after that, I mean, my goodness. Yeah. I mean that's just a silly way to look at it. You know, it's like there's some upward trajectory that's happening, but, um, it is situated in, in this moment most certainly, but yeah, to try to look back and say, well, that was silly. Um, is this not only dismissive, but it's just, it's not understanding the context. Now, how does this relate though to Halloween? Like what, you know, we're doing this episode very specific traveler,
Speaker 3 34:08 right? Well, I mean, it's why I'm I, so when I teach the U S introductory sequence, I love to teach, have a wish lecture. I'm a professor of mine in grad school, um, who you had also. Um, I will mention him by name some point, but, um, uh, he said like witches are one of the easy entries in, in the public imagination. You can teach them broader historical things with this kind of entry point of which is, and I really do find that true. I can talk, which is a much easier way for me to talk about the Puritan mindset and what life was like appeared in America. Then me just kind of launching into that conversation on its own, uh, cause students are already interested in it. Right. Um, focus really Hocus Pocus, although increasingly more I point students to the witch. It's a more recent movie. Um,
Speaker 2 35:04 focuses better though. The only thing I like about Halloween movie. Yeah.
Speaker 3 35:12 Well don't look on rotten tomatoes. Don't look on rotten tomatoes.
Speaker 2 35:16 It came out when I was five or I wasn't five. It was four. And I was very, I remember sitting down and watching the premier on the Disney channel of Hocus Pocus and that's the only thing I've ever liked about hauling.
Speaker 3 35:30 Um, did you ever address this? A Sanderson sister?
Speaker 2 35:33 No. No. I didn't dress a scary thing like cause I don't like, well they're witches. I mean, so kind of getting back to this idea though about about Salem and about religion and about religiosity. I mean I was raised religiously and like I guess I just don't think Halloween's a joke, you know, I guess the topic kind of comes from, but I'm also just kind of a chicken. But I don't, I mean I don't think it's funny to talk about.
Speaker 3 36:06 I mean it'd be interesting to have a conversation with others, have the conversation with the Mathers and ask cotton and increase what they think about Halloween.
Speaker 2 36:16 This isn't funny at all. This is no laughing matter. You know, maybe that's where it comes from for me. That I also, I just think that it's, honestly it's the color combination, but you know what I do love,
Speaker 3 36:32 Oh wait, that's up. The specters are coming. We're going to have to wrap it up. Finish your, finish your thought and then we'll wrap it up.
Speaker 2 36:38 I love his fall because I'm, you know, a white woman. I mean we love fall, but I love the fall color.
Speaker 3 36:46 What are they calling it this year? What's the thing? What's something fall? Something autumn, something white woman autumn or something. Some hashtag
Speaker 2 36:55 no, it's some, yeah, some sort of way to, you know, talk poorly about, anyway, I just, I do like the fall colors but I don't, I don't like black and orange. Anyway, we can cut this out.
Speaker 3 37:10 Why would we cut this out? This is great. Um, I mean, any parting words you want to say about the Salem, witchcraft trials, Halloween women approaching historical topics differently than men?
Speaker 2 37:21 Well, I, yeah, I want to say that I think that this is a really good way to approach conversations with, in public, in public history. And you're right, it is a great way to get into people's imagination and, and have something that's relevant. Um, but I think it's also an important moment to discuss like how women can really change the conversation and how diversity in academia can change the conversation about how events are perceived. I mean, if this is something that's so popular in our memory, but if these, you know, if women hadn't acknowledged and discussed and written about, you know, the gendered aspects of the witchcraft trials about Salem, I mean, maybe we wouldn't have focused focus. Ouch. Wow. Well, you know what I'm saying? Like he takes an actual, like you have to acknowledge it first. I mean, because you have these older men writing about it and they're just ignoring it and it's like, well, wait a minute. This is happening disproportionately to <inaudible> new women. So I just, I think it's important to be able to flush out that, the nuance of it like recess and not talk about it solely as it's just, you know, women are victims, but it's just this is, this is a product or something a little bit larger, so.
Speaker 3 38:45 Right. Excellent. What are your closing thoughts, closing thoughts on this? I mean, I love Halloween. I absolutely adore it. Um, uh, I love Hocus Pocus too. Um, although it's not really, I don't think objective really that good of a movie. Um, but, uh, you know, I love Reese's approach. Reese's is the one that kind of, um, resounds the most with me. It resonates, um, with me, although I, I do like sharps kind of idea that you have to combine all of it. Um, I like this idea. You talked about how, you know, diversity in academia really kind of changes the conversation, changes the questions we ask. I think Reese's early in this kind of movement to approach religion a little newer on the terrain of historical subjects and not just be dismissive of it out of, uh, out of hand, um, which I think is really good.
Speaker 3 39:39 It's also this push to not be dismissive of the way women viewed themselves, um, don't apply kind of our modern conceptions back on a snorkel subjects. It's a great, right? I mean, I think it's a great, um, book. It's not very long either. And I would encourage listeners, if you've not read Elizabeth RI stamp women centers in witches in Puritan new England, I may pick it up. It's available. It's a good read. Um, it's, she does good history. It's a sound approach to, to kind of how you approach this seemingly well-worn historical topic. Right. Um, but anyway, well, thank you so much, Hilary. You thanks for not playing right. Sound effects. I won't, I might one more time.
Speaker 3 40:33 I just wanted to thank our listeners for joining us for this introduction to an incomplete history. Um, be sure to join us every week for new episodes. You can subscribe through iTunes or wherever you have managed to locate this podcast as well as through our own website. The website is an incomplete history.com. Everybody can post comments or questions on the website. Uh, if your question is something you'd like answered and it's relevant to an episode we do in the future, we'll definitely address that. We'll try to do our best to do that. Uh, once again, I'm Jeff and I'm Hillary and, uh, we'd like to wish you well. Until next time. Thanks for joining.
