Hotbed
I’ve been fascinated by the women reformers and activists of the Progressive Era for a long time. They are some of my favorite historical shin-kickers.[1] They made the world a safer, better place for women, children, blue collar workers, and immigrants, often at great personal cost. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately.
Which led me to finally read Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism by Joanna Scutts. Hotbed is the story of Heterodoxy, a not-entirely-secret social club for radical women that met regularly for 25 years. They named themselves Heterodoxy because they were not brought together by a single issue, with the possible exception of the belief that women were fundamentally equal to men. (Though they disagreed even on issues of feminism, a word they helped introduce to a broader public through lectures and publications.)
Scutts traces the big arc of the organization, from its foundation on a Saturday afternoon in 1912 through the early years of the Second World War. She gives us the stories of individual members and, to my surprise, those of women who were not members of Heterodoxy but were involved in individual campaigns alongside members. She takes us deep into Heterodoxy’s involvement in the labor and suffrage movements, and the way World War I created divisions in both movements over the questions of pacifism and patriotism. She also looks at other issues that engaged the energies of individual members, including modernist art, birth control, the right of married women to continue to work, and experiments with family structure, childcare, and living arrangements
I will admit, I found the book overwhelming at times: so many people doing so many things. (It helped to read it in small bites and give my brain a chance to digest it.) But it is well worth reading if you are interested in the foundations of modern feminism, activism at the beginning of the twentieth century, or kick-ass women.
If you decide you would like to look at the same period and many of the same events through the lens of a single life, I strongly recommend Rebel Cinderella by Adam Hochschild, the story of Rose Pastor Stokes.
[1] As defined by me, shin-kickers are people who push society’s boundaries and make them bend. Who sit where they aren’t supposed to sit, speak up when the world wants them to be quiet, and study things people tell them they can’t study. Who find their voice or kick open doors. Not always comfortable to be around ,but incredibly important.
Hubert Bancroft Runs a History Factory
In 1868, a San Francisco book dealer named Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832-1918) set out to write the history of the Pacific slope,[1] from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama. It was a project on a heroic scale.
Bancroft did not write all the books himself, even though he was the only author listed. In fact, he didn’t even wrote most of them. He shaped a master narrative, then set up a team of some 600 writers, researchers, and historians to work with and for him. He assembled a collection of more than 60,000 volumes related to the subjects. He bought private collections of primary sources, When buying collections proved impossible, he hired copyists to work in archives in California, Mexico, and Spain. He also hired bright young men to travel through the west, taking down hundreds of oral histories[2], what he called “dictations,” from surviving pioneers of the American West. (To my surprise, some of these dictations were taken from Native Americans.)
Bancroft made a fortune with his “history factory[3],“ and earned a reputation for unscrupulous practices in the process. The books were sold by subscription. Many subscribers were surprised to learn that they had committed to buying thirty-nine volumes. (Leland Stanford, in particular, protested loudly . He had ordered forty sets, under the impression that the series would run to five or six volumes. Ooops!)
Thanks to Bancroft, our knowledge of the history of the American West is greater than it might otherwise be. He collected material at a time when few were interested in doing so, before the people who were capable of giving first hand accounts of America’s westward expansion were gone. In 1905, the University of California at Berkeley bought his collected sources for $250,000[4] for what is now the, ahem, Bancroft Library.
[1] I looked it up so you didn’t have to: the Pacific slope is the technical name for the geographic region in the Americans that are west of the continental divide. I love words with this type of specificity.
[2] Bancroft was ahead of his time. Oral history as a technique for preserving individual stories for academic use, as opposed to oral tradition, is generally considered to be a creation of the early twentieth century.
[3] Something that is hard for this modern writer of popular history to imagine.
[4] Roughly 9.5 million dollars today.
Bumbling My Way into Another Year of History Nerdery
Back in 2015, I started the year with a post sharing what I expected to think about in the coming year. I have no idea what inspired it, but I’ve opened each year since then with a similar post. I’ve always found it a useful way to get my thoughts in order, the writing equivalent of clearing off my desk.[1] I hope at least some of you find it interesting.
When I asked myself what I am planing to work on in 2026, I had to admit that I am not really sure.
The one thing I’m positive about is that I will continue to devote time, energy and enthusiasm to talking about The Dragon From Chicago. I already have speaking gigs, virtual and in real life, lined up well into the coming year. And I’m hoping for more.[2] It’s an important story to tell.
Beyond that, I’m finishing a pared-down proposal for what I hope will be my next book.[3] The more I work on it, the more I want to write the story. If my editor says yes, I have already identified many books to read and many rabbit holes to go down. If she says no, I’ll be flailing around without direction waiting for another story to grab me by the throat. Either way, I will have stories to share with you.
Here’s to a New Year filled with health, happiness, and history nerdery for us all!
[1] In fact, the first task for me in 2026 is going to be literally clearing off a desk. I have a second desk that sits back to back with my main desk. The idea was to have a horizontal surface I could use when I need to spread out. It has become a dumping ground for the things I’m not sure what to do with. I am determined to reclaim it as a work surface on January 1.
[2] And speaking of speaking, if you belong to a group that needs speakers, send me an email and we’ll try to work it out. Zoom has made things possible that were not possible before. If you want to know where I’ll be or find links to podcasts I’ve been on, my newsletter is the most reliable place to check . I’m always a little behind on bringing the events pages on this blog and my website up-to-date.
[3] I had hoped to have it ready to turn in to my agent at the start of the year. As I write this, it is clear that is not going to happen. But I will finish soon. Really.