In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner advanced his now-famous Frontier Theory, arguing that the American identity was forged through the process of exploring and adapting to new environments in the frontier west. Key to both Turner’s theory and the myth of the frontier that pre-dated it was the idea that brave white American men conquered a previously empty land through their grit in a relentless march west, but the land was populated long before white Americans arrived, and the people who lived, explored, and settled there were a far more diverse population than the myth acknowledges. Joining me in this episode is returning guest Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.

Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The west, a nest and you,” composed by Billy Hill with lyrics by Larry Yoell and sung by Lewis James on November 16, 1923, in Camden, New Jersey; the performance is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is the American Progress, painted by John Gast in 1872; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

• “Brief History of the AHA,” American Historical Association.
• “Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893),” by Frederick Jackson Turner, The American Yawp Reader.
• “How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start,” by Colin Woodard, Smithsonian Magazine, January/February 2023.
• “Sacagawea, c. 1788 - c. 1812/1884?” by Teresa Potter and Mariana Brandman, National Women’s History Museum.
• “Sacagawea: Intrepid Indigenous Explorer [video],” The New York Historical.
• “Lewis & Clark Expedition,” National Archives.
• “Indian Treaties and the Removal Act of 1830,” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State.
• “Indian Territory,” Library of Congress.
• “Indian Territory,” by Dianna Everett, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, January 15, 2010.
• “Cheyenne Sanctuary: The Northern Cheyennes’ Exodus, Mari Sandoz, and Lost Chokecherry Lake,” by Emily Levine, The Nebraska Sandhills, October 23, 2024.
• Northern Cheyenne Tribe.
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In the Weimar Republic, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science and advocated for the repeal of legislation that criminalized sexual relations between men. At the Institute, pioneering gender-affirming surgeries were performed, and it was there that Dora Richter became the first known trans woman to undergo comprehensive male-to-female gender-affirming surgeries. But when the Nazis came to power, they labeled Hirschfeld an enemy of the state and destroyed the Institute’s immense library. Joining me in this episode is historian and novelist Dr. Brandy Schillace, author of The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story.

Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Kleine Kammermusik, composed by Paul Hindemith and performed in February 1992 by the Soni Ventorum Woodwind Quintet; the recording is available by Creative Commons license and is available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is a portrait of Magnus Hirschfeld from 1928; the picture is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

• “The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic,” by Brandy Schillace, Scientific American, Mary 10, 2021.
• “The first Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933),” The Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V.
• “Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science,” by Gabrielle Bryan-Quamina, Science Museum, London, February 29, 2024.
• “Dora Richter (1892–1966),” Lili Elbe Library.
• “The Weimar Republic,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• “Hitler: Essential Background Information,” University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences.
• “How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?” National World War II Museum.

For 74 days in 1810 the current-day parishes of East and West Feliciana in New Orleans were part of the independent Republic of West Florida, which flew a lone star flag. By that point the residents of the Felicianas, including a large enslaved population, living on land that had been stolen from indigenous people, had been part of three different empires. The republic ended with the parishes annexed into yet another country, the United States, though fifty years later they would be part of still another attempted breakaway republic, the Confederate States of America. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rashauna Johnson, Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of Sweet Home Feliciana: Family, Slavery, and the Hauntings of History.

Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Louisiana,” composed by Oliver Wallace with Lyrics by Arthur Freed and performed by the Sterling Trio on December 27, 1920, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a lithograph believed to be of drawings that artist Lewis Henry made on the Mississippi River around 1846-1848 with Bayou Sara in the foreground and St. Francisville on the bluff in the background; the lithograph was published in 1857 and is in the public domain in the United States and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

• “Native Americans: the First Families of Louisiana on the Eve of French Settlement (Online Exhibition),” Louisiana State Museums.
• “Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
• “West Florida Revolt,” by Samuel C. Hyde, 64 Parishes.
• “The History of the Short-Lived Independent Republic of Florida,” by William C. Davis, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2013.
• “The West Florida Republic,” by Anne Butler West Feliciana Historical Society and Museum.
• “The Siege of Port Hudson: ‘Forty Days and Nights in the Wilderness of Death’ (Teaching with Historic Places),” National Park Service.