History of California Podcast

Episodes

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  186 - Dr. Kevin Waite, The Boundless Biddy Mason 21.10.2026 43m

  Historian Kevin Waite returns to the show to discuss his new biography, The Boundless Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American West. It’s the story of a woman who was forced across the continent in bondage, won her freedom in an 1856 Los Angeles courtroom, and became one of the founding figures of Black Los Angeles. With almost nothing in Mason’s own hand, Waite assembled what he calls a “biographical mosaic” from court records, censuses, city directories, and the memories of those who knew her. Jordan and Kevin discuss writing through historical silence; why California was “made free” by people like Mason rather than by its 1849 constitution; slavery in Mormon San Bernardino, where wheat and dairy replaced cotton; how Mason’s freedom suit set off a wave of self-emancipation; Los Angeles in the 1850s, when it was the unofficial murder capital of America; Mason’s work as a nurse through flood, drought, and smallpox; Reconstruction in Los Angeles; and whether her Spring Street real estate fortune was an act of resistance or of participation. Books mentioned: Stacey L. Smith, Freedom’s Frontier; Elliott West, Continental Reckoning; Alice Baumgartner, South to Freedom; John Mack Faragher, Eternity Street; Benjamin Park, American Zion; Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide; Rachel Cusk, the Outline trilogy. New in November: The show is relaunching November 1st with video episodes, more frequent releases, and the chance to send questions for future guests. Subscribe free to the podcast’s Substack for show notes, reading lists, and new essays on California history: link here Chapters 00:00 Returning guest: why Biddy Mason 01:30 Writing from the silences: the “biographical mosaic” 05:30 Biography vs. general history 07:30 Mary Ellen Pleasant, a tragic foil 08:30 California wasn’t born free; it was made free 11:00 Slavery beyond cotton: San Bernardino 14:30 Avoiding hagiography 16:30 Mormonism, Methodism, and the Spring Street vision 20:30 The 1856 freedom suit and self-emancipation 23:30 Los Angeles in the 1850s 25:30 Flood, drought, smallpox, and the Zakheim mural 27:30 Reconstruction in Los Angeles 30:30 Biddy Mason’s fortune 33:30 The future of Black Western history 35:00 Biddy Mason and the California myth 38:30 Book recommendations 40:00 What’s next: a new history of the American West
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  185 - Podcast Updates and Dr. Iris Engstrand 28.09.2026 48m

  Today I'm doing something a little different. I'm re-releasing a conversation I recorded back in 2021 with Dr. Iris Engstrand, one of the great historians of California, who passed away on September 12th at the age of 91. Iris was a native Californian, born in Los Angeles in 1935. She earned her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in history at the University of Southern California, where she wrote her dissertation on the scientific side of Spanish exploration in New Spain in the late 1700s. That subject, the scientists, naturalists, and explorers who came north under the Spanish flag, stayed at the heart of her work for the rest of her life. Before she became a university professor, she taught high school in Huntington Beach and worked translating Spanish manuscripts for the Los Angeles County Museum. In 1968 she joined the faculty of the San Diego College for Men, which a few years later became part of the University of San Diego. She taught there for nearly five decades, until her retirement in 2017, and became widely regarded as the foremost authority on the history of San Diego. Over her career she wrote around 25 books and dozens of papers, including San Diego: California's Cornerstone, a study of the pioneer William Wolfskill, and a translation of José Mariano Moziño's account of Nootka Sound. She co-edited the Journal of San Diego History, served as president of the Western History Association, and received awards of merit from both the San Diego and California Historical Societies. In 2007, the government of Spain honored her with the Order of Isabella the Catholic for her contributions to Spanish history. Just as important as the books, though, were the generations of students she taught and the countless researchers, museum staff, and fellow historians she mentored and encouraged. I was lucky to spend an hour with her, and I think you'll hear in this conversation the depth of her knowledge and the genuine delight she took in sharing it. It's an honor to bring her voice back to the feed. Before we get to the interview, I have some news about the future of this show. Starting November 1st, the History of California Podcast is getting a major update. You'll see more content, both here on the podcast feed and over on the Substack. We're expanding our presence on social media, and for the first time, video versions of the episodes will be available. I also want to hear more from you: subscribers will be able to send in their own questions for upcoming guests, so you can help shape the conversations. On top of that, there's a newly updated website and more to come. I'm really excited about this next chapter, and I hope you'll come along for it. And now, my 2021 conversation with Dr. Iris Engstrand.
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  184 - Joseph Ogilvy, Tin Can Coast: A History of Industry, Greed, and Fishing in the Golden State 01.09.2026 43m

  In this episode of the History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox sits down with writer and chef Joseph Ogilvy to discuss his first book, Tin Can Coast: A History of Industry, Greed, and Fishing in the Golden State. Trained at Oxford and seasoned in restaurant kitchens in London and Austin, Ogilvy came to this history the hard way — gutting sardines, mackerel, and John Dory by the half-ton until a visceral question took hold: if that's what half a ton of fish feels like, what does eight hundred thousand tons look like? The conversation ranges from the state of fine dining to the craft of nature writing, with Ogilvy explaining how Robert Caro's stage-setting in The Years of Lyndon Johnson became his model for holding many interconnecting threads without losing the reader. He walks Jordan through his research — seven notebooks, each labeled with an animal, and a method that refused to separate archival work from interviews with sardine scientists, chefs, and tuna-boat captains. From there the two dig into the book itself: the California Current as a tendency rather than a place; shifting baseline syndrome and why ecosystems resist being frozen in a single "natural" state; greed as a structural force rather than an individual vice; the otter hunt that first drew Europeans to California and the kelp-forest collapse it set in motion; conservation laws that functioned as anti-Chinese exclusion; the salesmanship of Pop Dolter and Albert Halfhill, who conjured markets for abalone and "chicken of the sea" tuna; and Monterey's Cannery Row, Steinbeck, and the long fight over whether the coast is a place of extraction or leisure. They close on Elinor Ostrom and the commons, the Chumash as a rare success story, extraction as the through-line of California's self-image, and Ogilvy's recommendation of Max Miller's I Cover the Waterfront.
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  183 - Dr. Jon Dawson, In Dubious Battle 21.08.2026 38m

  John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle (1936) is the coldest and most clinical of his California labor novels — the story of a fruit strike that offers no easy heroes and no comfort, only a chain of cause and effect grinding toward violence. It's also the book that established Steinbeck as an authority on farm labor and pointed him toward The Grapes of Wrath. Host Jordan Mattox is joined by Steinbeck scholar Dr. Jon Dawson to unpack the novel and the history beneath it: the real strikes at Tagus Ranch and in the cotton fields, the organizers who inspired — and resented — its characters, the company stores and migrant camps of California's Depression-era agricultural economy, and Steinbeck's complicated relationship to communism, ideology, and violence. Along the way they dig into naturalism and determinism, why the novel keeps its characters at arm's length, the debt the title owes to Milton, and why a labor dispute from 1933 still feels urgent today. The first installment in our Steinbeck labor series, leading into Of Mice and Men. Plus Dr. Dawson's parallel-reading recommendation: Carey McWilliams's Factories in the Field.
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  182 - John Langellier: Bastion by the Bay: The Many Lives of the Presidio of San Francisco 13.08.2026 58m

  Founded in 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco has served three nations, guarded the "harbor of harbors" for nearly 250 years, and evolved from a modest Spanish adobe fort into a Cold War missile site before becoming one of the country's most successful national parks. Historian John Langellier — former curator of the Presidio Army Museum and author of more than fifty books on the American West — joins Jordan to trace that remarkable arc, drawn from his new book Bastion by the Bay: The Presidio of San Francisco, from Outpost of Empire to Magnificent Park (University of North Texas Press, 2026). Along the way, John and Jordan get into a lot more than fortifications: what it's like to consult on Hollywood Westerns and the films that actually get history right; whether museums exist to comfort us or to make us a little uncomfortable; the debate over expert authority and community voice in public history; and the Autry Museum and Gene Autry himself. Then they dig into the Presidio's story proper — the Ohlone who lived on the peninsula first, the complexity of the California mission system, the geopolitical paranoia over Russian, French, and British encroachment, the farcical 1876 "sham battle" staged to reassure taxpayers, the Endicott-era coastal buildup, Nike missiles in the Cold War, and the irony that this heavily armed outpost may have mattered most as a place of refuge and rescue. John also shares how to spend an afternoon in the Presidio (start at Fort Point), reflects on fifty years on the trail of the Buffalo Soldiers, offers his California reading list, and previews what he's working on next. A rich, wide-ranging conversation about memory, myth-making, and the strange afterlives of the places we build to defend ourselves. Books mentioned include works by Herbert Eugene Bolton, Hubert Howe Bancroft, and Kevin Starr, plus Langellier's own El Presidio de San Francisco.
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  181 - Dr. Daniel Rivers, California Futures: Haunted Ecologies, Decolonial Relations 04.08.2026 52m

  The grizzly on California's flag has been gone for a century — hunted to extinction in the very state that made it a symbol. What does it mean to build a mythology of abundance on top of a landscape of loss? In this episode, host Jordan Mattox sits down with Dr. Daniel Lanza Rivers of San José State University to dig beneath the Golden State's story of endless plenty. A scholar of environmental history, California studies, and settler colonialism, Rivers traces how a century and a half of promises about California's "natural" bounty shaped everything from Central Valley agribusiness to the state's long history of extraction, dispossession, and resistance. Their conversation follows the throughline at the heart of Rivers's new book, California Futures: Haunted Ecologies, Decolonial Relations (Duke University Press) — out August 18th. The book traces a single powerful thread across the state, from the eradication of the grizzly to the making of Central Valley agriculture, the historic dam removals on the Klamath River, and the unhoused encampments of Oakland. Along the way, Rivers asks a hopeful question: what would it take to build a more just and livable California, one rooted in returning land and in the movements that have never stopped fighting for it? It's a conversation about loss — but just as much, it's one about hope. In this episode: Why the state's founding symbol is an animal it drove to extinction How agriculture remade the Central Valley — and who paid the price The Klamath dam removals and the movement for Indigenous land return What "decolonial" means when we talk about land, water, and history Reading California's landscape as an archive of both harm and hope Dr. Daniel Lanza Rivers (they/them) teaches in American Studies at San José State University. Their new book, California Futures: Haunted Ecologies, Decolonial Relations, is available August 18th from Duke University Press.
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  180 - Kevin Ferguson, The Gemello Winery and A History of California Wine 22.05.2026 40m

  California had 1,000 wineries in 1910. By 1965, it had 225. The story of how the industry collapsed, came back, and quadrupled past 4,800 wineries today runs straight through one Piedmontese immigrant family — and Kevin Ferguson's. In this episode, Jordan sits down with Kevin — writer, former brand marketer, and great-grandson of John Gemello, founder of the Gemello Winery in Mountain View — to trace California wine from Prohibition's lost expertise through the 1976 Judgment of Paris and the boutique boom that followed. Along the way: Mike Grgich and Chateau Montelena, Steven Spurrier's reluctant bicentennial marketing stunt, George Taber as the only reporter in the room, and the little-remembered 2001 rematch in which Kevin's grandfather's 1970 Cabernet beat fourteen of sixteen judges' top picks — news he received by phone at age 82. Plus: a chance meeting at a San Jose hotel that reunited two Piedmontese immigrants and started the Beltramo dynasty, cassette tapes that preserved a family's oral history, and why the best wine, for Kevin, is the one with the best story behind it. Kevin's Substack
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  179 - Dr. Peter Richardson, Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine 24.04.2026 1h 15m

  Historian Peter Richardson joins Jordan Mattox to discuss his new book, Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine, and to situate the magazine within the broader cultural and political history of the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Richardson — whose previous work includes a biography of Carey McWilliams and studies of Ramparts Magazine and the Grateful Dead — argues that Rolling Stone's founding in November 1967 cannot be understood apart from the counterculture it both chronicled and drew its sustenance from, nor apart from the failures of a mainstream media that created the opening for it in the first place. The conversation traces Richardson's own intellectual trajectory from medieval English literature to California cultural history; revisits McWilliams's argument that California is less a "great exception" than a national avatar; takes up Hunter S. Thompson's ambivalent relationship to the Haight-Ashbury counterculture; and considers Kevin Starr's conspicuous reluctance to address the 1960s in his otherwise comprehensive survey of the state. The episode closes with Richardson's reflections on Theodore Roszak, on whether the conditions for a new counterculture now exist in the shadow of Silicon Valley, and with a set of book and film recommendations for listeners wishing to pursue these threads further.
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  178 - Dr. Julia Ornelas-Higdon, The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine 16.04.2026 48m

  California wine is often wrapped in romance—rolling vineyards, pioneering families, and world-class vintages. But beneath that familiar story lies a far more complex history of conquest, labor, race, and power. In this episode of the History of California Podcast, Jordan Mattox sits down with historian Dr. Julia Ornelas-Higdon, author of The Grapes of Conquest, to uncover the hidden foundations of one of the state’s most iconic industries. Together, they trace the evolution of California agriculture from booster-era optimism to the labor struggles of the 20th century, examining how narratives about land, belonging, and identity were shaped—and often distorted—by those in power. From the overlooked role of Indigenous peoples and immigrant laborers to the surprising origins of the Anaheim Wine Colony, this conversation reveals how wine production functioned not just as an economic activity, but as a form of cultural production that helped define who counted as “Californian.” Along the way, the episode explores historiographical shifts—from triumphalist agricultural histories to labor-centered and race-conscious interpretations—and asks what still remains missing. If California wine tells a story, this episode asks: whose story has it been, and who has been left out?
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  177 - Ann Carlson, Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air 13.04.2026 1h 1m

  In this episode of the History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox sits down with Ann Carlson to explore the history and legacy of air pollution regulation in California, as told in her book Smog and Sunshine. The conversation traces the transformation of Los Angeles from one of the most polluted regions in the United States to a global leader in environmental policy. Carlson explains how early misdiagnoses—like the infamous Tucker Report—delayed action, and how scientists, activists, journalists, and government institutions eventually converged to identify automobiles as the primary source of smog . Mattox and Carlson dig into the mechanics of environmental law, including the shift from bipartisan consensus to regulatory fragmentation, the increasing reliance on federal agencies, and the critical role of states—especially California—in advancing climate policy when the federal government stalls . The episode also highlights the catalytic converter as a case study in how ambitious regulation can drive technological innovation. The discussion goes beyond policy to examine environmental justice, showing how pollution has historically—and continues to—disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color, particularly in regions like the Inland Empire . Throughout the episode, Carlson makes a broader argument: that environmental progress is not accidental, but the result of sustained pressure from the public, media, scientists, and institutions working together over decades. The episode closes by connecting these historical lessons to the present, asking what California’s experience can teach us about confronting climate change in an era of political polarization and misinformation. This is a conversation about history as both memory and blueprint—reminding us not just how far we’ve come, but what it might take to move forward.
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  176 - Jenny Chan, Founder of the Pacific Atrocities Education Program 06.04.2026 30m

  In this episode of the History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox interviews Jenny Chan, founder of the Pacific Atrocities Education Program, about the hidden histories of World War II in the Pacific and the importance of expanding historical education beyond a Western-centric narrative. Drawing from her own family’s experiences and extensive archival research, Chan explains how major events in Asia—from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria to atrocities like Unit 731—have been largely absent from U.S. classrooms. The conversation explores how her organization works with educators to develop sensitive and accessible lesson plans, the challenges of uncovering fragmented archival materials, and the emotional power of oral histories from survivors. Chan also highlights the surprising ways California is connected to the Pacific Theater, including links to the Doolittle Raid, biological warfare threats, and local historical sites. Together, Mattox and Chan make the case for a more global, interconnected understanding of history—one that better reflects the scale of human experience during World War II and helps students make sense of the present.
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  175 - The History of the Academy Awards with Dr. Monica Sandler 10.03.2026 57m

  The Academy Awards are one of the most recognizable cultural events in the world—but their origins reveal a much deeper story about Hollywood, labor, and the development of California’s film industry. In this episode of the History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with film scholar Dr. Monica Sandler about the origins and evolution of the Academy Awards. Dr. Sandler is the author of the forthcoming book The Oscar Industry: Creative Labor, Cultural Production, and the Awards System in Media Industry, which explores how awards function within the media economy and how recognition shapes creative labor in Hollywood. The conversation traces the Academy’s founding in the late 1920s, when Hollywood studios were grappling with censorship controversies, labor tensions, and questions about whether film should be treated as an art form. What began as an industry organization meant to manage these pressures eventually developed into the Oscars—an annual spectacle that helps shape careers, cultural prestige, and the global film marketplace. Jordan and Dr. Sandler also explore the political and social dimensions of Oscar history, including the complicated legacy of Hattie McDaniel’s historic 1940 win, the relationship between awards and labor in Hollywood, and the modern ecosystem of guild awards, campaigns, and media coverage that now make up “awards season.” If you’ve ever wondered how the Oscars became Hollywood’s biggest night—or what they reveal about the film industry itself—this episode offers a fascinating historical perspective.
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  174 - Chinese in California History, Part III 20.02.2026 14m

  In this episode of the History of California Podcast, Jordan Mattox continues his series on the history of Chinese Californians by confronting one of the darkest chapters in the state’s past: the age of exclusion and anti-Chinese violence. Moving beyond the well-known Chinese Exclusion Act, this episode examines the vigilante terror, mob brutality, and legal indifference that paved the way for federal immigration restriction. Jordan recounts the horrific 1871 Los Angeles massacre, in which a mob comprising nearly 10% of the city’s population lynched 18 Chinese residents after a shootout between rival associations spiraled into racial hysteria. He then takes listeners to Truckee in 1876, where arson attacks, gunfire, and courtroom acquittals demonstrated how deeply white supremacy shaped local justice. These were not isolated incidents but part of a broader climate of scapegoating, economic anxiety, and organized anti-Chinese activism. The episode also situates California’s racial hostility within a national and international framework. From the Burlingame Treaty’s initially open immigration policy to its revision under mounting Western political pressure, Jordan traces how local xenophobia became federal law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—signed by President Chester A. Arthur—suspended Chinese labor immigration, barred naturalization, and shifted the burden of proof onto immigrants themselves It marked the first time U.S. immigration law explicitly targeted a group by nationality and race, fundamentally reshaping the nation’s immigration bureaucracy. This episode asks listeners to grapple with the human cost of exclusion: families separated, communities destroyed, and violence forgotten in official memory. It sets the stage for the next installment, where Jordan will explore the long-term consequences of exclusion for Chinese Americans in California. A sobering and essential chapter in understanding California’s past—and America’s.
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  173 - John Boessenecker, Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro 14.01.2026 56m

  In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with historian John Boessenecker about his new book, Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro. Long remembered as a Robin Hood–like folk hero — and often portrayed as a symbol of resistance against Anglo oppression — Joaquin Murrieta has occupied a powerful place in California’s cultural imagination. But Boessenecker argues that nearly everything most people believe about Murrieta comes not from history, but from fiction, folklore, and deeply flawed research traditions. The conversation explores how Murrieta’s legend was shaped by nineteenth-century writers like John Rollin Ridge, later amplified by twentieth-century folklorists, and repeatedly disconnected from primary evidence. Boessenecker explains how modern access to digitized newspapers and archival records allows historians to reconstruct what Murrieta actually did — including acts of extraordinary violence — and why earlier generations so often failed to distinguish myth from fact. Beyond Murrieta himself, this episode offers a stark portrait of Gold Rush–era California as one of the most violent societies in American history, shaped by racial exclusion, vigilante justice, and a blurred line between criminals and lawmen.
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  172 - Dr. Laureen Hom, The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles 15.12.2025 45m

  What keeps Chinatown alive? In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with Dr. Laureen Hom, author of The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles, about the long history—and ongoing political significance—of Chinatowns in California. Drawing on her research in Los Angeles Chinatown, Dr. Hom explains how Chinatowns have been shaped by racial exclusion, urban violence, redevelopment, immigration policy, and suburbanization, while also serving as sites of community formation, political organizing, and resistance. The conversation explores how the concept of gentrification has evolved, why displacement is often indirect and difficult to see, and how cities deploy tools like redevelopment agencies, multicultural planning, and business improvement districts to reshape ethnic neighborhoods. Mattox and Hom also examine Chinatown’s changing demographics, its relationship to suburban Chinese communities in places like the San Gabriel Valley, and the challenges of coalition-building in multiracial neighborhoods where Chinese American and Latino residents share space, history, and vulnerability. This episode offers a powerful framework for understanding Chinatown not as a static cultural enclave, but as a dynamic political space—one that reveals broader truths about California’s urban history, community power, and the ongoing struggle for spatial justice.
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  171 - Steinbeck Book Club: Tortilla Flat with Dr. Michael Zeitler 01.12.2025 46m

  In this episode, host Jordan Mattox sits down with Dr. Michael Zeitler for an expansive conversation about John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat — its mythic structure, its treatment of poverty, the nature of friendship and communal codes, and how Steinbeck used the Monterey landscape to explore deep questions about history and identity. Together they examine the novel’s tragic undercurrents, its echoes of World War I trauma, its links to Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle, and Cannery Row, and why Steinbeck’s early works continue to provoke debate about caricature, class, and representation. Dr. Zeitler also reflects on Hardy, Haney’s Beowulf, the anthropology of place, car mechanics in Steinbeck, and the philosophical lineage running from Emerson to Ellison. A wide-ranging, insightful discussion for Steinbeck fans and California history enthusiasts alike.
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  170 - Amy Bowers Cordalis, The Yurok People, California History, and The Art of Dam Removal 26.11.2025 49m

  In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox sits down with attorney, author, and Yurok Tribe member Amy Bowers Cordalis for an intimate conversation about her new book The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life. Amy shares the story of her family's deep roots along the Klamath River, the Yurok creation narrative that shapes their worldview, and the tribe’s intergenerational struggle to protect salmon and restore ecological balance. Together, Jordan and Amy explore the 2002 Klamath fish kill, the complex legal fight for dam removal, the importance of myth and cultural continuity, and the profound moment the river flowed freely once again. Throughout the episode, they examine Indigenous stewardship, the legacy of genocide, the nature of environmental restoration, and how the story of the Klamath fits into the larger arc of California’s history.
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  169 - John Doll, St. James Park and The 1933 San Jose Lynching 21.11.2025 50m

  In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with author John Doll about his historical novel St. James Park and the real events behind one of California’s most shocking forgotten crimes: the 1933 lynching of two men accused of kidnapping Brooke Hart. Drawing on Doll’s personal memories of San Jose, his research into the city’s past, and his reflections on writing historical fiction, the conversation explores the transformation of Santa Clara Valley from orchards to tract homes, the complicated legacy of Bay Area redevelopment, and the political corruption that shaped early 20th-century San Jose. The episode also examines the vibrant immigrant cultures of the Valley, the brutal working conditions in the region’s canneries, the symbolic importance of St. James Park, and the unexpected presence of vigilante justice in California’s past. Doll discusses the limits of historical documentation, the power of fiction to fill silences in the record, and how family memory informed his portrayal of the Hart case. The conversation concludes with a reflection on California’s broader history—from lynching and racism to redevelopment, industrialization, and the myths we tell about the Golden State—plus Doll’s recommendations for essential reading on San Jose and its overlooked past. Purchase the book here
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  168 - Chinese in California History, Part II 07.11.2025 15m

  In this episode, we return to our ongoing narrative on Chinese immigration to California, examining the pivotal economic role Chinese immigrants played in shaping the state during the 19th century. From manufacturing and textiles to mining, service labor, and large-scale industrial work, Chinese labor was central to California’s development. We look closely at the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, where Chinese workers carried out some of the most perilous tasks in the Sierra Nevada—carving tunnels through granite, enduring brutal winters, and risking (and often losing) their lives to push the railroad forward. Despite their contributions, Chinese immigrants faced widespread discrimination, wage suppression, and hostility from organized labor and white settlers who viewed them as economic threats during downturns. We also explore the 1867 railroad strike, one of the largest labor actions of its time, revealing how Chinese workers challenged racist stereotypes that portrayed them as passive or submissive. Their collective resistance reshaped public perception and helped redefine Chinese identity in America. This episode sets the stage for the rising anti-Chinese sentiment that would lead to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—one of the most consequential immigration laws in U.S. history.
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  167 - Dr. Jennifer Holland, Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement 14.10.2025 54m

  In this episode, host Jordan Mattox speaks with Dr. Jennifer Holland, author of Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement, about how the politics of abortion took root and evolved in the American West. Holland traces the movement’s origins from 19th-century medical debates to the late 20th century’s culture wars, exploring the intersections of religion, gender, race, and regional identity. She discusses the unique dynamics among Catholics, evangelicals, and Latter-Day Saints, the rise of crisis pregnancy centers, and the influential role of figures like James Dobson and organizations such as Focus on the Family. The conversation also examines California’s complex role—as both a progressive symbol and a conservative incubator—and how Western ideas of individualism, faith, and family helped shape national abortion politics. Buy Dr. Holland's Book Here