S2 E4: "Lita Ward" the Soho Girl

The Blackout Ripper wasn't the only serviceman attacking women in World War Two. In cities, towns and villages women were being harassed and abused by men in the military - and the women who chose to join the armed forces weren't immune from such treatment. Those women who signed up for the army, navy or air force to fight Hitler were dogged by crude insinuations that they were promiscuous - especially if they went to dances and drank alcohol. When these servicewomen were stalked, raped or murdered, the official response was often a dismal exercise in victim blaming.  Sources:   Dunlop, Dr Tessa. 'Army Girls: The Secrets and Stories of Military Service from the Final Few Women who Fought in World War II.' 2021 Headline Publishing Group.  Owtram, Jean and Patricia 'Codebreaking Sisters: Our Secret War.' 2020 Mirror Books. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1 Nov 202241min

Evelyn Oatley dreams of becoming a stage star in London's glamorous theaterland. It's a world away from her grim provincial upbringing. The daughter of a German immigrant, her troubled home life was compounded by a wave of anti-German rioting that broke out during World War One.     Tiring of both her job at a textile mill and her relationship with a local farmer, Evelyn ran off to London and transformed herself into budding starlet "Lita Ward". But she found neither fame nor fortune there... only danger.   Sources: Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis. The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Arthur, Sue. ‘Blackpool Goes All-Talkie: Cinema and Society at the Seaside in Thirties Britain’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 29, No. 1, March 2019. Denness, Zoe. ‘“A Question which Affects our Prestige as a Nation”: The History of British Civilian Internment’, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, October 2012. Denness, Zoe. “Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’ in: Panayi, Panikos (Ed.). Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014). Eyles, Allan. ‘Cinemas and Cinemagoing: The Rise of Cinemas’, BFI Screenonline, 2014. Higginbotham, Peter. ‘Boarding Out (Fostering)’, Children’s Homes. Hill, Hector. ‘Russell Street Picturehouse’, Cinema Treasures. Lassandro, Sebastian. Pride of Our Alley: The Life of Dame Gracie Fields Volume 1: 1898 - 1939 (Albany: BearManor Media, 2019). Mazierska, Ema (Ed.). Blackpool in Film and Popular Music (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Mort, Frank. ‘Striptease: The Erotic Female Body and Live Sexual Entertainment in Mid-Twentiety-Century London’, Social History, Vol. 32, No. 1, February 2007. Panayi, Panikos. ‘Germans as Minorities during the First World War: Global Comparative Perspectives’, in: Panayi, Panikos (Ed.). Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014). Panayi, Panikos. Immigration, Ethnicity, and Racism in Britain, 1815 - 1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). Stone, Peter. ‘The German Community in London during the 19th Century’, History London. Waddington, Keir. ‘“We Don’t Want Any German Sausages Here!”: Food, Fear and the German Nation in Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4, October 2013. Walkowitz, Judith R. Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). Walton, John K. ‘The Seaside Resort: A British Cultural Export’, History in Focus, Issue 9, Autumn 2005.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

18 Okt 202237min

Evelyn Hamilton has annoyed her bosses in the male-dominated world of pharmacy - they find her quiet and independent nature mystifying and odd. After an unhappy stint at a druggist shop outside London, she's landed a new job and a fresh start in a faraway town.  In February 1942, Evelyn sets out on her long journey – just as the Blackout Ripper is hunting for his first victim…  Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they traces Evelyn's life and struggles; and with the help of Lauren Ober (host of The Loudest Girl in the World podcast) examine why the quiet pharmacist's demeanour provoked such hostility.   Sources: Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis. The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Diniejko, Dr. Andrzej. ‘A Chronology of Social Change and Social Reform in Great Britain in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, The Victorian Web, 2014 Neale, Alexa. ‘Case Files For Murder Trials: The Case of Cyril Johnson’, “Domestic Murder” She Wrote, September 2016 Webb, Laura and Webb, Kevin. ‘Selina Cooper: The Story of a Working Class Suffragist’, March 2019, UK Vote 100See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

11 Okt 202240min

London's West End - once a glittering Mecca of nightlife - is pitch black. The lights are off to hide the city from waves of Nazi bombers - but in the darkness a merciless killer is hunting down the women of this district.  Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they walk those bomb-damaged streets to tell the stories of the women targeted by this "Blackout Ripper" over the course of just one week in 1942.  You'll glimpse inside the theaters, jazz joints and dive bars of Piccadilly and Soho; witness deadly air raids; and criss cross the blacked out streets where a serial killer lurks. You'll learn too of the hardships that blighted the lives of many women in wartime, and the extent of the violence they faced at the hands of men from their own side in the conflict.  Sources:  Bone, James. London Echoing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1948) Caddick-Adams, Peter. Sand and Steel: A New History of D-Day (London: Penguin Random House, 2019). Cederwell, William. Reading London in Wartime: Blitz, the People and Propaganda in 1940s Literature (New York: Routledge, 2018).  Farson, N. Bomber’s Moon (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1941).  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

11 Okt 202241min

London is pitch black. It's wartime and the lights are out to confuse Nazi bombers. But in this darkness a killer as warped and as violent as Jack the Ripper is hunting for women night after night in the bomb-damaged streets.  The women murdered by the so-called Blackout Ripper received little sympathy at the time and have been largely forgotten since. So historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes have gathered fresh evidence about the rich and complex lives of the women - and revealing what put them in the path of a killer.  Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper starts with a double episode drop on Oct 11. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

27 Sep 20224min

We'll be dropping a trailer for the new brand new season of Bad Women next week. But in the meantime, here’s a preview from Death of an Artist, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries. For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Molesworth revisits Mendieta’s death, taking a closer look at how she might have fallen out of the window of  Carl’s 34th floor New York apartment, and the following trial which has divided the art world since 1985. Hear more from Death of an Artist at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/artist?sid=women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

23 Sep 20227min

We’ll be back on October 11th with a brand new season of Bad Women, but in the meantime, we wanted to give you a taste of another history podcast we think you'll like.  From History Daily, host Lindsay Graham takes listeners back in time to a certain day in history to explore a momentous event. On this episode, we'll go back to August 10, 1993 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 107th justice, becoming only the second woman in history to serve on the country’s highest court. Find History Daily wherever you get podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

20 Sep 202220min