The Divorce Colony: Why Women Fled to South Dakota in the 1880s to End Their Troubled Marriages

The Divorce Colony: Why Women Fled to South Dakota in the 1880s to End Their Troubled Marriages

No-fault divorce laws began spreading across the globe in the 1970s, in which neither party had to prove wrong-doing. Before this time, somebody had to prove that the other party breached the marital contract, typically through infidelity or desertion. Basically, it was shockingly difficult to get divorced. For a woman in the late 19th century, there was only one place in the country to reliably get a divorce: Sioux Falls, otherwise known as the “Divorce Colony,” a place where the land and the laws had not yet been tamed.

To explore this topic further is today’s guest April White, author of “The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier.” She discusses the stories of four real women who made the trek to Sioux Falls to get their divorces because the new state had short residency requirements before a settler fell under the jurisdiction of its flexible laws. We discuss salacious newspaper headlines, juicy court documents, and high-profile cameos from the era’s most well-known socialites to unveil the incredible social, political, and personal dramas that unfolded in Sioux Falls and reverberated around the country.

In particular, we discuss how the scandalous divorces of socialites and actresses at the turn-of-the-century led to greater acceptance of divorce in the United States; why turn-of-the-century suffragists were split on the question of divorce; and wow increased access to divorce changed the role of women in the United States.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Avsnitt(1077)

From Bronze to Blood: How the Sword Became Humanity's First Murder Weapon

From Bronze to Blood: How the Sword Became Humanity's First Murder Weapon

For nearly two thousand years, swords reigned as humanity's weapon of choice—the first tools designed exclusively to kill other humans rather than hunt animals. When archaeologist Paul Gething redisco...

19 Mars 47min

Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right

Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right

Science progresses through breakthrough discoveries, but behind many of the field's greatest advancements lies a darker history of scientific dysfunction—hostile competition, information hoarding, and...

17 Mars 47min

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

In 1976, nine French wine judges did the unthinkable: they blindly selected two California wines over France's most elite vintages in what became known as the Judgment of Paris. This shocking upset se...

12 Mars 36min

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

Throughout the 16th century, one man stood between the Ottoman Empire and European domination, yet his name has been largely forgotten. Gabriele Tadino was an Italian military engineer whose genius tr...

10 Mars 43min

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

America's Founding Fathers feared a standing army would inevitably threaten civilian governance. Yet 250 years later, the U.S. military remains a strange outlier among nearly every nation that has eve...

5 Mars 51min

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists famously described the First Amendment as building a "wall of separation between church and State." This line has been the gold standard for thos...

3 Mars 52min

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

There’s an argument to be made that every technology advance in communication – from cave paintings to fake AI movie trailers – is at its root an attempt to tell stories. Our first night-fires created...

26 Feb 58min

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries c...

24 Feb 44min

Populärt inom Samhälle & Kultur

podme-dokumentar
aftonbladet-krim
gynning-berg
p3-dokumentar
en-mork-historia
svenska-fall
mardromsgasten
creepypodden-med-jack-werner
skaringer-nessvold
blenda-2
killradet
rss-nemo-moter-en-van
flashback-forever
hor-har
kod-katastrof
rattsfallen
vad-blir-det-for-mord
rss-mer-an-bara-morsa
historiska-brott
rysarpodden