The History Chicks

Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider have been telling the stories of remarkable women from history since 2011, and they've gotten very, very good at it. The History Chicks is an award-winning women's history podcast that covers figures from ancient times to the present day, and each episode is a deep-research production that runs one to two hours. These are not quick summaries. They go down rabbit holes, pull in pop culture references, and treat their subjects as full, complicated human beings rather than Wikipedia entries. With 349 episodes and a 4.7-star rating from nearly 8,000 reviews, the show has built a devoted audience that includes retired history professors who praise it for making history come alive. The episodes update twice a month, and the back catalog is enormous -- you could spend months working through it. Beyond the standard biographical episodes, they produce bonus content, interviews with documentarians, and "travelogue" episodes where listeners share field trips to historical locations connected to the women they've profiled. The tone is conversational and enthusiastic without dumbing anything down. Beckett and Susan clearly love their subjects, and that passion is contagious. If your school history classes left out most of the women, this podcast is the corrective you've been waiting for.