June 10, 2025 2:59 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, and the Complexity of Queer Identity
By Jonah Hoffmann The sitcom Bewitched still holds a special place in many people’s hearts due to its colorful cast of characters, witty dialogue, and subversion of stereotypes during the civil rights movement. The series originally aired from 1964 to 1972 and is remembered fondly as a supernatural comedy that used over-the-top concepts to explore various social issues by...
June 10, 2025 1:46 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Reading the Fire: 17th Century Witchcraft Books That Shaped a Hysteria
By Susan Phelps, The Lost Book Project During a recent visit to the Salem Witch Museum, I found myself drawn to a curious little volume displayed in the Witches: Evolving Perceptions exhibit—Les Secrets Merveilleux de la Magie Naturelle du Petit Albert. It was compact, unassuming, and yet brimming with the kind of lore that once terrified entire communities. With instructions...
March 6, 2025 4:10 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Before 1692: The Trial of Goody Glover
The 1688 case of Irish widow Goody Glover likely had a significant impact on the Salem witch trials. Details of the story come mainly from Reverend Cotton Mather, who wrote of the events and published them in his Memorable Providences in 1689, just three years before the Essex County outbreak. Boston mason John Goodwin and his wife had six children....
January 17, 2024 10:35 amPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on The Untold Story of Dorothy Good, Salem’s Youngest Accused Witch
Perhaps the most devastating story from the Salem witchcraft trials is that of Dorothy Good, the youngest person to be arrested and jailed in 1692. At the age of just four years old, Dorothy was accused of practicing witchcraft and confined to a dungeon-like prison for nearly eight months. Though at first jailed with her mother, Sarah Good, and infant...
July 28, 2023 12:48 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Grace Sherwood: The “Witch” of Pungo
Those traveling through Virginia Beach, Virginia will likely find themselves driving along one of the town’s most well-traveled streets: Witchduck Road. The name is peculiar, seemingly out of place surrounded by more familiar names such as Independence Boulevard and Donation Drive. The history of this name carries a legacy dating back hundreds of years and represents one of the state’s...
June 1, 2023 9:00 amPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on LGBTQIA+ Pride
The Lavender Scare The anti-communist campaign referred to as the Second Red Scare, but more popularly known as McCarthyism, is a well known and discussed portion of American history. The fear mongering utilized by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy to identify suspected communists led to the removal of thousands of government employees and ruined the reputation of countless other individuals. A...
May 31, 2023 12:06 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Magical Creatures, Artifacts, and Folk Belief
By: Jonah Hoffmann This blog series focuses on magical creatures, artifacts, and folk belief in various countries during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Witchcraft and sorcery, as illustrated by contemporaries of these eras, were part of a wider magical world filled with an array of supernatural beings and objects. These could be created either explicitly through rituals...
May 17, 2023 11:24 amPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Debunking the “Moldy Bread” Theory
Many today are aware of the theory that moldy bread caused the strange behavior that triggered the witchcraft panic in Salem in 1692. Known as the “ergot theory” this idea was put forward by Linnda Caporael in the April, 1976 edition of Science magazine. Ergot is a fungus that, under the right circumstances, grows on rye. Those who consume this substance...
May 3, 2023 12:48 pmPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Cotton Mather: Villain, Bystander, or Somewhere in Between?
Reverend Cotton Mather was an influential Puritan minister in Boston, serving his community for 43 years. Though famously associated with the Salem witch trials, Mather was only peripherally involved in the events of 1692. Nevertheless, to this day he is frequently cast as a major participant, even the leader of the witch-hunt. This is primarily due to his work The...
March 31, 2023 10:57 amPublished by Rachel ChristComments Off on Deputy Husbands
It was in Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750, that we first learned about the colonial American concept of “deputy husbands.” Ulrich, who devotes a chapter to the subject in Good Wives, provides this definition: “A deputy husband shouldered male duties. These might be of the most...
