By: Jonah Hoffmann The witch is a pop culture staple appearing in various media types with real-life roots that are every bit as unsettling as the stories depicted in literature and film. The narrative of the powerful woman using magic for primarily nefarious means has haunted humanity for thousands of years. Accusations of witchcraft have plagued women, and men to...
By: Jonah Hoffmann This blog series is a celebration of witchcraft in cinema and focuses on some of the films that take a more traditional, historically influenced look at the witch and witch trials. When considering witches on-screen, the classic iconography of the green-skinned woman, the pointed hat, and the broomstick often come to mind. However, the history of witchcraft...
By: Jonah Hoffmann The Salem witch trials of 1692 involved a number of individuals identified as key players in the series of events that formulate the greater witch trials narrative. One such figure is Tituba, the enslaved woman who was the first person accused of practicing witchcraft and afflicting the young girls living in the household of her enslaver: Samuel...
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...
By: Jonah Hoffmann This blog series focuses on specific countries or regions of the Early Modern European world during the 17th century when scholars believe the peak period of witch hunting took place before fading out almost entirely during the latter portion of the century. While perhaps the most famous seventeenth century witch trial, the Salem witch trials that took...
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...
The Beginning of the Witch Trials in Poland: The period of ecclesiastical courts Guest blog written by Łukasz Hajdrych On 24 May 1511 vetula combusta [est] in campo extra oppidum Valishewo – A witch was burnt on the field outside the town of Waliszewo”. This is probably the most renown sentence which relates to the Polish witch-trials – the very...
March 13, 2020 marks the one-year anniversary of the Witches: Evolving Perceptions exhibit renovation. On this day, years of hard work and planning were finally realized in this major interpretive planning update and exhibit remodel. Witches: Evolving Perceptions was created in 1999 in an effort to connect the history of the Salem witch trials with the broader definitions of witchcraft...
This year we are focusing on some of the incredible pop-culture witches created and portrayed by black artists over the past 50 years. In 1900, author L. Frank Baum began to alter the image of the witch with his wildly popular children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, giving America its first famous good witch. By the mid-twentieth century, good...
Welcome to Fantastic Women Fridays! This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the nineteenth amendment, granting women the right to vote. As we come upon this important milestone, it is worth pausing to consider the close links between women’s history and the history of witchcraft. Though anyone could be accused of witchcraft, the individuals who were the most susceptible to...
