33: Is now the time to bring Victory Gardens back?

34: From Jazz & Tap Dance to Politics & Gangs - the Development of Five Points, New York

What if one neighborhood held the entire origin story of American corruption, immigration, labor rights, and music? This week, we’re talking about Five Points — the most infamous neighborhood in 19th-century New York City, and arguably the most consequential few acres in American history. We start before the streets were even laid, with the Lenape people of Mannahatta and the freshwater Collect Pond that sustained lower Manhattan for thousands of years. Then we trace how a catastrophic act of environmental negligence created a literal sinkhole of poverty — and how that sinkhole became the engine of American political corruption. From the Black New Yorkers who built the neighborhood’s first institutions, including the African Society for Mutual Relief (the Underground Railroad’s Manhattan hub), to the hundreds of thousands of Irish famine survivors who flooded in after 1845 — we tell the full story. Why were they pitted against each other? Who benefited? And what does the answer reveal about how division is manufactured in every era, including our own? We go deep on Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed — the greatest political scandal in American history, born right in Five Points — and trace how a machine built on immigrant votes stole an estimated $200 million from New York’s poorest citizens, all while building the Brooklyn Bridge and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We examine how investigative journalism and civic organizing finally brought Tweed down, and what that tells us about accountability in the modern era. Keywords: Five Points history, Tammany Hall corruption, Irish immigration New York, Boss Tweed scandal, New York City history podcast, Lenape Manhattan, Rose Pastor Stokes, Newsies 1899, labor movement history, immigrant history America, political corruption history, Lower East Side history, Collect Pond New York, Civil War Draft Riots 1863, history podcast FURTHER LEARNING — EMBEDDED LINKS Books Referenced in This Episode * Tyler Anbinder, Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum (Free Press, 2001) — The definitive scholarly history of the neighborhood. Find it at Simon & Schuster [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Five-Points/Tyler-Anbinder/9781439141557] | Free digital version via Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/fivepoints19thce0000anbi] * Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890) — The muckraking photojournalism classic that shocked middle-class America into confronting tenement conditions. Read free via Project Gutenberg [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45502/45502-h/45502-h.htm] | Library of Congress exhibit on Riis [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/writer.html] * Adam Hochschild, Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020) — The biography that brought Rose back from historical obscurity. Essential companion to our Rose Pastor Stokes episode. Find it at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [https://www.hmhbooks.com] | Barnes & Noble [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rebel-cinderella-adam-hochschild/1134472785] * William L. Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics (1905; Penguin Classics edition available) — Tammany ward boss George Washington Plunkitt in his own unfiltered words. One of the most honest accounts of machine politics ever published. Penguin Random House edition [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531252/plunkitt-of-tammany-hall-by-william-l-riordon-with-an-introduction-by-peter-quinn-and-an-afterword-by-philip-freeman/] * Tyler Anbinder, City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) — The sweeping follow-up to Five Points, covering the full arc of New York’s immigrant story. * Tyler Anbinder, Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York (2024) — The newest scholarly entry on Irish immigration and the famine’s direct line to Five Points. Museums & Institutions * The Tenement Museum [https://www.tenement.org/] — Located at 97 and 103 Orchard Street, just blocks from where Five Points stood. Offers guided tours of restored tenement apartments and neighborhood walking tours. One of the best living-history experiences in the country. National Historic Landmark. * New-York Historical Society [https://www.nyhistory.org/] — Houses the original Draft Wheel from the 1863 Draft Riots, the bible saved from the burning Colored Orphan Asylum, and extensive Five Points-era collections. * FABnyc — Five Points History Project [https://www.fabnyc.org/2022/02/03/five-points/] — A detailed community history resource on Five Points with a particular focus on Black New York history in the neighborhood. * Mapping the African American Past (MAAP), Columbia University [https://maap.columbia.edu/place/25.html] — Interactive map and archival resources documenting Black history sites throughout New York City, including Five Points. Primary Sources & Archival Resources * New York Times Archive — Boss Tweed Investigation, 1871 [https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/william-magear-tweed] — The original investigative reporting that brought down the Tweed Ring. * Thomas Nast Cartoons on Boss Tweed, Bill of Rights Institute [https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/william-boss-tweed-primary-source-analysis/] — Primary source analysis of Nast’s Harper’s Weekly cartoons with teaching materials. Essential for understanding how journalism and visual media toppled a corrupt machine. * New York City Draft Riot Resources, New-York Historical Society [https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/new-york-city-draft-riots] — Primary source accounts and artifacts from the 1863 riots. * New York African Society for Mutual Relief, BlackPast.org [https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/new-york-african-society-mutual-relief-1808-1860/] — Scholarly entry on the first incorporated African American association, headquartered in Five Points. * Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives,” Library of Congress [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/writer.html] — Full exhibit on Riis’s photography, writing, and reform legacy, including original manuscript materials. Academic & Educational Resources * Bill of Rights Institute — Boss Tweed and Political Machines [https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/william-boss-tweed-and-political-machines/] — Free educational resource on the mechanics of machine politics with primary source materials. * JSTOR Daily — Race and Labor in the 1863 Draft Riots [https://daily.jstor.org/race-and-labor-in-the-1863-new-york-city-draft-riots/] — Free scholarly article connecting the Draft Riots to labor economics and manufactured racial conflict. * Zinn Education Project — The Draft Riot Mystery [https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/draft-riots/] — Teaching activity on the 1863 Draft Riots that asks students to interrogate why — modeling the kind of structural thinking we advocate on this show. * The American Yawp Reader — Jacob Riis, “How the Other Half Lives” (1890) [https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/18-industrial-america/jacob-riis-how-the-other-half-lives-1890/] — Free primary source excerpt with historical context. * Britannica — Boss Tweed [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boss-Tweed] — Reliable overview entry with timeline of Tweed’s rise, corruption, and fall. * Britannica — Draft Riot of 1863 [https://www.britannica.com/event/Draft-Riot-of-1863] — Comprehensive overview of the riots with further reading links. FULL CITATION LIST Books * Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum. New York: The Free Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780684859958. * Anbinder, Tyler. City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. * Anbinder, Tyler. Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York. New York: Penguin Press, 2024. * Hochschild, Adam. Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. ISBN: 9781328866745. * Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890. Available free via Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45502/45502-h/45502-h.htm [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45502/45502-h/45502-h.htm]. * Riordon, William L. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1905. Penguin Classics edition available: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531252/ [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531252/]. * Harris, Leslie M. In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. * Ackerman, Kenneth D. Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Journal Articles & Academic Sources * Sullivan, James. “The New York African Society for Mutual Relief (1808–1860).” BlackPast.org, January 22, 2011. https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/new-york-african-society-mutual-relief-1808-1860/ [https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/new-york-african-society-mutual-relief-1808-1860/]. * Wilder, Craig Steven. “The Rise and Influence of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief, 1808–1865.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 22, no. 2 (1998): 7–19. * JSTOR Daily. “Race and Labor in the 1863 New York City Draft Riots.” Accessed 2025. https://daily.jstor.org/race-and-labor-in-the-1863-new-york-city-draft-riots/ [https://daily.jstor.org/race-and-labor-in-the-1863-new-york-city-draft-riots/]. Museum & Institutional Sources * Lower East Side Tenement Museum. About Us. New York: Tenement Museum, 2024. https://www.tenement.org/about-us/ [https://www.tenement.org/about-us/]. * National Park Service. “Lower East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Site.” U.S. Department of the Interior, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/loea/index.htm [https://www.nps.gov/loea/index.htm]. * New-York Historical Society. “What Happened During the New York City Draft Riots?” New York: NYHS, 2022. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/new-york-city-draft-riots [https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/new-york-city-draft-riots]. * FABnyc. “Five Points.” New York: FABnyc, February 3, 2022. https://www.fabnyc.org/2022/02/03/five-points/ [https://www.fabnyc.org/2022/02/03/five-points/]. * Mapping the African American Past (MAAP), Columbia University. “African Society for Mutual Relief Hall.” https://maap.columbia.edu/place/25.html [https://maap.columbia.edu/place/25.html]. Primary Newspaper & Archival Sources * The New York Times. “Tweed’s Dilemma: The Chief of the Ring Robbers Fairly Cornered.” October 27, 1871. [Digitized via RareNewspapers.com: https://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/588660 [https://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/588660].] * Nast, Thomas. “The Tammany Tiger Loose.” Harper’s Weekly, November 11, 1871. [Available via Bill of Rights Institute: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/william-boss-tweed-primary-source-analysis/ [https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/william-boss-tweed-primary-source-analysis/].] * Riis, Jacob A. “How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements.” Scribner’s Magazine, December 1889. [Exhibit materials at Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/writer.html [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/writer.html].] Online Reference Sources * Encyclopædia Britannica. “Boss Tweed.” Last updated 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boss-Tweed [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boss-Tweed]. * Encyclopædia Britannica. “Draft Riot of 1863.” Last updated 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/Draft-Riot-of-1863 [https://www.britannica.com/event/Draft-Riot-of-1863]. * HISTORY.com. “New York Draft Riots.” Last updated 2025. https://www.history.com/articles/draft-riots [https://www.history.com/articles/draft-riots]. * Bill of Rights Institute. “William ‘Boss’ Tweed and Political Machines.” https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/william-boss-tweed-and-political-machines/ [https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/william-boss-tweed-and-political-machines/]. * Theodore Roosevelt Center. “How the Other Half Lives.” Dickinson State University, 2025. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/encyclopedia/culture-and-society/how-the-other-half-lives/ [https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/encyclopedia/culture-and-society/how-the-other-half-lives/]. * Tyler Anbinder faculty page, George Washington University / Amazon author biography. https://www.amazon.com/Five-Points/dp/B000VF7BUG [https://www.amazon.com/Five-Points/dp/B000VF7BUG]. Note: The Seabury Report (1932), the testimony of the Committee of Seventy (1871), and contemporary New York Times coverage of the Tweed Ring may be accessed through the New York Public Library digital collections at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org] and ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Last updated: May 2026. All links verified at time of publication. Get full access to Ripples of Rebels at delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe [https://delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

33: Is now the time to bring Victory Gardens back?

We’ve done it before. Multiple times. During World War II, everyday people — with no farming background, no land grants, no government subsidies — grew 40% of all the fresh vegetables eaten in the United States. They did it in backyards, on rooftops, in window boxes, in vacant lots. They did it because the system they relied on couldn’t hold them, and they decided to hold themselves instead. So what would happen if we did that again? Not for a war. Not because the government told us to. But as a grassroots movement of people who are tired of paying more every year for food that traveled 1,500 miles to reach them — food grown with fossil fuel fertilizers, shipped on diesel trucks, refrigerated with electricity that still mostly burns coal. What if growing a garden was the most grounded, practical, radical thing a person could do right now? In this episode of Ripples of Rebels, we dig into all of it. We cover the full history of victory gardens — from the War Gardens of WWI to the 20-million-garden movement of WWII — and the parts of that history that tend to get left out: who was excluded, whose land made it all possible, and whose food knowledge was already here long before any government poster campaign. We talk about the Indigenous agricultural traditions — like the Three Sisters companion planting system developed by Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and dozens of other nations — that were practicing regenerative, community-sustaining food systems for thousands of years before the USDA existed. We make the case that growing food is a form of harm reduction — not just during war, but in a moment of fuel price volatility, supply chain fragility, and a food system that passes every hidden cost down to the people least able to absorb it. And we talk about the earth itself. Because when you grow food in healthy, living soil — composting instead of using synthetic fertilizers, mulching, avoiding tilling, planting perennials — you’re not just feeding yourself. You’re pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and locking it into the ground. If 20% of U.S. households grew food this way, we’d sequester over 2.5 billion pounds of CO₂ every year. That’s the equivalent of taking nearly 285,000 cars off the road — while also keeping close to $19 billion in grocery savings in people’s pockets instead of supply chains. This episode ends with exactly how to get started: how to find your USDA climate zone, what resources exist for learning from Indigenous food sovereignty organizations in your region, and why your first step doesn’t need to be a raised bed — it can be a single herb on a windowsill. Little actions are acts of resistance. The ripple is real. In this episode: * The full history of Victory Gardens from WWI through WWII * The Japanese American farmers who were incarcerated while the Victory Garden campaign ran — and grew gardens inside the barbed wire anyway * Indigenous agricultural knowledge as the original, ongoing food sovereignty movement * Why growing food is harm reduction against fossil fuel dependence * The carbon math: what happens if 5%, 20%, or 50% of households grow food sustainably * The EPA’s social cost of carbon and what sequestering that carbon actually saves us economically * How to find your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone * Native Seeds/SEARCH, the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, and other organizations doing this work * Why saving seeds is a quiet refusal of corporate agricultural control * CITATIONS & SOURCES VICTORY GARDENS — HISTORY * Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Cultivating America’s Gardens: Gardening for the Common Good. National Museum of American History. https://library.si.edu/exhibition/cultivating-americas-gardens/gardening-for-the-common-good [https://library.si.edu/exhibition/cultivating-americas-gardens/gardening-for-the-common-good] * Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive. Growing Pains: Victory Gardens and Agriculture on the WWII American Home Front. https://collections.libraries.indiana.edu/IULMIA/exhibits/show/growing-pains--victory-gardens/victory-gardens [https://collections.libraries.indiana.edu/IULMIA/exhibits/show/growing-pains--victory-gardens/victory-gardens] * Heinz History Center. All-Out for Victory Gardens! Western Pennsylvania History Blog, September 2022. https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history-all-out-for-victory-gardens/ [https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history-all-out-for-victory-gardens/] * National Park Service. Victory Gardens on the World War II Home Front. U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/victory-gardens-on-the-world-war-ii-home-front.htm [https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/victory-gardens-on-the-world-war-ii-home-front.htm] * Wikipedia. Victory Garden. (For general overview and citation crosscheck.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden] JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION & GARDENS * Morehouse, Lisa. “Farming Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration.” NPR: The Salt, February 19, 2017. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/19/515822026/farming-behind-barbed-wire-japanese-americans-remember-wwii-incarceration [https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/19/515822026/farming-behind-barbed-wire-japanese-americans-remember-wwii-incarceration] * Ozawa, Koji Harris (2016). “The Archaeology of Gardens in Japanese American Incarceration Camps.” Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University. Cited in NPS Victory Gardens article above. INDIGENOUS FOOD SOVEREIGNTY & THE THREE SISTERS * USDA National Agricultural Library. The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture. https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters [https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters] * Indigenous Climate Hub. “The Three Sisters as Indigenous Sustainable Agricultural Practice.” June 2023. https://indigenousclimatehub.ca/2023/06/the-three-sisters-as-indigenous-sustainable-agricultural-practice/ [https://indigenousclimatehub.ca/2023/06/the-three-sisters-as-indigenous-sustainable-agricultural-practice/] * Klopotek, Brian, Talon Claybrook, and Joe Scott. “Indigenous companion planting in the great churn: Three sisters in Kalapuya ilihi.” Environment and Society, September 2022. SAGE Journals. (Peer-reviewed.) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25148486221126618 [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25148486221126618] * Michigan State University Native American Institute. “Preserving Indigenous Culture Through Three Sisters Gardening.” October 2024. https://nai.msu.edu/newsletters/october-2024/preserving-indigenous-culture-through-three-sisters-gardening [https://nai.msu.edu/newsletters/october-2024/preserving-indigenous-culture-through-three-sisters-gardening] * One Earth. “Three Sisters Farming: A Model of Regenerative Agriculture.” September 2025. https://www.oneearth.org/three-sisters-gardens/ [https://www.oneearth.org/three-sisters-gardens/] CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN SOIL & GARDENS * Gattinger, A. et al. “Organic Farming and Soil Carbon Sequestration: What Do We Really Know About the Benefits?” PLOS ONE / PMC, 2012. (Peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 32 publications.) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3357676/ [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3357676/] * Wang, Ruying et al. “Carbon Sequestration in Turfgrass–Soil Systems.” Plants, Oregon State University / USDA-ARS, September 2022. (Peer-reviewed.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9571228/ [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9571228/] * Discover Soil / Springer Nature. “Understanding Soil Carbon Sequestration: Mechanistic Insights, Management Approaches, and Future Challenges.” November 2025. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44378-025-00133-5 [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44378-025-00133-5] * Green America. Climate Victory Gardens — on measuring carbon sequestration in home gardens and the legacy of the WWII gardening movement. https://greenamerica.org/climate-victory-gardens [https://greenamerica.org/climate-victory-gardens] FOOD SYSTEM EMISSIONS * Crippa, M. et al. “Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions.” Nature Food, 2021. (Peer-reviewed. Source of the 34% estimate.) Summarized by Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food [https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food] * IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land, Chapter 5: Food Security. (Source of the 21–37% range.) https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/ [https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/] * Tubiello, Francesco N. et al. “Greenhouse gas emissions from food systems: building the evidence base.” Environmental Research Letters, IOP Science, 2021. (Peer-reviewed.) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e] SOCIAL COST OF CARBON * U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases: Estimates Incorporating Recent Scientific Advances. Final Report, December 2023. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/epa_scghg_2023_report_final.pdf [https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/epa_scghg_2023_report_final.pdf] * Resources for the Future. Social Cost of Carbon 101. (Plain-language explainer on the $190/ton EPA estimate and the peer-reviewed Nature study by Rennert et al., 2022.) https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/social-cost-carbon-101/ [https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/social-cost-carbon-101/] * Rennert, Kevin et al. “Comprehensive Evidence Implies a Higher Social Cost of CO₂.” Nature, 2022. (Peer-reviewed. Foundational study behind the EPA’s updated estimate.) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05224-9 [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05224-9] FOOD TRANSPORTATION & FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCE * Fleet Farming. “The History of Victory Gardening, and Why We Should Bring Back Victory Gardens.” December 2021. (Source of food mileage data and supply chain fossil fuel analysis.) https://fleetfarming.org/the-history-of-victory-gardening-and-why-we-should-bring-back-victory-gardens/ [https://fleetfarming.org/the-history-of-victory-gardening-and-why-we-should-bring-back-victory-gardens/] RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE & TAKE ACTION Find your climate zone: * USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map: https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov * Find your county cooperative extension service: https://extension.org/find-cooperative-extension/ [https://extension.org/find-cooperative-extension/] Indigenous food sovereignty & native seeds: * Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance: https://nafsa.online [https://nafsa.online] * Native Seeds/SEARCH (Southwest Indigenous seeds): https://www.nativeseeds.org [https://www.nativeseeds.org] * Seed Savers Exchange: https://www.seedsavers.org * Whose land are you on? Indigenous territory map: https://native-land.ca [https://native-land.ca] Climate Victory Gardens: * Green America’s Climate Victory Garden Registry: https://greenamerica.org/climate-victory-gardens [https://greenamerica.org/climate-victory-gardens] * Permaculture Gardens — Climate Victory Garden guide: https://www.permaculturegardens.org/climate-victory-gardens [https://www.permaculturegardens.org/climate-victory-gardens] Free wood chips for mulching: * ChipDrop (local arborist wood chip deliveries, often free): https://getchipdrop.com [https://getchipdrop.com] Find a community garden near you: * American Community Gardening Association: https://www.communitygarden.org [https://www.communitygarden.org] Keep learning: * Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass — Indigenous plant knowledge and reciprocity with the land * Charles Lathrop Pack, The War Garden Victorious (1919) — primary historical source on WWI gardens, now in public domain Ripples of Rebels is a podcast about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Produced and hosted by Delaney Clara. Find more at delaneyxclara.substack.com. Get full access to Ripples of Rebels at delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe [https://delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

32: The Outlaws of Propaganda - Annie Oakley & Sitting Bull

In 1884, a Hunkpapa Lakota chief who had defeated the United States Army sat in a Minnesota audience and watched a five-foot-tall Ohio woman shoot a playing card out of the air from thirty feet away. He sent sixty-five dollars to her hotel room just to have his photograph taken with her. When they met, he gave her a Lakota name — Watanya Cicilla, Little Sure Shot — and eventually adopted her as his daughter, gifting her the moccasins he wore at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This episode tells the full, unvarnished stories of Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull — two of the most mythologized and most misrepresented figures in American history — and the unlikely friendship that connected them across every boundary the world had built between them. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. What we cover: Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses in 1860, the sixth of nine children in a destitute Ohio family. After her father’s death, she was placed as an indentured servant with a family she would later call only “the wolves.” She taught herself to shoot at age eight to feed her family, paid off her mother’s mortgage at fifteen through hunting, then defeated professional sharpshooter Frank Butler in a bet — and eventually became the highest-paid performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, earning more than any act except Buffalo Bill himself. She trained over 15,000 women to shoot, twice offered to lead a regiment of female sharpshooters in wartime (rejected both times), won 54 of 56 libel lawsuits against William Randolph Hearst after a fabricated cocaine story, and quietly built one of the most subversive careers in American history — all while making herself impossible to dismiss. Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake — Sitting Bull — was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who spent his entire life defending his people’s sovereignty against the full force of the United States government. He refused to sign treaties surrendering the Black Hills after gold was discovered there in 1874 and the government violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. He organized the coalition that defeated Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. He led his people into exile in Canada rather than surrender. He was held as a prisoner of war, then confined to Standing Rock Reservation — and even then, used every public appearance to speak the truth about his people’s dispossession and direct his earnings toward his community. He was killed on December 15, 1890, shot outside his own home by Indian agency police, for defending his people’s right to practice the Ghost Dance. Two weeks later, approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children were massacred at Wounded Knee. This episode holds both stories with honesty — including the structural contradictions of the Wild West Show itself, what “subtle subversion” costs, and what it means that Oakley publicly called Sitting Bull’s fight just at a time when the US press was calling him a savage. We close with five lessons for today’s fight against tyranny: on holding non-negotiable lines, using whatever tools you have, cross-cultural solidarity as strategy rather than charity, protecting your spiritual sustenance, and building coalitions without waiting for perfect allies. Episode Sources & Further Reading * Kasper, Shirl. Annie Oakley. University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. * Riley, Glenda. The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley. University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. * Stillman, Deanne. Blood Brothers. Simon & Schuster, 2018. * Annie Oakley Center Foundation / Garst Museum [https://www.annieoakleycenter.com/] * PBS American Experience — The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/american-oz-lakota-ghost-dance-massacre-wounded-knee/] * National Geographic — What Really Happened at Wounded Knee [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/what-really-happened-at-wounded-knee-the-site-of-a-historic-massacre] * History.com — How Sitting Bull’s Spirituality Fueled the Lakota Resistance [https://www.history.com/articles/sitting-bull-spiritual-leader-little-bighorn] * Smithsonian Magazine — How Annie Oakley Preserved Her Ladylike Reputation [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-annie-oakley-princess-of-the-west-preserved-her-ladylike-reputation-55701906/] Take Action — Support Indigenous Land & Water Defense The resistance Sitting Bull embodied is not over. Here is where to put your money and your energy right now. Legal Defense & Litigation 🔹 Native American Rights Fund (NARF) [https://narf.org/donate/] — The country’s premier Indigenous legal organization, currently fighting for tribal water rights, treaty enforcement, and Bears Ears National Monument protection. NARF has been litigating the Bears Ears case since Trump slashed the monument by 85% in 2017 and continues that work today. 🔹 Water Protector Legal Collective [https://www.waterprotectorlegal.org/donate] — Born out of the #NoDAPL resistance at Standing Rock, WPLC is an Indigenous-led nonprofit law firm providing frontline legal defense for water protectors and impact litigation on treaty rights, pipeline approvals, and civil rights violations. They have defended over 800 criminal cases for Standing Rock water protectors and are still fighting. Indigenous Power Building & Sovereignty 🔹 NDN Collective [https://ndncollective.org/donate/] — The largest Indigenous-led fund in history, founded in the wake of Standing Rock. NDN runs the LANDBACK Campaign, funds frontline Indigenous organizers across Turtle Island, and — in their own words — fights “the rise of authoritarianism” as a direct threat to tribal sovereignty. They’ve distributed over $32 million to more than 600 Indigenous-led organizations. 🔹 Utah Diné Bikéyah [https://utahdinebikeyah.org/donate/] — A Utah-based Indigenous nonprofit that led the decades-long campaign to protect Bears Ears National Monument and continues advocating for Indigenous-led stewardship of ancestral lands in the Southwest. Public Lands Defense 🔹 Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition [https://bearsearscoalition.org/] — The five-nation coalition (Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni) that originated the Bears Ears proposal and continues fighting for tribal co-management of the monument. Supporting them directly supports Indigenous-led land stewardship. 🔹 The Wilderness Society [https://wilderness.org/donate/] — One of the lead legal and advocacy organizations fighting to protect public lands from extraction, privatization, and monument reductions. Currently active on Bears Ears, ANWR, and federal lands policy under the current administration. 🔹 Earthjustice [https://earthjustice.org/about/donate] — The nation’s largest nonprofit environmental law firm. They litigated alongside tribal nations at Standing Rock, continue fighting pipeline approvals that cross tribal lands and waterways, and are currently challenging federal rollbacks of Clean Water Act protections that disproportionately impact Indigenous communities. Mni Wiconi. Water is life. The ripples of every rebel reach further than they know. Keywords: Annie Oakley history, Sitting Bull resistance, decolonized history podcast, Indigenous sovereignty, Wild West Show history, Battle of Little Bighorn, Ghost Dance religion, Wounded Knee massacre, women’s rights history, feminist history podcast, public lands protection, Bears Ears National Monument, Standing Rock, water protectors, LANDBACK movement, ripples of rebels podcast Get full access to Ripples of Rebels at delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe [https://delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

31: The Fall That Built the Renaissance

In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II breached the walls of Constantinople and ended the Eastern Roman Empire after 1,123 years. But the story that gets skipped in most history classes is what happened next — and what had been quietly happening for decades before. Byzantine scholars, philosophers, and intellectuals fled west carrying something priceless: original Greek manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and Galen that the Latin West hadn’t read in centuries. They landed in Florence, Venice, and Rome. And they set the Renaissance on fire. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In this episode, I trace the full arc — from the cracks that first appeared in the 11th century, to why it took the Ottomans 400 years to finish the job, to the Byzantine thinkers whose names you’ve probably never heard but whose work shaped Leonardo da Vinci, the Medici, and the intellectual DNA of the modern world. We cover: — The Great Schism of 1054 and how a church split doomed an empire — The Battle of Manzikert (1071) and the wound Byzantium never healed from — How the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople in 1204 — by fellow Christians — was arguably more devastating than the Ottoman conquest — Why the Ottomans took 200 years to finish what they started, and the role of Timur (Tamerlane) in giving Byzantium an unlikely lifeline — The scholar exodus: what Byzantine intellectuals carried west and why it mattered — Renaissance thinkers with direct Byzantine lineage: Plethon, Cardinal Bessarion, Manuel Chrysoloras, Demetrios Chalkokondyles, and Johannes Argyropoulos — who counted Leonardo da Vinci among his studentsMost importantly, we talk about the importance of physical art to a crumbling empire, especially in the age of digital media. For more learning check out my sources: PART ONE — The Empire That Refused to Die Great Schism (1054) * Runciman, Steven. The Eastern Schism (1955) — the standard English-language treatment * Herrin, Judith. Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (2007) — ch. on religious identity Battle of Manzikert (1071) * Friendly, Alfred. The Dreadful Day: The Battle of Manzikert, 1071 (1981) — dedicated treatment * Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (1995) — ch. 4–5 Fourth Crusade / Sack of 1204 * Phillips, Jonathan. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (2004) — the most thorough modern account * Queller, Donald & Madden, Thomas. The Fourth Crusade (1997) — the scholarly standard * Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium (trans. Magoulias, 1984) — primary source, the Byzantine eyewitness account quoted in the episode PART TWO — Why It Took So Long Ottoman rise and encirclement * Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire 1300–1650 (2002) — standard reference * Kafadar, Cemal. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (1995) — on early Ottoman formation Timur / Battle of Ankara (1402) * Manz, Beatrice Forbes. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (1989) — the scholarly standard on Timur * Norwich, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall — covers the Byzantine reprieve Final siege / Mehmed II * Runciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (1965) — start here, the classic narrative account * Harris, Jonathan. The End of Byzantium (2010) — more recent, revisionist in useful ways * Crowley, Roger. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople (2005) — accessible and well-sourced on the siege mechanics * Pertusi, Agostino (ed.). La caduta di Costantinopoli (1976) — Italian-language primary source collection if you want to go deep PART THREE — The Scholar Exodus * Geanakoplos, Deno. Greek Scholars in Venice (1962) — essential, the foundational scholarly work on Byzantine émigré intellectuals * Geanakoplos, Deno. Byzantium and the Renaissance (1973) — companion volume * Monfasani, John. Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy (1995) — more recent, fills gaps in Geanakoplos * Wilson, N.G. From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance (1992) — focused on manuscript transmission specifically On the Council of Florence (1439) * Gill, Joseph. The Council of Florence (1959) — the scholarly standard Get full access to Ripples of Rebels at delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe [https://delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

30: The Bonus Army: When America Turned Tanks on Its Own Veterans

In the summer of 1932, over 43,000 World War I veterans and their families descended on Washington, D.C., demanding early payment of service bonuses they’d been promised — and were met with tear gas, bayonets, and burning camps ordered by their own government. The Bonus Army encampment didn’t end with negotiations or compassion. It ended when General Douglas MacArthur drove tanks and cavalry through American veterans on American soil. Nearly a century later, the pattern hasn’t changed. This episode traces the throughline from 1932 to today: from the broken promises made to WWI doughboys, to the decades of denial faced by Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange, to Gulf War veterans told their mysterious illnesses were “all in their heads,” to the generations of post-9/11 service members who breathed toxic burn pit smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan — and then waited years for a government that sent them to war to acknowledge it was killing them. The PACT Act of 2022 [https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/] was a hard-won milestone, but the fight for full implementation is far from over. We also examine who profits when America goes to war — and who pays. The Iraq War, launched on intelligence its architects knew was manufactured [https://downingstreetmemo.com/], generated billions in no-bid contracts for politically connected corporations while veterans came home to underfunded VA hospitals and bureaucratic indifference. As the United States edges toward confrontation with Iran in 2026, the same defense stocks are spiking, the same warnings from military commanders are being ignored, and the same working-class communities are being asked to bear the cost — in bodies and in silence. This is not an anti-military episode. It is an episode about what we owe the people we send to fight — and the long, documented history of our failure to pay that debt. If you are currently serving and questioning your orders, your options, or your future, resources are listed below. Sources & Further Reading Bonus Army / WWI Veterans * National Park Service: “The 1932 Bonus Army” [https://www.nps.gov/articles/bonus-march.htm] * National Archives: Bonus Army newsreel footage [https://www.archives.gov/research/military/bonus-march] * PBS American Experience: “The Bonus March” (2007) [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/bonusmarch/] * Bill of Rights Institute: “The Bonus Army” [https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-bonus-army] * Zinn Education Project: “July 28, 1932: Bonus Army Attacked” [https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bonus-army-attacked/] Veterans Benefits Betrayal * Military.com: “30 Years After the Gulf War: Veterans and the Legacy of Toxic Wounds” (2021) [https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/27/30-years-after-gulf-war-veterans-and-legacy-of-toxic-wounds.html] * WBUR / Here and Now: Gulf War Illness coverage [https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/tags/gulf-war-illness] * Rep. Raul Ruiz (House): VA Burn Pit claims denial data [https://ruiz.house.gov/] * Veterans Benefits Law Group: “Burn Pit Claims vs. Agent Orange Claims” [https://veteransbenefitslaw.com/burn-pit-claims-vs-agent-orange-claims/] * PACT Act (2022) — VA.gov [https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/] Iraq War / War Profiteering * Center for Public Integrity: “False Pretenses” (2008) [https://www.publicintegrity.org/2008/01/23/5641/false-pretenses] * The Downing Street Memo (2005) [https://downingstreetmemo.com/] * Foreign Policy in Focus: “Invitation to Steal: War Profiteering in Iraq” [https://fpif.org/invitation_to_steal_war_profiteering_in_iraq/] * Global Policy Forum: War Profiteering documentation [https://archive.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/war/profiteering.htm] * Robert Greenwald, “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers” (2006, documentary) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0836852/] Iran War / Current Events (2026) * Capitol Trades: “Congress’s Defense Stock Plays: Profiting from US-Israel-Iran War” (March 2026) [https://www.capitoltrades.com/] * The Wall Street Journal: Pentagon warnings on Iran [https://www.wsj.com/topics/subject/iran] * Axios: Gen. Dan Caine’s cautions on Iran conflict [https://www.axios.com/national-security/iran] * Brookings Institution: “After the Strike: The Danger of War in Iran” [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/after-the-strike-the-danger-of-war-in-iran/] * Wikipedia: 2026 Iran War [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_war] * Christian Science Monitor: U.S.-Iran strategy coverage [https://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Iran] Get full access to Ripples of Rebels at delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe [https://delaneyxclara.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]