Smart Podcast, Trashy Books Podcast

114. Carrie Sessarego on Victorian Women Who Out Steampunked Steampunk

Carrie Sessarego and Sarah discuss the badass Victorian women Carrie has been researching, including travelers, scientists, inventors and spies. She talks about them in a presentation she gives titled, “Victorian Women Who Out-Steampunked Steampunk.” We also discuss books she’s enjoyed recently and what she’s reading now.

During the podcast, Carrie mentions two books that she can’t remember the titles of, but she remembers tons of details (welcome to Sarah’s brain!). Those books, which of course she remembered after we stopped recording, were Girl Least Likely to Marry, by Amy Andrews and Like No Other Lover by Julie Anne Long.

We also mention many, many people, and if you’re curious, here’s a list of them, linked to their respective Wikipedia pages.

Ada Lovelace

Madam CJ Walker

Ellen Eglui

Anne Edson Taylor

Isabella Bird

Loretta Velasquez

Mary Anning

Margaret Knight and her paper bag folding machine.

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This Episode's Music

Book Adeste Fiddles Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater. This podcast features “Three Ships” by a UK duo called Deviations Project, which features producer Dave Williams and violinist Oliver Lewis – they have their own Wikipedia page. This song is from their Christmas album Adeste Fiddles.


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Transcript

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This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.

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  1. library addict says:

    Another fun episode. I knew the books, so glad the non-HABO HABO has been solved already.

    I’m already reading Christmas novellas so the music did not strike me as odd.

  2. Jodi says:

    The iTunes loves us again! I listened to last week’s ep, and I’m looking forward to Carrie’s interview discussion in this weeks!

  3. TheoLibrarian says:

    I was one of the ones who was not a fan of Girl Least Likely to Marry but liked The Rosie Project okay. It really had nothing to do with the gender of the character for me but rather how well the Asperger’s was portrayed along with the interest in science.

    One of my reading/media pet peeves is seeing scientists being socially awkward because they are scientists. My husband is a neuroscientist and biology professor and, because of him, I spend a lot of time with a diverse group of scientists. Some are awkward but many have amazing people/social skills. Most of the members of his department are way more extroverted than many of the members of religious studies faculty I am on. So, I really hate to see that stereotype anywhere.

    When it came to those two books it really had nothing to do with gender for me. I am critical of books/stories with scientist main characters always. Big Bang Theory drives me absolutely crazy. In order for me to view a socially awkward scientist as well done, I need to see that the socially awkward is separate from the science. I don’t like characters who are socially awkward because they like science. Science does not infect humans with awkward cooties. It’s been more than a year since I read either book but I remember the distinct parts of the personality being better in The Rosie Project than in the other. Maybe it’s because Rosie Project was longer and had more time to develop character’s personality. Maybe it’s because The Rosie Project had secondary academic characters who had different ranges of social skills. Maybe I was in a rotten mood when I read Girl Least Likely to Marry and that affected how generously I felt towards scientist characters that day. Whatever the reason may be, I assure you, gender was not my problem.

  4. StarOpal says:

    Yay! I haz podcast!

    Another Cary Elwes movie I’d recommend is Lady Jane from 1986, starring a super young Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Jane Grey and him as Guilford Dudley. Also Patrick Stewart is in it, so inherently awesome. It’s about the Nine Day Queen, so no happy ending, but Helena and Cary are wonderful together. Criminally unknown movie.

  5. StarOpal says:

    Oh, I forgot, if that buttered chicken recipe works out would you post it Sarah? I’ve wanted to try making it for a while, but I’ve never found a solid recipe that I’ve been brave enough to try.

  6. Des Livres says:

    I wouldn’t worry about the length. I enjoy the longer podcasts. i certainly enjoyed this one!

  7. Jewel says:

    iTunes is finally working for me! This whole time, well since about podcast 65 or so, I have been a subscriber and it has NEVER automatically updated for me. THIS WEEK, for the first time EVAH, it automatically updated!!! So I’m sorry you had the crap from iTunes, but I’m so glad it’s finally working for me!

  8. I finished reading Bollywood Affair and I loved it!! I couldn’t stop thinking about Samir and Mili when I wasn’t reading, they really got to me.

  9. Saby says:

    Speaking of outlandish Victorian ladies, Agnes, Lady Macdonald, the wife of Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald, went on a cross-country train trip with her husband when he was campaigning, and insisted on going through the Rockies on a chair tied to the cow-catcher on the front of the train to better appreciate the view.

  10. SB Sarah says:

    @StarOpal: If the recipe’s good, I’ll absolutely share it!

  11. Ladies! I am disappoint that you did not find, in your Ladies Who Out-Steampunked Steampunk” segment, Madame Bertha Benz! Missus Benz, who was the wifey and business-type partner of Karl Benz, whom you may recognize from not-his-first-name Mercedes-Benz.

    Good ladies, it turns out that when Karl was working on his “motorwagen” prototype, he liked to do the tinkering in the garage, but not so much the getting out and showing it off to people, which Mme Bertha knew would never make them rich (or rather, richer than she already was). So, rather than wring her hands and get the vapors on a convenient couch, Mme Bertha packed up the kids, grabbed her street map, and took the keys to the motorwagen and took the Very First Road Trip Ever. And what is so compellingly feminine about this road trip, you ask?

    I’m glad you asked! 1.) Because Mista Benz was not known for his adventurous nature when it came to his prototypes, he was never going to run them further than the 1888 equivalent of doing donuts in the parking lot. So bless her heart, Mizz Bertie collected up her boys (13 and 15), and said, “Kids, pack your things. We’re taking the car, and going to see Grandma!” Only, you know, in German. Together with her sons, who probably pointed out that Dad would be kinda pissed if she scratched the paint, she pushed the prototype out of the workshop and down the street to jump-start it and be on their way long before Daddy woke up (and probably wondered where his breakfast was).

    2.) Mme Bertha knew her Pookie’s engine ran on petroleum distillate, which, at the time of No Cars Anywhere Ever, did not come out of a convenient pump at a service station, but rather came out of a much smaller bottle found at a pharmacist’s (or chemists, as they say On The Continent) and used as cleaning solvent. So what did our intrepid heroine do? She took her street map and found a chemist’s for a fill-up (and presumably, to buy the kids something sticky so they’d quit asking, “Are we there yet?”), leaving in her wake the first filling station ever.

    and 3.) Our Girl Bertie did not expect that the Mark 3, so named–and carjacked–because it could seat all 3 people in the World’s First-Ever Grand Theft Auto (1888 Old Old Old Skool edition), would make the 60-mile trip to Mother’s without suffering some dings along the way. Being the well-prepared woman that she was, she did her own maintenance using her hairpin, in one instance, and her garter in another. Oh, yeah, and by the way, on the trip back home, she only INVENTED BRAKE PADS by asking a kind shoemaker across from her hotel to nail leather pads onto the wooden braking blocks that were wearing down.

    Did this lady out-steampunk steampunk? Bitches, she PUT the punk in steampunk! Why is my comment so very way long? Because I’ve been crazy about this lady ever since I discovered her several years ago, and I want more people as crazy as I am about her! She’s got a Wikipedia page and her own site as well as a handful of articles about her that are easily found by The Google (I have a post on her on my blog, too, but it’s waay back in time). I felt I must share this with The Bitchery and would like to see Mizz Bertha become one of the patron badasses of Smartbitchery.

  12. azteclady says:

    Ms Grayson, I did know about Mme Bentz, but your account is so much better than the one I read. Thank you.

    PS Where was the non-HABO HABO solved?

  13. Jennifer O. says:

    I was yelling (internally, because I was at work) “Pennyroyal Green! Pennyroyal Green!”

    @azteclady, the non-HABO HABO was solved at the very end.

  14. Yay for the Mary Seacole mention 🙂 She was an amazing woman, I really look up to her.

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