On this week’s show, Jeff shares the story of Nellie Bly, born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, a pioneering American journalist whose fearless investigative reporting helped define modern journalism.

Bly gained national attention in 1887 after faking mental illness to be committed to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York City. Her undercover reporting exposed brutal conditions and widespread abuse inside the asylum, leading to public outrage and significant reforms in mental health care.

In 1889, Nellie Bly became the first woman to travel around the world, completing the journey in just 72 days. Her courage, innovation, and determination shattered expectations and opened the door for generations of investigative journalists to follow.

Trigger Warning:
Discussion of mental illness, institutional abuse, and historical mistreatment of patients.

Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com

Sources:

• National Women’s History Museum – Nellie Bly Biography
  https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/nellie-bly-0
• Library of Congress – Nellie Bly and Blackwell’s Island
  https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/11/nellie-bly-blackwells-island/
• Soflete – Nellie Bly
  https://soflete.com/blogs/die-living/nellie-bly
• Encyclopaedia Britannica – Nellie Bly
  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nellie-Bly
• Ten Days in a Mad-House – University of Pennsylvania Digital Library
  https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html
• Google Search – How did Nellie Bly get committed?
  https://www.google.com/search?q=how+did+nellie+bly+get+committed

On this week’s show, Jeff shares the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The Tulsa race massacre was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist attack that took place in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, between May 31 and June 1, 1921.

Mobs of white residents - some of whom were deputized and armed by city officials - attacked Black residents and systematically destroyed homes, businesses, and institutions in what was known as “Black Wall Street.” The violence left Greenwood in ruins and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Black men, women, and children.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is widely considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history and remains a critical example of how systemic racism, government complicity, and historical erasure shaped the United States.

⚠️Trigger Warning:
Racial violence, mass death, destruction of communities, white supremacist terrorism.

Sources:

• Tulsa Race Massacre: A History from Beginning to End by Hourly History
• National Endowment for the Humanities — article by Kweku Larry Crowe and Thabiti Lewis
• https://www.neh.gov/article/1921-tulsa-massacre
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer
• https://www.history.com/articles/black-wall-street-tulsa-visionaries
• https://www.tulsalibrary.org/black-wall-street
• https://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/22/tulsa_still_faces_historical_trauma_from
• https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/12823

To kick off the new year, Sam tells the fascinating and rebellious story of the Forty Elephants Gang—a notorious, all-female London crime syndicate that operated from the 1870s through the 1950s.

Based out of the Elephant & Castle area, the Forty Elephants were famous for their daring shoplifting operations targeting luxury goods. Led by powerful “Queens” like Alice Diamond (aka Diamond Annie) and later Lilian Rose Kendall (the Bobbed-Haired Bandit), the gang included key members such as Maggie Hill and the Partridge sisters.

They were known not just for crime, but for style, organization, and resilience—using custom pocket-lined clothing, strict hierarchy, and bold confidence to outsmart shopkeepers and police alike. This is a story of women who carved out power in a world designed to deny it to them.

Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com.

• Ridiculous History Podcast – Classic Episode: The Forty Elephants: London’s All-Female Jewel Thieves
• The Poisoners’ Cabinet Podcast – Episode 188: The Many Crimes of The Forty Elephants
• “A Thousand Blows: How a Women-Only Gang Menaced Victorian London” – BBC Culture
  https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250219-a-thousand-blows-how-a-women-only-gang-menaced-victorian-london
• Forty Elephants – Wikipedia
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Elephants
• Forty Elephants: South London’s Supreme Shoplifters – London Museum
  https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/forty-elephants-south-londons-supreme-shoplifters/