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Rachel Christ-Doane, Salem Witch Museum Director of Education

Release Date: 10/24/2025

What I Learned from the Women of the Salem Witch Trials

Real Women's Work Podcast

In this episode, I step back from interviewing and instead reflect on what I learned while hosting my three-part series on the Salem witch trials. These conversations left a mark on me—deeply, unexpectedly—and today I’m sharing the insights that stayed long after the microphones were turned off.

Kathryn Rutkowski, President, The Rebecca Nurse House

Real Women's Work Podcast

Rebecca Nurse hauntingly accepted her fate at the gallows with little objection. She was 71 years old — frail, devout, and undeserving of the cruelty that met her. Her story is one of the saddest and most human of all the Salem Witch Trials. In this episode, we focus on one life lost amid the hysteria — and in doing so, the conversation goes somewhere I never expected. Yes, we talk about who Rebecca was, the circumstances surrounding her conviction, and how Kathryn Rutkowski, President of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, works to preserve and share her story. But about twenty minutes in, the...

Paula Richter, Curator, Salem Witch Trials 1692 at the Peabody Essex Museum

Real Women's Work Podcast

Deep down, I think we all know that history matters. Yet for many of us, the way we learned it in school made it feel distant and inaccessible. It was out of context — abstract, detached from real people and real lives. But when we recall a story from the past centered on an individual, something shifts. Suddenly, we’re interested. The details stop feeling like a “history lesson” and become a human story — something that happened to someone. We lean in, curious, engaged, wanting to know more. Paula Richter, curator of the Salem Witch Trials 1692 exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum,...

Rachel Christ-Doane, Salem Witch Museum Director of Education

Real Women's Work Podcast

There is so much about the Salem With Trials that I had wrong. The more I dug in, the more I saw that all who were involved were real actual humans. They had famlies and jobs and homes and neighbors. Yet, so often when I thought of the Salem Witch Trials it was with an almost dark entertainment fascination- as though the people involved were not human at all. Rather, they were some kind of mutant variation stupid enough to let this happen around them. The more I learned, the more that time period became alive to me. I started to know the people by name. Know some of their background....

Amanda Giles: Organizer, Portsmouth Halloween Parade

Real Women's Work Podcast

If you’ve ever been to the Portsmouth Halloween Parade, you know — it’s one of the most connected nights in Portsmouth. People are a little kinder to each other, more curious, quicker to laugh and accommodate. It’s so, so special. And this is just the beginning. From Monster Troupe to Thriller dancers, Mrs. Ropers, and countless imaginative costumes in between, creativity shines everywhere — inspiring even those who didn’t expect to feel it. The night takes on a magical energy, a collective spirit we all help create, drawing us together in the most beautiful way. For years, I’ve...

Confidence Coach & Psychotherapist with Anna Marcolin

Real Women's Work Podcast

Is there a little voice that nags at you? Does it grab at your shoulder and pull at your sweater and say "come here! come here! Look! This is the thing you want to try! This is the thing you want to do!" Do you want to listen to it? To go where it leads you and jump all in to try the thing that seems to exciting- the thing that feels like it's meant for you to do? Every once in a while do you think you really can do it only to snap out of the "daydream" and realize the life you are dreaming of is only meant for special people? What if the thing that is stopping you is a lack of...

Writer, Writing Coach, Author of "Writing that Gets Noticed"

Real Women's Work Podcast

Have you ever wondered who writes the articles in your favorite magazines? How do they know what to say? What makes you read it? Where do they find the courage to be vulnerable and how do they know where to draw the line? Are you yourself a writer (maybe even secretly)? Do you want writing be your work? Do you wonder how to effectively pitch a publication, how to submit, and how to get your writing noticed? If any of these strike a chord you do not want to miss today's episode! Estelle Erasmus found herself fired from her first job. Want to guess why? She was caught reading at the...

Weight Inclusive Physical Therapist & Anti-Diet Health & Body Image Coach with Dr. Lisa Folden

Real Women's Work Podcast

What is it like when you get dressed in the morning? Do you walk into your closet happy and excited to put on the clothes you choose? Or do you try on three different pairs of pants, two skirts, and six tops in hopes of finding something that will cover up {insert part of your body you think poorly of here}? Do you step each leg into your shapeware shoving in as much of your body as you possibly can thinking it is just a normal part of being a woman? What is it like when you are on the playground with your kids? Do you laugh exubererantly while you run around chansing them? Or do you...

Speaking Confidence Coach with Linda Ugelow, Author of "Delight in the Limelight"

Real Women's Work Podcast

Does it happen to you, too? Forehead dripping with sweat, hear trate reaching 180, hands so clammy you cannot hold the ice cold water glass you desperately want to sip from to get rid of the cotton that somehow found its way to lining your mouth? And then it's time for you to speak... in front of other people... and the whole world around you begins to spin... It's called Glassophobia and it's believed to affect more than 75% of people. But it's not just speaking in front of large groups that affects many of us, it's speaking up at PTA meetings, in social situations, and even at family...

Master Welder and Founder of Weld Jointed with Pa'Trice Frazier

Real Women's Work Podcast

Did you know that the US has a shortage of welders? Me either. But after reading a NYT article in 2009, Pa'Trice Frazier took a trip to her local school to ask if the statistics were true. Sure enough, the instructors confirmed that the US had a shortage of 150-200K welders on their hands. Pa'Trice signed up on the spot to become a welder. After becoming a certified welder, Pa'Trice spent the next years of her life traveling the US. How did she find work? She showed up where project job crews ate. She'd tell them she was a badass welder and asked if they needed one. This is how Pa'Trice began...

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The more I learned, the more that time period became alive to me. I started to know the people by name. Know some of their background. Understand some of the relationships and circumstances. I learned the broader picture that included the European witch panic.

Before I knew it, there was a reverence and deep sadness that came over me every time I thougth of the Salem Witch Trials. As I got to better know the people who were invovled I started to feel upset when people made jokes about them or when misunderstandings were perpetuated.

This is what made me want to do this series. I wanted experts to not only help me learn more, but help anyone else who wanted to learn, too.

Because now I know that history really does repeat itself and that if we removed "Salem Witch Trials" from this episode, listeners might wonder which event --historical or current-- we were actually talking about.

This episode is about a set of circumstances several hundred years ago whose characteristics are so universal they can be applied to many, many situations between then and now. It is about real women, history, its role in our lives, and how it even changes with time!

Rachel Christ-Doane is incredible. She is articulate, insightful, patient, knowlegeable, and oh so passionate about sharing her knowledge about the Salem Witch Trials. Her role as the Director of Education at the Salem Witch Museum gives her a breadth of experience that is valuable to all of us.

Listen in. Share the episode. Tell your friends. This is another awesome woman doing Real Women's Work!

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