"Haunted, Hilarious, Harrowing History!
Part ghost story, part secret history, part meta-podcast satire, A Simple Herstory was an exhilarating ride. What you assume will be a linear exploration of a little-known corner of American Presidential History explodes into a grotesque, panoramic survey of 19th-century society, mysticism, and gender inequality. It’s like reading a fat novel that surprises you with wild changes in font and typography, with startling pop-ups that come out of nowhere. If Ken Burns took a tab of acid and then went on all the rides at Coney Island, you might get something like this. Its Alice-in-Wonderland shifts in reality, its phantasmagoric ghost pageantry, its blend of voices overlapping and fighting to be heard—work brilliantly to create epic theater in our heads." ​(Read More).
-David Cote, Theater Critic

"A Simple Herstory is the podcast America needs right now — illuminating and seductive, it peels away the layers of a 'problematic' historical figure with theatrical skill and reveals the true, dark heart of American democracy."
-Cecil Baldwin, Welcome to Night Vale

From outsiders to insiders, and outsiders again, these are the women who ran. 

A Simple Herstory is an award-winning, deviant, multi-platform audio fiction podcast series about the women who have run for President of the United States.

More than one hundred women have run for President of the United States, but their stories are rarely heard. So, what if they decided to correct the record and take matters into their own hands? A Simple Herstory might start as a polite podcast about women’s history, a cursory dip into some forgotten “badass women.” It soon (d)evolves, however, into a hostile takeover of the mic, as the first season's leading subject, Victoria Woodhull, arguably the first female presidential candidate, demands to have the entirety of her story told. This means the abuse, the narcissism, the sex, and the criminality — and not just the you go, girl bits fit for broadcast. 

A Simple Herstory is as much about these women, who have been locked inside “his story,” as it is about liberating complicated biographies from their deceptively tidy packages. It's the story of real human beings, free from the tropes and agendas that reduce complex figures to cartoons. (Or is it?) In order to win, does a woman have to be a perfect candidate? To earn our reverence, must her story be sweet and neat?

 This is an eight-part, award-winning, scripted podcast season that you'll want to devour in one gulp. Once it builds momentum, it's hard to stop. The total running time is approximately 2 hours, 40 minutes. 

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More than one hundred women have run for President of the United States, but their stories are rarely heard. So, what if they decided to correct the record and take matters into their own hands? A Simple Herstory might start as a polite podcast about women’s history, a cursory dip into some forgotten “badass women.” It soon (d)evolves, however, into a hostile takeover of the mic, as the first season's leading subject, Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, demands to have the entirety of her story told. This means the abuse, the narcissism, the sex, and the criminality — and not just the you go, girl bits fit for broadcast. 

A Simple Herstory is as much about these women, who have been locked inside “his story,” as it is about liberating complicated biographies from their deceptively tidy packages. It's the story of real human beings, free from the tropes and agendas that reduce complex figures to cartoons. (Or is it?) In order to win, does a woman have to be a perfect candidate? To earn our reverence, must her story be sweet and neat?

This is an eight-part, award-winning, scripted podcast season that you'll want to devour in one gulp. Once it builds momentum, it's hard to stop. The total running time is 2 hours, 40 minutes. 

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Teaser

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Prologue: Herding Cats

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 2: Through Other Eyes

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 3: Polite Company

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 4: Everyday Shit

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 5: Fun & Games

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 6: Serious Important Drama

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 7: Passing The Buck

A Simple Herstory · Victoria Woodhull - Part 8: Behold My Ruins

Produced by The Muse Project + ​Presented by The Tank. ©2020-2025 The Muse Project/ASH LLC, All Rights Reserved. 

Slider Photo Credits: Victoria Woodhull, Margaret Chase Smith, Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink, Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Dole, Kamala Harris - public domain; Belva Ann Lockwood - Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; neg. no. LC USZ 62 11082
; Charlene Mitchell -  Gene Koppack; Elaine Brown - Facebook (2/16); Roseanne Barr - Modified screenshot of Roseanne Barr from Jordan Brady's film "I Am Comic" (6/10), CC BY-SA 3.0.