Aural History Productions   

Talking History, based at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is a production, distribution, and instructional center for all forms of "aural" history. Our mission is to provide teachers, students, researchers and the general public with as broad and outstanding a collection of audio documentaries, speeches, debates, oral histories, conference sessions, commentaries, archival audio sources, and other aural history resources as is available anywhere. We hope to expand our understanding of history by exploring the audio dimensions of our past, and we hope to enlarge the tools and venues of historical research and publication by promoting production of radio documentaries and other forms of aural history. In addition to our weekly radio program, we are engaged in numerous educational efforts, from running and sponsoring workshops to offering full-semester courses on radio production and oral history. Some of the most talented radio producers and engineers currently working in public and non-commercial radio now contribute to Talking History—both to our programming and to our educational efforts through production workshops. Here, you'll also find digital archives of their enormously creative and captivating works. Our weekly broadcast/internet radio program, Talking History, focuses on all aspects of history. Follow the link to the left, "The Radio Show," for more information on the program and to access the live WWW broadcast. Below you will find our latest archived shows; to enjoy more, make use of the pop-down menu to the left; it will give you access to our full radio archive.

February 2, 2012
Segment 1 and 3: "The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting" (2006/2012).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:15.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:53.
From Hindsight and Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Oral history has been part and parcel of the democratisation of history since the Second World War. Through interviews with historians from many different countries, and archival material from seminal oral history projects, we chart the international oral history movement, paying special attention to the role of oral history in Aboriginal historiography, and in post-Apartheid South Africa. Historians have always relied on oral history. Think of Homer and Thucydides and their reliance on eyewitness accounts and oral tradition. It was only in the 19th century when history as a discipline became professionalised, and historians started to think of their discipline as a 'science', that a total reliance on documentary sources developed. From the 1950s onwards, historians became interested again in personal testimony. In the US it was an archival project, an effort to get the reminiscences of 'movers and shakers' on the record, great men who were too busy to write their autobiographies. But in the UK and Europe, historians with a socialist ethos like Paul Thompson were keen to get the experiences of ordinary people on the record, in order to write 'history from below'. This impulse emerged from the inclusive social movements of the 1960s. In the decades since, oral history has been a democratising force in historical work, and a crucial means of achieving cultural and political recognition for marginalised groups. In countries with recent histories of trauma and political instability, oral history has urgent applications in restorative justice processes and national reconciliation. In 'The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting', we explore some of these. Contributors include Inga Clendinnen, Paul Thompson, Peter Read, Heather Goodall, Sean Field and Bonnie Smith. Archival oral history material featured in the program relates to apartheid South Africa, the Stolen Generations in Australia, Aboriginal cattle drovers in the Northern Territory, British nuclear tests in South Australia, and working people in Edwardian England."

Segment 2: "Otto Von Bismarck -- a History and a Recording (1909/1889)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:28.
Here's an edited aural record of Otto Von Bismark -- first, a short excerpt from a LibriVox (http://www.librivox.org) reading from a 1909 compilation of biographical sketches, Famous Men of Modern Times by John H. Haaren and A.B. Poland (NY: American Book Company, 1909), then an excerpt from a recently uncovered 1889 Edison recording of Bismarck. For the full version of the latter recording and more information on it (and on other German recordings discovered along with it) , see: http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/prince-bismarck-and-count-moltke-before-the-recording-horn.htm.

January 26, 2012
Segment 1 and 3: "Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy" (2012).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:17.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 26:00.
From Against the Grain, here's an exploration of the life and legacy of the Polish-born German revolutionary activist and Marxist theoretician Rosa Luxemburg: "Proponent of the mass strike and socialist democracy, advocate of anticapitalism and anti-imperialism -- Rosa Luxemburg is a thinker for our tumultuous times. Peter Hudis, editor of the forthcoming fourteen-volume Collected Works of Rosa Luxemburg, talks about the pioneering Marxist theoretician and leader, and why her radical politics and vision endure nearly a century after her assassination. For more on Luxemburg, see: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSluxemburg.htm. Annelies Laschitza, Georg Adler, and Peter Hudis, eds., Letters of Rosa Luxemburg (Verso, 2011).

Segment 2: "The Rebel Girl" (Joe Hill. 1915; sung by Joe Glazer and Bill Friedland, 1954).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 7:25.
IWW labor organizer and song writer Joe Hill wrote this song in tribute to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and other female labor activists. Flynn was one of the more prominent speakers of the Industrial Workers of the World and went on to play a very prominent role in the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA),
Song source: http://www.archive.org/details/SongsOfTheWobblies. See the following for the lyrics and a brief accont of the genesis of the song: http://www.kued.org/productions/joehill/voices/rebelgirl.html.

January 19, 2012
Segment 1 and 3: "Malthus and the New World" (2011).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 32:41.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:10.
From Hindsight and Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), we bring you this exploration of hitherto unexplored aspects of Thomas Robert Malthus's writings and ideas: "People love to hate him, but when historian Alison Bashford stumbled across the 1803 edition of Malthus's 'Essay on the Principle of Population', an updated version of the first publication in 1798, she saw the British parson and political economist in a whole new light. The 1803 edition contained extra chapters, one of which examined population through the experience of the young colony of NSW. Alison Bashford began to realise that there was a great deal more in Malthus's thesis than had been assumed—his study of the New World raised questions about colonialism, occupation, land, and how we share it—deeply moral and enduring concerns, which the contemporary world continues to grapple with." For some basic information and links to various editions and explications of Malthus' populations theory, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus.

Segment 2: "Carl Djerassi and theDevelopment of the Birth Control Pill" (2010).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 7:25.
Here is a selection from a 2010 Deutsche Welle interview with one of the developers of the birth control pill, Carl Djerassi. For the full segment, go to: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5536408,00.html. Austrian-born Djerassi synthesized a progestin-analogue that was orally effective, contributed greatly to the development of the first successful oral contraceptive, the 'combined oral contraceptive pill' (COCP). You can find a short biography of Djerassi at http://www.djerassi.com/bio/bio2.html.

January 12, 2012
Segment 1 and 3: "State of Siege: Mississipi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement" (2011).
From American RadioWorks, the national documentary unit of American Public Media, we bring you this documentary on white resistance to the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi,produced by Kate Ellis and Stephen Smith and edited by Peter Clowney. By request of the producers, we can only link to the program at the American Public Media Web site at: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/mississippi/. Here are the direct links to the program on the APM server: download the radio program; listen online; read the Transcript.
Here's the producers' summary of the program: "Mississippi occupies a distinct and dramatic place in the history of America's civil rights movement. No state in the South was more resistant to the struggle for black equality. No place was more violent. While the history of civil rights activists has been well documented in radio and television, the stories and strategies of their white opponents are less well known. Using newly discovered archival audio, along with oral histories and contemporary interviews, State of Siege brings to light the extraordinary tactics whites in Mississippi used to battle integration. Their strategies ranged from organizing a massive network of citizens councils to promote white supremacy, to establishing a state-run spy agency to disrupt civil rights activism. The program also traces the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and illuminates the way whites came to both accommodate and defy the mandates of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Ultimately, what happened during the civil rights era in Mississippi had a profound and lasting impact on American politics to the present day."

Segment 2: "Politics in 1968: Political Advertisements" (1968).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:02.
Here are two political advertisements from the turbulent 1968 U.S. presidential election race which resulted in the victory of Republican Richard Nixon and the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey and third party candidate former Alabama Governor George Wallace. The election is widely considered a "realigning election" -- which saw the defection of conservative democrates to the Republican and third party ranks, and the long-term erosion of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. Wallace, who strongly opposed federal intervention in the South to end school segregation, ran under the banner of the American Independent Party and managed to carry five states -- Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and Louisiana. His victory in these states was a rare strong showing for a third party candidate. For more political advertisement from that election, see: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1968. For more details on that election, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1968.

January 5, 2012
Segment 1 and 3: "Hearing the Past" (2012).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:49.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:58.
Hindsight brings us an exploration of an emerging sub-discipline of History, featuring guests Shane White, Professor of History, University of Sydney; Mark Smith, Professor of History, University of South Carolina; Alan Atkinson, ARC Professorial Fellow, University of New England, Armidale; Diane Collins, Associate Dean, Conservatorium of Music, Sydney; and Bruce Johnson, Docent and Visiting Professor, University of Turku, Finland. Summary: "Historians are starting to listen, tuning their ears to the sounds of the past to gain a new understanding of times gone by. Sound may be irretrievable in itself but references to hearing and listening resonate in many written records and can be highly significant for grasping a sense of how people thought in the past. Australian historians are making key contributions to the field of sound history, in particular with the work of Professor Shane White and Graham White at Sydney University. They are specialists in African-American history, and together have written an acclaimed book on the sound history of slavery. They recover the sounds of plantation and urban life and document the differing responses from those who heard them. How sounds are heard is crucial for Professor Mark Smith of the University of South Carolina. He is one of the pioneers in sound history, and has argued for the importance of sound in the thinking of Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War. Meantime historians have begun to consider how Australia was heard in the past—from early explorers to the lead-up to Federation. Many of the themes from the American research resound here too—the power of silence, the appeal of uniformity, the question of noise—suggesting that sound history is going to be heard loudly in the future."

Segment 2: "Edison Recording (1908): William Jennings Bryan on Railroad Regulation."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:06.
Here's an early 1908 Edison recording of third-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan discussing the need and justification of railroad regulation, recorded in Lincoln, Nebraska, on July 21, 1908. For more information on Bryan's life and career, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan. Here's the transcript of the recording: "The Railroad Question The right of Congress to exercise complete control over interstate commerce, and the right of each state to exercise just as complete control over commerce within its borders, can no longer be questioned. But it is necessary that there shall be an enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission to enable it to compel railroads to perform their duties as common carriers and to prevent discrimination and extortion. The first step in the direction of supervision and rate legislation is to be found in the valuation of the railroad, and we believe that the Interstate Commerce Commission should be authorized to make such valuation, taking into consideration not only the physical value of the property but the original cost of production and all other elements which enter into a fair and just evaluation. We believe that railroads should be prohibited from engaging in business which brings them into competition with their shippers, that the older issue of stocks and bonds should be prevented, and that such reductions should be made as conditions justify, care being taken to avoid reduction that would compel a reduction of wages, prevent adequate service, or do injustice to legitimate investment. The Interstate Commerce Commission should have the power to take the initiative in the determination of rate and all traffic agreements should be subject to the approval of the commission. Telegraph lines and telephone lines, so far as they are engaged in interstate commerce, should be also under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In other words, these quasi-public corporations must recognize the obligations which they owe to the public and the government acting to its reported agents should be in a position to require obedience to law, and submission to necessary regulations. Railroad managers sometimes assume that the general public is bent on injustice, but this is a mistake. There is a sense of justice among the masses and this sense of justice can always be appealed to. The Democratic party is not hostile to railroads, but it is hostile to the mismanagement of railroads and to the extortion that is sometimes practiced by railroads. It insists upon fair play and nothing more. It insists that the patron as well as the stockholder must be considered, and it believes that friendly relations between the railroads and the public can only be maintained by an understanding of the situation and by the recognition, by all corporations, of the supremacy of the government."

December 29, 2011
Segment 1 and 3: "Action Speaks: Ronald Reagan and the Air Traffic Controller's Strike of 1981" (2011).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:18.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:54.
Here's a recent segment from Providence, Rhode Island's Action Speaks -- a discussion of the significance of the 1981 Air Traffic Controller's Strike: "President Reagan's firing of the Air Traffic controllers for refusing to return to work introduced a battle with labor whose echo is still very much a part of our contemporary political discourse. President Reagan sent a message to public service unions--and to unions in general--that they would not be dictating the terms of their relationship to corporate America or to federal or state governments and that the era of labor's victories would be over. With our panelists, Michael Downey, President RI Council 94 ASCME, Georgetown University Professor Joseph McCartin, the author of a new book on this moment, and Paul Cannon, former PATCO member, we will look at how the President's decision to punish the controllers for their walkout signaled the beginning of a new relationship between our government and organized labor. We will look at how this moment was nested into the rise of free market philosophy and how it resonates today in the contemporary conflicts in Ohio, Wisconsin and in many other states and municipalities.
Panelists Dr. Joseph McCartin is an Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University. He is an expert on twentieth century U.S. labor, social and political issues. He teaches courses in 20th Century U.S. Labor History,The U.S. Since 1945, America Between the Wars, 20th Century (and Modern) U.S. State and Society, and 20th Century U.S. Social History. His new book is Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America. Mike Downey is the president of RI Council 94 AFSCME. He followed his father and grandfather into a career as a plumber. He went to La Salle Academy. After La Salle, he went to plumbing school, a five-year program of work and classes. Downey, of Irish heritage, lives now in Charlestown, where he was on the Town Council, but grew up in Providence and Narragansett. Paul Cannon was an Air Traffic Controller for 13 years in Boston. He was the President of a PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) local between 1975 and 1979, stepping down to be the first Choirboys in New England. He resigned as a Choirboy and became campaign manager for George Kerr and participated in the PATCO strike and stayed active with the local. Later he became a business agent for Teamster Local 122."

Segment 2: "Pacifica Radio Archives Selection: The Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-81 (edited)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 5:36.
Here's an edited selection from archival recordings from the Pacifica Radio Archives focusing on the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1981 (November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981) -- when 52 Americans were held hostage by a militant group of Islamist students who took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution. The hostage seizure and the failed attempts by the Carter administration helped bring down his administration and brought Ronald Reagan to power. For more information on the event, see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-hostage-crisis/.

December 22, 2011
Segment 1 and 3: "Eadward Muybridge, Technology, and the West" (2011).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:58.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:25.
From Against the Grain: "The photographer Eadweard Muybridge met Leland Stanford at a time when technological breakthroughs were beginning to alter myriad aspects of everyday life. Muybridge's innovations paved the way for cinema, Stanford's obsessions fueled the beginnings of Silicon Valley, and Rebecca Solnit has written a book about the consciousness-changing advent of modern technology." Rebecca Solnit is the author of River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (Penguin, 2003).

Segment 2: "Edward Steichen on Photography: Lyman Bryson interview of Edward Steichen, December 31, 1969 (Edited selection)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 5:32.
Here's a selection from an interview with American photographer (and painter) Edward Steichen (1879-1973), one of the giants of 20th century still photography. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, for his artistic work of many decades. He and his close friend Alfred Stieglitz helped establish Photo-Secession, along with the exhibition gallery "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession," later known as "291" -- devoted to promoting photography as a fine art form (it also exhibited the work of many European modern painters who were still relatively unknown in the U.S.). Steichen's work on the gallery soon carved out for him a well-earned reputation as a curator. He was offered and accepted the positionf of Director of photography for the Museum of Modern Art in New York soon after World War II; it was there that he created one of the largest and most ambitious photography exhibitions in the 20th century -- "The Family of Man." -- an international exhibit of 503 photographs representing the fundamental rites, irituals, and stages of human life, The exhibit toured widely thourghout the U.S. and abroad and was ultimately pusblished in book form. For more information on Steichen, see his autobiography, A Life in Photography (1963). To hear the entire interview with Steichen, go to:
http://forum-network.org/lecture/creative-method-edward-steichen-photography.