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Aural History Productions
The Radio Archive ~ January-June 2015
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June 30, 2015
Segment 1: Open Source: "The Rebirth of a Nation: A History of Reconstruction." (2015).
From Open Source: "Both our guests Eric Foner and Heather Cox Richardson want to shout it from the rooftops: the little-known history of Reconstruction is where the story of the Civil War gets really interesting. It’s the period when, as Drew Faust has said, Americans became modern. The federal government came into its own, bringing with it new institutions: absentee ballots, common currency, an income tax, new rails, and global trade. W.E.B. DuBois called Reconstruction black America’s “brief moment in the sun.” Two of history’s nine black U.S. Senators represented Mississippi briefly during the 1870s. Black empowerment during Reconstruction was incomplete and, ultimately, doomed by Klan violence and a national loss of nerve. But it birthed the ideas of inclusion, citizenship, and democracy that we’ve struggled to realize ever since."
Segment 2 | From the Archives: Paul Laurence Dunbar's Poetry (1896; modern readings).
Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the most prominent African American poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here are a couple of selections (modern readings) from his 1896 book of poetry, Lyrics of a Lowly Life -- reprinted in 1913 in The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar's poems often focused on African American life under slavery and during the Reconstruction/post-Reconstruction era and utilized both dialect and mainstream English. For more selections of Dunbar's poems, see: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/authors/172/paul-laurence-dunbar/, from which these two readings were taken.
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June 23, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "Speed Through Time: The Changing Pace of America" (2015).
From BackStory: " BackStory goes into overdrive with a show all about speed in America. How fast — and slow — has life moved in different eras? And how has the pace of social change, well, changed over time? Join Brian, Ed and Peter as they head out to the racetrack, the ballpark and the trading floor … and hustle from the halls of the Supreme Court to the speedy courtrooms of Reno, Nev. — once the divorce capital of America." Guests include: Joyce Chaplin, Harvard University; Barbara Davis, twice a Reno divorcee, and retired showgirl; Matthew Goodman, author of Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World; Mella Harmon, formerly of the Nevada Historical Society; Oliver Hill Jr., Virginia State University; Bill "Spaceman" Lee, former Major League Baseball pitcher; John Mason, University of Virginia; Bob Pisani, CNBC on-air stocks editor; John Thorn, Major League Baseball historian.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: [Re-Broadcast of] "The Easier Way" (1946 General Motors film sound track).
Since it's appropriate for the theme of "Speed Through Time," we are repeating the piece we used several weeks ago:
"Here's the sound track from a time and motion studies promotional film available at the Internet Archive (archive.org), https://archive.org/details/EasierWa1946: "It was not a friendly time at General Motors after a 113-day strike in the winter of 1945-46. The United Auto Workers (UAW) had been recognized by GM just four and a half years before the start of World War II, and wartime controls had regulated wage and price increases. Embryonic before being interrupted by war, the relationship between labor and management was young and poorly developed, and management was used to having its way, accustomed to telling workers what to do and how to do it. The Easier Way, which GM commissioned in 1946, expresses this attitude, selling efficiency as a boon for the worker rather than a means of maximizing profits.
The Easier Way was designed to convince line management (many of whom had risen from the ranks) that time and motion study was a good thing for industrial workers. Bob (a motion study expert) and Marge invite Dick Gardner, an assembly-line foreman and his wife over for dinner. The two men start talking about motion study. Bob asserts that "a man can produce more without working a bit harder." Dick has risen from the ranks and is suspicious of all this time and motion study stuff, feeling that it's just designed to wring more work out of people. Bob tries to disabuse him of this idea, saying, "Now we're able to produce more and more stuff with less and less effort on the part of the guys who do the work. That's what motion study's for. We point out how the machines and tools and the methods of using them should be changed to make it easier for the operator." Dick is still suspicious: "It's gonna be hard to make some of the boys understand that." Bob answers, "It'll take time. But first, I've gotta sell men like you."
Bob, Marge and the Gardners play with a pegboard and practice different ways of inserting the pegs into the holes. This hands-on demo convinces Dick of the righteousness of Bob's views: "The boys will listen to stuff that makes sense. Especially if it makes it easier for us to get
production."
Like a grown-up Alexander Phipps, Bob tries to infiltrate motion study into the domestic routine. "Now take this simple job of setting the table. Women do it the hard way." "Now Bob," says Marge, "you can't run a house like a factory." Bob responds: "Why not? Think of the effort you'd save. Maybe you wouldn't be so tired at the end of the day." As Marge sets the table, Bob sneaks a look at his timepiece. As the film ends, she ties an apron around Bob and makes him do the dishes.
In The Easier Way, we see company management drawing a line between issues subject to bargaining and others that it considers non-negotiable. GM is asserting here that the work process -- its technology, design and management -- is its own to plan and control, no matter how much influence unions exert in its plants. In fact, productivity increases were a major agenda item for General Motors at the time. In 1948, GM chairman Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. and president Charles E. Wilson proposed that the new GM-UAW contract link wage increases to increases in worker productivity, with adjustments for the cost of living. This clause was adopted in 1948 and was part of labor agreements for over twenty years. The business community praised the linkage between productivity and wages, and General Motors 'got its production.'"
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June 16, 2015
Segment 1: Against the Grain: Radical Italians (2015).
From Against the Grain: " Many of the Italians who migrated to the US in large numbers at the turn of the twentieth century were drawn to anarchism. Jennifer Guglielmo has studied Italian immigrant political culture with an emphasis on working-class women who espoused anarchism, labor militancy, and a radical, transnational feminism." For additional information, see: Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution: Italian Women's Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945 (U. of North Carolina Press, 2010); Guglielmo and Salerno, eds., Are Italians White? (Routledge, 2003); Thomas Guglielmo, White on Arrival (Oxford U. Press, 2004).
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "LibriVox Reading: Margaret Fuller - Journals and Letters, Part 3.
Selections from Margaret Fuller's journals and letter -- published along with Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), "considered the first major feminist work in the United States." Fuller's "life was short but full. She became the first editor of the transcendentalist journal The Dial in 1840, before joining the staff of the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley in 1844. By the time she was in her 30s, Fuller had earned a reputation as the best-read person in New England, male or female, and became the first woman allowed to use the library at Harvard College. Her seminal work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, was published in 1845. A year later, she was sent to Europe for the Tribune as its first female correspondent. She soon became involved with the revolutions in Italy and allied herself with Giuseppe Mazzini. She had a relationship with Giovanni Ossoli, with whom she had a child. All three members of the family died in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, as they were traveling to the United States in 1850. Fuller's body was never recovered." (Summary by Wikipedia and Elizabeth Klett)
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June 9, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "In Plain Sight: Stories of American Infrastructure" (2015).
From BackStory: " As crash experts sort out why an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia last month, killing eight passengers, Congress is still haggling over how to replenish the nation’s Highway Trust Fund before it goes dry. All the while, the safety of America’s roads and rails hangs in the balance. So on this show, Brian, Ed and Peter uncover the stuff of modern life that’s hidden in plain sight. How have Americans decided what infrastructure to invest in, how to maintain it, and who ultimately has to pay for it? Our stories take a look behind the scenes at the electric grid, the shipping industry and the origins of oil pipelines." Guests incude: Bernie Carlson, University of Virginia; Christopher Jones, Arizona State University; Marc Levison, Economist and historian, author of The Box; Allen Miller, Lancaster Country Day School.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "De Tocqueville on American Culture and on Manufacture and Building." (LibriVox Reading -- Section 2, Chapter 19 of Democracy in America ("That Almost All the Americans Follow Industrial Callings").
Here is an excerpt from Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835), focusing on those qualities in American cultural that led many Americans to pursue industry and manufacturing.
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June 2, 2015
Segment 1 | With Good Reason: "Kremlin to Kremlin" & "We Fight for Peace: American Prisoners of War in Korea" (2015).
From the Virginia Foundation For the Humanities' radio series, With Good Reason: "Joseph Roane, an agronomist trained at Virginia State University, was part of a group of African American expatriates who were encouraged by the Stalinist government in the 1930s to work in the Soviet Union building a society free of class and racism. Jon Bachman (Stratford Hall) and Marian Veney Ashton (A.T. Johnson Museum) are making a film on how Roane survived Stalin’s purges and returned to the United States to become a mentor to young African American agricultural students. Also: Brian McKnight’s (University of Virginia at Wise) new book We Fight for Peace tells the story of American prisoners of war in the Korean War, who defected to North Korea and what happened to them when they decided to return to the United States.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman on "Deportation, Its Meaning and Menace." (1919; LibriVox reading)
When anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were deported by the U.S. government in 1919 during the post-WWI Red Scare, they penned this 'good-bye message'. The full text of this pamphlet is available on line hre: authorshttps://archive.org/details/2917032.0001.001.umich.edu.
Segment 3 | Earshot: "Wish you weren't here: dark tourism and memory" (2015).
From Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, we bring you this episode of Earshot, focusing on what has become known as Dark Tourism -- tourist visitations to historic sites associated with war, mass death, and holocaust: "Gallipoli, Auschwitz, the 9/11 memorial: sites commemorating death, violence and human suffering have always been a source of fascination. But 'dark tourism raises a host of complex ethical questions." For more information and a transcript of this segment, go to: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/dark-tourism/6391668.
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May 26, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "Tools of the Trade ~ America's Workplace Technologies" (2015).
From BackStory: "Two hundred years ago, there was no such thing as the 'workplace' -- and the tools of one'’s trade were rudimentary by today's standards. Since then, of course, America has witnessed the Industrial Revolution, the rise of white-collar work and, now, an age of digital devices that allows the workplace to follow us everywhere. So on this episode of BackStory, from utopian visions of the cubicle to video surveillance in law enforcement, the Guys size up some of the stuff Americans have worked with -- and, in turn, how that stuff has shaped the lives of American workers." Guests include:
Wells Bullard, Vice president for Marketing and Development, E.D. Bullard Co.; David Franz, Sociologist and Director of the City of Shafter, Calif., Education Project; Jonathan Olivares, industrial designer, author of A Taxonomy of Office Chairs (Phaidon Press, 2011); Larry Muncey, Chief of police, Madison, Alabama; Nikil Saval, Editor at n+1 and author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (Doubleday, 2014).
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "The Easier Way" (1946 General Motors film sound track).
Here's the sound track from a time and motion studies promotional film available at the Internet Archive (archive.org), https://archive.org/details/EasierWa1946: "It was not a friendly time at General Motors after a 113-day strike in the winter of 1945-46. The United Auto Workers (UAW) had been recognized by GM just four and a half years before the start of World War II, and wartime controls had regulated wage and price increases. Embryonic before being interrupted by war, the relationship between labor and management was young and poorly developed, and management was used to having its way, accustomed to telling workers what to do and how to do it. The Easier Way, which GM commissioned in 1946, expresses this attitude, selling efficiency as a boon for the worker rather than a means of maximizing profits.
The Easier Way was designed to convince line management (many of whom had risen from the ranks) that time and motion study was a good thing for industrial workers. Bob (a motion study expert) and Marge invite Dick Gardner, an assembly-line foreman and his wife over for dinner. The two men start talking about motion study. Bob asserts that "a man can produce more without working a bit harder." Dick has risen from the ranks and is suspicious of all this time and motion study stuff, feeling that it's just designed to wring more work out of people. Bob tries to disabuse him of this idea, saying, "Now we're able to produce more and more stuff with less and less effort on the part of the guys who do the work. That's what motion study's for. We point out how the machines and tools and the methods of using them should be changed to make it easier for the operator." Dick is still suspicious: "It's gonna be hard to make some of the boys understand that." Bob answers, "It'll take time. But first, I've gotta sell men like you."
Bob, Marge and the Gardners play with a pegboard and practice different ways of inserting the pegs into the holes. This hands-on demo convinces Dick of the righteousness of Bob's views: "The boys will listen to stuff that makes sense. Especially if it makes it easier for us to get
production."
Like a grown-up Alexander Phipps, Bob tries to infiltrate motion study into the domestic routine. "Now take this simple job of setting the table. Women do it the hard way." "Now Bob," says Marge, "you can't run a house like a factory." Bob responds: "Why not? Think of the effort you'd save. Maybe you wouldn't be so tired at the end of the day." As Marge sets the table, Bob sneaks a look at his timepiece. As the film ends, she ties an apron around Bob and makes him do the dishes.
In The Easier Way, we see company management drawing a line between issues subject to bargaining and others that it considers non-negotiable. GM is asserting here that the work process -- its technology, design and management -- is its own to plan and control, no matter how much influence unions exert in its plants. In fact, productivity increases were a major agenda item for General Motors at the time. In 1948, GM chairman Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. and president Charles E. Wilson proposed that the new GM-UAW contract link wage increases to increases in worker productivity, with adjustments for the cost of living. This clause was adopted in 1948 and was part of labor agreements for over twenty years. The business community praised the linkage between productivity and wages, and General Motors 'got its production.'"
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May 19, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "Another Man's Treasure ~ History of Trash" (2015).
From BackStory: "This week on the show we’re picking through history’s waste basket. What does America’s garbage tell us about its past? How have ideas about what is disposable and what isn’t changed over time? And have Americans always generated so much junk?
To get to the bottom of things, the Guys are salvaging all kinds of trashy stories… about filth-eating pigs that once ran amok in New York City… about Americans’ legal rights to their own garbage… and about how Big Soda promoted recycling to boost the industry’s own bottom line. Plus, find out what an anthropologist sees in the decades-old debris now washing ashore at a place called Dead Horse Bay." Guests include: Gary Anderson, designer of the recycling symbol; Bart Elmore, University of Alabama; Catherine McNeur, Portland State University
e Brett Mizelle, California State University, Long Beach; Robin Nagle, New York University, and anthropologist-in-residence at New York City's Department of Sanitation; David Sklansky, Stanford University Law School; Carl Zimring, Pratt Institute.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "Bill Steele's Garbage, Earth Day Anthem (Pete Seeger 1996 performance; written by Steele in 1969).
From the Cornell Chronicle: "A year before the first Earth Day observance on April 22, 1970 -- a nationwide environmental "teach-in" for 20 million participants -- folk musician Bill Steele [Cornell University] '54 wrote one of the environmental movement's anthems: "Garbage!" Forty years on, the song still resonates as much as it did when Steele wrote it in San Francisco in 1969.
"There was a big fuss in San Francisco at the time about dumping garbage in the bay, not as trash but as landfill to build new waterfront condominiums. So that sort of inspired it all," Steele says."
For more informaton on the sing and its writer, go to: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/bill-steeles-garbage-earth-anthem-40-years-later.
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May 12, 2015
Segment 1: Against the Grain: Sheila Rowbotham on Feminism" (2015).
From Against the Grain: "They were socialists, free love advocates, birth control campaigners, and trade unionists. Feminist historian Sheila Rowbotham describes the women who transformed gender relations in the US and the UK at the turn of the last century, prefiguring in many ways the New Left, and embodying an optimism about social change that is sorely lacking today." For more details on this subject, see: Sheila Rowbotham, Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century (Verso, 2010).
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "Speeches of Victoria Woodhull, Election of 1872 (Selective readings).
Victoria Claflin Woodhull (Martin), born in Homer, Ohio in 1838, became one of the most outspoken and notorious spokeswomen of radical feminism in the latter half of the 20th century. As a child, Victoria was drawn to the growing spiritualist movement of the mid-19th century, first attempting to communicate with the spirits of three of her dead siblings, and then -- as a young woman -- working as a clairvoyant telling fortunes and contacting spirits. She moved to New York City in 1868, and she and her sister, Tennessee began working as clairvoyants for the railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt. Tapping the financial knowledge and relying on advice obtained from Vandebilt (by that time Woodhull and Vanderbilt had grown quite close), the two sisters began successfully speculating in stocks. With Vanderbilt’s financial backing, Victoria and Tennessee were able to open their own investment -- Woodhull, Claflin & Co. -- becoming the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street. As a strognly independent and successful woman who still faced obstacles in her public life (she was denied a seat on the NY Stock Exchange), Woodhull was also drawn to the feminist movement -- though her brand of feminism went far beyond what other feminists advocated. She soon became an important leader of the woman's suffrage movement but achieved notoriety when she began to advocate "free love," or complete sexual freedom, for women. In 1872, Woodhull became the first female candidate for President of the United States, running along with Frederick Douglas under the banner of the Equal Rights Party. She died in 1877. For more information of Victoria Claflin Woodhull, see http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/woodhull.html: and http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/victoria-woodhull-first-woman-presidential-candidate-116828.html#.VVnjpeehR9U. For the original video version of our audio selection -- a reading of selections from 1872 campaign speeches of Woodhull -- go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvYr9c1T4QQ.
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May 5, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "'Now He Belongs to the Ages': Abraham Lincoln's Assassination" (2015).
Here's a recent production from BackStory and the American History Guys: "On the night of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre. He died early the next morning. It was the first time a sitting president had been murdered. On this episode of BackStory, we mark the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination by exploring how his death came to pass — and how a changed nation moved forward.
Guests Include:
Terry Alford, Northern Virginia Community College; C. Wyatt Evans, Drew University; Richard Wightman Fox, University of Southern California; Martha Hodes, New York University; Sarah Jencks, Director of Education Programming, Ford's Theater; Elizabeth Leonard, Colby College; Edward Steers Jr., author, Lincoln's Assassination. For full details on this segment, go to this Backastory Web page: http://backstoryradio.org/shows/now-he-belongs-to-the-ages/
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "The Ballad of Czolgosz" (from the 2004 production of Assassins).
Complementing our show's focus on a presidential assassination, we offer you this musical selection ("The Ballad of Czolgosc") from Assassins, a musical about political assassins with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, inspired by Charles Gilbert, Jr. The Off-Broadway, then on Boradway production " uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted (successfully or not) to assassinate Presidents of the United States. The music varies to reflect the popular music of the eras depicted.
The musical first opened Off-Broadway in 1990, and the 2004 Broadway production won five Tony Awards." [Source of quotation: Wikipedia entry for The Assassins].
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April 28, 2015
Segment 1: From Against the Grain: "Black Slaves, Indians, and the US Colonial Project" (2015).
Against the Grain host C.S. Soong interviews historian Barbara Krauthamer on today's show: "Notions of racial hierarchy abounded in the early nineteenth century as missionaries tried to convert Native Americans, federal officials sought to seize Indian lands, and Indians in the southern US bought, sold, and owned black slaves. Barbara Krauthamer relates what happened when people of different races, agendas, and social status encountered one another in the shadow of the US colonial project." The discussion between Soong and Krauthamer center around the following readings:
Barbara Krauthamer, Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South (UNC Press, 2013);
Alyosha Goldstein, ed., Formations of United States Colonialism (Duke U. Press, 2014); and
Willis and Krauthamer, Envisioning Emancipation (Temple U. Press, 2013).
Segment 2 | From the Archives:"The Searchers" (film sound track excerpts, 1956).
This classic John Ford western, starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood, is considered by many critics to be one of the finest westerns every made. Its foocus on an obsessed man driven to extremes, suggest Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Like the obsessive quest at the heart of Moby Dick, this film, too, is about an obsessive quest: "The niece of Ethan Edwards (Wayne) is kidnapped by Comanches who murder her family and burn their ranch house. Ethan spends five years on a lonely quest to hunt down the tribe that holds the girl Debbie (Natalie Wood)--not to rescue her, but to shoot her dead, because she has become “the leavin's of a Comanche buck.” Ford knew that his hero's hatred of Indians was wrong, but his glorification of Ethan's search invites admiration for a twisted man. Defenders of the film point to the famous scene where Ethan embraces his niece instead of killing her. Can one shot redeem a film?" [Source: Roger Ebert review, http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-searchers-1956].
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April 21, 2015
Segment 1: BackStory: "Born Again ~ Religious Renewal in America" (2015).
From BackStory and the American History Guys: "For Christians all over the world, the Easter season is a time of renewal, rebirth and reflection. Here at BackStory, it’s our chance to reflect on the history of religious fervor in America. This time on the show, Brian, Ed and Peter journey in search of upswings in spiritual energy across the generations — from the First Great Awakening of the of the early 1700s, to the era of broadcast faith-healing.
Who fueled these revivals? What do evangelical movements say about the times in which they unfolded? Why did huge masses of people suddenly “get religion”? And what do these recurring moments of religious revitalization say about the role of faith in America… and the character of its believers?
Guests Include:
Matthew Dennis, University of Oregon; Tona Hangen, Worcester State University; Thomas Kidd, Baylor University; Randall Stephens, Northumbria University; Grant Wacker, Duke University Divinity School.
Segment 2 | From the Archives:"Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows" (1925; selection from 2008 reading).
Advertising executive Bruce Barton published The Man Nobody Knows in
1925. In the book, Barton depicted Jesus as a model of the modern business and advertising man -- an extremely effective organization man that modern business leaders should emulate. The book was a bestseller -- controversial and influential. For more about Barton and this book, see: http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/prosperity/text2/mannobodyknows.pdf and http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/hst347/bartonexcerpt.htm.
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April 14, 2015
Segment 1 | From Against the Grain: A. Philip Randolph, Black Socialist" (2015).
From Pacifica Radio's Against the Grain: "A. Philip Randolph famously led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, but he did much more than that. Eric Arnesen traces Randolph's emergence as a militant socialist at a time when few Blacks were attracted to the Socialist Party and its emphasis on class. Arnesen also discusses Randolph's relationship with Eugene Debs and W. E. B. Du Bois."
Eric Arnesen is the author of Brotherhoods of Color (Harvard U. Press, 200) and The Black Worker (U. of Illinois Press, 2007). See also his most recent essay in Kersten and Lang, eds., Reframing Randolph: Labor, Black Freedom, and the Legacies of A. Philip Randolph (NYU Press, 2015).
Segment 2 | From the Archives:" Marcus Garvey, 1921 Speech."
In contrast to the socialism of A. Philip Randolph was the black nationalist vision of Marcus Josiah Garvey, Jr., Jamaican born Garvey was an entrepreneur and pubisher and a strong proponent of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) and the Black Star Line, a shipping firm incorporated to facilitate the return of African Americans to Africa. In this 1921 speech, Garvey explains his ideas. For a transcription of the speech and more on Garvey see: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/mgarvey.html.
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April 7, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "Island Hopping" (2015).
Here's another exploration of the nooks and crannies of American history with the American History guys from BackStory: "For those of us who live on the mainland, islands are something we often tend to think about as destinations. As places to visit, perhaps, to take a break from our ordinary lives. And then to leave again. They're places on the periphery -- and that's borne out not only in the way we draw our maps, but also in the way we write our history.
On this episode, we make the peripheral central. From the Caribbean to the Great Lakes to the San Francisco Bay, it's an hour all about islands in American history." Guest on this episode of BackStory include:
Noelani Arista, University of Hawai'i at Manoa; Sandra Birdsall, Beaver Island Historical Society; Ben Davison, University of Virginia; Nelson Dennis, author of forthcoming War Against All Puerto Ricans; Harry Franqui-Rivera, Hunter College; John Hamer, president of the John Whitmer Historical Association; James Horn, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation; and Judy Yung, University of California, Santa Cruz, emerita.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: Music from the Sea Islands - Bessie Jones and The Georgia Sea Island Singers sing "O Day."
Here is a song from a group and a singer, Bessie Jones, associated with another very historically significant group of islands located along the shore of South Carolina and Georgia. From a review by Steve Legett, available at: http://www.allmusic.com/album/get-in-union-recordings-by-alan-lomax-1959-1966-mw0002753831(go there for the full review): "The music of the Georgia Sea Islands is unlike any other in the world, and its uniqueness is due to an extraordinary collision of events in American history. Once the site of large plantations, the islands, strategic in blockading shipments by sea to the rebel Southern states, were seized early in the Civil War by the Union. Since the plantation landowners then fled, leaving some 10,000 now-free slaves (some of African descent and some from the Bahamas) behind, the Union, much occupied elsewhere, allowed the islands to self-govern. It was an almost accidental, but still radical, social experiment, given further cultural dimension by the blending of the two former slave cultures, the African and the Bahamian, with American folk music, particularly its gospel and blues. It led to a freshly envisioned tradition of sparsely rhythmic folk and religious music unlike any other, and given the islands' relative isolation, it developed on its own path without undue intrusion from mainland pop. This is where Bessie Jones comes into the story. Born on the Georgia mainland, she settled on St. Simons Island as a young woman, and already familiar as a singer with American and African folk music, she absorbed the islands' own skewed Caribbean spin on things, and was soon singing with the loose confederation of local singers and musicians who came to be known as the Georgia Sea Island Singers. The music they made, a mix of traditional call-and-response work songs, hymns, ring songs, rope-skipping rhymes, and other cultural flotsam drawn from a blended trio of folk traditions, was sparse, joyous, and vital, often accompanied by just handclaps, foot stomps, and the occasional cane fife. Jones was fully aware of the preservationist side of the music she led and directed, and she understood its educational aspect as well, as did cultural archivist Alan Lomax, who visited the Georgia Sea Islands twice to make field recordings of the island singers, once in 1959, and again in 1966. Lomax also recorded over 50 hours of tape with Jones alone on the mainland in 1960 and 1961 . . . " .
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March 31, 2015
Our transmitter was under repair this week and so there was no broadcast of Talking History. Check out previous broadcasts available below and through links to the left.
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March 24, 2015
Segment 1 | "The Investigator by Reuben Ship" (1954).
Reuben Ship's celebrated satire of the work of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and its chairman, Joseph McCarthy, was first aired in Canada by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on May 30, 1954. For the most part, the drama was reviewed favorably in Canada. In the USA, it was reviewed in a positive light by the New York Times and by the left-wing press (including New Masses), but it was excoriated by the right wing as anti-American propaganda. By mid-June, tapes of the broadcast were circulating in the USA where some attempts to broadcast the CBC production raised objections from the American Legion and private individuals. For an extended discussion of the story behind this unique radio play by Gerald Gross of Concordia University, Montreal, visit the Journal for MultiMedia History: https://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/investigator/investigator.html.
Our thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Archives for permission to air and archive "The Investigator." [Re-broadcast; originally aired on Talking History on August 16, 2001].
Segment 2 | From the Archives: CBS Radio Workshop: Brave New World (selection; 1956)
The CBS Radio Workshop was a dramatic radio program that ran from January 1956 through September of 1957 that featured the works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederik Pohl, James Thurber, Thomas Wolfe, James Thurber, Mark Twain, Robert Heinlein, Eugene O’Neil, H. Balzac, Carl Sandburg, and many other writers and playwrights. The first two episodes featured an adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World( read by Huxley). The series also broadcast original productions of comedy, drama, and music. For the full broadcasts of the CBS Radio WOrkshop, go to: https://archive.org/details/CBSRadioWorkshop.
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March 17, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "Pop History: The Past in Last Year's Media" (2015).
Here's another piece from BackStory and the American History Guys. focusing on last year's history-focused films and other media productions: "U.S. history is everywhere in pop culture -- in movies like Selma, TV shows like The Americans, even in video games like Assassin's Creed, with a recent version set during the French and Indian War. So in their shout-out to the Oscars this year, Brian, Ed and Peter consider how all kinds of popular media adopt historical themes in their plot lines. How did last year's art, literature and entertainment relive -- and reinvent -- America's past."
Guests Include:
Jamelle Bouie, Slate; Maxime Durand, Historian at Ubisoft; Emily Gadek, BackStory's Digital Producer; Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic; Kevin M. Levin, Civil War Memory blog; David G. Major, Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935)
Here is a selection from the sound track of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film production, The 39 Steps, a British spy thriller. The film was loosely based on Scottish novelist John Buchan's 1915 novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps. The film starred Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. Though there were four film versions of Buchan's book (Hitchcok's in 1935, and three others -- in 1959, 1978, and 2008), Hitchcock's has been the most highly regarded.
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March 10, 2015
Segment 1 | From the Vault: "Forty Cents a Ton: Coal Mining in Hazard County, Kentucky" (1963; 2015).
From Pacifica Radio Archives' From the Vault, "Forty Cents a Ton: Coal Mining in Hazard County, Kentucky" is a Pacifica Radio documentary "about mining practices in Hazard County, Kentucky that was recorded in March 1963 and broadcast on WBAI on April 6th, 1963. The program shares the voices of residents from all walks of life in Hazard County, who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners face from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes organized in Hazard County. Participants include strike leaders Berman Gibson, Preacher Smith, Graham Noble, retired miner Harley Caldwell, and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Noble; Mrs. W.P. Nolan and Louise Hatmaker of the Hazard Herald newspaper; C.E. Bean, president of District 30 -- United Mine Workers of America; Reverend Aikley and Reverend Carroll of St. Mark's Episcopal Church and Hazard Christian Church, respectively; Drs. Creeley and Potter of the Harlan Miners' Memorial Hospital; Ed Johnson, a non-union mine owner; Brian Whitfield III, a union mine-owner; Floyd McDowell, president of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; and Lee Cretchfield, president of the Hazard Chamber of Commerce. This documentary, which was produced by Hamish Sinclair, Bob Heifetz. Engineered by Sam Sanders and Stanley Aronowitzc, also features a song by Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs titled, "Mining Is a Hazard." For more information on the program and From the Vault, go to: http://fromthevaultradio.org/home/2014/12/19/ftv-449-forty-cents-a-ton-coal-mining-in-hazard-county-kentucky/
Segment 2 | From the Archives: Woody Guthrie on The Ludlow Massacre (1944)
Here's a classic song about the 1914 Colorado massacre that had a profound impact on American labor-management relations. The Ludlow Massacre involved an attack on 1200 striking coal miners and their families by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on April 20, 1914. It led to major reforms by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. when he hired Mackenzie King In June 1914 to head the Rockefeller Foundation's new Department of Industrial Research and to implement reforms in labor management in Rockefeller family-owned firms (and to publicize such reforms to other industrialists).
The Rockefellers were the major owners of the mines under strike. For information on the massacre -- with links to additional sources -- see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre and http://zinnedproject.org/materials/ludlow-massacre/. For the full lyrics to Woody Guthrie's song, go to: http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Ludlow_Massacre.htm. Additional information on Guthrie is available here: http://woodyguthrie.org/index.htm.
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March 3, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "The Middling Sort: Visions of the Middle Class" (2015).
From BackStory and the American History guys: "President Obama has been talking a lot about 'middle-class economics' lately. In his State of the Union address, he called it 'the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the same set of rules.' It’s a powerful idea in American culture. So on this show, Brian, Ed and Peter explore the rise -- and, some might say, the fall -- of the middle class in the United States. They'll ask how this concept became central to the way Americans think about themselves. What is the middle class, anyway? Who’s in it? And... who isn’t?" Guests include:
Tim Noah, Politico, on where the phrase “the American Dream” came from;
Richard White, Stanford University, on the very different definition of “rags-to-riches” in the 19th century;
Andrew Haley, University of Southern Mississippi, on the history of tipping and how it changed along with the middle class.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: The Middle Class in 1950s TV Sitcoms (Selection - The Trouble With Father, 1951)
Middle class values and gender roles were depicted, perpetuated, but also caricatured and sometimes subtly undermined in 1950s television sitcoms. Here is a selection from the audio track of an episode from one of the earliest TV sitcoms: The Trouble with Father (also known as the Stu Erwin Show). It aired on ABC between 1950 and 1955. For more information on the series, see: http://www.tv.com/shows/the-trouble-with-father/.
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February 24, 2015
Segment 1 | Open Source: "Stokely Carmichael and Black Power." (2014).
This segment of our show comes to us from OPEN SOURCE: "At the end of June, 1964, Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., and hundreds of civil rights activists marched across Mississippi to register African-American voters in one of the turning points of the civil rights movement. In remembrance of that 'Freedom Summer,' we�re republishing our show with the Carmichael biographer Peniel Joseph, historian Isabel Wilkerson, and activist Jamarhl Crawford.
Stokely Carmichael was a down-home organizer and radical off-beat visionary of racial equality in America 50 years ago, a quicksilver activist, theorist, street hero, preacher and prophet of black revolution in America and the world. He�s in the civil rights pantheon, for sure, but he�s still struggling in spirit with the leadership, especially the example of Martin Luther King; and he�s still a scarecrow in the memory of white America. Stokely Carmichael had some of Malcolm X�s fury and fire, and some of the comedian Richard Pryor�s gift with a punchline, too. �Black power� was his slogan that became a chant, that built his bad-boy celebrity and awakened a political generation but may also have been his undoing in the 1960s. So what does a half-century�s hindsight make of the man and his Pan-African vision? And while we�re at it: what would Stokely Carmichael make of black power today � looking at Hollywood, Hip Hop, the White House, and prisons and poverty?"
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "George Lincoln Rockwell Debates SNCC Chairman Stokely Carmichael" (1966)
This is a selection from a debate between American Nazi Party head George Lincoln Rockwell and SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael, aired on WBBM television in Chicago, Illinois on July 28, 1966. Rockwell and Carmichael debated Black Power and White Power" during their exchange. For the full broadcast, go to YouTube, where the debate is available in multiple parts. For part 1 -- and links to additional parts -- see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4av8z8WEZM#t=18. For information about Rockwell, see the biography by Fredrick James Simonelli, American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party (University of Illinois Press, 1999), Rockwell's Wikipedia entry and the following FBI document: http://vault.fbi.gov/American%20Nazi%20Party%20/American%20Nazi%20Party%20Part%201%20of%202.
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February 17, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "Women at Work." (2015).
This week BackStory explores the history of women in the workforce, "from 19th century domestic workers, to the Rosies of World War II, to the labs of Silicon Valley -- where programming a computer was once very much a woman's job. Find out how sexual harassment claims came into being, and why 'protective' labor laws regarding women often amounted to discriminatory exclusion from certain jobs." Guests Include: Nathan Ensmenger, Indiana University; Risa Goluboff, University of Virginia; Eileen Hagan, Intuit Vice President, Innovation and Transformational Change; Margaret O'Mara, University of Washington; Betty Soskin, Park Ranger, Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front National Historic Park; Lea VanderVelde, University of Iowa; Gay Semel, Retired labor lawyer for the Communications Workers of America -- and former switchboard operator at New York Telephone.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "From Building Bridges' The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire & Its Legacy - Rose Schneiderman's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Speech, April 2, 1911" (2011)
This is a reading of labor activist Rose Schneiderman's 1911 Speech delivered soon after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. It was part of a 2011 radio docudrama featured on WBAI's Radio Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report, produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash : "On this the 100th anniversary of The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March 25, 1911, the fire still remains one of the most vivid and horrid tragedies that changed American Labor Unions and labor laws. The tragic death of 146 young women, whose average age was 19, was what it took before the politicians and the people saw for the need to regulate safety in the workplace. For the Triangle anniversary, during this Women’s History Month, Building Bridges has produced 'Out of the Flames & Ashes: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire & Its Legacy', a docudrama, a tapestry of sounds – archival voices of advocates and survivors, re-enactments of the voices of those flowering girls who lost their lives. Threaded through the sound tapestry the haunting voices from the fire intermingled with the poetry and songs that arose in the wake of the tragedy. Another thread of the tapestry will be the voices of scholar/activists who know the legacy of Triangle for today - to regulate the workplace and create a safe, decent life for working people, to attend to the problems around us today, still echoing the conditions at the time of the Triangle Fire. This will be a drama of the pathos, complexity and importance of the fire on this 100 anniversary and the organizing still to be done and the work to preserve the gains we’ve made bargaining collectively in unions." For information on Schneiderman, see: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose.
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February 10, 2015
Segment 1 | Against the Grain: "History from the Bottom Up - E. P. Thompson and the Making of the New Left." (2015).
From Against the Grain: "E.P. Thompson was the greatest English socialist historian of the 20th century and his work still resonates today in how we understand class, social struggle, and history. Thompson's student Cal Winslow reflects on his life, politics, and writings, from his early days in the Communist Party, his key role in the early New Left, and his commitment to radical working class education." Cal Winslow is the author of E.P. Thompson and the Making of the New Left (Monthly Review Press, 2014).
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "'Herbert Marcuse Speaks at Berkeley, 1969."
Herbert Marcuse and Angela Davis spoke at a rally at the University of California, Berkeley on October 24, 1969. Marcuse, at the time a Marxist philosopher based at the University of California, San Diego, was also one of the most influential intellectual figures behind the American New Left. The rally at Berkeley was precipitated by the University of California Board of Regents' challenge to the appointment of Communist Angela Davis to U.C. Berkeley. Here we present an excerpt from Marcuse's speech. To obtain the entire recording from the rally, go to the Pacifica Radio Archives at: http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/. For more information about Marcuse, see: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/.
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February 3, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: New and Improved ~ Advertising in America" (2015).
Continuing a theme we began last week -- focusing on economic history and consumption/shopping -- we move on to the related subject of advertising with this program, again from BackStory and the American History Guys: "On the first of February, more than 100 million Americans will tune in to watch the two best teams in the NFL vie for the national championship � and to watch advertisers duke it out during the commercial breaks. Brian, Ed and Peter, meanwhile, will tackle the history of advertising in the United States, from how cigarettes were marketed to women, to budget-busting trips to to moon. They�ll even take a stab at selling BackStory to the masses, with some colorful ads of our own." Segments include the following: "Historian Cathy Gudis tells hosts Ed Ayers and Peter Onuf about the ad-drenched streets of late 19th century American cities; Historian Kathleen Franz describes a scandalous 1917 soap ad that hooked consumers by showing them a little more than just the soap; Historian Cathy Gudis returns with the story of how advertising followed 20th century Americans out onto the open road, and discusses efforts to curb the spread of ubiquitous billboards. Plus, an ad inspired by BackStory listener Jim Mica�s request; Composer Michael Levine, who wrote the long-running Kit-Kat jingle, tells host Brian Balogh what makes a jingle powerful -- and catchy. Then� he offers up a new jingle for BackStory; Author Larry Tye and host Brian Balogh discuss the masterful campaign by PR guru Edward Bernays, to convince American women to take up smoking. Plus, listener suggests an ad for BackStory in the style of a 1950s cigarette ad; and author Richard Jurek describes how one giant leap in public relations helped launch NASA�s lunar program."
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "'Women for Eisenhower' - Political Advertising, 1956 U.S. Election."
Political advertising matured in the 1950s as television became the preferred venue for getting one's electoral message across to millions. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson's campaigns in 1952 and 1956 became a battleground for the hearts and minds of American voters. Here's the audio from one of Eisenhower's 1956 television campaign commercials, from the Web site "The Living Room Candidate." It's an example of an early female-focused appeal for votes. Later campaigns would be even more sensitive to gender-specific issues. For more examples of 1956 television political advertisements -- both Democratic and Republican -- see: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1956.
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January 27, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "Counter Culture ~ A History of Shopping" (2014).
Here's another piece from BackStory and the American History Guys: "The word shop first appeared as a verb in the 16th century -- when it meant to put someone in prison. And boy can shopping feel that way, especially around the holiday season. The smells, the colors, the teeming shelves and showcases, the muzak. On this episode, BackStory will go shopping for the historical roots of Americans' consumer habits, considering the role of mercantilism in the revolutionary politics of early America, the journey from general store to shopping mall, and even look at shoplifting. When did coveting your neighbor's possessions go from sin to virtue? How did holiday shopping become the modern engine of the retail industry? And how did transformations in systems of consumer credit change American thinking about shopping?"
Guests appearing on this show Include:
Elaine S. Abelson, The New School; T.H. Breen, Emeritus, Northwestern University;
Peter Hanff, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley;
Jeff Hardwick, George Mason University and The National Endowment for the Humanities; Louis Hyman, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Kathleen Moran, University of California, Berkeley; Eli Wirtschafter, Independent producer.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "George Carlin on American Consumerism."
Here's a selection from a standup routine by George Carlin -- an excerpt (with approriate radio edits to comply with FCC regulations). Carlin was notorious in his critique of materialism and consumerism in many of his routines. Here are few examples -- all available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwghf1lPik. For information about Carlin see: http://www.biography.com/people/george-carlin-9542307.
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January 20, 2015
Segment 1 | From the Vault: "The Second Battle of Selma." (1965).
This piece comes to us from Pacifica Radio's From the Vault: "The Second Battle of Selma, produced by legendary newsman Dale Minor in 1965 during his time at Pacifica station WBAI, includes rare audio of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and actuality of the march on Selma. This program, a fine example of early Pacifica Radio editing and storytelling style, remains as relevant today as it did almost fifty years ago when it was first broadcast." For more information and links to primary sources, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "Stokely Carmichael at Berkeley, 1966"
Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998) delivered this speech at the University of California, Berkeley on October 29, 1966. Carmichael's celebration of "black power" and advocacy of a more militant approach to civil rights organizing emerged in reaction to the violence used against demonstrators at Selma and elsewhere. For more information on Carmichael and a transcript of this speech, see: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/scarmichael-2.html.
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January 13, 2015
Segment 1 | BackStory: "The Future Then ~ Visions of America Yet to Come." (2015).
From BackStory and the American History Guys: "Across history, Americans have dreamed of what the future will hold, from the flying cars and 3-hour workdays of The Jetsons to fears of World War III and nuclear holocaust. Sometimes, we've made those dreams come true . . . or, at least tried. On this episode of BackStory, hosts Brian Balogh, Ed Ayers and Peter Onuf will ask what these past visions of the future have to tell us about the times that conjured them up."
Guests Include:
Matthew Beaumont, University College of London; Maria Lane, University of New Mexico;
Matt Novak, author of the 'Paleofuture' blog at Gizmodo; Max Page, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Segment 2 | From the Archives: "Ray Bradbury's 1953 Classic, Fahrenheit 451 -- a reading selection)."
Here's a short selection (a reading) from Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic science fiction novel abour censorship published in 1953. In Bradbury's novel, Guy Montag -- a fireman whose job it was to burn books -- begins to question his job. In Bradbury's novel, reactions to controversial content in books had led to the decision to ban them altogether. While it was written during the Cold War era and was clearlyinfluenced by that era -- in light of current violence against, and controversy over, the French humor and cartoon magazine Charlie Hebdo, we thought it would be an appropriate segment to feature in conjunction with our main segment.
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January 6, 2015
Segment 1 | Lisa Tetrault on"The Making of a Myth: Seneca Falls Unraveled." (Recorded 11-21-2014).
Recorded at the 2014 Researching New York conference at the University at Albany -- SUNY, this talk by historian Lisa Tetrault from Carnegie Mellow University, focuses on a central women's rights origins myth and how it emerged: "The story of how women's rights began in 1848, at the women's rights meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, is a cherished American myth. But where did that story come from? Who invented it? And for what reasons? Unraveling that story by investigating its roots, which lay fifty years after the convention, Tetrault invites us to rethink the relationship of Seneca Falls to the evolution of modern women's rights activism. Carnegie Mellon University historian Lisa Tetrault is the author of The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898. She specializes in U.S. women's history, memory, and social movements."
Segment 2 | From Archives: "Winifred Banks Singing 'Sister Suffragette' in Mary Poppins" (1964).
The treatment of suffragists in popular film before the 2nd wave feminist movement (and after!) has not always been flattering. Here's an example from the film Mary Poppins from 1964. For more on the topic -- focusing on the silent film era, see Kay Sloan, “Sexual Warfare in the Silent Cinema: Comedies and Melodramas of Woman Suffragism,” American Quarterly , 33:4 (Autumn, 1981), 412-436.
Segment 3 | From Open Source: "13 Days in September" (2014).
The New Yorker magazine's Lawrence Wright is interviewed by Christopher Lydon of Open Source about "the only (and unviolated) peace treaty between Israelis and Arabs, the Camp David Summit in 1978." Wright is the author of Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).
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