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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.
June 25, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Claire Parham on the Construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway." (2009)
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MP3. Time: 24:54. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the completion of the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, one of the great infrastructural construction projects of the 20th century. In this interview by Gerald Zahavi, we explore the history of the Project with Claire Puccia Parham, author of the recently published The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth (Syracuse University Press, 2009). In our conversation, we explore the origins of this bi-national undertaking, dealving especially into lives of the workers who made it possible. Parham, a native of Watertown, NY, currently teaches history at Siena College. She earned a BA degres from St. Lawrence University, received her master's degree from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and completed her Ph.D. in American history at SUNY Binghamton. She's also the author of From Great Wilderness To Seaway Towns: A Comparative History of Cornwall, Ontario, and Massena, New York, 1784-2001 (SUNY Press, 2004).
Segment 2: "Opening the Seaway: Elizabeth II and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the Inaugural Ceremonies (June 26, 1959)."
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Here is a short audio selection from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation containing excerpts from the speeches of Queen Elizabeth II and Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered on the occasion of the official opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway on June 26, 1959.
For more information on the Seaway, check out: http://www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/seaway50/history.html and the wonderful on-line video archive made available by the CBC: http://archives.cbc.ca/economy_business/transport/topics/637/.
June 18, 2009Segment 1: "Women Warriors: From Joan of Arc to GI Jane."
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Time: 28:26.This segment from What's the Word?, from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and produced by Sally Placksin, examines Women Warriors from Joan of Arc to GI Jane. As described by the MLA: "From the Greek goddess Athena to the classic comic book character Zena and from Joan of Arc to GI Jane, history, mythology, and contemporary literature and film offer many images of women warriors. Susan Crane takes us back to the Middle Ages with a look at Joan of Arc and the transcripts of her trial for heresy; Shirley Geok-lin Lim talks about Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior and Yvonne Tasker explores the portrayal of a female naval officer in Ridley Scott's 1997 film, GI Jane."
Segment 2 [Re-broadcast]: "Profile of an American Nazi: George Lincoln Rockwell."
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Born in Bloomington, Ill. on March 9, 1918, George Lincoln Rockwell went on to found the American Nazi Party. After serving in the military -- the U.S. Navy -- during World War II and the Korean War, Rockwell became a strong supporter of General Douglas MacArthur and began to shift dramatically to the right during the 1950s. Increasingly influenced by far-right antisemitic and anti-black propaganda, Rockwell went on to found the American American Nazi Party in early 1959, and established its headquaters in Arlington, Virginia. The Party was heavily influenced by the former German NSDAP and the ideas of Adolph Hitler. Among Rockwell's many controversial public appearances and speeches was this one which took place at Michigan State University on April 20, 1967, four months before an unstable and disgruntled Party member, John Patler, assassinated Rockwell in an Arlington shopping center. This is an edited selection from Rockwell's Michigan State University speech. The full version is available at the National Archives' Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Records LICON, Special Media Archives Services Division, College Park, MD. For an excellent intrroduction to Rocwell and his his ideas, see Alex Haley's 1966 Playboy interview with him, available at http://www.skrewdriver.net/rockw1.html and various other Web site.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:51.Background, from Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-American_Bund and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Kuhn_(Nazi)] :
"The German-American Bund was an American Nazi organization established in the 1930s. The Bund was originally two organizations established in the US in the 1920s. The NSDAP [National Socialist German Workers' Party] and the Free Society of Teutonia were small groups with only a few hundred members. NSDAP member Heinz Sponknobel eventually consolidated the two groups and created "The Friends of New Germany." Soon after their formation, the Friends came under attack from two fronts. The first was a Jewish boycott of German goods in the heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville on the Upper East Side of New York City. The friends tried to counter this boycott using propaganda and intimidation. The second problem for the American Nazis came from Jewish congressman Samuel Dickstein, who headed an investigation against them. An internal battle was fought for control of the Friends and in 1934, Sponknobel was ousted as leader. At the same time, the Dickstein investigation concluded that the Friends supported a branch of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany in America. After the investigation, Hitler ordered all German nationals to withdraw from the Friends. On March 19, 1936, Hitler placed US citizen Fritz Kuhn [May 15, 1896 - December 14, 1951] at the head of the party in order to make Americans respond more positively. The name Friends of the New Germany was changed to The German-American Bund (Bund meaning federation). After taking over, Kuhn began to attract attention to the Bund through propaganda film strips which outlined the Bund's views. Later that year in 1936, Kuhn with some 50 fellow Nazis boarded a boat to Germany, hoping to receive official recognition from Hitler during the Berlin Olympics. Unfortunately for Kuhn, he was probably the last person Hitler wanted to meet, because Hitler wanted his American Nazis to remain non-aggressive and work quietly. . . . . In 1939, seeking to cripple the Bund, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia had the city investigate the Bund's taxes. It found that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund, spending part of that money on a mistress. Although the Bund did not seek prosecution, District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey pressed charges and won a conviction. This seriously crippled the Bund. During World War II, Kuhn was held by the federal government at an internment camp in Texas. In 1946 he was released and deported to Germany."
See the following site for information on Camp Siegfried, a summer camp the Bund operated on Long Island. Camp Siegried was one of several camps (including Camp Hindenberg) that Kuhn organized where "the children ate, slept, talked, and dreamed Nazism just as the Hitler Jugend did:" http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-hs729a,0,7169.story. See also http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/history/yaphank/german_american_bund.htm. The Audio: This 1939 Bund Rally speech by Bund leader Fritz Kuhn, comes from the Office of Alien Property Custodian records, National Archives. For more information about the audio recording, contact Talking History/University at Albany, or the National Archives' Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Records LICON, Special Media Archives Services Division, College Park, MD. Segment 4 [Re-broadcast]: From the Archives: "Nazi Eyes on Canada (selection), 1942."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 13:50J. Frank Willis, one of Canada's greatest radio reporters, also produced many CBC Radio programs during World War II, including Alan King's five-part radio theater series, Nazi Eyes on Canada, with several well-known Hollywood actors. Originally Broadcast in 1942, the play featured Orson Welles, Vincent Price, Helen Hayes, Judith Evelyn, and several other actors taking on the identities of real-life Canadians and portraying their lives as they might be if Germany won the war. The play was based on reports of Nazi spy Colin Ross, made as he travelled throughout Canada in the 1930s reporting back to his Nazi superiors on strategic Canadian vulnerabilities. Ross later became a major Nazi propaganda strategist under Joseph Goebbels during World War II. Here is a short excerpt from the play. For more information about this recording contact The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Archives archives.cbc.ca or Talking History/University at Albany. To obtain a complete copy of the series, contact Scenario Productions at Scenario Productions Segment 5 [Re-broadcast]: "From the Archives: 'Segro-Country and Western' and the Song Wars of the Civil Rights Era."
Kajun Ku Klux Klan (selection):
Real Media. MP3."The Segregation Wagon":
Real Media. MP3.In the 1960s, as the Civil Rights movement -- the 'singing movement' -- was spreading through the South, a resistance culture emerged that sought to counter the progress of the Civil Rights movement and LBJ's "Great Society." That southern resistance movement, like the Civil Rights movement it opposed, had a strong cultural component, but one generally overlooked by historians and students of the era. Often exploiting the most racist and pejorative stereotypes that pervaded popular and genteel Southern (and Northern) white society, several regional musical movements emerged and produced a counter-integrationist repertoire of songs (as well as jokes and racial parodies). Among the most virulently racist strains of that movement was one that has been called by one writer "Segro- Country and Western" -- associated with, though not exclusively from, Louisiana. One of the record labels that recorded and circulated such music was Jay Miller's Rebel Records (also referred to as Reb Rebel Records) in Crowley, Louisiana. Most of the songs were issued as 45 RPM singles, but Rebel Records also put out one LP compilation of these 45s, titled "For Segregationists Only." It contained such songs (and vocal parodies) as: "Flight NAACP 105" by 'Son of Mississippi,' "Kajun Ku Klux Klan," by Johnny Rebel (actually Clifford 'Pee Wee' Trahan), and "Old Man Moses," by Happy Fats. The record jacket included the following summary of the record's contents: "This long playing album is composed of the best selling 45 RPM singles ever released by Reb Rebel Records. These selections express the feeling, anxiety, confusion and problems of many of our people during the political transformation of our way of life . . . Transformations that have changed peace and tranquility to riots and demonstrations that have changed incentive for self improvement to much dependency on numerous federal 'give away' programs, under the guise of building the 'great society.' For those who take a conservative position on intergration (sic.), this 'great society' program, the controversial war in Viet Nam and the numerous so-called 'Civil Rights' Organizations, this record is a must!" There were dozens and dozens of pro-segregation tunes put out by Miller and other southern studios, including "The Segregation Wagon" (sampled above). For background on Rebel Records and its racist fruits, go to the following link: http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/question/dec06/. On air, we explored several songs (slightly edited); here we present some excerpts and examples of the genre. The "worst" examples are not included. Those interested in learning more about the other side of the Civil Rights movement and its culture, see the previous link and find re-issues of the original 45s and LPs. They are available from several sources on the WWW.
June 11, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Independent Minds: Winston Churchill -- Into the Storm." (2009)
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Media. MP3 Unavailable (by producer request). Time: 23:10. From Murray Street Productions and producers Stephen Rathe, Matthew Glass, and David Bailes, we bring to you this one hour documentary on Winston's Churchill and World War II. Producers' summary: "Winston Churchill -- known for powerful prose, undaunted persistence, and uncompromising ideals -- led Britain against all odds, to overcome the Nazi's mighty military and its stranglehold on Europe. Independent Minds: Into the Storm follows Churchill into World War II -- from his appointment as Prime Minister through the victory of the Allies to his defeat at the hands of a grateful nation. Join host David D’Arcy with historians, John Keegan, John Lukacs; journalists Michael Lind, Gretchen Rubin, actor Brendan Gleeson, screenwriter Hugh Whitemore and politico Patrick Buchanan. Laced with Churchill’s original speeches, newsreels, newscasts, and dramatic sequences from the new HBO Churchill film, Independent Minds: Into the Storm captures the sweep and irony of history."
Segment 2: "Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' Speech (selection). Fulton, Missouri, )."
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MP3. Time: 5:03.
Sir Winston Churchill, soon after his lose of power in Great Britain, came to the United States on a visit and to receive an honorary degree from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. On March 5, 1946, accompanied by President Harry S. Truman, Churchill delivered what is now considered one of the most important speeches of the Cold War era -- in fact, the speech that for some marked the chronological beginning of that era: his "Sinews of Peace" speech. This is a selection from that speech; for the full text (and audio), see: http://www.hpol.org/churchill/.
June 4, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "John Hope Franklin on Writing Black History." (1969)
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MP3. Time: 19:13. John Hope Franklin, then chair of the University of Chicago History Department, delivered this speech titled "The Future of Negro American History," at The New School in New York City on April 3, 1969. It was recorded by Pacifica Radio affiliate WBAI and first aired on October 18, 1969. In memory of Prof. Franklin, who died of congestive heart failure on March 25th, 2009, we are re-airing this important address by him. Franklin played a seminal role in helping incorporate African American History into the core U.S. History curriculum of American higher education (as well as the nation's secondary schools). He was a prolific writer, producing such important works as: The Emancipation Proclamation, The Militant South, The Free Negro in North Carolina, Reconstruction After the Civil War, A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Ante-bellum North, and perhaps his most famous and influential work, which has been revised and updated seven times, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans. For more information about Franklin and his distinguised career and achievements, see: http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/franklin/bio.html.
Segment 2: "Hattie McDaniel on The Beulah Show (1952)."
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MP3. Time: 24:50.
This is the audio track of one of the episodes of the 1950's television sitcom "The Beulah Show," which was one of the first sitcoms to feature an African American woman in a lead role. In this episode, aired on August 12th, 1952, Hattie McDaniel, best known for her part in "Gone With The Wind," (she won an academy award for that performance) appeared as Beulah. The show originally aired on radio on CBS (1945-54), and moved to television in 1950, on ABC. It ran until 1953. During that period, three black actresses took the role of "Beulah": Ethel Waters till 1952; Hattie McDaniel, who had originally played the role on the radio show) came on briefly for a few episodes (till cancer forced her to leave); and finally, Louise Beavers joined the show until its demise in 1953. Though the character of Beulah reinforced many black stereotypes, it also permitted Hattie McDaniel and other African American women to break through television's racial barrier -- if only for a brief spell until the post-Civil Rights era. For more information about The Beulah Show, see http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/beulah/beulah.htm (please note that this article erroneously fails to mention Hattie McDaniel's brief participation on the TV show).
May 28, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Backstory: Grave Subjects ~ A History of Death and Mourning." (2009)
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MP3. Time: 18:53. In this piece from Backstory, the History guys (Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh) examine the ways that "Americans have remembered their dead, from the Revolutionary War up through the present. When and where the first Memorial Day took place is a matter of much debate. Some say Army veterans created the holiday in the North; others credit Confederate widows in the South. One account points to former slaves in South Carolina who wanted to give fallen Union soldiers a proper burial. What is clear is that in the years following the Civil War, communities all over the country started setting aside a day, usually in the springtime, to honor those who died in the service of their country. . . . Drew Gilpin Faust, historian and president of Harvard University, discusses the cultural impacts of unprecedented levels of death in the American Civil War" and Ayers, Onuf, and Balogh ask: "Have technological and medical advances changed our attitudes about dying? Has death become more invisible, and if so, what are the implications? When did we start burying the dead in park-like settings, and how did modern funeral traditions come into being? Do war memorials tell us more about wartime, or about the peacetime that follows? How have region, class and race influenced the ways Americans die?" For more information about Backstory, and for more information about the themes explored in this episode, go to Backstory's Web site at http://www.backstoryradio.org/.
Segment 2: "George Bernard Shaw on Pacifism (1938)."
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MP3. Time: 2:01.
Irish playwright, critic, and socialist activist George Bernard Shaw was an outspoken pacifist. In this 1938 recording, he explains the meaning of pacifism. For a short biography of Shaw, see: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jshaw.htm.
May 21, 2009 Segments 1 and 4: "Thurgood Marshall's African Journey: An Interview With Mary Dudziak" (2009)
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MP3. Time: 13:09.Historian Carl Bon Tempo of the University at Albany, SUNY interviewed Mary L. Dudziak, Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science at the University of Southern California Law School about her research on Thurgood Marshall’s work with Kenya nationalists in the 1960s. Her work on Marshall was published last year as Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press, 2008). Dudziak's interview was conducted at the Univ. at Albany's History and Media Sound Studio for Talking History on Friday, April 24, 2009. She also delivered the annual Phi Alpha Theta lecture at the University at Albany later that day, speaking about "Finding the World in Civil Rights History." Dudziak's other research focuses on international approaches to American legal history and the impact of foreign affairs on civil rights policy during the Cold War. Her next book project will look broadly at the impact of war on American law and politics during the 20th century.
Segment 2: "Thurgood Marshall as a Litigator in Brown v. Board of Education, 1954."
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MP3. Time: 2:48.
In a series of press conferences conducted in 1954 (before and after the original Brown v. Board of Education civil rights decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 17) and 1955 (before and after "Brown II" -- the Supreme Court's May 1955 implementation order to proceed "with all deliberate speed"), Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, explained some of what was at stake in the cases that helped eliminate segregation in American schools. This is a selection from one of those press conferences. For an excellent site on Brown v.Board of Education, which includes many primary documents, see the Library of Congress' Web site: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-brown.html. For more on Marshall "before the court," see the excellent American RadioWorks documentary we aired on Sept. 13, 2007 (use our program menu to access this documentary).
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MP3. Time: 3:12. Short selection -- a preview of a future program we intend to air soon -- from "The Beat Poets Of San Francisco," a 1979 KPFA production focusing on the poetry of the "San Francisco beat scene of the late 50s." It contains recordings of author Jack Kerouac and many of the other beat poets. Here we feature Kerouac (1922-1969) reading a selection from his On The Road (1957).
May 14, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing, Part 2 ~ Ballads and Folksongs" (2008; 2009)
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Time: 27:58.PART 2:
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Media. MP3 unavailable by producer request.Time: 22:45. Producer and Seeger biographer, David Dunaway (Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story; Writing the Southwest), produced this acclaimed documentary, Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing?, last year. This year, in celebration of Seeger's 90th birthday, he has redistributed the piece and permitted us to make it availabe here on the Talking History Web site. This week we bring you part 2, "Folk Songs and Ballads: Bringing Folk Music Alive," where Dunaway explores "the exciting folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s. It starts at Seeger’s first musical group, The Almanac Singers, who sang labor, peace songs and anti-Nazi songs in 1941. The story continues as Seeger formed the Weavers, a best-selling musical group in the 1950s, before being blacklisted. Throughout controversy, Seeger promoted folk music from many American traditions, a musical Johnny Appleseed. The musical emphasis here is ethnomusicological, on old-timey banjo tunes and on pop-folk crossover songs of the Weavers ('Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,' 'Goodnight Irene')."
Segment 2: "Robert Moses and Post-War Highway and Infrastructure Development" (1953)"
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MP3. Time: 11:45.
From 1924 until 1968, Robert Moses planned and helped build much of New York's modern road, park, and hydropower infrastructure. Overseeing over 150 billion inflation-adjusted dollars of development projects, he transformed not only New York City's road and bridge systems but also the entire State's. He directed the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Long Island Expressway, hundreds of playgrounds, and over a dozen bridges and tunnels. He was also heavily involved in New York State park development as well as both World Fairs sited in New York City, as well as in the construction of hydropower plants at Niagara Falls and on the St. Lawrence River. In this Longines Chronoscope broadcast originally aired on February 11, 1953 (audio -- the original was a television broadcast), Moses is questioned about some of his work as highway and park developer. The entire collection of Longines Chronoscope was donated to the National Archives (NARA) and is now part of the vast collection of public domain broadcasts available at NARA II at College Park, Maryland.
May 7, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "The Good Mother: A History of American Motherhood." (2009)
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MP3. Time: 18:52. From Backstory: "'Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys. . .' They may not have known it, but when Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson crooned that line in 1978, they were speaking to a centuries-long paradox in the lives of American mothers. "Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys..." They may not have known it, but when Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson crooned that line in 1978, they were speaking to a centuries-long paradox in the lives of American mothers. For much of American history, women were excluded from public life, but at the same time, were expected to raise the "good citizens" that kept society functioning. In this hour, the History Guys explore that paradox, and look at the changing expectations of mothers over three centuries. What role did mothers play in the founding period, and how did that role change with the emergence of industrial capitalism? What strategies did enslaved women develop to care for children who could be sold away from them on any given day? How did the "medicalization" of childbirth impact mothering practices in the late 19th century? Has a century's worth of professional parenting advice made mothers' lives easier or just more stressful?" For more information about Backstory, and for more information about the themes explored in this episode, go to Backstory's Web site at http://www.backstoryradio.org/.
Segment 2: "Julia Ward Howe: Peace Activist and Poet"
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MP3. Time: 3:44.
We revisit Julia Ward Howe in this segment with a compilation of two recordings: the first is a short audio excerpt from Robert Greenwald's short film Mother's Day for Peace (a dramatic reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation by Felicity Huffman, Christine Lahti, Fatma Saleh, Ashraf Salimian, Vanessa Williams and Alfre Woodard); and the second, a Librivox [www.librivox.org] reading of Julia Ward Howe's poem "Mother Mind," read by Cori Samuel. Howe was the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," but she was far more than that; she was a poet, a reformer, a champion for world peace, a public speaker, and a biographer. Profoundly influenced by the Civil War and particularly by the carnage that accompanied the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, Howe began a world peace crusade and in that year wrote a woman's peace manifesto -- an "appeal to womanhood" to rise up against the brutality of war. She initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance in her home city, Boston, on the second Sunday in June -- the first American "Mother's Day." Howe funded its celebration for a decade, but the observance never really took hold until it was transfigured and replaced in the early 1900s by a very different sort of celebration, one that did take hold, our present-day Mothers' Day, the creation of Anna Jarvis.
April 30, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing, Part 1 ~ Origins" (2008; 2009)
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Media. MP3 unavailable by producer request.Time: 23:41. Producer and Seeger biographer, David Dunaway (Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story; Writing the Southwest), produced this acclaimed documentary, Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing?, last year. This year, in celebration of Seeger's 90th birthday, he has redistributed the piece and permitted us to make it availabe here on the Talking History Web site. This week we bring you part 1, "Origins," where Dunaway tackles the question of "How did a Harvard-educated boy become a radical, hitchhiking, banjo-playing, political activist? Program I explores Seeger's youth and America's folk revival of the 1930s and '40s." In two weeks, we'll bring you part 2, exploring the folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s and Pete Seeger's important catalytic role in that revival.
Segment 2: "Margaret Mead Speaks at First Earth Day Demonstation, New York, April 22, 1970.
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MP3. Time: 5:30. From Pactica Radio Archives, we present Margaret Mead's comments at the first Earth Day celebration in New York City on April 22, 1970. Earth Day "was conceived by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1969 after taking a trip to California to observe the devastation caused by an enormous oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara. The idea was to organize celebrations around the country that would blend the presentation of academics, scholars, activists, and entertainment to concerns of worldwide pollution and inspire the cleanup of our planet. April 22nd, 1970 marked the first Earth Day celebrations across the globe."
April 23, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "City of God." (2009)
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MP3. Time: 19:05. Francesca Rheannon of Writer's Voice (http://www.writersvoice.net/) interviews Beverly Swerling about the latest of Swerling's historical novels about New York City in the 1830s through the 1850s, City of God. The novel "follows the intertwined loves and dramatic fortunes of two families during the mid-1830’s, the Devreys and the Turners. Along the way, the reader learns about how the city dealt with Abolition, immigration, religion, commerce, and public health. . . . This is New York when one synagogue is no longer adequate for thousands of Jewish immigrants, when New Evangelicals rouse complacent Protestants with the promise of born-again salvation, and when it first sees Catholic nuns and calls them whores of Satan. It is New York when ships bring the fabulous wealth of nations to its wharves and auction houses, while a short distance away rival gangs fight to the death with broken bottles and teeth filed to points."
Segment 2: "Orson Welles Reads from Thomas Paine's The Crisis (1963).
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MP3. Time: 5:00.
This is a selection of a reading by Orson Welles of Thomas Paine's first issue (December 4, 1776) of The Crisis, a series of pamphlets Paine published between 1776 and 1783 to defend the American Revolution and the patriot's cause. For the full text of all issues of The Crisis, go to: http://www.ushistory.org/Paine/crisis/index.htm.
April 16, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Confronting the Warpland: Black Poets of Chicago." (2008)
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Media. Time: 36:15. [MP3 Unavailable by request of producer.]Confronting the Warpland: Black Poets of Chicago, a production of the Poetry Foundation, was written and produced by Ed Herrmann and narrated by Richard Steele. It examines some of the great African American poets of 20th century Chicago, featuring their words and voices. "Beginning with with Great Migration of the early 20th Century, and continuing to contemporary poets, the program features interviews and readings by writers who who have made a unique and crucial contribution to African American literature, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhubuti, Sterling Plumpp, Margaret Walker, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and Tyehimba Jess. These writers have vastly different styles and concerns, but all use poetry to examine life in a racially divisive society."
Segment 2: "Carl Sandburg's Cornhuskers." (1919).
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MP3. Time: 13:57.
This is a selection from a LibriVox recording of "prairie," from Carl Sandburg's Cornhuskers -- read by Betsie Bush. It comes from Carl Sandburg’s collection of 103 poems that earned a Pulitzer Prize Special Letters Award in 1919. For more information about Sandburg, see: http://www.carlsandburg.net/
April 9, 2009 Segments 1 and 3: "Backstory: Partisanship and the Press." (2009)
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MP3. Time: 18:53. Another piece from Backstory: "The current era of partisan news and name-calling is enough to make you wonder what happened to good old-fashioned objective reporting. But in this hour, BackStory asks: Where did the idea of media objectivity come from in the first place? Historian Marcus Daniel explains that the bitter rhetoric of editors in the 1790s played a key role in the birth of our democracy. Matthew Goodman tells the story of an elaborate hoax involving 'lunar man-bats' in the early days of the penny press. And Michael Kinsley, founder of the online journal Slate, argues that opinion journalism can be more informative than so-called 'objective' news." For more information about Backstory, and for more information about the themes explored in this episode, go to Backstory's Web site at http://www.backstoryradio.org/.
Segment 2: "The Trial of John Peter Zenger" (circa. 1950).
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Media.
MP3. Time: 2:35.
This is a brief selection from "The Trial of Peter Zenger," a dramatic documentary first produced around 1950 as part of the New York State Bureau of Social Studies (Education Department) series titled "The Price of Liberty." The series consisted of dramatic documentaries reconstructing (with actors) key events in American and New York history and was produced as an educational tool and for radio broadcast by the Junior Leagues of Albany in cooperation with the State Education Department. According to the New York State Archives, the recordings may have been connected to the popular "Freedom Train" movement of the early 1950s: "In 1949 a Temporary State Commission for the New York State Freedom Train was established and historical documents celebrating American liberty were sent on tour. In conjunction with such efforts, suggestions to elementary school teachers for teaching about freedom were produced by the Education Department." This recording comes from a set of 16" transcription disks donated to Talking History / University at Albany and the UAlbany Library; another set can be found in the New York State Archives, and consists of "twelve recorded segments, each contained on one side of a 16-inch, 33 1/3 rpm sound disk. They are entitled: the Iroquois Confederacy; Flushing Remonstrance; Trial of John Peter Zenger; Sir William Johnson; Coxsackie Remonstrance; Battle of Oriskany; New York Becomes a State; the Story of Transportation; the Story of Agriculture; the Story of Industry; the Story of Free Education; and the Story of World Trade." For more information, contact Talking History / University at Albany or the New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany, NY.
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