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CONTRIBUTING PRODUCER:
Charles Hardy III / West Chester University.

Charles Hardy at work.

Charles Hardy III (B.A. 1977, Ph.D. 1989, Temple University) is a professor of history at West Chester University. An award-winning producer of both public radio and video documentaries, Hardy was the principal project historian and editor of The United States History Video Collection, (Prentice Hall, 1998), a ten-hour American history textbook on videotape, and the first producer of Crossroads (1987), a national weekly radio newsmagazine on multicultural affairs. His sound documentaries for public radio include The Popular Culture Show (1982-84), I Remember When: Times Gone But Not Forgotten (1983), Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration (1985), and The Return of the Shad (1992). His audio art productions include Mordecai Mordant's Celebrated Audio Ephemera (1985-86), and This Car to the Ballpark (1988), a quadraphonic audio arcade produced from oral histories, archival recordings, and sound manipulations. Dr. Hardy taught in the Columbia University Oral History Research Office's annual Summer Institute from 1995 to 1998. His awards include a Red Ribbon in Educational Programming from the American Film and Video Association (1990), a Public Radio Program Award (1983) from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, three Audio Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and most recently (along with joint "author" University of Rome professor Allesandro Portelli) the Oral History Association's 1999 Nonprint Media Award for outstanding use of oral history in the aural essay "I Can Almost See the Lights of Home."

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"I Remember When: You Work at Stetson's?" (1982)

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 37:07.
"You Work at Stetson's?" was broadcast in November of 1982 as the first of a radio documentary series titled "I Remember When." The series was devoted to recounting various aspects of Philadelphia's history. "By 1886, John B. Stetson owned the world’s biggest Hat factory in Philadelphia and employed nearly 4,000 workers. The factory was putting out about 2 million hats a year by 1906. Stetson was a pioneer in mechanizing the art of hat manufacturing. He was also part of a movement of liberal business reform in the early 20th century, now referred to as "welfare capitalism." He offered a variety of benefits to his employees, including free health care -- and gave shares in his company to valued workers. As a philanthropist, he founded Stetson University in Deland, Florida, and built a Philadelphia hospital. This documentary, based on oral interviews with former Stetson employees, looks as the industrial world that Stetson created."

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"I Remember When: Butler on the Beat." (1982)

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 33:42
"Butler on the Beat," a segment of Hardy's I Remember When series, examines Prohibition in Philadelphia and the unsuccessful efforts of Marine General Smedley Darlington Butler, Director of Public Safety during 1925 and 1926, to clean up the city and enforce the laws. This particular segment first aired on Nov.23, 1982. .

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"I Remember When: Philadelphia, The Most American of Cities." (1982)

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 33:30
This segment of I Remember When, "Philadelphia: The Most American of Cities," was broadcast initially on December 21, 1982 as the first of three programs focusing on the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans to Philadelphia in the decades surrounding the turn of the Twentieth Century. Relying heavily on oral history, it explores the reasons for migration, the journey across, expectations, and first impressions on immigrants.

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"I Remember When: The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle." (1983)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:22.
"The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle" -- yet another segment in Hardy's I Remeber When series, aired on January 11, 1983 and focused on the romance and courtship in the ethnic neighborhoods of pre-World War II Philadelphia, and particularly on the war that raged between strict, old world fathers and their Americanizing children.

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"I Remember When: What Became of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918." (1983)

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 34:51.
"What Became of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918" was also part of Hardy's I Remember When series. Initially aired on January 18, 1983, it focused on the worst pandemic of the Twentieth Century and its impact on Philadelphia, the hardest hit of American cities.

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"I Remember When: Gang Rule in the City (part 1)." (1983)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:46
"Gang Rule in the City: Or, The Most Perfect Party Organization in the World" was a two-part program that originally aired in late January and early February of 1983. It focused on Philadelphia politics between the two world wars, and particulalry on Bill Vare's Republican organization, one of the most powerful and corrupt party machines in the nation. This program was one of a dozen in a series produced by Charles Hardy and titled "I REMEMBER WHEN: TIMES GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN." The series was broadcast in late 1982 and early 1983 on WUHY-FM in Philadelphia.

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I Remember When: Gang Rule in the City (part 2)." (1983)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 33:46
This is part 2 of "Gang Rule in the City: Or, The Most Perfect Party Organization in the World," a segment of Hardy's I Remember When series. See previous entry for more details.

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"The Return of the Shad"

PART I

PART II

From contributing producer Charles Hardy, a cultural, social, and environmental history of the the Delaware River Valley.

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"Prodigal Son." (1985)

This lyrical audio piece, was first featured in Hardy's 1985 series, "Mordecai Mordant's Celebrated Audio Ephemera," a collection of audio art sound montages broadcast on public radio in 1985. Composed of excerpts from oral history interviews, archival recordings, and James Weldon Johnson's recording of his poem, "The Prodigal Son, " it explores how black migrants from the American South made sense of their encounters with the "bright lights" of northern industrial metropolises in the early decades of the twentieth century. In this highly creative and imaginative work, Hardy was interested in unraveling the origins of a series of folk tales and personal narratives that elderly African Americans used to encode their own youthful experiences with the pleasures and dangers of the red light districts of industrial Philadelphia.

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Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration. Part 1, "Life in the South." (1985)

Five-part documentary series "Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration." Part 1, titled "Life in the South," of Charles Hardy's five-part documentary on the movement of African Americans from the South to Philadelphia in the first half of this century.

Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration. Part 2, "Goin' North." (1985)

Part 2 ("Goin' North") of Charles Hardy's five-part documentary series "Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration."

Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration. Part 3, "The Newcomers." (1985)

Part 3 ("The Newcomers") of Charles Hardy's five-part documentary series "Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration."

Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration. Part 4, "Domestic Work." (1985)

Part 4 ("Domestic Work") of Charles Hardy's five-part documentary series "Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration."

Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration. Part 5, "Men's Work." (1985)

Part 5 ("Men's Work") of Charles Hardy's five-part documentary series "Goin' North: Tales of the Great Migration."

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