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Aural History Productions
The Radio Archive ~ January - June, 2003
June 26, 2003Segment 1: "A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra"
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Time: 29:10. George Liston Seay discusses the Biafran Civil War with John Sherman, author of War Stories: A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra (Mesa Verde Press, 2002). Sherman, an American who served in the Peace Corps and with a food/medical team operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross during the civil war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, describes in intimate and personal detail the events that took place in Nigeria in the late 1960s before and after May 30, 1967, when the Eastern Region of Nigeria seceded and became the Republic of Biafra. Segment 2: "Benjamin Franklin."
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Time: 17:34.From Talking History/OAH. Talking History's Fred Nielsen discusses the life and career of Benjamin Franklin with Edmund Morgan, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. Morgan has recently completed Benjamin Franklin (Yale University Press, 2002), biography of one of America's foremost scientist, inventor, and statesman. Produced June, 2003.
June 19, 2003Segment 1: "Don't Cry for Me, Ike and Tina: Transnational Networks and Local Experiences."
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Time: 21:45 George Lipsitz delivered this talk, the keynote address at the Oral History Association's Annual meeting, on October 25, 2002 in San Diego, CA. Lipsitz recalls his first oral history project in St. Louis and the larger lessons that can be learned from understanding local experiences. Lipsitz is Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and author of Rainbow at Midnight: Life and Labor in the 1940's, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture, Dangerous Crossroads: The Sidewalks of St. Louis, and A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition (the latter won both the Eugene M. Kayden Press Book Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations). Segment 2: "The Museum of Hoaxes."
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Time: 20:17.From Talking History/OAH. Talking History's Bryan Le Beau talks to Alex Boese, creator of "The Museum of Hoaxes," Website and author of The Museum of Hoaxes: A Collection of Pranks, Stunts, Deceptions, and Other Wonderful Stories Contrived for the Public from the Middle Ages to the New Millennium (E. P. Dutton, 2002). Together, they discuss the history of famous and infamous historical hoaxes. Prtoduced June, 2003
June 12, 2003Segment 1: "The Great Irish Famine: Changing Forever the Makeup of the American People"
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Time: 31:12 From the Albany Heritage Program: Life in Ireland in the period 1846 - 1850 was filled with starvation, disease and unrelenting misery. That period, which came to be called the Great Irish Famine, changed the social and cultural history of Ireland and the United States. John J. McEneny, whose maternal and paternal ancestors were among the hundreds of thousands of Irish who immigrated to the United States to escape the ravages of the famine, explores the lasting impact of the famine on the social fabric of this country and the Albany community. A former Albany County historian, Jack McEneny is a well known teacher and speaker on local history, ethnicity and related fields. He is a member of the New York State Assembly and author of "Albany: Capital City on the Hudson." Segment 2: "The Louisiana Purchase."
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Time: 17:45.From Talking History/OAH. Conducted by Fred Nielson, of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, this interview with Jon Kukla focuses on one of the largest land deals in US history -- the Louisiana Purchase. Jon Kukla is the author of A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Knopf, 2003). April, 2003.
June 5, 2003Segment 1: "Inventing Japan."
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Time: 28:23.From Dialogue Radio, Woodraw Wilson International Center for Scholars. George Liston Seay interviews Ian Buruma, author of Inventing Japan: 1853-1964 (Modern Library, 2003). They discuss Japan's modernization from 1868 to the present, looking particularly at the Meiji Restoration and "Japan�s way of adapting Western technology for its own advancement." Seay and Buruma explore both the positive and negative results of Japan's modernization strategy and its contribution to both World War II and Japan�s current status as an economic world power. June 2003. Segment 2: "Seabiscuit."
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Time: 16:41.From Talking History/OAH. Talking History's Eileen Dugan discusses the story of Seabiscuit, a race horse who became a cultural icon, with Lauren Hillenbrand author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Random House, 2003). Produced May, 2003.
May 29, 2003Segment 1: "Hitler and the Holocaust."
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Time: 28:23.From Dialogue Radio, Woodraw Wilson International Center for Scholars. George Liston Seay interviews Martin Wank, the author of Hitler and the Holocaust: The Hidden Story (Xlibris, 2001): "Adolf Hitler was a mediocrity as much as he was a monster. He exploited a German unease with modernization that began in the 19th century and used it as a vehicle for political self-promotion. Martin Wank describes how Hitler�s role was made inevitable by �Germanism� � a longing for a romantic, medieval past." May 2003. Segment 2: "Jesse James."
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Time: 18:06.From Talking History/OAH. Eileen Dugan discusses Jesse James with T.J. Stiles, author of the revisionist biography of James, Jesse James, The Last Rebel of The Civil War (Knopf, 2002), which examines the emergence and evolution of James as a folk hero among Southern sympathizers following the Civil War. Produced May 2003.
May 22, 2003Segment 1: "The Cold War: A New View."
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Time: 28:23.From Dialogue Radio, Woodraw Wilson International Center for Scholars. "The opening of new archival resources is providing scholars with new perspectives on the history of the Cold War. Most interestingly, new findings suggest that peripheral players like Cuba, North Korea, East Germany and Vietnam had much more impact on superpower decisions than was previously thought. Panelists Christian Ostermann, Svetlana Savranskaya and Hope Harrison describe some of the more important conclusions they've discovered. Christian Ostermann is Director of the Cold War International History Project at the WWC; Svetlana Savranskaya is a Research Fellow at the National Security Archive; Hope Harrison is Assistant Professor of History at George Washington University." May 2003. Segment 2: "History of the Wife: The Changing Roles of Wives."
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Time: 20:20.From Talking History/OAH. Eileen Dugan explores the changing roles of wives in history with Marilyn Yalom. Yalom has been a professor of French and comparative literature, director of an institute for research on women, and a popular speaker on the lecture circuit. In 1991 she was decorated as an Officier des Palmes Academiques by the French Government. Yalom is the author of numerous books and articles on literature and women's history, including Maternity, Mortality, and the Literature of Madness (out of print), Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory (January, 1999), A History of the Breast (February, 1997), and most recently, A History of the Wife (February 2001). Produced for May 2003 broadcast.
May 15, 2003"David Levering Lewis on W.E.B. DuBois in Africa."
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Time: 21:00.Part 2:
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Time: 21:00.David Levering Lewis is Martin Luther King Jr. University Professor of History at Rutgers and the author of a two-volume biography of W.E.B. DuBois, which won a Pulitzer Prize for each volume in 1994 and 2001. On February 15, 2003, Lewis delivered the 23rd annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture, speaking about W.E.B DuBois in Africa. His talk was part of Rutgers-Newark Black History Month observances. Recorded and produced by students in the Rutgers-Newark journalism program's "Radio Documentaries" course for Talking History/University at Albany. Our thanks to Prof. Rob Snyder, Director, Journalism and Media Studies, Rutgers-Newark.
May 8, 2003"Remembering Kent State, 1970."
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Time: 26:40.Part 2:
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Time: 29:20"When thirteen students were shot by Ohio National Guard Troops during a war demonstration on the Kent State University Campus on the first week of May 1970, four young lives were ended and a nation was stunned. More than 30 years later, the world at war is a different place. However, those thirteen seconds in May, 1970 still remain scorched into an Ohio hillside. Through archival tape and interviews, Remembering Kent State tracks the events that led up to the shootings. Produced by Mark Urycki and first aired on WKSU-FM on May 5, 2002."
May 1, 2003David Stowell: "Railroads and Social Conflict in 19th Century Albany, NY."
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Time: 31:40Part 2:
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Time: 17:21David Stowell, Associate Professor of History at Keene State College in Keene, NH, looks at the injurious impact of the railroads on everyday life in Albany, NY (and in other cities throughout the US) in the post-Civil War era. He examines the developing opposition to the railroads by workers and especially by small business owners, opposition which finally exploded in the Great Strike of 1877. Stowell is the author of Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (University of Chicago Press, 1999). This talk was one of two lectures delivered in "Railroad Heritage: Entrepreneurship, Technology and Social Impacts," part of the transportation series lectures of the Albany Heritage Program of 2002. Recorded at the Albany International Airport, November 26, 2002.
April 24, 2003"Law, Race, and Slavery in American History: An Interview with Annette Gordon-Reed."
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Time: 22:21.Part 2:
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Time: 23:49.Prof. Richard Hamm of the University at Albany interviews New York University Law School professor Annette Gordon-Reed, author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, co-author with Vernon Jordan of Vernon Can Read: A Memoir and and the editor of Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History. The interview focuses on law, racism, and slavery in American history.
April 17, 2003"WHER-1000 Beautiful Watts: The First All-Girl Radio Station in The World."
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Time: 25:10.
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Time: 33:11.As noted on the "Lost and Found Sound" Web site: They went on-air October 29, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee, and stayed there for 17 more years. Legendary record producer Sam Phillips had always wanted a radio station. When the FCC finally gave him a frequency, 1430 on the AM dial, Sam came up with a one-of-a-kind idea—an all girl format—women announcers, sales staff, management, record librarians, copy writers. At the time, stations had at most one girl announcer. Each woman who interviewed for a job at WHER thought she would be that girl. It wasn't until the day before the station went on the air that the girls themselves found out the station would be all female. Produced in 1999 by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) and mixed by Jim McKee.
April 10, 2003Segment 1: "A Man Tapes His Town: The Unrelenting Oral Histories of Eddie McCoy."
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Time: 12:51.This documentary was produced as part of the "Lost and Found Sound" series and first aired on National Public Radio on October 5, 2000. It was produced by Leda Hartman and The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson), and mixed by Jim McKee. From the Lost and Found Sound on-line archive description: "Eddie McCoy owns a janitorial service in Oxford, North Carolina, a tobacco town of some 10,000 people. A decade ago, badly injured in a car wreck, Eddie's business nearly came to a close. A man who had always been on the move was now unable to work. Frustrated, Eddie went to a doctor who told him, 'Try using your head instead of your hands.' Eddie took his passion for local history and a scavenged cassette recorder, and began taping his town, starting with some of Oxford's oldest citizens. A self-made historian, Eddie has done some 140 interviews since 1979, and knows just about every detail of the life and lore of Oxford: his neighbors, his friends, and total strangers. Eddie records the who, what, when, where, and why of slavery times, of sharecropping, of the civil rights era, of who poured the first concrete in Oxford." Segment 2: "Truman's Farewell Address."
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Time: 15:56.February 2003. "As he prepared to leave the White House � 50 year ago � President Harry Truman�s approval rating bottomed out at 23 percent. His own Democratic party avoided him in the campaign of 1952, and when Dwight Eisenhower�s limousine picked him up for the 1953 inauguration, Eisenhower did not even get out of the car to greet him. All of that began to change when Truman gave his farewell address." Truman's farewell address is the subject of this interview with Truman Scholar Richard Kirkendall, conducted by Bryan Le Beau. Segment 3: "Albert Einstein's FBI Files."
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Time: 17:54.Talking History's Eileen Dugan, of Creighton University, interviews Fred Jerome about his recent book, The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist (St. Martin's Press, 2002), which explores the surveillence of Albert Einstein by the FBI.
April 3, 2003"Susan Lewis on Businesswomen in Albany, New York, 1830-1885."
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Time: 40:58.Research has uncovered over 2,000 individual women engaged in business enterprises in the city of Albany between 1830 and 1885. The stories of these women and their families present a fascinating glimpse of commercial and familiar networks in the city, yet a lack of personal papers and business records presents mysteries as well. Who were these artisans, retail dealers, petty manufacturers, and service providers? Prof. Susan Lewis of the State University of New York at New Paltz, explores some of the more interesting stories and intriguing mysteries connected to Albany's female proprietors.
March 27, 2003Segment 1: "CIGAR STORIES: El Lector - He Who Reads."
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Time: 21:55.This documentary was produced as part of the "Lost and Found Sound" series and first aired on National Public Radio on May 14, 1999: "Actor Andy Garcia narrates a story about the 'readers' who made life in cigar factories tolerable. This story, produced by 'The Kitchen Sisters' -- Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva -- in collaboration with Laura Folger and Tina Pacheco, tells the story of the men who were paid to read aloud to men and women rolling cigars in Tampa and Ybor City, Florida at the beginning of the century and into the 1930s. Listener Henry Cordova brought it to our attention through the Quest for Sound." Segment 2: "Memories of Dante."
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Time: 8:40.The Southwest Virginia coal mining town of Dante was the subject of this documentary, produced by Sean Tubbs in late 2002 and first aired in mid-January of 2003 for With Good Reason. The series With Good Reason is produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities' Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium. Segment 3: "Lizabeth Cohen on Mass Consumption in America."
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Time: 15:22.Produced March 2003. Jim Madison, Professor of History at Indiana University, interviews Lizabeth Cohen on the cultural, social, and economic aspects of mass consumption in America. Cohen, Professor of History at Harvard University, is the author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (Knopf, 2003) and Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
March 20, 2003"James Loewen on Historical Lies" (OAH Interview).
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Time: 16:44.
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Time: 15:27.There was no regular broadcast of Talking History on this day, due to the preemption of programming in response to the outbreak of the 2nd war on Iraq. We nonetheless include here a another interview with sociologist James Loewen; this one comes to us from the Organization of American Historians and is conducted by Fred Nielson, of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. (For Gerald Zahavi's interview with Loewen, see Dec. 5, 2002 show.) Loewen, now retired from the University of Vermont, is the best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong.
March 13, 2003"Francis Fox Piven on Electoral Reform -- Past and Present."
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Time: 25:53.
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Time: 17:39.Prof. Francis Fox Piven, distinguished professor of political science and sociology at the City University of New York, presents a critical analysis of electoral democracy in America, past and present. Piven is the author of numerous works, including Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare and Why American Don't Vote, examines attempts to reform America's electoral process and why they have failed. Recorded at the Deerfield Progressive Forum at Deerfield Beech, Florida, on February 22, 2003.
March 6, 2003Segment 1: "Titanic Widows." (2003)
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Time: 20:40.This piece was produced for Virginia's With Good Reason, a statewide public radio series produced for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. It is broadcast in partnership with public radio stations in Virginia, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. "Titanic Widows" was first aired in January of 2003. Longwood University historian Deborah Welch is interviewed by the show's host, Sarah McConnel, and together they explore the story of surviving widows of the HMS Titanic as it broke apart and sank on a cold April night in 1912. Many women boarded lifeboats fully expecting their husbands would come soon behind them. But surviving crew members later blamed the women for refusing to let them row back and rescue those struggling for life in the icy Atlantic. For more information about With Good Reason, visit their Web site at: http://www.virginia.edu/vfh/wgr/index.html Segment 2: "National Insecurity State."
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Time: 2:56.(2003) Prof. Ira Chernus, Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, compares President Dwight Eisenhower's approach to the Cold War and President George Bush's War on Terrrorism and the creation of a national unsecurity state. Chernus is the author of General Eisenhower: Ideology and Discourse (Michigan State Univ.Press, 2002) and Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace (Texas A&M Universitry Press, 2002). Segment 3: "The Lincoln Memorial."
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Time: 16:25.(2003) Jim Madison explores the changing meanings of the Lincoln Memorial over the years with his guest, Christopher Thomas, author of The Lincoln Memorial & American Life (Princeton Univ. Press, 2002). Segment 4: "Lincoln Memorial Cleaner."
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Time: 4:27.(1992) This short piece, produced by Dan Collison, focuses on James Hudson, a National Park Service worker whose job included keeping the Lincoln Memorial clean. Hudson died after the initial story aired from heat exhaustion after a 4th of July clean-up on the Washington, DC mall.
Feb.
27, 2003"Mark Solomon on the Iraq Crisis: One Historian's View."
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Time: 25:54.Part 2:.
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Time: 26:42.Dr. Mark Solomon, Emeritus Professor of History at Simmons College, looks at the Iraq crisis and its recent history, offering his critical evaluation of current U.S. foreign policy. Recorded at the Deerfield Progressive Forum at Deerfield Beech, Florida, on December 15, 2003.
Feb.
20, 2003Segment 1: "Virginia�s Experiment with Eugenics."
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Time: 30:01.Sean Tubbs produced this piece for WVTF Public Radio in Virginia, initially (in 2001) as a series of shorter pieces. He later combined them into a half-hour documentary, which we feature here. The documentary explores the eugenics movement in Virginia. The project was made possible by a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Since this documentary was produced, Virginia Governor Mark Warner has apologized for the state's involvement with eugenics--and the governors of Oregon, North Carolina and South Carolina have done likewise. Segment 2: "Commemorating the Vietnam War."
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Time: 18:20.Conclusion (part 4) of a four-part series on the Vietnam War. Fred Nielsen interviews Nicholas Capasso, Curator at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, about the impact of the Vietnam Veteran�s Memorial and the state/local memorials built to commemorate the conflict.
Feb.
13, 2003Segment 1: "Odysseus in America: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in History."
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Time: 28:43.Dialogue's George Liston Seay interviews Dr. Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist in the Department of Veteran Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Boston. Shay is the author of Odysseus in America and Achilles in Vietnam and is an expert on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In their discussion, Shay explores the relevance of Homer's The Iliad and the story of Odysseus in understanding the long history of post-traumatic stress disorder. Segment 2: "MIAs in Vietnam: The Lingering Dead and the Wounded Veteran."
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Time: 18:55.Part 3 of a four-part series on the Vietnam War. Fred Nielsen interviews Michael J. Allen of Northwestern University about the M.I.A. movement of the 1970's-1990's. They discuss the cultural, political, and diplomatic impact of the movement.
Feb.
6, 2003Segment 1: "WASPS: Women Pilots of World War II."
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Time: 19:20.Produced by Joe Richman of Radio Diaries. "In the early 1940s, the US Airforce faced a dilemma. Thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to military bases nationwide, yet most of America's pilots were overseas fighting the war. To solve the problem, the government launched an experimental program to train women pilots. They were known as the WASPs, the Women Airforce Service Pilots." Segment 2: "Growing Up in Small Town America: Life on the Great Plains."
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Time: 17:36.Jim Madison interviews Dorothy Hubbard Schwieder, Professor Emeritus at Iowa State University and author of Growing Up With the Town: Family & Community on the Great Plains (U. of Iowa Press, 2002). Schwieder describes what it was like to grow up in a small Great Plains town--Presho, South Dakota--from the time of her family's settlement there in 1905 to the mid 1950s.
January 30, 2003
Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story
Program III: Mountains and Desert
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Time:
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The third and final program in David K. Dunaway's series, Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story, Mountains and Desert, continues the westward journey along Route 66 all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Further information is available at www.unm.edu/~rt66.
January 23, 2003
Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story
Program II: Prairies and Plains
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MP3. Time: 29:14.
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Time:
28:56.
Program Two, The Prairies and the Plains, of David Dunaway's three-part radio documentary, Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story, continues the audio journey across the United State on the legendary highway, Route 66. Further information is available at www.unm.edu/~rt66.
January 16, 2003
Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story
Program I: Route 66 Forever
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Time:
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This is the first of a three-part radio documentary produced by prize-winning producer David Dunaway who also is on the faculty at the University of New Mexico. Filled with songs and stories, this program chronicles some of the lesser, and better, known history found along the legendary Route 66. Here, in Program 1: Route 66 Forever, we hear how the railroads provided the roots for Route 66. Further information is available at www.unm.edu/~rt66.
Jan.
9, 2003Segment 1: "Vietnam: Lesson Learned - The Military."
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Time: 20:05.This is the first of a four-part series that explores different perspectives on the Vietnam War 30 years after Richard Nixon "formally" ended that war in January, 1973. From the Organization of American Historians, Fred Nielsen talks with Mark Clodfelter, author of The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam about the ways in which the Vietnam War influenced developments in American military strategy and operational doctrines in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in terms of the use of air power. Segment 2: "Vietnam-Part 2: Lesson Learned: Politics and the Media."
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Time: 19:20.In Part 2 of the four-part series on the legacy of the War in Vietnam William Hammond, identifies some of the myths that have come to exist about how the Vietnam War was covered by the media. Hammond, author of U.S Army in Vietnam: Public Affairs: The Military and Media, 1962-68, will examine how these myths have subsequently influenced military policies toward the media in later wars.
Jan.
2, 2003Segment 1: "Hooray for Hollywood."
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Time: 27:39Dialogue's George Liston Seay and former Hollywood journalist Joe Laitin (who also served as Pres. Johnson's Deputy Press Secretary) discuss the golden age of Hollywood. Laitin interviewed many of Hollywood's actors, including Yul Brynner, Jimmy Stewart, Pat O'Brien and Ethel Merman; their voices are woven into the interview.
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2: "A History of Las Vegas."
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Time: 18:10.
Talking History's Eileen Dugan interviews Sally Denton, co-author of a new history of Las Vegas, titled, The Money and The Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America (Knopf, 2001).
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