October 13, 2005
Segment 1: "Sharra Vostral on Julia Dent Grant and the Moveable Homefront."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:35.
Live interview. Talking History's Gerald Zahavi once again interviews Prof. Sharra L. Vostral (see October 2004 for an earlier interview with Vostral) -- this time about the multiple, complex, and important roles that Julia Dent Grant played before and during the Civil War. Julia Grant was the wife of Ulysses S. Grant and a member of a wealthy Missouri slave-holding family, yet she became the wife of one of the most aggressive fighters against the slave South. Vostral is a member of the faculty of the Science and Technology Studies Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a specialist in gender history, medical history, and the history of sexuality. She is the author of "Julia Dent Grant and the Moveable Homefront: Maintenance of a General's Family," published in Gateway Heritage (the magazine of the Missouri Historical Society) in 2003. She is currently completing a technological and social history of menstrual hygiene products in the United States and the relationship of their development to struggles for women's rights (that was the subject of our last interview with her).

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Songs of the Women's Christian Temperance Union."
Social and political activism in the United States has often been accompanied by song. The Civil Rights movement of the 20th century was by no means the only "singing movement" in our history. Today we examine the songs of another movement -- one that had its roots in the early 19th century but developed powerful organizational form in the latter decades of that century, the temperance movement. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, established in 1874, was one of the most aggressive and influential forces behind temperance struggles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It later went on to champion many other causes -- such as workplace protection, child welfare, voting rights for women, educational reform, the 8-hour day, pure food and drug legislation, and liberal divorce laws (just to name a few). Our focus in this segment is on the early cultural history of the organization and on the many songs it generated. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, we cannot archive the music we played on our Web site. However, there are some excellent Web sites that DO present the text and performances of some of the songs we showcased on our show -- as well as some additional background information on the WCTU. Here are some useful links. (1) For a sampling of WCTU songs published by Anna A. Gordon in 1892, titled White Ribbon Hymnal, or, Echoes of the Crusade Compiled for the National and World's Woman's Christian Temperance Unions, go to: http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/songs/whiteribbon.html. This site, part of Northern Illinois University Libraries' digitization projects, is probably one of the best sites for those who want to actually hear WCTU songs; it includes modern performances of late 19th century songs, and permits teachers to download the audio files for use in class.
(2) For a short profile of one WCTU song writer and composer, Flora Hamilton Cassel (1852-1911), see http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/c/a/cassel_fh.htm. Cassel's WCTU song book, White Ribbon Vibrations, was published in 1890 and was quite popular in the 1890s.
(3) For a history of the WCTU, go to the organization's Web site at: http://www.wctu.org.

Segment 3: "David Reynolds on John Brown."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 14:50.
Talking History's Bryan Le Beau interviews David Reynolds about the life and legacy of John Brown. Reynolds is Professor of English and American Studies at the City University of New York, the author of Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), and more recently, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Produced: October, 2005).

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October 6, 2005
Segment 1: "Richard Wightman Fox on Jesus in America."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 19:02.
Talking History/OAH's Fred Nielsen discusses America's "national obsession" with Jesus with historian Richard Wightman Fox, author of Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession (HarperCollins Publishers, 2004). Fox is a member of the Department of History at the University of Southern California. Produced September, 2005.

Segment 2: "Susan Jacoby on Secularism in America."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:08.
Talking History/OAH�s Fred Nielsen discusses the history of secularism in America with Journalist and Pulitzer Prize�finalist Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (Metropolitan Books, 2004; Owl Press, 2005). Jacoby is the director of the Center for Inquiry Metro New York. Produced September, 2005.

Segment 3: "From the Archives: Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Docket Number: 119." (Oral arguments: excerpt).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 8:47.
On June 17,1963, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that organized Bible reading and prayer recitation in public schools was a violation of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The decision was based on two suits that had worked themselves up to the nation's highest court, one from Baltimore, Maryland (Murray v. Curlett), and the second from Abington, Pennsylvania (Abington v. Schempp). The audio we present here comes from the first of these two cases as presented to the Court. In late 1959, William J. Murray III, the son of atheist Madalyn Murray (O'Hair), enrolled her son in the Baltimore Public School system, where a policy initiated by the Board of Education mandated participation in reverential Bible reading and unison prayers. Though the Board modified its policies, allowing children who objected (or whose parents objected) to their participation to leave the classroom and wait in the hallway until the completion of the recitiations and prayers, the modified policy was unacceptable to Madalyn Murray. She brought suit on behalf of her son against the Board of School Commissioners and its President, John N. Curlett, for violations of the First and 14th Amendments. Their petition to the Court claimed that Board's rule threatened "religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority; it pronounces belief in God as the source of all moral and spiritual values, equating these values with religious values, and thereby renders sinister, alien and suspect the beliefs and ideals of your Petitioners, promoting doubt and question of their morality, good citizenship and good faith." This recording comes from Record Group 267: Records of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1772 - 1990, available at the National Archives' Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Records LICON, Special Media Archives Services Division, College Park, MD. Digital recordings of this and many other Supreme Court cases can be accessed through the The Oyez Project at www.oyez.org. For more information about Murray v. Curlett, see: http://www.atheists.org/courthouse/prayer.html. For background on Madalyn Murray O'Hair, see: http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_ohairmm.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O'Hair. Keep in mind that though there are hundreds of Internet sources on Madalyn Murray O'Hair or the Murray v. Curlett case, most are far more concerned with scoring ideological points -- for or against school prayers, atheism, religious fundamentalism -- than in enlightening readers.

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September 29, 2005
Due to the severe winds which brought down WRPI-FM's transmitter, we were unable to transmit Talking History this week. Tune in next week -- over the air or on the WWW. While you're here, you might want to survey our archived shows; you may find something you haven't heard yet!

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September 22, 2005
Segment 1: "Nancy Greenspan on the Life and Career of Max Born."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:16.
From Dialogue:: "Max Born began life in a 19th century Germany that was a comfortable and affluent setting for the development of his exceptional scientific aptitude. By the time of his death, this Nobel-prize winning physicist had seen his country become a killing ground for his German � Jewish community. Through it all, Born maintained a staunch humanitarian commitment that matched his scientific brilliance. Nancy Greenspan explains the details of his life." Greenspan is the author of The End of the Certain World.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: from the Smithsonian's The World is Yours Series ~ 'Men Against Germs / Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek' (1937)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:53.
This documentary drama segment, a profile of the "father of Bacteriology" and pioneer microscopist Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, was produced for Smithsonian's The World is Yours radio series. It aired on March 3, 1937, part of a half-hour program titled "Men Against Germs." The World is Yours series aired on the NBC Blue Network. For more information about this 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. For a short biography of Van Leeuwenhoek, see: http://www.euronet.nl/users/warnar/leeuwenhoek.html.

Segment 3: "Jacqueline Hall on the Teaching of American History."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:36.
Jacquelyn Hall, Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and past president of The Organization of American Historians, discusses the teaching of American history in U.S. schools.

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September 15, 2005
Segment 1 & 2: "Howell Harris, Chad Pearson, and Gerald Zahavi Discuss Business Ideology and Labor-Capital Relations in American History."
Part 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:26.
Part 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:56.
Historian Howell Harris from Durham University (England), Chad Pearson, a doctoral student at the University at Albany, SUNY and Talking History's Gerald Zahavi discuss the evolution of business ideology and labor-management relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Harris is the author of The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies of American Business in the 1940s (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), Bloodless Victories: the Rise and Fall of the Open Shop in the Philadelphia Metal Trades, 1890-1940 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), and co-editor (with Nelson Lichtenstein) of Industrial Democracy: The Ambiguous Promise (Cambridge U.P., 1993). Chad Pearson is the author of "Making the "City of Prosperity": Engineers, Open-Shoppers, Americanizers, and Propagandists in Wrocester, Massachusetts, 1900-1925," Labor History [Great Britain] 45(1)(2004), and is currently working on a dissertation examining the anti-labor union activism of employers and the associations they headed in three US cities: Worcester, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; and Cleveland, Ohio.

Segment 3: "From the Archives: Reginald Jones Discusses Selecting Jack Welch as the New CEO of GE." (Recorded June 12, 2000)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 10:06.
Reginald Jones died on December 30, 2003 in Greenwich, Ct. He began his career at General Electric in the 1930s, and worked his way up the corporate ladder until, in 1972, he was selected as President and CEO. He headed the firm from 1972 through 1981, implementing various innovative strategic planning initiatives, and driving the corporation further into a global marketplace. Under his watch, the company's sales more than doubled; its profits did even better. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several business publications acknowledged him to have been one of the most influential business leaders in America. In fact, in 1981, the year of his retirement, U.S. News & World Report ranked him as the most influential man in business. Not surprisingly, three presidents had relied on his counsel. In this short selection from a day-long interview conducted by Gerald Zahavi on June 12, 2000, Jones speaks about how he went about selecting his successor, Jack Welch. For a short biography of Jones, see the GE site: http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/at_a_glance/bio_jones.htm.

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September 8, 2005
Segment 1: "From the Archives: Testimony of Attica Inmate Robert Matthews to the McKay Commission, 4-12-1972 (selection)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 34:18.
On Monday morning, September 13, 1971, an uprising by prison inmates of the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison located in western New York, ended in the bloodiest prison confrontation in American history. Five days earlier, thirteen hundred prisoners had rebelled, taken over the prison, and held forty guards hostage. Issuing a list of demands�including calls for improvements in living conditions as well as educational and training opportunities�they entered into negotiations with state officials. The negotiations failed and state police and national guard troops seized the prison; in the course of taking it over they killed forty-three individuals, including ten hostages. The events of September precipitated a review of the events of early September, and led to the creation of a citizens' blue-ribbon commission that investigated the prison uprising. The commission met in Rochester and New York City. This audio selection comes from the testimony of Robert Matthews, delivered at the Rochester hearings. Matthews was a Muslim and in this excerpt the committee explores his involvement in the Muslim faith and the difficulties he experienced trying to observe Muslim dietary laws. For more testimony, see our full on-line media archive on Attica: www.talkinghistory.org/attica.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Tom Wicker on Attica and Prison Reform (4-9-1972)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 49:10.
Thomas Grey Wicker was born and brought up in North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina and graduated with a degree in journalism in 1948. Following his graduation, he worked on several Southern papers until hired by the New York Times as a staff writer. He served as chief of the Washington bureau of the Times in the mid-1960s, and then moved into the post of Associate Editor in 1968, a position he held until his retirment in late 1991. In 1971, Wicker was asked to act as an observer by rebelling Attica inmates during their standoff with New York State prison officials. He abandoned his role as reporter for the duration of the uprising but in the months and years afterwards, he often spoke about the state of American prisons and the need for prison reform. Four years after the uprising, Wicker published his account of the events as he witnessed them in his A Time to Die (1975). In this 1972 speech, delivered at Harvard, Wicker offers his views on the meaning og Attica.

Segment 3: "New York State Trooper Harry Buyce on the Attica Uprising (6-18-1998)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 8:16.
This edited interview with New York State Trooper Harry Buyce, conducted by Joanne Van Patten on June 18, 1998, offers yet another perspective on the Attica prison uprising. The interview was conducted as a final project for a course on oral history at the State University of New York at Albany. The original recording is held by the Oral History Program, Department of History, State University of New York.

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September 1, 2005
Segment 1: "Gerald Horne on Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 23:45.
From Building Bridges: "During the heyday of the U.S. & international labor movements in the 1930s & 1940s. Ferdinand Smith, the Jamaican-born co-founder and second-in-command of the National Maritime Union, stands out as one of the most 'if not the most' powerful black labor leaders in the United States. Smith's active membership in the Communist Party, however, coupled with his bold labor radicalism & shaky immigration status, brought him under continual surveillance by U.S. authorities, especially during the red Scare in the '50s. Smith was eventually deported to his homeland of Jamaica, where he continued his radical labor & political organizing until his death in 1961. Horne draws on Smith's life to make insightful connections between labor radicalism & the Civil Rights Movement 'demonstrating that the gains of the latter were propelled by the former & undermined by anticommunism.' Moreover, Red Seas uncovers the little-known experiences of black sailors & the contribution to the struggle for labor and civil rights, the history of the Communist Party & its black members, & the significant dimension of Jamaican labor & political radicalism.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Walter Reuther at the May 9, 1968 UAW Convention."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:30.
In this selection from a speech delivered at the United Auto Workers' convention in May of 1968 just prior to that union's split with the AFL-CIO, Walter Reuther, head of the UAW, explained his union's dissatisfaction with AFL-CIO president George Meany's conservate leadership and with the general lack of organizational energy demonstrated by the AFL-CIO. Reuther, soon after the split, joined with the Teamsters to establish a competitive federation named the Alliance for Labor Action. The Alliance lasted only a few years -- till 1972, and failed to energize the U.S. labor movement. Walter Reuther, by the way, died along with his wife in a tragic plane crash in 1970. The UAW rejoined the AFL-CIO in 1981. For more information about this speech -- and other Walter Reuther speeches -- see the Walter P. Reuther Collection at the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

Segment 3: "David Montgomery on the American Labor Movement."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:22.
From Building Bridges: Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg interview labor historian David Montgomery about the current state of the American labor movement and the significance of the recent Coalition to Win challenge to the AFL-CIO.

Segment 4: "Matthew Dennis on Labor Day."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 14:34.
Matthew Dennis and Talking History's Bryan Le Beau discuss the origins and history of Labor Day. Dennis is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Produced: September 2005.

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August 25, 2005
Segment 1: "Lucy Hurston on Zora Neale Hurston."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:30.
This segment comes to us from WINGS and Melinda Tuhus: "Lucy Hurston is a niece of renowned African American folklorist and novelist Zora Neal Hurston. At age 9, Lucy read Zora's books and papers in her parents' attic; as an adult, she published Speak So You Can Speak Again (Doubleday, 2004), a study of Zora Neal Hurston in her family and community context, accompanied by audio from old radio interviews and music discs. Producer Melinda Tuhus includes both women's voices in this program." For more information about the life and career of Zora Neale Hurston, see: http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/hurs-zorx.htm. For information about Hurston's anthropological work, and her field trips while employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s, see Stetson Kennedy's account of the WPA Florida fieldwork at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/ffpres01.html. A recording and transcription of one of Hurston's 1935 field interviews (conducted in collaboration with fellow field workers Mary Elizabeth Barnicle and Alan Lomax) with former Georgia slave Wallace Quarterman, is available at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and on line at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/title.html.

Segment 2: "The Singing Zora Neale Hurston" (1939).
"Georgia Skin": Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:02.
"Shove It Over": Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:47.
In the 1920s and 1930s, as a working anthropologist and folklore specialist, Zora Neale Hurston traveled extensively through Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Jamaica, and Haiti, collecting folk tales and folk songs. Here are two of the songs she collected, recorded in 1939 and now preserved at the American Folklife Center, The Library of Congress.

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August 18, 2005
Segment 1: "From the Archives: John H. Johnson on Marketing, Advertising, and Race."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:21.
John Harold Johnson died on August 8th, 2005, at the age of 87. He was the founder, publisher, and Chairman of the Board of the Johnson Publishing Company of Chicago, Illinois. Born in poverty in rural Arkansas, he and his family migrated to Chicago in 1933. There, he began an almost classic Horatio Alger trek to fame and fortune -- through hard work,persistence, and education. In Chicago Johnson attended DuSable High School, and later the University of Chicago and Northwestern. During World War II, in 1942, he began a magazine modeled after the Reader's Digest, but aimed at a black audience: The Negro Digest. Johnson bcame a pioneer in racial niche-marketing, and in the development of a black consumer market. In 1945, he launched Ebony, and six years later, yet another black-marketed magazine, Jet. His publishing empire ultimately grew into a $400 million business, and he branched into the marketing of cosmetics as well. His Fashion Fair Cosmetics, again catering mainly to black (female) consumers, was an immensely successful makeup and skin care company. Over the last half of the 20th century, Johnson became a major fighter for black economic rights, fostered the rise of a black middle class, and became of the most respected black buisnessmen of his generation. He was invited to serve on numerous corporate boards in his life, including those of Dial, Zenith, Chrysler, First Commercial Bank, Conrail, Twentieth Century Fox, and Bell & Howell.
In this speech, recorded in Chicago in 1964 at an Advertising Age-sponsored conference, he addressed the question of "How Long Will the Negro Market Last?" Perhaps no man could better address that question than Johnson, who had for so long catered to, and cultivated, that market. The original recording of the speech is now in the Talking History/University at Albany audio archive. For more information on it, contact us. For more information on Johnson, see Ebony's tribute to him: http://www.johnsonpublishing.com/assembled/johnson_special_tribute.html. A simple search on the WWW will uncover dozens of addtional biographical essays and newspaper stories on Johnson and his career.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Smith Bros. Cough Drops and the Rise of Modern Business Trademarks." (circa 1950s).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 14:23.
In the 1950s, the New York State Department of Commerce produced a series of celebratory radio documentary programs focusing on various industries and industrial communities in New York State. One of these programs focused on the early history of Smith Bros. Cough Drops in Poughkeepsie, New York and on the importance of trademarks in the development of industrial America. The recording comes from a 16" transcription record which is now part of the Talking History/University at Albany audio archive.

Segment 3: "Cold War/Cool Medium"
Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:51.
Talking History's Linna Place and guest Thomas Doherty, the author of Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture (Columbia University Press, 2003), examine the complex relationship between anti-communism and American television in the Cold War -- and the surprising and challenging role that television often played during the McCarthy era. Produced: June 2005.

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August 11, 2005
Segment 1: From the Pacifica Radio Archives: Hiroshima Special (2003)"
Part 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:34.
Part 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:24.
We present here, in two parts, Pacifica Radio's Hiroshima special broadcast two years ago and hosted by Mark Torres with commentary by Dr. Michio Kaku. The special included a variety of material from the Pacifica Radio Archives, including: 1) Shigeko Sasamori's 1980 address to Doctors for Social Responsibility (Sasamori, a nurse, was disfigured by the atomic bomb in 1945, and discusses her plight, recounting the initiative of Norman Cousins in bringing her and 25 other young women to the U.S. in 1955 for plastic surgery); 2) "The Atomic Bombers (1962)" in which crew members who participated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki discuss discuss their experiences and the implications of atomic warfare for society; 3) the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a witness to the 1945 atomic blast, talks about what he observed (recorded by Michael Yoshida and Alan Snitow at the Newman Peace Center, Berkeley, CA, 23 Nov. 1982); 4) "A Walking Tour of the Hiroshima Peace Museum, 1981" -- a taped tour, including first-hand accounts of the first atomic bomb drop. Our gratitude to the Pacifica Radio Archives for permission to air and make this program available on our site.

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August 4, 2005
Segment 1: "Douglas Starr on the Medical, Political, and Economic History of Blood."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:33.
Radio Curious's Barry Vogel, a contributing producer to Talking History interviews Douglas Starr about the subject of his book, Blood, an Epic History of Medicine and Commerce and television series. Starr examines the history of blood "in medical, political and economic terms, from the earliest days of bloodletting to the era of AIDS." Originally recorded in September 2002.

Segment 2: "J. Robert Oppenheimer on Atomic Energy." [Off-Site Link]
MP3. Time: 14:23.
After he helped develop America's nuclear bomb, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer became one of its most outspoken critics. In this speech delivered on Nov. 6, 1946 at University of California at Berkeley, he described the threat of atomic energy to an audience that had recently lived through the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The talk was titled "On Atomic Energy, Problems to Civilization," and was the final speech in a series on atomic energy. The entire speech (we only utilized a short excerpt on the air) is available at the "Online Audio and Video Recordings: UC Berkeley Lectures and Events" Web site of Moffitt Library, UC-Berkeley at: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html. Along with it, you will find a lengthy introduction to Oppenheimer as well as a discussion of the ethical issues that were then -- as now -- much under debate on the use and abuse of atomic energy.

Segment 3: "R. Bruce Craig on the Henry Dexter White Spy Case."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:33.
Talking History's Bryan Le Beau and guest R. Bruce Craig explore the Harry Dexter White Spy case. Craig is executive director of the National Coalition of History and the author of Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case (University Press of Kansas, 1994). Produced: June 2005. ~ ~ ~ ~

July 28, 2005
Segment 1: "Radio Curious: Nixon at the Movies"
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:47.
Radio Curious's Barry Vogel interviews Mark Feeney, Boston Globe journalist and author of Nixon at the Movies, A Book About Belief, about "the role movies played in forming Nixon�s character and career, and the role Nixon played in the development of American film." Originally recorded in January 2005.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Our Freedom's Blessings, Program 4 ~ The Little Jars of Canajoharie." (circa 1950s)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 14:23.
In the 1950s, the New York State Department of Commerce produced a series of celebratory radio documentary programs focusing on various industrial communities in New York State. One of these programs focused on Canajoharie, New York and on the early history of Beech Nut, which was one of the nation's first commercial baby food producers. The recording comes from a 16" transcription record which is now part of the Talking History/University at Albany audio archive.

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July 21, 2005
Segment 1: "Grandma Was an Activist: "The militant muse" - Activist Women in the Arts"
Real Media. MP3. Time: 30:27.
This is the sixth episode of a six-part series titled Grandma Was an Activist: A Radio Series on Radical Women in the 1930s, which extensively utilized oral histories from the Oral History of the American Left collection at the Tamiment Library, NYU. It was produced by Charlie Potter and Beth Friend back in 1983 and was first aired on WBAI-FM (NY) in that year. The six half-hour programs included: (1) "The black and the red" - Activists in Harlem early in the Depression; (2) "How do you spell relief?" - The WPA and unemployment; (3) "On the line" - Women in the labor movement; (4) "They shall not pass" - Women of the anti-fascist movement; (5) "Readin' and 'ritin' on the road to power" - Socialist women on campus; and (6) "The militant muse" - Activist women in the arts.

Segment 2: "Amiri Baraka/LeRoy Jones and the Black Arts Movement (BAM)."
Amiri Baraka/LeRoy Jones was a central poet and playwright in the 1960s Black Arts Movement. Born LeRoy Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey, he attended Howard University in Washington, D. C., and in 1954 -- after a short spell in the US Air Force -- entered the bohemian Beat movement in New York�s Greenwich Village. In 1964, one of his plays, Dutchman, catapulted him into prominence as a major African American literary figure. He became a Black Nationalist after the assasination of Malcolm-X, leaving his white wife and taking on a new name, Amiri Baraka, but abandoned Black Nationalist in the 1970s for an internationalist, third-world focused Marxism-Leninism. He obtained a position at SUNY-Stony Brook, where he taught for two decades, retiring in 1999 to Newark, his birthplace. There, he continues to write highly controversial poetry, including one that lost him the position of New Jersey Poet Laureate, "Somebody Blew Up America," his personal response to the 9/11 bombings (the New Jersey legislature eliminated the position). On air, we examined Baraka's controversial career and featured him reading his early Jazz-influenced poems, which, unfortunately, we can't make available here due to copyright restrictions. For information on Baraka's life and career, see: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baraka/baraka.htm and Baraka's own Web site: http://www.amiribaraka.com/.

Segment 3: "Mark Kurlansky on 1968."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:46
Talking History's Byran Le Beau interviews Mark Kurlansky about the subject of Kurlansky's latest book, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. Produced: July, 2005.

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July 14, 2005
Segment 1: "Grandma Was an Activist: Readin' and 'Ritin' on the Road to Power' - Socialist Women on Campus."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 30:27.
This is the fifth episode of a six-part series titled Grandma Was an Activist: A Radio Series on Radical Women in the 1930s, which extensively utilized oral histories from the Oral History of the American Left collection at the Tamiment Library, NYU. It was produced by Charlie Potter and Beth Friend back in 1983 and was first aired on WBAI-FM (NY) in that year. The six half-hour programs included: (1) "The black and the red" - Activists in Harlem early in the Depression; (2) "How do you spell relief?" - The WPA and unemployment; (3) "On the line" - Women in the labor movement; (4) "They shall not pass" - Women of the anti-fascist movement; (5) "Readin' and 'ritin' on the road to power" - Socialist women on campus; and (6) "The militant muse" - Activist women in the arts.

Segment 2: "William Jennings Bryan on Science and Religion."
ON SCIENCE: Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:57
ON IMMORTALITY: Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:09
A number of recordings of William Jennings Bryan's speeches have survived -- most recorded on wax cylinders. Here are two of them, expressing his views on science and religion. Bryan was a dynamic presence in late 19th and early 20th century America, reflecting in his personality the many contradictions of the nation as it underwent a transition from an agrarian to an industrial republic. His political, diplomatic, and legal activities figure prominently in many history books. For a couple of short on-line introductory biographies of the Bryan, see: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbryan.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan. For more in-depth information, see the numerous biographies of Bryan published over the years by W. C. Williams (1936), P. W. Glad (1960), P. E. Coletta (3 vol., 1964�69), L. W. Koenig (1971), and Robert W. Cherney (1994).

Segment 3: "Edward Larson Revisits the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Battle Over the Teaching of Evolution."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:46
Talking History's John Herron discusses the famous 1925 Dayton, Tennessee trial of John Thomas Scopes, better known as the "Scopes Monkey Trial" with Edward Larson. Larson is Professor of History and Law at the University of Georgia, and the author of Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America�s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. This is the second discussion of the Scopes case with Larson; the first was aired back in the summer of 2000. Produced: July, 2005.

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July 7, 2005
Segment 1: "Matthew Dennis on Independence Day."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:38.
Talking History's Bryan Le Beau discusses the origins and history of Independence Day with his guest Matthew Dennis, Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Produced: July, 2005.

Segment 2: "Carol Berkin on Revolutionary Mothers."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 17:13
Talking History's Linna Place and Carol Berkin discuss Berkin's recent book, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence, focusing on some of the lesser known female activists of the revolutionary era. Berkin is Professor of History at Baruch College and the City University of New York. Produced: July, 2005.

Segment 3: "From the Archives: Jackie Robinson on Blacks in Advertising and the Economy." (1964)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 19:49
Jack Roosevelt Robinson (1919-1972), better known as Jackie Robinson, is most closely associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers where, in 1947, with the encouragement and strong support of team manager Branch Rickey, he broke the color line that had blocked access of blacks to major league baseball since the late nineteenth century. But when he left baseball a decade later, Robinson began another important phase of his life, one that spanned participation in the civil rights struggles in the South and abroad, support for African independence movements, politic advisement, and corporate leadership. He endorsed Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign and became a strong supporter of the progressive wing of the Republican party, developing a close relationship with New York governor Nelson A. Rockfeller, for whom he served as special assistant for community affairs. Upon his retirement from baseball, in 1957 (after he rejected being traded to the New York Giants), he was offered and accepted a position as vice president for personnel with Chock Full O'Nuts, a coffee manufacturer and lunch counter chain. For the remaining fifteen years of his life, Robinson became a strong promoter of minority enterprises and helped establish several minority-owned businesses (the Freedom National Bank of New York, the Gibraltar Life Insurance Company, and the Hamilton Life Insurance Company). Here, in a speech delivered in Chicago in 1964 at a conference sponsored by Advertising Age, Robinson's expresses his views on advertising and economic opportunities for blacks. The recording, a reel-to-reel tape, is part of the growing Talking History/University at Albany audio archives.

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