Unsung History

In 1971, a group of performers calling themselves the Free Theatre Associates (FTA), including Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, began putting on popular antiwar shows for audiences of active-duty GIs. Over 10 months they performed near military bases all over the United States and in the Pacific Rim. The Pacific Rim tour led to a documentary, which was released briefly in July 1972 and then quickly yanked from theaters. To help us learn about the FTA, I’m joined by theater historian Dr. Lindsay Goss, Assistant Professor in the School Of Theater, Film And Media Arts at Temple University and author of F*ck the Army!: How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,” composed by Al Piantadosi with lyrics by Alfred Bryan; the performance by the Peerless Quartet in New York City on January 6, 1915, is in the public domain and is available via the LIbrary of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Jane Fonda and Michael Alaimo in the FTA Show 1971;” the image is available via CC BY-SA 3.0 and can be found on Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “The Vietnam War: Reasons for US involvement in Vietnam,” BBC.“U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: the Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.“Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“Vietnam: An unpopular war, but an important legacy,” by Kenneth Dodd, Kessler Air Force Base, January 27, 2016.“The Vietnam War,” Iowa PBS.“GI Movement Special Section“ coordinated by Jessie Kindig, Antiwar and Radical History Project, University of Washington.“How Coffeehouses Fueled the Vietnam Peace Movement,” by David L. Parsons, The New York Times, January 9, 2018.“FTA! Behind the Scenes on the Anti-war Show Tour in Asia,” by Elaine Elinson, Vietnam Veterans Against the War.“FTA [video],” directed by Francine Parker, 1972. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1912, a group of wealthy and influential German Jews in uptown New York funded an effort to root out organized crime on the lower East Side, then the most densely populated neighborhood on Earth, home to half a million people, many of them recent Jewish Russian immigrants. As a result, a Jewish investigator and a Jewish lawyer joined the NYPD and pulled together a group of cops who refused to be paid off. The Incorruptibles, as the vice squad came to be known, quickly quashed the criminal element, but as war loomed in Europe, the attention and funds of the uptowners shifted abroad, and the Incorruptibles folded. Crime, of course, remained, and Jewish organized crime in New York only grew as the Prohibition Era dawned. Joining me in this episode is writer Dan Slater, author of The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Havdole gut Schabes,” performed by Lizzie Einhorn Abramson in 1910; audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photo of Arnold Rothstein, taken on November 1, 1919, which appeared in several newspaper stories about the Black Sox scandal; it’s in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898 to 1906,” Library of Congress.“The Lower East Side,” Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History, Library of Congress.“Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” by David von Drehle, Smithsonian Magazine, August 2006.“‘Ten Thousand Bigamists In New York’: The Criminalization Of Jewish Immigrants Using White Slavery Panics,” by Mia Brett, The Gotham Center for New York City History, October 27, 2020.“SAY SLAYERS DIDN'T RESEMBLE GUNMEN; Defense Rests After Calling Some of Those Who Saw the Murder of Rosenthal,” The New York Times, November 16, 1912.“Abraham Shoenfeld Papers,”American Jewish Historical Society.“An Assassin’s Bullet Took Three Years to Kill NYC Mayor William Jay Gaynor,” by Rose Eveleth, Smithsonian Magazine, September 11, 2013.“How Arnold ‘the Brain’ Rothstein Modernized the Mob,” by Angela M.H. Schuster, Avenue Magazine, May 22, 2020.“Ninety Years Later, Arnold Rothstein Murder Still a Mystery,” by Christian Cipollini, The Mob Museum, November 6, 2018. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1974, Republican governor Ronald Reagan appointed educator Dr. Claudia Hampton, a Democrat active in her local NAACP, as the first Black woman trustee to the board of California State University. For the next twenty years Hampton would be known as the affirmative action trustee as she advocated for policies and budgets that would help support and diversify the CSU faculty, staff, and students. To discuss Dr. Hampton’s legacy, and the history of affirmative action in California, I’m joined in this episode by Dr. Donna J. Nicol, the Associate Dean of Personnel and Curriculum and professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University Long Beach and author of Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is "Blue Feather," by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com); Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. The episode image is a photograph of Dr. Claudia Hampton at an unidentified graduation ceremony, used on the CSU website. Additional Sources: “Claudia H. Hampton; First Woman to Head CSU Trustees,” by Myrna Oliver, Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1994.“Trustee Emerita Claudia H. Hampton,” California State University.“Honoring the Voices of Our Ancestors,” California State University.“Watts Rebellion,” History.com, Originally posted on September 28, 2017, and Updated on June 24, 2020.“25 Years After the Watts Riots : McCone Commission’s Recommendations Have Gone Unheeded,” by Darrell Dawsey, Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1990.“Higher Education Guidelines for Executive Order 11246,” Office for Civil Rights (DHEW), October 1972.“Affirmative Action Reversal: Understanding the History and Implications,” by Jennifer Pierce, University of Minnesota, June 30, 2023.“Here's what happened when affirmative action ended at California public colleges,” by Emma Bowman, NPR, June 30, 2023. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Josephine McCarty, née Fagan, aka Mrs. Virginia S. Seymour, dba Emma Burleigh. M.D., was many things: mother, teacher, saleswoman, spy, lobbyist, and abortionist. And in 1872 she was also an accused murderer, after eyewitnesses saw her fire a pistol on a public streetcar in Utica, New York, killing one man and wounding another. Historian R.E. Fulton, author of The Abortionist of Howard Street: Medicine and Crime in Nineteenth-Century New York, joins the podcast this week to discuss how Josephine was both extraordinary and completely ordinary and what her life can tell us about the changing arena of medicine and law and the role of women in both in the late 19th Century United States. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Sad Violin,” by Oleggio Kyrylkoww from Pixabay and is available for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is "Walking dress ; Fichu for afternoon ; Bonnet," 1872; via the New York Public Library Digital Collections; laid on top of a "Lithograph of Albany, New York in 1879," in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: THE UTICA CAR MURDER.; Coroner's Inquest on the Body of Henry R. Hall--Circumstances of the KillingMrs. Dr. Emma Burleigh :the mysterious death of Margaret Campbell critically examined, with a review of the testimony, verdict of the jury, comments of the press, etc.Medical Education in the 19th CenturyThe Entry of Women into Medivine in America: Education and Obstacles 1847-1910Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil WarAbortion, Race, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century AmericaAbortion was once common practice in America. A small group of doctors changed that Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1817, the second state prison in New York opened in Auburn, situated on a fast-flowing river so waterpower could be used to run machinery in the factories that would be housed in the prison. In a new practice of incarceration that would come to be known as the Auburn System, the prisoners labored in silence during the day for the profit of the prison, stayed in solitary confinement every night, and lived under the constant threat of brutal violence from the guards. One prisoner, a man named William Freeman, who was locked up for a crime he swore he didn’t commit, demanded that he be compensated for his labor when he was released, and when no one would listen, he sought payback instead, committing a horrific crime. Joining me in this episode is historian Dr. Robin Bernstein, the Dillon Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University and author of Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Bleeding hearted blues,” song and lyrics by Lovie Austin, with vocals by Bessie Smith and piano by Fletcher Henderson, recorded in New York City on June 14, 1923; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is an illustration of prisoners at Auburn wearing striped outfits and moving in lockstep from Historical Collections of the State of New York: Containing a General, by John Warner Barber, Henry Howe, published in 1845 and available via Google Books. Additional Sources: Geology of the Finger Lakes | Journeys Through the Finger Lakes [video]The Deserted VillageBoth Sides of the Wall: Auburn and Its Prison19th Century Prison Reform CollectionPeople v. William Freeman, 1846People v. William Freeman (1847)The trial of William Freeman for the murder of John G. Van NestNY's New License Plates Will Still Be Made By Prisoners Earning 65 Cents An Hour Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

As part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), so-called “unskilled” women were put to work in over 10,000 sewing rooms across the country, producing both garments and home goods for people in need. Those home goods included quilts, sometimes quickly-made utilitarian bedcoverings, but also artistic quilts worthy of exhibition. Quilts were featured in other New Deal Projects, too, like the WPA Handicraft Projects, part of the Women’s and Professional Projects Division. Throughout the Great Depression, the programs of the New Deal created a supportive and innovative environment for the art of quiltmaking. Joining me in this episode is historian, writer, and podcaster Dr. Janneken Smucker, Professor of History at West Chester University and author of A New Deal for Quilts. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “A Mazurka played on harmonica,” performed by Aaron Morgan and recorded as part of a WPA project by Sidney Robertson Cowell on July 17, 1939, in Northern California; the recording is available via the Library of Congress.The episode image is “Grandmother from Oklahoma and her pieced quilt. California, Kern County,” take by Dorothea Lange in February 1936 through the U.S. Farm Security Administration; the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Additional Sources: “The Works Progress Administration,” PBS American Experience.“Works Progress Administration (WPA),” History.com, Originally posted July 13, 2017, and updated September 21, 2022.“Question 22: 1940 Census Provides a Glimpse of the Demographics of the New Deal,” by Ashley Mattingly, Prologue Magazine, National Archives, Summer 2012, Vol. 44, No. 2.“Women and the New Deal,” Living New Deal.“Women’s Work Relief in the Great Depression,” by Martha H. Swain, History Now, February 2004“WPA sewing project kept Hoosier women working through the Great Depression,” by Dawn Mitchell, Indy Star, January 19, 2018.“‘We Patch Anything’: WPA Sewing Rooms in Fort Worth, Texas,” Living New Deal, May 27, 2013.“Frugal and Fashionable: Quiltmaking During the Great Depression,” The Quilt Index.“WPA Milwaukee Handicraft Project,” Milwaukee Public Museum. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Between 1935 and 1939, the Federal Theatre Project, part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), employed over 12,000 actors and put on over 1200 productions in 29 states. Led by Hallie Flanagan, the FTP, using only a small fraction of the total WPA budget, employed theater professionals; entertained audiences, some two-third of whom had never attended theater before the FTP; and helped launch the careers of people like director Orson Welles and playwright Arthur Miller. However, despite its success and small budget, the Federal Theater Project, was controversial, both for its supposed communist affiliations and because of the perception that theater wasn’t worthy of receiving federal tax dollars. After four years, Congress axed the project, immediately putting out of work 8,000 people across the country. Joining me in this episode to tell us more about the Federal Theatre Project is Dr. Paul Gagliardi, Teaching Associate Professor at Marquette University and author of All Play and No Work: American Work Ideals and the Comic Plays of the Federal Theatre Project. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The Broadway blues,” composed by Carey Morgan, with lyrics by Arthur Swanstrom; this performance was recorded by vocalist Aileen Stanley and conductor Rosario Bourdon on August 10, 1920, in Camden, New Jersey; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph from A Sailor's Ballad, performed at St. James Theatre in the 1930s as part of the Federal Theatre Project; the image is available in the Library of Congress, Music Division, Federal Theatre Project Collection. Additional Sources: “Hallie Flanagan Davis,” Vassar Encyclopedia.“The WPA Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939,” Library of Congress.“The Works Progress Administration,” PBS American Experience.“The Federal Theatre: Revisiting the Dream [video],” The Living New Deal, October 17, 2022."Voodoo Macbeth - Trailer and Interview - Orson Welles - 1936 [video],” Shakespeare Network, posted on YouTube on May 2, 2021.“The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith; originally published in the January-February 1996 issue of Civilization magazine and reposted on the Library of Congress website.“Federal Theatre Project,” by Paula Becker, HistoryLink, October 30, 2002.“The theater project that sparked a congressional probe — and culture war,” by James Shapiro, The Washington Post, May 26, 2024.“F.D.R.'S WPA FTP; At Moderate Box Office Prices the TheatreGoing Public Is Inexhaustible,” by Brooks Atkinson, The New York TImes, May 28, 1939. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1919, racial tensions in the US, exacerbated by changes brought about by the first wave of the Great Migration and by the return of Black soldiers who demanded equal citizenship from the country they’d fought for, boiled over into a summer of violence. In Washington, DC, 39 people died after days of fighting between white mobs and Black citizens who stood their ground and fought back. The events of the Red Summer are just one example of the ways that Black Americans have resisted white supremacy. Our guest this episode, Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, the Michael and Denise ‘68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Chair of the Africana Studies Department at Wellesley College and author of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, discusses five remedies by which Black people have responded and continue to respond to white supremacy. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “My way's cloudy,” a traditional negro spiritual, arranged by H.T. Burleigh, and performed by Contralto Marian Anderson and a backing orchestra conducted by Rosario Bourdon, in Camden, New Jersey, on December 10, 1923; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “National Guard during the 1919 Chicago Race Riots,” photograph by Jun Fujita; the photograph has no known copyright and is available via the Chicago History Museum, ICHi-065477. Additional Sources: “Close Ranks (1918),” W.E.B. Du Bois, Editorial from The Crisis, Reprinted on BlackPast.“Returning Soldiers (1919),” W.E.B. Du Bois, Editorial from The Crisis, Reprinted in American Yawp.“African-American Troops Fought to Fight in World War I,” by Richard Goldenberg, U.S. Department of Defense, February 1, 2018.“An American and Nothing Else: The Great War and the Battle for National Belonging,” Yale University Library Online Exhibitions.“Racial Violence and the Red Summer,” National Archives.“Red Summer of 1919: How Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs,” by Abigail Higgins, History.com, July 26, 2019.“The Red Summer of 1919, Explained,” by Ursula Wolfe-Rocco, Teen Vogue, May 31, 2020.“Hundreds of black deaths during 1919’s Red Summer are being remembered,” PBS NewsHour, July 23, 2019.“The Red Summer of 1919,” by Julius L Jones, Chicago History Museum, July 26, 2019.“Red Summer: The Race Riots of 1919,” National WWI Museum and Memorial.“The deadly race riot ‘aided and abetted’ by The Washington Post a century ago,” by Gillian Brockell, The Washington Post, July 15, 2019.“One Hundred Years Ago, a Four-Day Race Riot Engulfed Washington, D.C.,”by Patrick Sauer, Smithsonian Magazine, July 17, 2019.“How a Brutal Race Riot Shaped Modern Chicago,” by Adam Green, The New York Times, August 3, 2019.“Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle: The Life of Harry Haywood,” by Harry Haywood, Edited by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, University of Minnesota Press, May 8, 2012.“Our History,” NAACP. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

As the Civil War was drawing to a close, President Lincoln was preparing for what came after, with plans for reunification of the country, and he began to advocate for limited suffrage for Black Americans. John Wilkes Booth’s bullet cut short those plans, and Southerner Andrew Johnson, who was much more sympathetic to the former Confederacy, succeeded Lincoln. It wasn’t until Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, over Johnson’s veto, that federal troops enforced a true remaking of the former Confederate states, and for a brief period Black men voted and ran for office in the South in large numbers. In 1877, however, the federal troops withdrew, formally ending the Reconstruction era and leaving Black Americans alone to face a terror campaign of white supremacist violence. Joining me in this episode is historian Dr. Manisha Sinha, the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut and author of The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Brethren Rise!” performed by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in New York City on February 3, 1916; the song is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Black Legislators Elected During Reconstruction,” an 1872 lithograph by Currier and Ives; image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “Lincoln's Evolving Thoughts On Slavery, And Freedom,” Fresh Air NPR, October 11, 2010.“Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation,” Library of Congress.“Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865),” UVA Miller Center.“Lincoln’s Successor Problem,” by Julie Witcover, Politico Magazine,” April 13, 2015.“How did Lincoln end up with a Democrat for a vice president?” by Roger Schlueter, Belleville News Democrat, April 6, 2017.“Andrew Johnson's Inauguration,” United States Senate.“A Call for Reconciliation: Lincoln’s Final Speech,” by Nathan Cooper, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, July 29, 2020.“The President's Last Public Address: April 11, 1865,” The American Presidency Project.“Andrew Johnson,” The White House.“​​Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction,” National Park Service.“Reconstruction,” History.com, Originally posted October 29, 2009, and updated January 24, 2024.“14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868),” National Archives.“A Short Overview of the Reconstruction Era and Ulysses S. Grant's Presidency,” National Park Service.“The Legacy of the Reconstruction Era’s Black Political Leaders,” by Olivia Waxman, Time Magazine, February 7, 2022.“Disputed Election of 1876: The death knell of the Republican dream,” by Sheila Blackford, UVA Miller Center.“Reconstruction Didn’t Fail. It Was Overthrown,” by Allen C. Guelzo, Time Magazine, April 30, 2018. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Fictional depictions of Southern plantations often present romanticized visions of genteel country life, but for the people enslaved on plantations the reality was that of a forced labor camp. At the same time the plantation was also their home. And although they had no choice in where or how they lived, enslaved people did work to make their residences home, for instance by sweeping their yards, keeping items like books and ceramics, and even hiding personal objects in the walls or under the floor where they couldn’t be found by enslavers. Joining me in this episode to help us understand the importance of homemaking by enslaved plantation workers is historian Dr. Whitney Nell Stewart, assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at Dallas, and author of This Is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Welcome, Honey, to Your Old Plantation Home,” composed by Albert Gumble with lyrics by Jack Yellen, and performed by the Peerless Quartet in New York on June 19, 1916; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox Project. The episode image is “Picking cotton on a Georgia plantation, 1858;” the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. Additional sources: “‘Gone With the Wind’ is also a Confederate monument, but on film instead of stone,” by Nina Silber, The Washington Post, June 12, 2020.“How Gone With the Wind Took the Nation by Storm By Catering to its Southern Sensibilities,” by Carrie Hagen, Smithsonian Magazine, December 15, 2014.“Why Confederate Lies Live On,” by Clint Smith, The Atlantic, May 10, 2021.“The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” Jefferson Davis, D. Appleton and Company. 1880.“The Plantation System,” National Geographic Education.“Slavery, the Plantation Myth, and Alternative Facts,” by Tyler Parry, Black Perspectives, December 6, 2017.“The Myth of the Peaceful Plantation,” by Wayne Curtis, The Daily Beast, Originally published on August 4, 2020, and updated on November 30, 2021.“Plantations could be used to teach about US slavery if stories are told truthfully,” by Amy Potter and Derek H. Alderman, The Conversation, March 15, 2022.“Inside America’s Auschwitz,” by Jared Keller, Smithsonian Magazine, April 4, 2016. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Shortly after New Orleans became a US city (via the Louisiana Purchase), the municipal council established one of the country’s first professional salaried police forces and began operation of Police Jail, both efforts aimed at the capture and control of enslaved people who had run away from or otherwise disobeyed their enslavers. The history of New Orleans and Louisiana is an intertwined history of slavery and incarceration, the effects of which can still be felt today. Joining me in this episode is Dr. John Bardes, Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University and author of The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The Best Jazz Club In New Orleans,” by PaoloArgento, available for use via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Slave prison (Calabozo), New Orleans,” by photographer A. Genthe, taken between 1920 and 1926; the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. Additional sources: “Timeline: New Orleans,” PBS American Experience.“Third Treaty of San Ildefonso,” by Elizabeth Clark Neidenbach, 64 Parishes.“Louisiana Purchase, 1803,” United States Department of State Office of the Historian.“‘Confined in the Dungeons’: Orleans Parish Prison and Self-Emancipated People,” Lauren Smith, Kathryn O’Dwyer, Editor, and with initial research contributions by Brett Todd, New Orleans Historical, accessed May 12, 2024. “Before the Civil War, New Orleans Was the Center of the U.S. Slave Trade,” by Joshua D. Rothman, Smithsonian Magazine, April 19, 2021.“Lincoln’s 'laboratory': How emancipation spread across South Louisiana during Civil War,” by Andrew Capps, Lafayette Daily Advertiser, June 18, 2021.“Why slavery as a punishment for crime was just on the ballot in some states,” PBS News Hour, November 18, 2022.“‘You’re a slave’: Inside Louisiana’s forced prison labor and a failed overhaul attempt,” by Cara McGoogan, Washington Post, Published January 1, 2023, and updated January 3, 2023.“Louisiana's over-incarceration is part of a deeply rooted pattern,” by Hassan Kanu, Reuters, February 1, 2023. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie came of age in a deeply segregated country, battling racism to become celebrated musicians, composers, and band leaders whose music lives on. Joining me this week to discuss the lives and careers of these three musical geniuses is writer and journalist Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Riverside Blues,” performed by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in 1923; the song is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode images are: “Count Basie,” taken by James J. Kriegsmann in 1955, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; “Louis Armonstrong,” Herbert Behrens / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; and “Duke Ellington,’’ Associated Booking (management), 1964, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “MLK Jr. on Jazz, The Soundtrack of Civil Rights,” by Mark Taylor, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, January 14, 2022.“Duke Ellington, a Master of Music, Dies at 75,” by John S. Wilson, The New York Times, May 25, 1974.“Seven facts to learn about Duke Ellington,” by Cristiana Lombardo, PBS American Masters, July 18, 2022.“Duke Ellington,” Songwriters Hall of Fame.“Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies,” by Albin Krebs, The New York Times, July 7, 1971.“Louis Armstrong Biography,” Louis Armstrong House Museum.“9 Things You May Not Know About Louis Armstrong,” by Evan Andrews, History.com, Originally published August 4, 2016 and updated June 1, 2023.“Count Basie, 79, Band Leader and Master of Swing, Dead,” by John S. Wilson, The New York TImes, April 27, 1984.“Count Basie Biography,” Rutgers University.“William ‘Count’ Basie,” National Endowment for the Arts. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In its earliest years, the National League was not segregated, and a few teams included Black ballplayers, but in 1887 major and minor league owners adopted a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” that no new contracts would be given to Black players. In 1920, pitcher and manager Rube Foster founded the first of the Negro Leagues, the Negro National League, to organize professional Black baseball, which was played at a very high level. Other professional Negro leagues followed, and for decades the stars of the game played in the Negro Leagues, until the National League and American League began to slowly accept Black players, starting with Jackie Robinson in 1947. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Leslie Heaphy, Associate Professor of History at Kent State University at Stark, Vice President of the Society for American Baseball Research, founding editor of Black Ball, and author of The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Boogaboo (Fox Trot),” composed by Jelly Roll Morton and performed by Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers Camden, New Jersey, on June 11, 1928; the music is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.The episode image is from the fourth Negro League East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago on August 23, 1936; the photograph is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: The History Of Baseball And Civil Rights In AmericaBud Fowler’s Life Blazed A Trail From Cooperstown6 Decades Before Jackie Robinson, This Man Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier: Moses Fleetwood Walker played for a Major League Baseball team in the 1880sThe Great Migration (1910-1970)The League [video]A 20th Century Baseball InstitutionThe Negro League revolutionized baseball – MLB's new rules are part of its legacyThe Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1977, a California state senator named John Briggs took to the steps of City Hall in San Francisco to announce a ballot initiative that would empower school boards to fire gay teachers based only on their sexual orientation. In response, gay activists around California mobilized, including gay Republicans, who formed among the first gay Republican organizations. In 1990, several of those California groups, together with groups across the country, combined into the Log Cabin Federation, which by 1992 had grown to 6000 members across 26 chapters. Joining me in this episode to discuss this story and the longer history of Gay Republicans is historian, writer, and podcaster Dr. Neil J. Young, author of Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Funky_30sec” by Grand_Project from Pixabay; the music is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Arguments at the United States Supreme Court for Same-Sex Marriage on April 28, 2015,” taken by Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED. Additional Sources: “How 1970s Christian crusader Anita Bryant helped spawn Florida's LGBTQ culture war,” by Jillian Eugenios, NBC News, April 13, 2022.“Column: How 2.8 million California voters nearly banned gay teachers from public schools,” By Nicholas Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2021.“How Log Cabin Republicans Keep Out Of The Closet,” by NPR Weekend Edition Saturday, April 20, 2011.“Kevin McCarthy should meet the Ronald Reagan of 1978,” by John Kenneth White, The Hill, June 3, 2021.“Our History,” Log Cabin Republicans.“The bizarre history of Log Cabin’s presidential endorsements,” by Chris Johnson, The Washington Blade, August 21, 2019.“Melania Trump is set to make a return to her husband's campaign with a rare political appearance,” by Stephany Matat, The Washington Post, April 20, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

For several decades in the 20th Century, American universities, including elite institutions, took nude photos of their students, sometimes as often as twice a year, in order to evaluate their posture. In some cases students had to achieve a minimum posture grade in order to graduate. How did that practice develop, and how did it end? This week we’re discussing Americans’ obsession with posture with Dr. Beth Linker, the Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Debutante Intermezzo,” composed and performed by Howard Kopp in 1916; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from “The posture of school children, with its home hygiene and new efficiency methods for school training,” from 1913, by Jessie H. Bancroft; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional sources: Correct Posture League.; Will Educate Children and Adults to Stand Up StraightCollege Slouch" Proved By Orthopedic TestsThe Rise and Fall of American PostureThe Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo ScandalIt’s Not Too Late to Fix Your PostureSix ways to improve your postureRebecca NewmanLearn how to correct your posture in only 60 secondsRon KaspriskeHow to promote good posture and avoid becoming hunched over Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the fall of 1983, the LAPD, under Chief of Police Darryl Gates and in collaboration with the LA Unified School District, launched Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), sending 10 police officers into 50 elementary schools to teach kids how to say no to drugs. By the time DARE celebrated its 10-year anniversary, there were DARE officers in all 50 states, teaching 4.5 million students. The program was praised by presidents and supported by major corporate sponsors, but in the 1990s social scientists started to question its effectiveness, eventually leading to a precipitous decline in the numbers of school districts participating in the program. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Max Felker-Kantor, Associate Professor of History at Ball State University and author of Dare to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Back to the 80s” by Roman Oriekhov from Pixabay; it is available via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Children from Sterling Heights Elementary school recite the pledge of allegiance at the Drugs Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) graduation on Kadena Air Base (AB), Okinawa, Japan,” taken on February 28, 2003; the image is released to the public and is available via the National Archives (NAID: 6642856). Additional Sources: “D.A.R.E.’s Story as a Leader in Drug Prevention Education,” D.A.R.E. America.“DARE Marks a Decade of Growth and Controversy : Youth: Despite critics, anti-drug program expands nationally. But some see declining support in LAPD,” by Jim Newton, Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1993.“How effective is drug abuse resistance education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations,” by ST Ennett, NS Tobler, CL Ringwalt, and RL Flewelling, American Journal of Public Health 1994;84(9):1394-1401. “Just Say No to D.A.R.E.,” by Dennis P. Rosenbaum, Criminology and Public Policy, 6(4), 815-824.“DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked,” by Rosie Cima, Priceonomics.“Just Say No?” by Scott Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz, Scientific American Mind, 15552284, Jan/Feb2014, Vol. 25, Issue 1.“A brief history of DARE, the anti-drug program Jeff Sessions wants to revive,” by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, July 12, 2017.“Proclamation 5854 -- National D.A.R.E. Day, 1988,” by Ronald Reagan, September 8, 1988, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.“Proclamation 8648—National D.A.R.E. Day, 2011,” by Barack Obama, April 11, 2011, The American Presidency Project. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, his eldest child, 17-year-old Alice, rose quickly to celebrity status. The public loved hearing about the exploits of the poker-playing, gum-chewing “Princess Alice,” who kept a small green snake in her purse. By the time she died at age 96, Alice, whose Dupont Circle home included an embroidered pillow with the phrase “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me,” was such an institution in DC politics that she was known as The Other Washington Monument. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane, Professor of U.S. History and the Lowman Walton Chair of Theodore Roosevelt Studies at Dickinson State University in North Dakota, author of several books on Theodore Roosevelt, and host of the The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Alice Blue Gown,” from the musical comedy “Irene,” composed by Harry Tierney with lyrics by Joseph McCarthy; the soloist is Edith Day, and the recording from February 2, 1920, is in the public domain and available via the LIbrary of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photograph of Alice Roosevelt with a family parrot, taken around 1904; the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. Additional Sources: Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, by Stacy A. Cordery, Penguin Books, 2008.“'Princess' Alice Roosevelt Longworth,” by Myra MacPherson, The Washington Post, February 21, 1980.“From a White House Wedding to a Pet Snake, Alice Roosevelt’s Escapades Captivated America,” by Francine Uenuma, Smithsonian Magazine, November 18, 2022.“Alice Roosevelt Longworth at 90,” by Sally Quinn, The Washington Post, February 12, 1974.“Alice Roosevelt Longworth: Presidential Daughter and American Celebrity,” by Lina Mann, The White House Historical Association, October 10, 2017.“A Presidential Daughter You Could Pick On: Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the sassiest offspring ever to occupy the White House,” by Carol Felsenthal, Politico, December 3, 2014.“The Last Time America Turned Away From the World,” by By John Milton Cooper, The New York Times, November 21, 2019.“The ‘First Daughter’ in Asia: Alice Roosevelt’s 1905 Trip,” The Association for Asian Studies. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In August 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt set off in secrecy from San Francisco on a military transport plane, flying across the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t until she showed up in New Zealand 10 days later that the public learned about her trip, a mission to the frontlines of the Pacific Theater in World War II to serve as "the President's eyes, ears and legs." Eleanor returned to New York five weeks and nearly 26,000 miles later, having seen an estimated 400,000 troops on her trip and producing a detailed report on American Red Cross activities in the Southwest Pacific for Norman Davis, Chairman of the American Red Cross. Joining me in this episode is journalist Shannon McKenna Schmidt, author of The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is from the December 7, 1941, episode of Over Our Coffee Cups, a weekly 15-minute radio show hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt on the NBC Blue network; in 1942, these recordings were donated to the Library of Congress as a gift from the sponsor, the Pan-American Coffee Bureau; the audio clip can be accessed on the C-SPAN website. The episode image is “Eleanor Roosevelt, General Harmon, and Admiral Halsey in New Caledonia,” taken on September 16, 1943; the image is in the public domain and is available via the National Archives, NAID: 195974. Additional Sources: “This Is What Eleanor Roosevelt Said to America’s Women on the Day of Pearl Harbor,” by Lily Rothman, Time Magazine, Originally published December 7, 2016, and updated on December 6, 2018.“ER and the Office of Civilian Defense,” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project.“In the South Pacific War Zone (1943),” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project.“Eleanor Roosevelt: American Ambassador to the South Pacific,” by Glenn Barnett, Warfare History Network, July 2006.“A First Lady on the Front Lines,” by Paul M Sparrow, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, August 26, 2016.“Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II,” National Park Service.“Eleanor Roosevelt: South Pacific Visit [video],” clip from The Roosevelts by Ken Burns, September 13, 2014. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Journalist Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore traveled the world in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, writing books and hundreds of articles about such places as Alaska, Japan, China, India, and helping shape the journal of the National Geographic Society into the photograph-heavy magazine it is today. Scidmore is perhaps best known today for her long-running and eventually successful campaign to bring Japanese cherry trees to Potomac Park in Washington, DC. Joining me in this episode is writer Diana Parsell, author of Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington's Cherry Trees. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “My Cherry Blossom,” written by Ted Snyder and performed by Lanin’s Orchestra on May 12, 1921, in New York City; audio is in the public domain and is available via the Discography of American Historical Recordings. The episode image is "Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore [signature]," The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1895 - 1910. Additional Sources: “Cherry blossoms’ champion, Eliza Scidmore, led a life of adventure,” by Michael E. Ruane, The Washington Post, March 13, 2012.“Eliza Scidmore,” National Park Service.“Beyond the Cherry Trees: The Life and Times of Eliza Scidmore,” by Jennifer Pocock, National Geographic,March 27, 2012.“The Surprisingly Calamitous History of DC’s Cherry Blossoms,” by Hayley Garrison Phillips, Washingtonian, March 18, 2018.“Cherry Blossoms, Travel Logs, and Colonial Connections: Eliza Scidmore’s Contributions to the Smithsonian,” by Kasey Sease, Smithsonian Institution Archives, August 18, 2020.“Celebrating Eliza Scidmore: Nat Geo’s First Female Photographer,” by Kern Carter, Writers are Superstars, May 14, 2023.“The American Woman Who Reported On Japan’s Entry Into World War I,”“The woman who shaped National Geographic,” National Geographic, February 22, 2017.“Photo lot 139, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore photographs relating to Japan and China,” National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1812, when the United States was still a young nation and its State Department was tiny, American citizens began heading around the world as Christian missionaries. Early in the 19th Century, the US government often saw missionaries as experts on the politics, culture, and language of regions like China and the Sandwich Islands, but as the State Department expanded its own global footprint, it became increasingly concerned about missionary troubles. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz, Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Jesus, Love of My Soul,” written by Charles Wesley and performed by Simeon Butler March and Henry Burr on February 25, 1916; the audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from the Jubilee Story of the China Inland Mission, Marshall Broomhall, Morgan & Scott, London, 1915; it is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Were Christian missionaries ‘foundational’ to the United States?” by Emily Conroy-Krutz, The Washington Post, October 18, 2018.“Into All the World: the Story of Haystack [video,]” Chaplain Rick Spalding, Williams College, September 25, 2013.“American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions historical documents,” Global Ministries.“The life and letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D., missionary, diplomatist, Sinologue,” by Frederick Wells Williams, 1889.“Missionary Movement - Timeline Movement,” The Association of Religion Data Archives.“The Foreign Missionary Movement in the 19th and early 20th Centuries,” by Daniel H. Bays, National Humanities center.“A History of the United States Department of State, 1789-1996,” Released by the Office of the Historian, July 1996.“About,” United States Department of State.“In 200-year tradition, most Christian missionaries are American,” by Daniel Lovering, Reuters, February 20, 2012. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands