February 11, 2010
Segment 1 and 3: "Backstory: Love Me Did ~ A History of Courtship in America." (2010).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:36.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:54.
The American History Guys (Backstory) are back with an examination of the history of courtship in America: "Considering the stereotypes about Puritan New England, you might be surprised to learn that young lovers in the 18th century were not only allowed to sleep together before marriage – they were encouraged to! As long, that is, as they did it within the confines of the parents’ home. It was known as 'bundling,' and although sex was theoretically not involved, the practice coincided with a huge increase in premarital pregnancy. By the end of the century, one-third of all brides were pregnant by the time they reached the altar. In this special Valentine’s Day edition of BackStory, the History Guys will trace the history of courtship conventions from the colonial era to the present. Along the way, they will explore the social, economic, and technological forces that shape courtship, and examine the changing relationship between courtship and marriage. Did economic considerations used to play a greater role in coupling? How has popular culture structured the way lovers spend time together? Has the idea of 'romance' itself morphed over time?" Participating in this edition of Backstory are historian Beth Bailey (author of From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in 20th Century America), who discusses the origins of American “dating” and how it has evolved, and historian and blogger Pam Epstein (http://advertisingforlove.com) who discussed 19th century personal ads. For more information about Backstory and the American History Guys, visit their Web site at: http://www.backstoryradio.org/.

Segment 2: "The Passionate Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:32.
Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84-ca. 54 BC) was a Roman poet known for his intense and highly erotic poems, many related to his love affair with "Lesbia," reputed to be -- in real life -- one Clodia, an aristocratic member of the Claudian family (married to Metellus Celer). Catullus' poems reflect a range of emotions about Clodia -- reflecting the evolution of their relationship. Perhaps one of the most famous of the 116 poems he left behind for posterity, is this one -- Carmen #5:

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Here we present three LibriVox readings of this poem, one in Italian and two in English. A latin reading of his poem is available here -- along with links to readings of many of Catullus' other poems: http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/l5.htm. Here is a direct link to the MP3 recording of the latin reading of VIVAMUS MEA LESBIA . . .. For short biographies of Catullus, see: http://www.dl.ket.org/latinlit/carmina/catullus/people/catullus.htm and http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/LatinAuthors/Catullus.html. For more versions/readings of this poem, go to LibRiVox at: http://librivox.org/to-lesbia-by-caius-valerius-catullus/.

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Feb 4, 2010
Segment 1 and 3: "C. L. R. James' Life and Thought: (2010)"
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:00.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:52.
From Against the Grain, we bring you this conversation with David Austin, author of You Don't Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of CLR James (AK Press, 2009): "The great Trinidadian intellectual CLR James was an anti-colonial fighter, radical historian, cricket expert, Marxist theoretician, Melville scholar, playwright, and novelist. David Austin talks about James's life, ideas, and wide-ranging influence, from Caribbean and African anti-colonial and post-independence struggles to the Caribbean diasporic New Left in Canada."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "An Interview with Che Guevara (1964)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:42
On December 16, 1964, while visiting the United State to address the U.N., Cuban finance minister Che Guevara met with a group of journalists at the Cuban Mission headquarters on East 67th Steet in New York City. Among those present was Pacifica Radio reporter Chric Couch who recorded the interview. An edited and narrated version (also produced by Couch) was later broadcast on Pacifica radio stations. We present it here, in its entirety, with our thanks to Pacifica Radio Archivies. Those interested in Guevara's UN speech can go to the following site for a transcript: http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1964/12/11.htm. The well-annotated Wikipedia entry on Guevara is also a good place to start for an overview of his life and career and contains many excellent links and a bibliography for further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara.

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Jan. 28, 2010
Segment 1 and 3: "A Small Southern Town: The Nation's Capital in Slave Times ~ Escape to the Pearl (1999)"
PART 1: Real Media. [MP3 unavailable] Time: 31:28.
PART 2: Real Media. [MP3 unavailable] Time: 21:02.
"A Small Southern Town: The Nation's Capital in Slave Times ~ Escape to the Pearl," combines dramatic readings of personal accounts and contemporary commentary to tell the story of the "largest mass escape of slaves in American history." Produced by Richard Paul and WAMU (American University), this program explores one family's response (to slavery in Washington D.C. and their participation in a flight from bondage. Paul is joined by freelance writer Mary Kay Ricks as the documentary weaves its way through dramatic readings and reconstructions based on 19th century sources and contemporary commentary. In part II of the production, Paul is joined by James Horton, Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University. Horton is the co-author of In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Protest, and Community Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700 1860. For more information about the events explored in this production, see: William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months A Prisoner (For Chairty's Sake) In Washington Jail including A Narrative Of the Voyage and Capture Of The Schooner Pearl (Negro Universities Press, 1855); John Paynter, Fugitives of the Pearl (Associated Publishers, Inc., Washington, DC, 1930); Josiah Henson, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formally a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, (1849).

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Gov. Orval Faubus and Desegregation (1957)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:21
Here is a short edited selection from a Mike Wallace interview with Orval Faubus (conducted on Sept. 15, 1957). Faubus, governor of Arkansas, spoke to Wallace in Little Rock in the midst of his standoff with Eisenhower over the integration of Little Rock Central High School. For the full interview, go to the Harry Ransom Center's on-line collection of Mike Wallace interviews. Here is a direct link to the Faubus interview: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/faubus_orval_t.html.

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Jan. 21, 2010
Segment 1 and 3: "The Story of the Haitian Revolution. (2010)"
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:56.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:42.
From Pacifica Radio's Against the Grain series, we bring you this discussion of the Haitian Revolution of 1791 -- a conversation with Historian Laurent Dubois: "It was a cataclysmic event, the first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas. In 1791 brutally exploited slaves on a small Caribbean island rose up and eventually won emancipation. Their story, a legacy that has inspired and instructed people and nations for centuries, is told in Laurent Dubois's Avengers of the New World."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt ~ Roosevelt at NYS Governor."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:52
With all of the turmoil in New York State today between the Governor and the legislature, we thought we would look back to another period of turmoil in New York State government. Here is a LibriVox (www.librivox.org) reading of a portion of Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography, in which Roosevelt recalls some of his trials and tribulations as Governor of New York from 1899 to 1900.

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Jan. 14, 2010
Segment 1 and 3: "Project 62: Martin Luther King Jr. Documentary (1962)"
PART 1: Real Media. [MP3 unavailable by request of the producer]. Time: 31:07.
PART 2: Real Media. [MP3 unavailable by request of the producer]. Time: 22:36.
Here is a 1962 documentary on the life and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and originally aired on the CBC Radio program “Project ’62.” It was recently re-broadcast on CBC's radio series "Rewind." We present it here in its entirely.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Sweatt v. Painter."(1950).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:52
Here is a LibriVox (www.librivox.org) reading of a portion of the unanimous 1950 Supreme Court decision that helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. It concerns a challenge to segregated higher education policies of the University of Texas and specifically to its Law School. The challenge was initiated, with NAACP support, by Herman Marion Sweatt, an African American who was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas and who then sued the School's president, Theophilus Painter, for admission. At the time, integrated schools were prohibited by Texas' constitution. Here is a brief summary of the case: "The Texas trial court, instead of granting the plaintiff a writ of mandamus, continued the case for six months. This allowed the state time to create a law school only for blacks, which it established in Houston, Texas, rather than in Austin. The 'separate' law school and the college became today's Texas Southern University; the law school is known as the Thurgood Marshall School of Law. The trial court decision was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court denied writ of error on further appeal. Sweatt and the NAACP appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. W.J. Durham and Thurgood Marshall presented Sweatt's case. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to qualify, both because of quantitative differences in facilities and intangible factors, such as its isolation from most of the future lawyers with whom its graduates would interact. The court held that, when considering graduate education, intangibles must be considered as part of 'substantive equality.' The documentation of the court's decision includes the following differences identified between white and black facilities: the University of Texas Law School had 16 full-time and 3 part-time professors, while the black law school had 5 full-time professors; the University of Texas Law School had 850 students and a law library of 65,000 volumes, while the black law school had 23 students and a library of 16,500 volumes; the University of Texas Law School had moot court facilities, an Order of the Coif affiliation, and numerous graduates involved in public and private law practice, while the black law school had only one practice court facility and only one graduate admitted to the Texas Bar." [Wikipedia / "Sweatt v. Painter"]

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Jan. 7, 2010
Segment 1: "Divorced Kid. (2009)"
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:25.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:26.
"Award-winning former American RadioWorks’ producer Sasha Aslanian explores the "divorce revolution" of the 1970s through the perspective of kids--like herself--who lived through it, and experts who have had three decades to make sense of it. This program debuted on Minnesota Public Radio. . . . Using a lively blend of first-person storytelling, (surprising scenes like playing the reel-to-reel audio of her own parents' wedding vows back to them), interviews with Avery Corman, the author of Kramer vs. Kramer, and revisiting the now-grown kids who wrote "The Kids Book of Divorce" in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1979, the first half of the documentary reports on the lessons learned from the 1970s. The second half of the program examines how the experience of divorce has changed for kids since the 70s." For more information, see: http://www.americanpublicmedia.org/divorcedkid.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Dustin Hoffman on Kent State and the Weather Underground."(1970).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:15
This is a selection from a 1970 Pacifica Radio interview with the actor Dustin Hoffman: "Most people have a sense of who Dustin Hoffman is both on film and as an advocate for the acting profession. In 1970, when this conversation was recorded, He was receiving accolades for his work, including his 1967 breakthrough performance in Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, John and Mary with Mia Farrow (1969), and his iconic role as “Ratso Rizzo” in Midnight Cowboy. His film Little Big Man was in theaters and he had already signed on to be the lead in Sam Peckinpah’s current project Straw Dogs. What we love about this recording is its informality. It isn’t about selling a film… it’s not part of a film press junket… but simple conversation about the craft and experience of acting. In addition to talking about the cinematic art form, being a Pacifica station, the conversation always includes the politics of times… which in 1970 included the Vietnam War, the Kent State killings, the youth movement in general and the role of social/political movements such as the Young Lords and The Black Panthers. Hoffman also comments on the Black Panther Party and Young Lords, who designed breakfast programs and education and health centers to help their community. Dustin Hoffman and his wife survived living next door to a Weather Underground stronghold in Greenwich Village. On March 6, 1970, just before this interview, The Weather Underground members were assembling bombs when they accidentally set them off killing 4 and completely destroying the townhouse." This is a short selection from that interview.

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December 31, 2004
[Last week and this week, Talking History was on vacation. We offer you a selection from our past broadcasts here, a 2004 program]
Segment 1: "White Boy: A Conversation with Historian Mark Naison (part 2 of 2)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 32:15.
This is part 2 of an interview of historian Mark Naison conducted by Talking History's Gerald Zahavi The interviews reviews his life and career as a specialist in African American history -- and his participation in some of the most significant social and political movements in recent American history: the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, SDS, and the Weathermen. See last week's entry for more details. This interview was originally conducted for the Journal for MultiMedia History and will appear in the next issue of that on-line journal.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "David Ben Gurion on the Jews and Palestine" (1947).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 6:17
London Speech by David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), probably delivered before the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and used on the jointy produced ABC/Town Hall New York radio forum titled "America's Town Meeting of the Air" (it migrated to television in 1948). This address was broadcast on June 12, 1947, as part of series of broadcasts on the "Palestine problem." In his address, Ben Gurion argues the case for a Jewish homeland. The following year, the state of Israel was established. At the time he delivered this address, Ben Gurion was the Chairman of the Exectuive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, an organization founded in 1929 and devoted to promoting and protecting the rights of the Jewish community in British-occupied Palestine. When Israel became a nation in 1948, many of the leaders of the Jewish Agency became overnight leaders of the new state. For a short biography of Ben Gurion, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion. 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.

Segment 3: "Federalism and the Founding Fathers."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 16:32
Talking History/OAH Bryan Le Beau begins a four-week series on "The Founders and the Constitution," with an interview with David Marion on the early history of U.S. federalism. "The Founders and the Constitution" series is a collaborative effort with the Bill of Rights Institute. Produced: September, 2004.

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December 24, 2009
[This week and last week, Talking History was on vacation. We offer you a selection from our past broadcasts here, a 2004 program]
Segment 1: "White Boy: A Conversation with Historian Mark Naison (part 1 of 2)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 30:17.
Mark Naison is Professor of African and African-American Studies and Director of the Urban Studies Program at Fordham University. He is the author of White Boy: A Memoir (Temple University Press, 2002), Communists in Harlem During the Depression (University of Illinois Press, 1983), co-author of The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1940-1984 (Rutgers University Press, 1986), and the author of several articles on African-American culture and contemporary urban issues, including "Outlaw Culture in Black Culture" (Reconstruction, Fall 1994). Naison's study of Buffalo's African-American community appeared in the Urban League's anthology, African-Americans and the Rise of Buffalo's Post-Industrial City (1990) and he was one of the historians asked to contribute his story to Historians and Race: Autobiography and the Writing of History (1996). He is now working on a major study of the history of African-Americans in the Bronx, in collaboration with the Bronx Historical Society. For much of his life, race has been a major concern for Naison both academically and personally. In this interview, conducted by Talking History's Gerald Zahavi, Naison reviews his life and career as a specialist in African American history -- and his participation in some of the most significant social and political movements in recent American history: the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, SDS, and the Weathermen. This is part 1 of a 2-part interview. We will air part 2 next week. This interview was originally conducted for the Journal for MultiMedia History and will appear in the next issue of that on-line journal.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "William Faulkner's Noble Prize Acceptance Speech (12-10-1950)." (1955)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:56
William Cuthbert Faulkner, the winner of the 1949 Noble Prize in Literature, was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels firmly rooted in Southern region and culture, many set in a fictional place he named Yoknapatawpha County. aulkner's works include Sartoris (1929), The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom Absalom (1936), The Hamlet (1940) and Intruder in the Dust (1948). William Faulkner died on July 6, 1962. This recording of Faulkner's Noble Prize acceptance speech was made on December 10, 1950, when he was awarded the 1949 Noble Prize in Literature (Bertrand Russell was awarded the Noble Prize in Literature for 1950 at the same time). 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.

Segment 3: "Bleeding Kansas."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:26
Talking History/OAH Jim Madison discusses the ideological origins of the Civil War in the Kansas Territory with historian Nicole Etcheson of the Department of History, University of Texas at El Paso. Etcheson is the author of Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War (University Press of Kansas, 2004). Produced: September, 2004.

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December 17, 2009
Segment 1 and 3: "Backstory: Naughty & Nice ~ a History of the Holiday Season." (2009).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 32:23.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 17:37.
The American History Guys (Backstory) take a close look at how the celebration of Christmas (as well as Hanukkah) have changed over the years: "Christmas may be the big kahuna of American holy days, but it wasn’t always so. It used to be a time of drunken rowdiness, when the poor would demand food and money from the rich. The Puritans banned Christmas altogether. It wasn’t until the 1820s that the holiday was re-invented as the peaceful, family-oriented, and consumeristic ritual we celebrate today. In this episode, the History Guys examine the history of the 'holiday season' in America. Has Christmas grown more or less religious? How has the holiday evolved and changed here? To what extent was Hanukkah a reaction to Christmas, and how have American Jews shaped and reshaped their own wintertime rituals?" For more information about Backstory and the American History Guys, visit their Web site at: http://www.backstoryradio.org/.

Segment 2: "Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801." (A LibriVox reading).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 12:01.
After a very contentious national presidential election in which Thomas Jefferson tied Aaron Burr in electoral votes, the House of Representatives, after thirty-six ballots, finally declared Jefferson President and Burr Vice President. Jefferson came into office on March 4th, 1801. In his inaugural address (and here we offer a recording of M. L. Cohen reciting it for LibriVox (http://librivox.org), he offered a summary of his political vision for the nation. For more details on the context, and the full text, of Jefferson's address, see: http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/inednote.html.

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December 10, 2009
Segment 1 and 3: "Against the Grain: John Maynard Keynes ~ A Primer." (2009).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:41.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 21:15.
Here's another in-depth and sophisticated discussion from Against the Grain: a look back at the life and legacy of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes, as the producers of Against the Grain note, "died in 1946, but Keynesianism, in one form or another, is alive and well: the British economist's name has been invoked repeatedly since the global economic meltdown began in 2008. But how much do we really know about Keynes, and what did he really say and write? Peter Clarke has written a new book about Keynes's life and ideas." The discussion we present here revolves around Clarke's new book: Keynes: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the 20th Century's Most Influential Economist (Bloomsbury, 2009). For a brief biography of Keynes (with lots of links to many other on-line sources), see: http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//profiles/keynes.htm. .

Segment 2: "Walter Reuther on Profit Sharing and the Post-War American Auto Industry (1-25-1958)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 5:30.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Walter Reuther (and former head of the CIO), spoke to Mike Wallace in January of 1958 about his economic views and vision for reform in labor wage contracts. Reuther argued for a revision of the remuneration policies of modern corporations, particularly auto manufacturing firms, through a system of profit sharing that would reward workers for the increasing productivity and profitability of U.S. corporations. Here were present a short edited segment from Wallace and Reuther's discussion. For the full interview, see the following link to the Harry Ransom Center (where all of "The Mike Wallace Interview" collection is available): http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/reuther_walter.html. For a short biography of Reuther, see the AFL-CIO site: http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/reuther.cfm.

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December 3, 2009
Segment 1 and 3: "Against the Grain: Frida Kahlo." (2009).
PART 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 33:07.
PART 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 15:12.
From Against the Grain we bring you a discussion of the life and work of Frida Kahlo -- one that focuses on "what has become of the Mexican artist's radical politics? Art historian Margaret A. Lindauer argues that Kahlo's artistic legacy has been done a disservice by those who would read the painter's works off her personal life, instead of looking at the complex intellectual and political processes that created them." Margaret A. Lindauer is the author of Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo (Wesleyan U. Press, 1999). For more information on Kahlo (and links to other sites as well) see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo.

Segment 2: "Nixon and Rockefeller on Attica (September 14, 1971)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:56.
President Richard Nixon began secretly taping conversations and telephone calls in February of 1971 and continued to do so well into 1973. Among the 2,371 hours of tapes that were collected through July 1973 is this one, a phone call between Nixon and New York State Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller focusing on the September 1971 Attica prison uprising. This recording is not among those presently available on line at the Nixon Library Web site (http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/index.php. It was contributed to Talking History by Theresa Catherine Lynch, who obtained it from the National Archives in the course of her dissertation research. She completed her dissertation in 2007. See "Attica: A 'Monstrous Credibility Gap'" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Hampshire, 2007).

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November 26, 2009
Thanksgiving 2009 ~ No Show.
We took the day off. If you're interested in listening to a program about the historical roots of our contemporary Thanksgiving celebrations, check out the Backstory ~ American History Guys' Web site at: http://www.backstoryradio.org/.

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