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Aural History Productions
Talking History, based at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is a production, distribution, and instructional center for all forms of "aural" history. Our mission is to provide teachers, students, researchers and the general public with as broad and outstanding a collection of audio documentaries, speeches, debates, oral histories, conference sessions, commentaries, archival audio sources, and other aural history resources as is available anywhere. We hope to expand our understanding of history by exploring the audio dimensions of our past, and we hope to enlarge the tools and venues of historical research and publication by promoting production of radio documentaries and other forms of aural history. In addition to our weekly radio program, we are engaged in numerous educational efforts, from running and sponsoring workshops to offering full-semester courses on radio production and oral history. Some of the most talented radio producers and engineers currently working in public and non-commercial radio now contribute to Talking History—both to our programming and to our educational efforts through production workshops. Here, you'll also find digital archives of their enormously creative and captivating works.
Our weekly broadcast/internet radio program, Talking History, focuses on all aspects of history. Follow the link to the left, "The Radio Show," for more information on the program and to access the live WWW broadcast. Below you will find our latest archived shows; to enjoy more, make use of the pop-down menu to the left; it will give you access to our full radio archive.
May 1, 2008
"Remembering Kent State, 1970." [Re-broadcast]
Part 1: 
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Time: 26:40.
Part 2:
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Time: 29:20
Our host station's [WRPI-FM] transmitter was down this week and so we did not broadcast our planned May Day show. We will broadcast it next week. Those of you who access our programming on line might be interested in a program we broadcast five years ago -- and which was first aired on Kent State University's WKSU-FM on May 5, 2002 -- a documentary on Kent State produced by Mark Urycki. Here is Urycki's summary of his documentary: "When thirteen students were shot by Ohio National Guard Troops during a war demonstration on the Kent State University Campus on the first week of May 1970, four young lives were ended and a nation was stunned. More than 30 years later, the world at war is a different place. However, those thirteen seconds in May, 1970 still remain scorched into an Ohio hillside. Through archival tape and interviews, Remembering Kent State tracks the events that led up to the shootings."
Segment 2: From the Archives: "An Ezra Pound Poetry Recitation, (1939)."
April 24, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "World War II Radio Propaganda: Real and Imaginary"
Segment 1:
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Time: 28:26.
Segment 3:
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Time: 20:48.
In a live Talking History broadcast, historians Ann Pfau and David Hochfelder discuss their recent research into real and imagined World War II propaganda broadcasts from Japan and Germany made by Iva Toguri, William Joyce, Mildred Gillars,and Rita Zucca. Our conversation with them explores such varied topics as wartime rumors, popular legends about World War II radio propaganda, oral history, British and American wartime propaganda monitoring, soldier surveys, and popular histories and Hollywood depictions of Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw, and Axis Sally. Pfau holds a Ph.D. in United States history from Rutgers University and is author of Miss Yourlovin: GIs, Gender, and Domesticity during World War II (forthcoming as an e-book from Columbia University Press in May 2008). She will begin researching a book about World War II radio traitors later this month. David Hochfelder is assistant professor at SUNY at Albany. He is currently finishing a book on the history of the American telegraph industry. His interest in WW2 radio propaganda arose from his work in public history and oral history.
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Time: 7:09.
Ezra Pound, born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885, remains one of the most honored and condemned man of letters of the past century. As a poet who was in the forefront of the modernist movement of the early 20th century -- and as a translater of Japanese, Chinese, and Anglo Saxon poetry -- he stood out among his peers, producing exceptionally sophisticated original work and richly nuanced translations. He was also, unfortunately, elitist, antisemitic, and pro-fascist. In 1924, he moved to Italy and went into voluntary exile. Soon afterward, he embraced Fascist politics and served the regime of Mussolini. Upon his return to the United States in 1945, he was arrested on charges of treason for broadcasting wartime pro-Fascist radio propaganda. Acquited in 1946 because he was ruled mentally ill, he was committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. and spent twelve years there; he was released in 1958, and returned to his beloved Italy, where he died in 1972. Here we offer a 1939 reading of "The Seafarer" by Pound. More readings and recordings of Pound may be found int the following excellent University of Pennsylvania Web site: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Pound.html.
Segment 2: From the Archives: "A 1968 Film Classic: Night of the Living Dead" (edited audio track selection).April 17, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "1968: Voices from 1968."
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Time: 29:37.
Segment 3:
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Time: 22:45.
From Pacifica Radio's From the Vault, we present this compilation of recordings from 1968. The collection includes: "recordings from 1968 include Dr. Benjamin Spock, Ray Bradbury, Allen Ginsberg, Aatuality from inside and outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, H. Rap Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Greek actress and politician Melina Mercouri, Olympian John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, Joan Baez, Seymour Hersh, Pacifica Reporter Dale Minor from Vietnam, James Baldwin and Coretta Scott King, Actuality from the People's March on Washington with Jesse Jackson. Music from 1968 includes Sun Ra, Van Morrison, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Cream, David Bowie, The Band, Aretha Franklin, Ike and Tina Turner, Simon and Garfunkel, The Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, Traffic, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Blood Sweat and Tears, Jethro Tull, The Bee Gees, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Pink Floyd. Jefferson Airplane, Moody Blues, Velvet Underground, The Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone." Many of the voice recordings presented in this broadcast have survived because of the work of Pacifica's Preservation and Access Project. If you want to learn more about this project and how you can help keep these and other recordings alive, go to: http://pacificaradioarchives.org/projects/index.html.
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Time: 6:54.
Few people might associate George A. Romero's "Monster Flick," Night of the Living Dead with 1968, but a closer analysis of the film by film scholars have placed it squarely within the social context of the late 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, and the growing movement culture of the period. How one interprets the film, with its portrayal of the reanimation of the dead as zombies that prey on the living, with its horrific cannibalistic scenes, depends greatly on what one brings to it. Some have seen it as a parable of the Cold War and anti-Soviet, anti-Communist fears -- equating it closely with the horrors of that ultimate Cold War-era struggle, Vietnam. Others see it as a critique of capitalism and mindless consumption. Still others view it as a critique of the period's Civil Rights Movement, pointing out that the actions and ultimate death of one of the film's central characters, an African American named Ben (played by Duane Jones) represented a cynical -- even nihilistic -- late 1960s view of the impotence of Civil Rights movement (remember, this was the era of the rise of the Black Panthers and "Black Power" and the movement of black youth away from Martin Luther King's non-violent philosophy). As Romero admitted: "It was 1968, man. Everybody had a 'message'. The anger and attitude and all that's there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so some of that crept in." For more information on the film, see the well-documented Wikipedia entry on it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead#cite_note-RomeroJones-58. You can find a fine bibliography of published works there as well.
Segment 2: From the Archives: "Daisy Bates on Civil Rights and Little Rock (selection), 1964."April 10, 2008
Segment 1: "Forty Years Since King: Barbara Ransby (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle) on 'Women, The Black Poor and the Diverse Politics of Freedom,' (OAH/LAWCHA Talk, March 29, 2008)."
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Time: 25:30.
On March 29th, 2008, at the Oral History Association Meeting and Conference held in New York City, a rountable session took place commemorating the fourtieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The session, "Forty Years Since King: Struggling to End Racism, Sexism, Poverty, and War" was sponsored by the Labor and Working-Class History Association and featured the following presentations: Clayborne Carson (Stanford University) on "The Social Gospel Radicalism of Martin Luther King, Jr.," Michael Honey (University of Washington) on "King, Black Workers, and the Spirit of Memphis," Barbara Ransby (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle) on "Women, The Black Poor and the Diverse Politics of Freedom," and Manning Marable (Columbia University) on "The King Legacy and Today’s Freedom Struggles." Today we conclude our broadcast of the four presentions. Our thanks to WBAI and Pacifica for making this recording available to us.
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Time: 3:38.
Daisy Bates (Nov. 11, 1914 - Nov. 4, 1999) was a Little Rock, Arkansas publisher and civil rights leader who was a key player in that city's school desegregation struggles of 1957. She and her husband, L. C. Bates, had published the Arkansas State Press since 1941, using it as a vehicle for civil rights advocacy. In the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision, local civil rights activists in Little Rock, including Daisy Bates, organized to challenge the city's segregated school system. Bates became a central adviser and supporter of nine Black high school students who attempted to integrate Little Rock Central High School, a previously all white school. The struggle to desegregate the school became a major battle in the national civil rights movement of the late 1950s and brought about a confrontation between Arkansas intransigent Governor Orval Faubus and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who federalized the State's National Guard and sent in the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Brown decision. For more information about Little Rock and Bates, see Daisy Bates' oral history, available through the Southern Oral History Project and on the WWW at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0009/menu.html.
Segment 3: "Forty Years Since King: Manning Marable (Columbia University) on "The King Legacy and Today’s Freedom Struggles," including questions and concluding remarks (OAH/LAWCHA Talk, March 29, 2008).
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Time: 27:14.
For description, see text under "Segment 1" above.
Segment 2: From the Archives: "Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): A reading of the Supreme Court Majority Opinion (selection)."April 3, 2008
Segment 1: "Forty Years Since King: Clayborne Carson on "The Social Gospel Radicalism of Martin Luther King, Jr." (OAH/LAWCHA Talk, March 29, 2008).
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Time: 17:38.
On March 29th, 2008, at the Oral History Association Meeting and Conference held in New York City, a rountable session took place commemorating the fourtieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The session, "Forty Years Since King: Struggling to End Racism, Sexism, Poverty, and War" was sponsored by the Labor and Working-Class History Association and featured the following presentations: Clayborne Carson (Stanford University) on "The Social Gospel Radicalism of Martin Luther King, Jr.," Michael Honey (University of Washington) on "King, Black Workers, and the Spirit of Memphis," Barbara Ransby (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle) on "Women, The Black Poor and the Diverse Politics of Freedom," and Manning Marable (Columbia University) on "The King Legacy and Today’s Freedom Struggles." Over this week and next, we will be airing all four presenations. Our thanks to WBAI and Pacifica for making this recording available to us.
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Time: 27:36.
From LibriVox [www.librivox.org], here is a partial reading of the majority opinion of the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Plessy v. Ferguson. The Court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute that mandated racially "separate by equal" rairoad accommodations. The decision laid the foundations for the spread of Jim Crow laws throughout the South -- until it was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education. For more information about Plessy v. Ferguson, see: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/plessy.html.
Segment 3: "Forty Years Since King: Michael Honey (University of Washington) on "King, Black Workers, and the Spirit of Memphis," (OAH/LAWCHA Talk, March 29, 2008).
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Time: 33:36.
For description, see text under "Segment 1" above.
Segment 2: From the Archives: "Alice Paul" [OFF SITE LINK]: Alice Paul's Recollections of Struggle (1972-73, Suffragists Oral History Project, UC-Berkeley).
Segment 3: "I Remember When: Life in the Neighborhoods" (1982/3).March 27, 2008
Segment 1: "Out of the Kitchen and Into the Sweatshop." (2007).
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Time: 22:12.
Pacifica Radio Archives' From the Vault recently re-broadcast a selection from Joanna Brouk's documentary Out of the Kitchen and into the Sweatshop: The Story of Working Women in America; we bring it to you in this week's Talking History. The documentary, originally broadcast in March of 1979 on Pacifica Foundation station KPFA, focused on the "lives and works of Emma Goldman, Rose Schneiderman, Mother Jones, Jane Adams, and other women who struggled to alleviate the horrendous conditions of working classes in America." This segment focuses on Mother Jones and Emma Goldman.
Amelia R. Fry interviewed Alice Paul in 1972 and 1973, focusing on Paul's life and activist career, in England and in the United States. Alice Paul was the founder and leader of the National Woman's Party. After being drawn into the English suffragist movement while attending universities in Great Britain, she returned to this country carrying with her the many lessons in militant politics she learned from the English movement. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1912 and immediately threw herself into political activism. She soon became the head of the congressional committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. "Her group soon spun off from the mother organization, rejecting the state-by- state referenda as a method of achieving equal suffrage and evolving into the National Woman's Party, which worked for suffrage by constitutional amendment. The energetic militants soon became known for their central political strategies: make suffrage a mainstream issue through public demonstrations and protests, and increase political clout by holding the party in power responsible in elections in western states where women already had the vote." Paul also became -- for the rest of her life (she died in 1977) -- a strong proponent for the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment. The previous link will take you to several audio selections from Fry's taped interviews. For a full transcription of their conversations, see: Conversations with Alice Paul: Woman Suffrage and the Equal Rights Amendment,
An Interview Conducted by
Amelia R. Fry. For a short biography of Paul, see: http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/paul-ali.htm.
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Time: 36:09.
"I Remember When: Life in the Neighborhoods," is part of Charles Hardy's 1982-83 historical radio documentary series focusing on the social and political history of Philadelphia. In this segment, he explores the social and cultural world of working-class Italian women and families in Southwest Philadelphia. The segment, relying heavily on oral history, was one of three programs surveying the movement of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe to Philadelphia in the decades surrounding the turn of the Twentieth Century. The program was one of a dozen in a series produced by Hardy and titled "I REMEMBER WHEN: TIMES GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN." The series was broadcast in late 1982 and early 1983 on WUHY-FM in Philadelphia. Listen to other segments from this series, broadcast on Talking History in previous years.
Segment 2: From the Archives: "Bernadine Dohrn and the Poetry of the Women of the Weather Underground."March 20, 2008
Segment 1: "Eric Weitz on Weimar Germany." (2007).
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Time: 33:31.
Francesca Rheannon, host and producer of Writer's Voice (www.writersvoice.net), contributed this segment focusing on Weimar Germany. As she describes it: "We talk with historian Eric Weitz about Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. On the one side, there was Bauhaus, Expressionism, Magnus Hirschfeld and new freedom for gays and women, a vital and experimental theater–in short, an explosion of intellectual and artistic creativity. On the other: hyperinflation, economic depression, and bullies of the left and right rampaging in the streets, setting the stage for the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. We explore both sides of Weimar Germany and what lessons it may hold for us today."
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Time: 1:42.
Here's a selection from a recent From the Vault broadcast of archival recordings of prominent activist women. It features Bernardine Dohrn, a "former leader of the 1960’s and 1970’s revolutionary anti-war group the Weathermen, reading poetry by women of that group — on International Women’s Day in 1975." She reads from a book she co-edited in 1975 (with Ed Ayers and Jeff Jones), Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiques of the Weather Underground 1970 - 1974. The book is still widely available at bookstores and on line. For more information about Dohrn and her career, see: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/clinic/dohrn/dohrn.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadine_Dohrn and follow links on these sites for additional information.
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