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 America,” National Baseball Hall of Fame.
• “Bud Fowler’s Life Blazed A Trail From Cooperstown,” by Isabelle Minasian, National Baseball Hall Of Fame.
• “6 Decades Before Jackie Robinson, This Man Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier: Moses Fleetwood Walker played for a Major League Baseball team in the 1880s,” by Farrell Evans, History.com, Originally published April 27, 2022, and updated January 22, 2024.
• “The Great Migration (1910-1970),” National Archives.
• “The League [video],” Magnolia Pictures.
• “A 20th Century Baseball Institution,” by Matt Kelly, MLB.com.
• “The Negro League revolutionized baseball – MLB's new rules are part of its legacy,” by Dave Davies, NPR Fresh Air, July 10, 2023.
• “The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball,” National Baseball Hall of Fame. 

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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.

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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 Straight,” The New York Times, April 2, 1914.
• "College Slouch" Proved By Orthopedic Tests,” The Harvard Crimson, March 8, 1917.
• “The Rise and Fall of American Posture,” by David Yosifon and Peter N. Stearns, The American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (1998): 1057–95. 
• “The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal,” by Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Times Magazine, January 15, 1995, Section 6, Page 26.
• “It’s Not Too Late to Fix Your Posture,” by Thessaly La Force, Vogue Magazine, January 18, 2024.
• “Six ways to improve your posture,” by Rebecca Newman, Financial Times, March 26 2024.
• “Learn how to correct your posture in only 60 seconds,” by Ron Kaspriske, Golf Digest, February 9, 2024.
• “How to promote good posture and avoid becoming hunched over,” by Michele Stanten, The Washington Post, December 11, 2023.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,”
• By Diana Parsell, Doughboy Foundation, August 8, 2023.
• “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

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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.

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In 1931, Judge Samuel Seabury was leading an investigation for Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt into corruption in New York’s magistrate courts when a witness in the investigation named Vivian Gordon was found murdered in the Bronx. Because of the public demand for answers in this high-profile murder case, FDR could no longer keep his uneasy peace with Tammany Hall and expanded the scope of Seabury’s investigation. What Seabury’s team uncovered brought down Mayor Jimmy Walker and began to topple the Tammany Hall stranglehold on New York City politics.

Joining me in this episode is writer Michael Wolraich, author of The Bishop And The Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age.

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 by Daniel Carlton on Pixabay and is available for use via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Mid-town Manhattan, looking northeast toward Chrysler Building,” photographed by William Frange, ca. 1931; there are no known restrictions on publication and the image is available via the Library of Congress.

Additional Sources:

• “The Politics and Iconography of Tammany in the Early American Republic,” by Keith Muchowski, Journal of the American Revolution, August 19, 2021
• “Boss Tweed’s Rise and Downfall | New York: A Documentary Film [video],” PBS.
• “The corrupt N.Y. congressman who was sentenced to prison — and escaped,” by George Bass, The Washington post, July 2, 2023.
• “The Case For Tammany Hall Being On The Right Side Of History,” NPR Fresh Air, March 5, 2014.
• “How an Unlikely Alliance Saved the Democrats 100 Years Ago,” by Terry Golway, Politico Magazine, September 17, 2018.
• “Franklin D. Roosevelt: Life Before the Presidency,” by William E. Leuchtenburg, UVA Miller Center.
• “Samuel Seabury,” Historical Society of the New York Courts.
• “The Insane 1930s Graft Investigation That Took Down New York’s Mayor—and Then Tammany Hall,” by Erin Blakemore, History.com, Originally posted April 17, 2019, and updated April 22, 2019.
• “The Dead Woman Who Brought Down the Mayor,” by Rachel Shteir, Smithsonian Magazine, February 25, 2013.
• “Jimmy Walker May Have Been NYC's Most Corrupt Mayor, but Damn Was He Fun,” Avenue Magazine, December 2, 2021.
• “Jazz Age Mayor and Villager, Jimmy Walker,” by Sarah Bean Apmann, Off the Grid, June 18, 2020.

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Starting in November 1861, the Union Army held the city of Beaufort, South Carolina, using the Sea Islands as a southern base of operations in the Civil War. Harriet Tubman joined the Army there, debriefing freedom seekers who fled enslavement in nearby regions and ran to seek the Union Army’s protection in Beaufort. With the intelligence Tubman gathered, she and Colonel James Montgomery led 150 Black soldiers on a daring raid along the Combahee RIver in June 1863, destroying seven rice plantations in the heart of the Confederate breadbasket, causing $6 million worth of damages and liberating 756 people from enslavement on the rice fields.

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Edda Fields-Black, Associate Professor of HIstory at Carnegie Mellon University and author of COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil 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 "Dangerous," by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. The episode image is Mcpherson & Oliver, photographer. “2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment raid on rice plantation, Combahee, South Carolina,” by Mcpherson and Oliver, published in Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1863; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.

Additional Sources:

• “Port Royal, Battle of,” by Stephen R. Wise, Encyclopedia of South Carolina, Originally published June 20, 2016, and updated August 22, 2022.
• “Nov. 7, 1861: The Port Royal Experiment Initiated,” Zinn Education Project.
• “The Port Royal Experiment,” The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI).
• “Port Royal Experiment: Reconstruction Era in Beaufort, South Carolina with Park Ranger Chris Barr [video],” National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), August 23, 2022.
• “Life on the Sea Islands (Part I),” by Charlotte Forten Grimké, The Atlantic, May 1864.
• “Life on the Sea Islands (Part II),” by Charlotte Forten Grimké, The Atlantic, June 1864.
• “Harriet Tubman’s Great Raid,” by Paul Donnelly, The New York Times, June 7, 2013.
• “After the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid,” by Alexis Clark, History.com, Originally published November 1, 2019, and updated August 29, 2023.

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Today, Americans consume 400 pounds of ice a year, each. That would have been unfathomable to people in the 18th century, but a number of innovators and ice barons in the 19th and 20th centuries changed the way we think about the slippery substance. Joining me in this episode is writer Dr. Amy Brady, author of Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks–A Cool History of a Hot Commodity.

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 “All She Gets from the Iceman is Ice,” written by Arthur J. Lamb and Alfred Solman and performed by Ada Jones in 1908; the song is in the public domain and is available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is: “Girls deliver ice. Heavy work that formerly belonged to men only is being done by girls. The ice girls are delivering ice on a route and their work requires brawn as well as the partriotic ambition to help," taken on September 16, 1918; image is in the public domain and is available via the National Archives (NAID: 533758; Local ID: 165-WW-595A(3)).

Additional Sources:

• “The Stubborn American Who Brought Ice to the World,” By Reid Mitenbuler, The Atlantic, February 5, 2013.
• “Tracing the History of New England’s Ice Trade,” by Devin Hahn and Amy Laskowski, The Brink: Pioneering Research from Boston University, February 4, 2022.
• “The Bizarre But True Story of America's Obsession With Ice Cubes,” by Reid Mitenbuler, Epicurious, September 26, 2016.
• “The Surprisingly Cool History of Ice, by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, Mental Floss, February 10, 2016.
• “Keeping your (food) cool: From ice harvesting to electric refrigeration,” by Emma Grahn, National Museum of American History, April 29, 2015.
• “When Everyone Wanted to Be the Iceman,” by Kelly Robinson, Atlas Obscura, August 23, 2019.
• “The History of Human-Made Ice,” by Amy Brady, Discover Magazine, December 2, 2023.
• “The Dawn of New York's Ice Age,” by Edward T. O'Donnell, The New York Times, July 21, 2005.
• “The History of the Refrigerator,” by Mary Bellis, ThoughtCo, Updated on October 31, 2019.
• “A Chilling History: on the science and technology of portable coolers,” by Laura Prewitt, Science History Institute, July 24, 2023.
• No chill: A closer look at America’s obsession with ice,” by Haley Chouinard, Business of Home, December 23, 2020.
• “Climate-Friendly Cocktail Recipes Go Light on Ice,” by Amy Brady, Scientific American, July 1, 2023.

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If you’re like most Americans – or most people on earth – you have a pair of jeans, or maybe five, in your wardrobe. There’s a decent chance you’re wearing jeans right now. These humble pants were invented by a Reno tailor in the 1870s in response to a frustrated customer whose husband kept wearing through his pants too quickly. How, then, did they become a global phenomenon expected to exceed $100 billion in sales by 2025? Joining me to help answer that question is historian, writer, and screenwriter, Dr. Carolyn Purnell, author of Blue Jeans.

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 Jeans,” composed by Josef Pasternack and performed by the Peerless Quartet in 1921; audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Five Idaho farmers, members of Ola self-help sawmill co-op, in the woods standing against a load of logs ready to go down to their mill about three miles away,” photographed by Dorothea Lange in Gem County, Idaho, in October 1939 for the Farm Security Administration; the image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress.

Additional Sources:

• “The Origin of Blue Jeans,” by Joseph Stromberg, Smithsonian Magazine, September 26, 2011.
• “The History of Denim,” Levi Strauss & Co., July 4, 2019.
• “Riveted: The History of Jeans [video],” PBS American Experience Season 34, Episode 1, February 7, 2022. 
• “Durable and enduring, blue jeans turn 150,” by Jessica Green, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, May 23, 2023.
• “Behind 150 years of the world’s most famous denim jeans,” by Gordon Ng, Vogue Singapore, May 3, 2023.
• “How Denim Became a Political Symbol of the 1960s,” by Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, December 2020.
• “Throwback Thursday: Levi’s — Right For School?” Levi Strauss & Co., September 24, 2015.

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In January 1942, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia sent New York City police out on an important mission; their objective: to find and destroy tens of thousands of pinball machines. But some of pinball’s most important innovations, including the development of flippers, happened in the decades that it was banned in New York and many other US cities. This week we dig in to the fun – and sometimes surprising – history of pinball.  

Joining me in this episode is illustrator and cartoonist Jon Chad, author of Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball. I’m also joined by a special guest co-host, my son, Teddy.

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 “Caterpillar,” by Gvidon, available for use under the Pixabay content license. The episode image is “Playing the pinball machine at the steelworkers' Serbian Club in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania,” photographed by Jack Delano, 1941, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.

Additional Sources:

• “The Backstory: The Comte d’Artois, pinball’s original wizard, lived life at full tilt,” by By Brendan Kiley, Pacific NW Magazine, December 1, 2019.
• “The Human Side of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette,” by Joe McGasko, biography.com, October 14, 2020.
• “Bagatelle patent model patented by Montague Redgrave,” Smithsonian.
• “Baffle Ball,” The Internet Pinball Database Presents.
• “Bally MFG Company, est. 1932,” by Andrew Clayman, Made in Chicago Museum.
• “That Time America Outlawed Pinball,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Originally published November 15, 2016, and updated October 5, 2023.
• “How the Mob Made Pinball Public Enemy #1 in the 1940s,” by Allison McNearney, Daily Beast, November 14, 2021.
• “Chicago once waged a 40-year war on pinball,” by Ryan Smith, Chicago Reader, May 5, 2018.
• “How One Perfect Shot Saved Pinball From Being Illegal,” by Matt Blitz, Gizmodo, August 16, 2013.
• “‘These Things Are Works of Art’: Chicago’s History as the Manufacturing Center for Pinball Machines,” by Meredith Francis, WTTW Chicago, January 26, 2024.
• “An Industry Suffers as Few People Play a Mean Pinball Anymore,” Washington Post, July 30, 2000.
• “Inside America's Last Great Pinball Factory,” by Peter Rugg, Popular Mechanics, March 27, 2017.
• “The Inside Story of Pinball's Renaissance,” by Mike Mahardy, IGN, May 20, 2017.
• “A Look At The Unlikely Resurgence Of Pinball In The Mobile Age [video],” NBC News, October 1, 2017.
• Pinball Map

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In 1812, the United States Congress voted to provide $50,000 to assist victims of a horrific earthquake in the far-away country of Venezuela. It would be another nine decades before the US again provided aid for recovery efforts after a foreign rapid-onset natural disaster, but over time it became much more common for the US to help in such emergencies. This disaster relief, provided via a three-pronged response from the State Department, the military, and the voluntary sector, especially represented by the American Red Cross, serves both humanitarian and diplomatic functions for the United States. 

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julia Irwin, the T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University and author of Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century.

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 “Palloncini sweet and happy piano song,” by Pastichio_Piano_Music, available for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Personnel of Commander Carrier Division 15, showing the

prime minister of Ceylon the supplies that the US Navy was delivering to flood victims in his country in early 1958,” Image courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command.

Additional Sources:

• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr, Picador USA, 2020.
• “The City of Earthquakes,” by Horace D. Warner, The Atlantic, March 1883.
• “Founding and early years of the ICRC (1863-1914),” International Committee of the Red Cross, May 12, 2020.
• “A Brief History of the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross. 
• “American Empire,” American Yawp.
• “December 28, 1908: The Tsunami of Messina,” by David Bressan, Scientific American History of Geology, December 28, 2012.
• By David Bressan on December 28, 2012
• “USAID History,” United States Agency for International Development.
• “Where We Work,” United States Agency for International Development.

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In 1938, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally developed the potent psychedelic LSD, although it would be several years before Hofmann realized what he’d created. During the Cold War, the CIA launched a top-secret mind control project, code-named MKUltra, experimenting with LSD and other psychedelic substances, drugging military personnel, CIA employees, and civilians, often without their consent or even their knowledge. At the same time, the CIA was funding university research on psychedelics, involving scientists like Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson and counterculture luminaries like Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg. Although mid-20th Century scientists had seen therapeutic promise in psychedelics, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, which classified LSD, along with psilocybin, MDMA, and peyote, as Schedule I drugs, defined by the DEA as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” 

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Benjamin Breen, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science.

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 Psychedelic Atmospheric Dream Guitar, by Sonican, available for use via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash; free to use under the Unsplash License.

Additional Sources:

• “Your employer may be adding another health benefit to its roster: psychedelic drugs,” by Sonya Collins, Fortune, January 19, 2024.
• “Psychedelics gave terminal patients relief from their intense anxiety,” by By Meryl Davids Landau, The Washington Post, January 13, 2024.
• “People were using psychedelic drugs in Bronze Age Europe, study finds,” by Sheena Goodyear, CBC Radio, April 12, 2023.
• “Prehistoric peyote use: alkaloid analysis and radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens of Lophophora from Texas,” by Hesham R El-Seedi, et al, Journal of ethnopharmacology, 2005, vol. 101,1-3: 238-42.
• “'Apparently Useless': The Accidental Discovery of LSD,” by Tom Shroder, The Atlantic, September 9, 2014.
• “The Evolutionary Origins of Psychedelics,” by Noah Whiteman, Time Magazine, November 29, 2023.
• “A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry,” by Mo Costandi, The Guardian, September 2, 2014.
• “Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture,” Library of Congress.
• “History of CIA,” Central Intelligence Agency.
• “What We Know About the CIA’s Midcentury Mind-Control Project,” by Kat Eschner, Smithsonian Magazine, April 13, 2017.
• “The CIA’s Appalling Human Experiments with Mind Control,” by Brianna Nofil, History.com.
• American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century, by Ido Hartogsohn, 2020.
• “What to know about Colorado’s psychedelic law,” by Andrew Kenney, Colorado Public Radio News, June 21, 2023.

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In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the last slave ship landed in the United States from Africa. The transatlantic slave trade had been illegal in the US since 1808, but Alabama enslaver Timothy Meaher and his friends were so sure they could get away with it that they made a bet and hired Meaher’s neighbor, William Foster, to captain a voyage to Africa. Foster and his crew smuggled 110 terrified kidnapped Africans to Mobile Bay, taking them from a homeland they loved to cruel enslavement in the deep South, and changing their lives forever. 

Joining me in this episode is historian Dr. Hannah Durkin, author of The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade.

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 “Slow Thoughtful Sad Piano (This Cold Feeling),” by Ashot Danielyan; the music is available via the Pixabay content license. The episode image is “Abaché and Kazoola ‘Cudjoe’ Lewis,” by Emma Langdon Roche from Historic Sketches of the South, published in 1914 and now in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

• “Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery,”
• by Steven Mintz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
• “The Slave Trade Clause,” National Constitution Center.
• “Congress votes to ban slave trade: March 2, 1807,” by Andrew Glass, Politico, March 2, 2009.
• “The Execution of Nathaniel Gordon,” The New York Times, February 22, 1862.
• “Some Economic Aspects of the Domestic Slave Trade, 1830-1860,” by Robert Evans, Southern Economic Journal 27, no. 4 (1961): 329–37. 
• “The Atlantic Slave Trade Continued Illegally in America Until the Civil War,” by John Harris, History.com, January 28, 2021.
• “Historical Timeline,” Clotilda: The Exhibition at Africatown Heritage House, operated by the History Museum of Mobile. 
• The Clotilda Descendants Association
• “The ‘Clotilda,’ the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found,” by Allison Keyes, The Smithsonian, May 22, 2019.
• “Last survivor of transatlantic slave trade discovered,” by Sean Coughlan, BBC News, March24, 2020.
• “Exploring the Clotilda, the last known slave ship in the U.S., brings hope,” by Debbie Elliott and Marisa Peñaloza, NPR Morning Edition, June 15, 2022.
• “Descendants of Alabama slave owner say they're ‘figuring out next steps’ to make amends,” by Anderson Cooper, Aliza Chasan, Denise Schrier Cetta, and Katie Brennan, CBS News, November 19, 2023.

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In 1830, amid the Second Great Awakening in the burned-over district of New York State, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery ordained each other as the first two elders in what they then called the Church of Christ. Within eight years, the Governor of Missouri issued an executive order that members of the church, by then known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state,” driving 10,000 of the faithful to flee to Illinois. This week we discuss the turbulent–and often violent–history of Mormonism and look at the religion’s complicated relationship with the country in which it originated. 

Joining me in this episode is Dr. Benjamin E. Park, Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University and author of American Zion: A New History of Mormonism.

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 “O My Father,” Composed by Evan Stephens with lyrics by Eliza R. Snow; performed by Trinity Mixed Quartet on September 18, 1923; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is "The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA,” Photo by David Iliff; License: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Additional Sources:

• “Timeline: The Early History of the Mormons,”PBS American Experience.
• “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Fast Facts,” CNN, December 1, 2022.
• “Mormonism: Guide to Materials and Resources,” The Special Collections & Archives department of the Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University.
• The Joseph Smith Papers
• “Doctrine and Covenants 132,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
• “The Brink of War: One hundred fifty years ago, the U.S. Army marched into Utah prepared to battle Brigham Young and his Mormon militia,” by David Roberts, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2008.
• “How Mormonism Went Mainstream,” by Benjamin E. Park, Time Magazine, September 21, 2023.
• “Latter-day Saint membership passed 17 million in 2023, according to a new church statistical report,” by Tad Walch, Deseret News, April 1, 2023.
• “The Mormon Poetess Dead,” The New York Times, December 6, 1887.

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Almost as soon as there were radio stations, there were college radio stations. In 1948, to popularize FM radio, the FCC introduced class D non commercial education licenses for low-watt college radio stations. By 1967, 326 FM radio signals in the United States operated as “educational radio,” 220 of which were owned and operated by colleges and universities. The type of programming that these stations offered varied widely, from lectures and sporting events, to various kinds of musical shows, but toward the late 1970s, a new genre of college rock appeared on the scene. Record labels took note as college DJs discovered up-and-coming new artists, although they sometimes stopped playing those artists once they made it big.

Joining this week’s episode is historian Dr. Katherine Rye Jewell, a Professor at Fitchburg State University and author of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio.

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 “College Days by Charles Hart, et al., 1919, in the public domain and retrieved from the Library of Congress. The episode image is “Don Jackson, a senior, delivering a news broadcast at the Iowa State College radio station,” photographed by Jack Delano at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa in May 1942; photograph in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. 

Additional Sources:

• “The Development of Radio,” PBS American Experience.
• “Marconi’s First Wireless Transmission,” by Kath Bates, Oxford Open Learning Trust, November 28, 2018.
• “Marconi's first radio broadcast made 125 years ago,” by Jonathan Holmes, BBC News, May 13, 2022.
• “Radio's First Voice...Canadian!” by Mervyn C. Fry, The Cat's Whisker - Official Voice of the Canadian Vintage Wireless Association Vol. 3, No. 1 - March 1973.
• “History of Commercial Radio,” Federal Communications Commission.
• “Which college radio station was the first in the United States?,” About College Radio, Radio Survivor, Updated March 14, 2023.
• “About WRUC 89.7,” WRUC.union.edu.
• “Celebrating 90 Years of Broadcasting at Curry College,” Curry College.
• “What Is "College" Rock?” by Shawn Persinger, Premier Guitar, July 15, 2023.
• “When college radio went mainstream—and 20 bands that came with it,” by Matthew Everett, Yardbarker, November 7, 2017.
• “10 Legendary Bands that Wouldn’t Be Legendary without College Radio,” by Dave Sarkies, College Radio Foundation, September 21, 2020.
• “U2 Rock Fordham University: On the Ground at the ‘Secret’ Set,” by Jenn Pelly, Rolling Stone, March 6, 2009.
• “All that is left is R.E.M. Steeple – Celebrating the beginning of Athens’ legendary band,” by Joe Vitale, UGA Wire, April 5, 2020.
• “‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: R.E.M. and the Leap From College-Rock Gods to Mainstream Icons,” by Rob Harvilla, The Ringer, September 29, 2021.
• “REM: The band that defined, then eclipsed college rock,” by Mark Savage, BBC, September 21, 2011.
• “History Timeline,” Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• “History,” NPR.
• “Left of the dial: College radio days,” by Daniel de Vise, The Washington Post, June 26, 2011.
• “Technology and the Soul of College Radio,” by Jennifer Waits, Pop Matters, April 19, 2010.
• “The Enduring Relevance of College Radio,” SPIN, November 10, 2020.
• “College Radio Maintains Its Mojo,” by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, December 5, 2008.

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What makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? How do Christmas movies react to – and help us heal from – collective trauma? How can a British Christmas movie feel quintessentially American? We discuss all that and more this week at the 20th Anniversary of Love Actually, with G. Vaughn Joy, a film historian, writer, podcast host, and PhD candidate at University College London.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The first mid-episode musical selection is “The First Noel,” from Christmas Songs and Carols (1912) by Trinity Choir; in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The second mid-episode musical selection is “Jingle Bells,” from Favorite Colleges Songs (1916) by Victor Male Chorus; in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from a publicity poster for Love Actually.

 

Films Discussed:

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• The Bishop’s Wife (1947) 
• A Christmas Story (1983)
• Die Hard (1988)
• Love Actually (2003)
• The Holiday (2016)
• Red Nose Day Actually (2017)
• Klaus (2019)

 

Additional Sources:

• “From Fiction to Film: ‘The Greatest Gift’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’” by Elizabeth Brown, Library of Congress Blog, December 21, 2018.
• “How World War II shaped ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’” by Rachael Scott, CNN, December 25, 2021.
• “What ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Teaches Us About American History,” by Christopher Wilson, December 16, 2021.
• “How A Christmas Story Went from Low-Budget Fluke to an American Tradition,” by Sam Kashner, Vanity Fair, November 30, 2023.
• “What’s That Building? The real-life locations from ‘A Christmas Story,’” by Dennis Rodkin, WBEZ Chicago, December 21, 2023.
• A Christmas Story House.
• “Love Actually,” by Roger Ebert, RogertEbert.com, November 7, 2003.
• “FILM REVIEW; Tales of Love, the True and the Not-So-True” by A.O. Scott, The New York Times, November 7, 2003.
• “Love Actually Is the Least Romantic Film of All Time,” by Christopher Orr, The Atlantic, December 6, 2013
• “25 Surprising Facts About ’Love Actually’ for Its 20th Anniversary,” by Kristy Ruchko, Mental Floss, Posted on November 6, 2018 and Updated on November 13, 2023.
• “The Visible Magic of Asking ‘Why?’ A Contemporary History Approach to Klaus (2019),” by Vaughn Joy, Review Roulette, December 24, 2023.

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Stories of the Civil Rights Movement don’t often center the fundraisers, often Black women, whose tireless efforts made the movement possible; today we’re featuring one of those women. Mollie Moon, born in 1907, the founder and first chairperson of the National Council of Urban League Guilds, raised millions of dollars for the Civil Rights Movement, using her charm and connections to throw charity galas, like her famed Beaux Arts Ball, where everyone wanted to be seen. Her long service to the movement eventually earned her the President's Volunteer Action Award from President George H. W. Bush in 1989.

Joining this episode to tell us all about Mollie Moon and the funding of the Civil Rights Movement is Dr. Tanisha C. Ford, professor of history in The Graduate Center, at CUNY, and author of Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement.

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 “Crazy Blues,” composed by Perry Bradford and performed by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1921; the recording is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from the cover of Our Secret Society; Image: Harper Collins.

 

Additional Sources:

• “Socialite Mollie Moon Used Fashion Shows to Fund the Civil Rights Movement,” by Tanisha C. Ford, Harper’s Bazaar, March 8, 2021.
• “Mollie Moon, 82, Founding Head Of the Urban League Guild, Dies,” by Peter B. Flint, New York Times, June 26, 1990.
• “Mollie Moon: A Real Voice,” by Lev Earle, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, March 25, 2021.
• “Henry Lee Moon (1901-1985),” by Susan Bragg, BlackPast, June 19, 2011.
• “Louise Thompson and the Black and White Film,” by Denise Lynn, Black Perspectives, AAIHS, April 15, 2021.
• “Harlem Community Art Center,” Mapping the African American Past, Columbia University.
• National Urban League Guild.
• “Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970,” by Rachel Wimpee, Rockefeller Archive Center, November 4, 2020.

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