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Episodes from American History Tellers
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Harper Lee: Mockingbird
In 1949, aspiring writer Nelle Harper Lee moved from her home in small-town Alabama to New York City. She was following in the footsteps of her childhood friend, author Truman Capote. Within a few years she had penned a novel of her own, and called it To Kill a Mockingbird.To Kill a Mockingbird catapulted Harper Lee to the heights of literary fame. But just as she found success, she withdrew, overwhelmed by being in the public eye, and the pressure to produce another book as good as her first. Decades would pass before anyone mentioned the possibility...
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | James Baldwin: The Exile
Born into poverty in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin rose to become a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, and a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. In his debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and in his essay collections, Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, Baldwin wrote eloquently and provocatively about race, religion, sexuality, politics and class. To distance himself from the racial hatred and discrimination at home, Baldwin spent much of his adult life in France, helping to create a vibrant community for other Black artists, s...
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | John Steinbeck: The Observer
Growing up in the Salinas Valley of Northern California, John Steinbeck dreamed of becoming a professional writer. In his youth he took on odd jobs and worked amongst ranch hands and migrant workers, who would inspire some of his greatest work, including The Grapes of Wrath. Published in 1939, the book captured the struggles of everyday Americans during the Great Depression, and Steinbeck became famous for his empathetic portrayal of the working class.Steinbeck would go on to become one of the most decorated authors of the 20th Century, winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for...
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Mark Twain: Voice of a Nation
In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the pen name that became famous: Mark Twain. Armed with a wry sense of humor and a natural flair for storytelling, Twain gained wide acclaim for his short stories, travel sketches, and novels.In 1885, he published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a story of two runaways on a quest for freedom. It would become one of the most celebrated, and controversial, books in American literature. But at the...
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Louisa May Alcott: The Breadwinner
In 1840, eight-year-old Louisa May Alcott moved to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts with her family. There, she spent her days wandering through the woods, putting on plays with her sisters, and learning from famed writers and philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.For years, Alcott struggled to achieve success as a writer. Then in 1868, she drew inspiration from her youth to write her beloved coming-of-age novel Little Women. By exploring the aspirations and challenges faced by young women, she defied 19th century norms that sought to confine women in both life and lite...
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Macabre
In February 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe was a promising student at the University of Virginia. But within a few months, gambling debts forced him to abandon his studies. It was just one of many setbacks Poe endured in a life marked by financial struggle, alcoholism, and personal tragedy.But Poe launched a remarkable career in writing, helping to establish American literature with a bold, new voice. From short stories including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” to the poem that made him famous, “The Raven,” he transformed the horror genre by delving into the dark recesses of the h...
St. Valentines Day Massacre: Closing In On Capone
In the aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, authorities faced mounting pressure to clean up Chicago and take down the violent mobsters who overran the city – most notoriously, Al Capone. The federal government took on the challenge, pursuing Capone relentlessly. In the end, Capone did go down – not for murder, but for tax evasion. And since Capone’s conviction in the 1930s, this unorthodox charge has been used repeatedly to bring down otherwise “ungettable” criminals. To discuss how the feds finally closed in on Capone, Lindsay speaks with Jonathan Eig, the Pulitzer Prize–winning...
St. Valentines Day Massacre | Public Enemy No. 1
On Valentine’s Day 1929, seven men were gunned down in a Chicago garage in an attack that stunned the nation. Photographs of the bloody scene appeared on front pages across the country, and the public reacted with horror. Even in Chicago—a city hardened by daily gang violence—the message was clear: this was different.City officials were under intense pressure to respond, and suspicion quickly fell on the city’s most powerful gang leader, Al Capone. But proving who ordered the hit would be far more difficult than expected. And as investigators struggled to build their case, th...
St. Valentines Day Massacre | The Land of Bilk and Money
In 1920, a young Al Capone arrived in Chicago looking for a fresh start, and his timing couldn’t have been better. That same year, Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol, turning America’s thirst into a criminal gold rush. Chicago quickly became the epicenter of bootlegging, and Capone was determined to seize the moment and make himself rich beyond imagination. But the city was already crowded with ambitious gangsters chasing the same prize. As rival bootleggers carved up territory, Chicago descended into a violent turf war that would reshape the criminal underworld.See...
Conquering Polio | There Is No Patent
In the early 1950s, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin were in a race to develop a vaccine against polio. While Salk’s killed-virus vaccine was the first to be distributed, Sabin continued working to perfect his own approach. In the end, Sabin’s oral polio vaccine—made from a weakened live virus—proved easier to administer and was ultimately distributed far more widely, though his name never achieved the same recognition. In this episode, Lindsay is joined by epidemiologist and oral historian Karen Torghele. Her book Albert Sabin: The Life of a Polio Vaccine Pioneer is due to be publishe...
Conquering Polio | The Cutter Fiasco
In April 1954, a group of first graders lined up in the gymnasium of an elementary school in McLean, Virginia for the start of the Salk polio vaccine trials. In an era before widespread federal government involvement in public health, the National Institute of Infantile Paralysis executed an unprecedented experiment involving nearly 2 million children and tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, and volunteers. It was the largest peacetime mobilization in American history.While scientists evaluated the results, Americans waited anxiously to find out whether the vaccine was safe and effective, putting an end to 40 years of fear. But...
Conquering Polio | Beyond the Microscope
By the late 1940s, the National Institute of Infantile Paralysis had raised millions of dollars to pay for patient care and laboratory research. But polio cases were reaching record levels, and scientists were no closer to a cure. Frustrated by the slow progress, Basil O’Connor resolved to recruit fresh talent to the cause. He soon found what he was looking for in a young and energetic researcher named Jonas Salk.In 1951, Salk began testing a killed virus polio vaccine on monkeys in his Pittsburgh lab. His research soon put him at odds with the leading polio sc...