American History Tellers

As legal challenges to his New Deal programs mounted, President Roosevelt and his attorney general devised dramatic reforms to the Supreme Court’s structure. The proposed changes would open new rifts between the president and conservative members of his own party.Other greater challenges loomed. A recession was threatening to unwind four years of economic recovery. The Senate launched a politicized investigation into purported un-American activities in federal work programs.And on the other side of the world, a global crisis was building as war erupted in Asia and Europe. As the country re-armed and factories retooled to supply soon-to-be allies, the nationally finally pulled itself from the depths of Depression.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After two of President Roosevelt’s closest advisors competed to create a new federal jobs program, the White House launched one of Roosevelt's keystone initiatives: the Works Progress Administration. Under this program, millions of Americans earned government salaries at a wide range of blue- and white-collar jobs — everything from building post offices and painting murals to delivering library books by horseback to rural communities.However, the federal government’s increased reach worried FDR’s opponents, especially a wildly popular Catholic radio preacher. Father Charles Coughlin once helped FDR get elected, but as the president’s power increased, Coughlin turned up the volume on hateful and anti-Semitic undertones in his attacks.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Great Depression wasn’t the only crisis facing the country when Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933. Following a decade-long drought that had shriveled crops, massive dust storms were pummeling huge swaths of the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Northwest. Years of poor harvest practices had worsened the crisis, pushing farmers already strained by the financial hit of the Great Depression off their land. Only when a lifelong soil scientist made a dramatic testimony before Congress did the government finally begin to develop a solution.Many of those unmoored by environmental calamity searched for opportunity elsewhere — particularly in California. But when a controversial Los Angeles police chief sent armed officers to block access to the Golden State, he would launch a constitutional crisis and a showdown with a rural sheriff.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With the country was still hobbled by the Depression, New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for the American people. That vow handed Roosevelt a contested Democratic nomination and helped him crush Hoover in the general election. Roosevelt began his presidency with a flurry of policy proposals and legislative efforts focused around three priorities: relief, recovery, and reform. These new efforts saw millions of young men put back to work preserving natural areas as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps and undertaking a massive rural electrification project in the Tennessee River Valley. And the country’s first female cabinet member led the creation of Social Security, one of the crowning achievements of Roosevelt’s administration.Meanwhile, a reckoning was in order for Wall Street. Years after the stock market crash, a raucous senate investigation would unveil egregious abuses by financiers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy an

Factories have shut down, banks have failed, and millions are out of work. As the Depression worsens, public opinion sours toward President Hoover.Hoover’s allies attempt to counter criticism of the President by galvanizing anti-foreigner attitudes. They devise a scheme to frighten immigrants from Mexico and other countries with the specter of mass immigration raids in the hopes they’ll leave the country on their own, as hundreds of thousands do.Meanwhile, an unemployed cannery worker from Portland, Oregon leads tens of thousands of World War I veterans on a march to Washington, D.C., to demand payment of wartime bonuses. A deadly showdown looms as this “Bonus Army” wears out its welcome in the capital.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt on October 29, 1929, with the collapse of the U.S. stock market. A year earlier, president Herbert Hoover had coasted to victory by promising the American people “a chicken for every pot” and “a car in every backyard.” Lured by the promise of skyrocketing markets, many first-time investors got caught up in margin trading, borrowing money to make bigger stock purchases than they could actually afford. It was a foolproof way to make money, so long as stock prices kept rising.But then, on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, more than sixteen million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. By the market’s close, investors had lost tens of billions of dollars — and kicked off a decade that would reshape American institutions, even as labor unrest, racial tensions, and the dark shadow of nativism pushed back from all sides.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at htt

"Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it." On today’s show, we’ll consider what lessons we can draw from history, and what lessons we can’t. David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss how to connect the events of the past to the events of today. We’ll also talk about his latest book “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” which explores the history of political messaging inside the White House. Plus, Jesse James and this day in history.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A special series with Legal Wars. The whole world was watching, and that’s exactly what the defendants wanted. As the end of 1969 approached, the Chicago 8 had become the Chicago 7. Bobby Seale, a Black Panther, had been removed from the trial in a brutal spectacle by Judge Julius Hoffman. The remaining defendants would respond by turning the courtroom upside down, much to the delight of the national media. Counterculture celebrities Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer would take the stand. And in the end, it was the establishment that would be put on trial.Check out Legal Wars for more stories behind America’s most famous courtroom battles.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A special series with Legal Wars. In 1969, the war in the streets became a war in the courtroom. The trial of the Chicago 8 pitted the federal government against eight prominent anti-war activists. The charges: Conspiracy to incite a riot. But the case was about more than just who threw the first punch at the DNC protests the year before. It was a battle for the soul of American culture, and both sides planned to win...by any means necessary.Check out Legal Wars for more stories behind America’s most famous courtroom battles.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A special series with our sibling show Legal Wars. The 1968 Democratic National Convention attracted demonstrators from all over the country. Thousands of students, Yippies, Peaceniks, and other protestors converged in Chicago to push for an end to the Vietnam War. But the city’s police had other plans and the would-be peaceful protests erupted into violence. News programs broadcast the clashes live to a nation of stunned viewers at home. Investigators called it a “police riot,” but five months later, the newly elected President Nixon found someone else to blame.Check out Legal Wars for more stories behind America’s most famous courtroom battles.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We live in historic times, but how do they compare to that other tumultuous era of American history — 1865 and the years following President Lincoln’s death and the end of The Civil War? Steven Walters, writer of Lindsay Graham’s new scripted podcast “1865,” joins to discuss the thrilling story of how our country put itself back together again and brought Lincoln’s killers to justice. Plus, a preview of what’s to come on “American History Tellers” in 2019.You can listen to new weekly episodes of “1865” exclusively on Stitcher Premium. For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com/1865 and use promo code ‘1865’.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt two generations earlier and leading to a conservative surge.The political sea change would drive Republican nominee Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968. And it would eventually elect a former actor and California governor who would change the face of American politics in ways that are still being felt to this day. His name was Ronald Reagan.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The 1929 stock market crash saw 14 billion dollars vanish in a matter of hours — and with it, the Republican party’s decades-long grip on American politics. As Americans lost their livelihoods, they turned to President Herbert Hoover for relief. But the self-made man who had so successfully reversed his own fortunes seemed unable to do the same for his country. With discontent growing, Hoover turned on World War veterans demanding early bonus payouts to support their families. It would prove the last straw for many Americans.The landslide election of 1932 would mark a profound realignment in U.S. politics, bringing urban centers under Democratic control for the first time in the party’s history. And it would propel into the White House Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose sweeping New Deal would permanently transform the American political landscape.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my

As the Civil War came to a close, the government set its sights once again on the future of the United States. Working closely with a Republican President, the Republican Congress expected a swift and peaceful road to Reconstruction. But then, a mere four weeks into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the country in the hands of Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had personally owned slaves just three years before.While Johnson’s unwavering commitment to states rights cultivated a fraught relationship with his Congress, the tumult would ultimately be short-lived. After just four years of a Democratic president, America’s Grand Old Party would ascend to power—and hold it—for over 70 years.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of all stripes.While the Whig Party collapsed over the issue, Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Republican Party tried to bind the Union with an appeal to old Jeffersonian values. But in the houses of Congress and across the nation, negotiations fail, compromise is abandoned; and the issue of slavery will overshadow all else, leading to Civil War.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams through what some called a “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. The maneuver was masterminded by hot-headed but politically savvy Henry Clay, who with Adams, announced their intent for far-reaching new federal programs. Fierce opposition to these policies united pro-Jackson supporters who formed a new party, the Democrats, to rally around their hero and elect him to president in 1828.But while Adams was defeated, Henry Clay had no intention of leaving the fight. He helped lead a new party which gathered together anti-Jackson, fiscal conservatives, and pro-states rights factions. The rise of Clay’s new Whig party seemed unstoppable–they captured both houses of Congress and the presidency–until, on April 4, 1841, president William Henry Harrison died in office and gave John Tyler the power of the veto.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at h

In the earliest days of the United States, there was no such thing as an organized political party. George Washington, elected twice to the presidency unanimously in the Electoral College, warned the new nation against political factions, writing that organized parties would become, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men subvert the power of the people.”But immediately after Washington vacated the Presidency, factions did spring up and bitter personal rivalries began to shape the nation. The two first political parties–the Federalists and the Republicans–had very different views of what America should become, and were led by very different men: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Named after one of the greatest U.S. presidents, the Lincoln Motor Company has become as ingrained in American culture as the Statue of Liberty. Founded by Henry Leland to produce plane engines during World War I, Lincoln became a key driver of the early automobile industry in the United States and a pioneer of the luxury car market. But when Leland’s vision proved too ambitious for the nascent American car market, Lincoln was purchased by the Ford Motor Company.The Ford acquisition would prove to be a game-changer for Lincoln. It provided the young company with a jolt of capital, marketing know-how, and a secret weapon: Henry Ford’s son, Edsel Ford, who possessed an uncanny sense of style and what customers wanted. He would lead the Lincoln to build an entirely new class of automobile: something “strictly continental.” Brought to you by the 2019 Lincoln MKC.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We conclude our series on the American Civil Right Movement with an interview with a woman who was there, on the front lines of the fight.Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely is longtime civil rights activist and artist. She was a Freedom Rider, boarding busses to travel the south in a fight for desegregation, and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, participating in sit-ins, marches, and voter registration campaigns. She marched on Washington, was arrested three times, was visited in jail by Martin Luther King Jr., and leads a life defined by her heritage, commitment to nonviolent activism, and the hope for continued change.You can read Peggy's poem here.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seeking to build upon the gains of the early 1960s, Civil Rights activists pushed forward on a series of ambitious efforts. Voting rights activists returned to Alabama and again faced violent reprisal—this time televised for the country to witness. A shocked nation watched the violence in Selma in horror; Congress took action, passing the Voting Rights Act.Off of this success, Martin Luther King Jr. began building a coalition of activist groups to turn the nation’s attention to the fight against poverty. Gathering support for a massive march on Washington, Dr. King visited Memphis, hopeful and in high spirits. He did not leave alive.“America does move forward and the bell of freedom rings out a little louder. We have come some of the way, not near all of it. There is much yet to do.” President Lyndon B. JohnsonSupport this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.