TriPod: New Orleans At 300

Series produced by WWNO

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TriPod: New Orleans at 300 is WWNO’s innovative radio history of New Orleans, released in weekly segments as our city approaches its Tricentennial in 2018. Each TriPod segment is its own micro-documentary, devoted to a single story or subject from New Orleans’ rich history. The series explores lost and neglected stories, delves deeper into the familiar, and questions what we think we know about the city’s history.

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 is WWNO’s innovative radio history of New Orleans, released in weekly segments as our city approaches its Tricentennial in 2018. Each TriPod segment is its own micro-documentary, devoted to a single story or subject from New Orleans’ rich history. The series explores lost and neglected stories, delves deeper into the familiar, and questions what we think we know about the city’s history.

Why “TriPod”? “Tri” for the city’s three centuries, “Pod” for podcast, and “tripod”, a three-legged tool used to steady a capturing device that documents a time and place. TriPod moves beyond the familiar themes of New Orleans history to focus on forgotten, neglected, or surprising pieces of the city’s past, and to enrich understanding of its present and future.

TriPod is a production of WWNO in collaboration with The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans. The series is hosted and produced by WWNO’s Laine Kaplan-Levenson, working with the assistance of a forty-member international advisory group of historians and archivists.

TriPod airs Thursdays during Morning Edition at 8:30 a.m. on 89.9 FM, repeats on Mondays during All Things Considered, and is available anytime on WWNO.org and as a podcast on iTunes. Hide full description

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 is WWNO’s innovative radio history of New Orleans, released in weekly segments as our city approaches its Tricentennial in 2018. Each TriPod segment is its own micro-documentary, devoted to a single story or subject from New Orleans’ rich history. The series explores lost and neglected stories, delves deeper into the familiar, and questions what we think we know about the city’s history. Why “TriPod”? “Tri” for the city’s three centuries, “Pod” for podcast, and “tripod”, a three-legged tool used to steady a capturing device that documents a time and place. TriPod moves beyond the familiar themes of New Orleans history to focus on forgotten, neglected, or surprising pieces of the city’s past, and to enrich understanding of its present and future. TriPod is... Show full description


47 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Alan McCoy in St. Roch Cemetery No. 2, Credit:  Laine Kaplan-Levenson / WWNO
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a story of the city’s above ground cemeteries, and those working behind the scenes.

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 10:47
Caption: Image from the Official Gray Line Guides of the Gray Line Motor Tours., Credit:  Molly Mitchell
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with part two in a series on links between history and tourism.

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 10:18
Caption: The Provost Guard in New Orleans taking up Vagrant Negroes. (1974.25.9.190), Credit:  The Historic New Orleans Collection
It was June. It was hot. Kids were out of school, keeping busy outdoors. Parents were inside. Kind of like how it is now, except it was 146 years ago.

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 11:15
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: A 1972 Times-Picayune article detailing the discovery of coffins buried in the French Quarter., Credit: University of New Orleans
October is Louisiana Archeology month! And this week’s TriPod New Orleans at 300 digs into the discovery, and rediscovery, of New Orleans’ first ce...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 11:19
Caption: Cokie Roberts speaks at Brookings book club event, "America's political dynasties: From Adams to Clinton", Credit:  Paul Morigi
This is the first edition of TriPod Xtras- exclusive interviews with guests on topics of New Orleans history. Here, Laine Kaplan-Levenson speaks wi...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 09:34
Caption: English: Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape, oil on canvas painting by Agostino Brunias, ca. 1764-1796, Credit:  Agostino Brunias / ArtDaily.org
There is a common myth told about 19th-century New Orleans. It goes something like this: Imagine you’re in an elegant dance hall in New Orleans in ...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 10:58
Caption:  Exterior of the UpStairs Lounge after the fire.
Tripod New Orleans @300 revisits the UpStairs Lounge Fire in the wake of last month’s Orlando Pulse Night Club shooting.

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 11:25
Caption: The Riot in New Orleans... the Struggle for the Flag. 900 block Canal Street., Credit:  The Collins C. Diboll Vieux Carre Digital Survey at The Historic New Orleans Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns to remember the 1866 massacre at the city’s Mechanics' Institute. It’s part of a series of episodes on the Recon...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 10:23
Caption: Poster showing vignette of New Orleans, Credit:  Historic New Orleans Collection; Gift of Michael Adler [2008.0038.15]
TriPod New Orleans at 300 returns with a two-part series on tourism, starting with the city’s relationship to the industry, and how we became depen...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2017
  • Length: 10:32
Caption: Image created for "The Seventh Ward Creoles of New Orleans," an Arts Council of New Orleans publication. View of elevated highway built on neutral ground of North Claiborne Avenue. At center, a man pulls a grocery cart, Credit: THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with part two of its highway series. This is the story of the I-10 interstate bridge that sits above Claiborne A...

Bought by KALW


  • Added: May 05, 2016
  • Length: 10:17
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: "Fed Up With Downtown Traffic" flyer, Credit: HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a two-part series on highways. The first looks at a controversy so intense, it’s called the ‘Second Battle ...

  • Added: Apr 21, 2016
  • Length: 10:34
Caption: Imaginative view of Madame Delphine's House, 253 Royal Street in the Vieux Carre., Credit: KEMBLE, EDWARD WINDSOR / HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a story about George Washington Cable, and the beautiful danger of writing New Orleans-based historical fic...

  • Added: Apr 19, 2016
  • Length: 10:22
Caption: A Tobacco Card from 1887, Credit: JOSEPH MAKKOS / NOLA DNA
TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a profile of Eliza Jane Nicholson, a small town poet who became the first woman publisher of a major metrop...

  • Added: Apr 19, 2016
  • Length: 10:24
Caption: In 1834, artist George Catlin witnessed Choctaw lacrosse in Indian Territory near present-day Oklahoma., Credit: GEORGE CATLIN / SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Laine Kaplan-Levenson returns with a new story about an indigenous sport that became popular before the Civil War.

  • Added: Mar 10, 2016
  • Length: 10:19
Caption: Chitimacha basket maker Clara Darden, ca. 1900, Credit: MCILHENNY COMPANY ARCHIVES, AVERY ISLAND, LA
Laine Kaplan-Levenson returns with a story of how the family behind the famous Tabasco brand and a Native American tribe came together, over baskets.

  • Added: Mar 10, 2016
  • Length: 10:00
Caption: The Purple Knights pose on the court; Harold Sylvester is kneeling next to his coach., Credit: HAROLD SYLVESTER / AMISTAD RESEARCH CENTER
In this episode, Laine Kaplan-Levenson discusses the first integrated high school sports contest in Louisiana between St. Aug and Jesuit--and talks...

Bought by WAER Syracuse, NY


  • Added: Mar 08, 2016
  • Length: 11:26
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: 'Bull and Bear Fight - New Orleans', Credit: THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
In this episode of TriPod, Laine Kaplan-Levenson brings us back to the days when Algiers was a stomping ground for bullfights and other forms of an...

  • Added: Mar 02, 2016
  • Length: 10:23
Caption: 1918 photo of Louis Mayer's father (Louis E. Mayer), and uncles Gus (Gustave John Mayer) and Rudolph Mayer on the stage at the Turnverein von New Orleans. Uncle Gus is top left, Louis Mayer is in the middle., Credit: LOUIS MAYER
In this episode, producer Laine Kaplan-Levenson tells us how Germans brought gymnastics to New Orleans.

  • Added: Mar 02, 2016
  • Length: 10:17
Caption: Image of the St. Malo Maroon community from an 1883 edition of Harper's Weekly., Credit: THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
This episode of TriPod: New Orleans at 300 looks at runaway slaves known as maroons.

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio, KUER, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 02, 2016
  • Length: 09:37
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: The Old Plantation. Attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1785-1790
In this episode of TriPod, Laine Kaplan-Levenson talks with Professor Sophie White about dynamics within slave communities in New Orleans and the s...

  • Added: Mar 02, 2016
  • Length: 10:09