BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites

Series produced by BackStory with the American History Guys

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A collection of the best stories and features from BackStory, meant for excerpt by programs or stations.

BackStory is a weekly one-hour public radio show that provides a national broadcast audience with an enjoyable and accessible way of engaging challenging themes in American history and how they connect with today.

The pieces in this series are available for individual excerpt. If you are interested in full episodes of BackStory, check out our main series page.


188 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
'Reel' Indians
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Chief Hollow Horn Bear depicted as the “American Indian” on a 14-cent stamp, 1922. , Credit: U.S. Postal Service.
Producer Kelly Jones and scholar Barbara Meek talk through Hollywood Indian English - a grammatical stereotype that often endures in today's media ...

Bought by Troy Public Radio and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 07:11
  • Purchases: 2
Nothing but the Truth
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Chief Hollow Horn Bear depicted as the “American Indian” on a 14-cent stamp, 1922. , Credit: U.S. Postal Service.
Historian Christian McMillan discusses a legal case between the Hualapai tribe and the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad, which makes it all the way to the...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 09:53
  • Purchases: 1
War on the Gridiron
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Chief Hollow Horn Bear depicted as the “American Indian” on a 14-cent stamp, 1922. , Credit: U
Historian David Wallace Adams tells the story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team, who were successful on the field - but not al...

Bought by WXDU, New Hampshire Public Radio, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 07:52
  • Purchases: 4
A Political Diet Plan
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Student nurses being trained in nutrition, New York, 1942 – photographed by Fritz Henle
Host Brian Balogh talks with food journalist Marian Burros about the US Senate’s attempt to encourage healthy eating in the 1970s, and the pushback...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 07:41
  • Purchases: 1
Calming the System
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Student nurses being trained in nutrition, New York, 1942 – photographed by Fritz Henle
Ed talks with Pomona College English professor Kyla Wazana Tompkins about the austere diet created by Sylvester Graham, designed to ward off a new ...

Bought by Troy Public Radio


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 10:09
  • Purchases: 1
Meatless Moralism
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Piece image
Ed sits down with historian Adam Shprintzen to discuss the 19th-century Americans who saw a vegetarian diet as a powerful tool of moral reform, one...

Bought by XRAY.fm and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2014
  • Length: 08:45
  • Purchases: 2
(Over)rulers
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Piece image
Legal scholar Bruce Ackerman talks about how presidents from Lincoln to Obama have used their military powers. This segment is from the BackStory e...

  • Added: Dec 08, 2014
  • Length: 09:22
Married to the Job
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Piece image
What is the role of the First Lady, anyway? Host Brian Balogh and scholar Lisa Burns discuss the ill-defined role of First Ladies, and the backlash...

Bought by WTJU and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 08, 2014
  • Length: 09:45
  • Purchases: 2
"His Accidency"
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Piece image
Producer Andrew Parsons explores the legacy of John Tyler, a man who was called a tyrant and worse simply for insisting that he was, in fact, the P...

Bought by WOUB, WABE, New Hampshire Public Radio, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 08, 2014
  • Length: 08:30
  • Purchases: 4
Counter Culture: The Wonderful Windows of Oz
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: The greatest department store on earth; — and every day a bargain day,’ by J.S. Pughe. Puck, 1899.
Producer Eli Wirtschafter brings us the story of author L. Frank Baum’s very successful career creating other fantasy lands — department store wind...

Bought by WABE, Troy Public Radio, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 22, 2014
  • Length: 10:09
  • Purchases: 3
The New End of Old New York
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Elektro the Moto-Man and his Little Dog Sparko, created by Westinghouse Electric Company for the 1939 World’s Fair., Credit: New York City Public Library
Historian Max Page talks about why New York City is so often the target of destruction on the page and the silver screen. This segment comes from t...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 05, 2015
  • Length: 09:10
  • Purchases: 1
On Top of the World
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Elektro the Moto-Man and his Little Dog Sparko, created by Westinghouse Electric Company for the 1939 World’s Fair., Credit: New York City Public Library
Bradley Boyd and reporter Ashley Creek head to the top of an old hotel in Birmingham, Alabama, which made provisions for a future that never came. ...

Bought by Troy Public Radio, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 05, 2015
  • Length: 05:11
  • Purchases: 3
Life on Mars?
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Elektro the Moto-Man and his Little Dog Sparko, created by Westinghouse Electric Company for the 1939 World’s Fair., Credit: New York City Public Library
Maria Lane, author of Geographies of Mars, relates what Percival Lowell observed on the red planet. This segment comes from BackStory's episode "Th...

Bought by Radio Newark and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 05, 2015
  • Length: 09:02
  • Purchases: 2
His Boy Elroy
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Elektro the Moto-Man and his Little Dog Sparko, created by Westinghouse Electric Company for the 1939 World’s Fair., Credit: New York City Public Library
Matt Novak of the blog "Paleofuture" talks about "The Jetsons," the show that helped define American ideas of future technology without thinking mu...

Bought by WOUB, New Hampshire Public Radio, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 05, 2015
  • Length: 07:47
  • Purchases: 4
Break Me Off A Piece of That...
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Toward Los Angeles, Calif., by Dorothea Lange, 1937., Credit: Library of Congress
Composer Michael Levine, who wrote the long-running Kit-Kat jingle, tells host Brian Balogh what makes a jingle powerful — and catchy. Then… he off...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 04, 2015
  • Length: 10:07
  • Purchases: 1
Scenic Buyways
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Toward Los Angeles, Calif., by Dorothea Lange, 1937., Credit: Library of Congress
Historian Cathy Gudis returns with the story of how advertising followed 20th century Americans out onto the open road, and discusses efforts to cu...

Bought by WOUB and PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 04, 2015
  • Length: 10:37
  • Purchases: 2
Straight to the Moon
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Toward Los Angeles, Calif., by Dorothea Lange, 1937., Credit: Library of Congress
Author Richard Jurek describes how one giant leap in public relations helped launch NASA’s lunar program - and how brands used the space program to...

Bought by KPIP-LP and PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 04, 2015
  • Length: 09:39
  • Purchases: 2
As Luckies Would Have It...
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Toward Los Angeles, Calif., by Dorothea Lange, 1937., Credit: Library of Congress
Author Larry Tye and host Brian Balogh discuss the masterful campaign by PR guru Edward Bernays, to convince American women to take up smoking. Plu...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 04, 2015
  • Length: 11:13
  • Purchases: 1
Under the Law
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Mural of Rosie the Riveter, Sacramento, Calif., Credit: Library of Congress
Producer Nina Earnest and legal scholar Lea VanderVelde unpack the tort of seduction — one of the few claims women could make to challenge sexual h...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 10, 2015
  • Length: 07:26
  • Purchases: 1
Port in a Storm
From: BackStory with the American History Guys
Series: BackStory with the American History Guys: Favorites
Caption: Cartograph by Ruth Taylor White, for the Hawaii Tourist Bureau, circa 1930. , Credit: University of Oregon
BackStory producer Nina Earnest recounts the extremes to which Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos and his followers fought for independen...

Bought by WABE and PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 25, 2015
  • Length: 10:59
  • Purchases: 2