Podcasts about Works Progress Administration

In this week's episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts Prof. Albert Cheng of Ohio State University and Alisha Searcy of the Center for Strong Public Schools speak with Dr. Suzanne Marrs, Professor Emerita of English at Millsaps College and acclaimed biographer of Eudora Welty, about the life, works, and enduring legacy of one of America's greatest Southern writers. Prof. Marrs explores how Welty's upbringing in Jackson, Mississippi, her family's love of literature, and her mother's devotion to Charles Dickens helped shape her imagination and literary voice. She discusses Welty's travels throughout the South and her work as a Works Progress Administration photographer during the Great Depression, explaining how these experiences informed both her photography and fiction. She highlights celebrated short stories such as Death of a Traveling Salesman, A Worn Path, and Where Is the Voice Coming From?, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Optimist's Daughter, examining their themes of memory, race, family, resilience, and love. Prof. Marrs concludes by reflecting on Welty's National Historic site home in Jackson, Mississippi, and the timeless significance of her literary legacy in 21st-century America. She closes with a reading from Eudora Welty: A Biography.

From the Depression to the iPhone When Mary Williams forgets something important about one of her countless life stories, it isn't a problem: She consults her laptop. Born on May 13, 1926, she's been writing detailed accounts of her life for at least 80 years, from surviving hurricanes and losing her hair on a drill press, to working as an operator for AT&T ("Ma Bell") and traveling the world. She moved to Cold Spring 10 years ago to be closer to her daughter, Galelyn Williams, who lives in the village. She grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during the Depression and remembers the era vividly. "I was kind of a naughty child," she said, recalling that she started smoking at age 11. "No one had any money, but it was OK because families were more tribal, people were more connected and helped each other out," she recalled. "There wasn't a lot of envy, because no one had anything. Everybody was about the same." Jobs were scarce. Her father worked for the Works Progress Administration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's employment and infrastructure program. Her mother was unable to work but volunteered at Pawtucket City Hall. "We ate hot dogs and whatever we could get ahold of," Williams said, adding that her mom "wasn't much of a cook" but did occasionally prepare a leg of lamb, which at 10 to 15 cents a pound was cheaper than beef or pork. "Everybody was poor — some were dirt poor — but we managed," she said. Their rent was covered by a form of welfare. In 1936, a hurricane devastated the area, killing 600 people, especially close to shore. "It was a bugger; there were no warnings back then," Williams said. "On one little island, the waves wiped all the houses right off the map." She attended a strict Catholic grade school, "an education of thou shall nots." As a teen, she moved to nearby Oakland Beach, where roller skating was the popular entertainment. She and her friends sometimes scraped barnacles off the bottom of rowboats to earn enough to cover the 30-cent entrance fee. "We stayed friends all our lives," she said. Williams remembers skating to her favorite song, the Glenn Miller Orchestra performing "In the Mood." "There was so much good music, couples always had 'their song,' " she said. "It was romantic, gentle music and easy to skate to." She had her first date, at age 15, at the roller rink, with a guy named Louie. "It was the first time a guy kissed me," she said, adding that Louie was quite upset when she told him she didn't like him. She quit school in 10th grade after her father fell ill to work and help her mother raise her younger brother. "My first job was at Sammy Salk's General Store," she said. "I worked six days a week for a total of $15. I could buy enough food with that." She knew many young men who went off to fight in World War II, not all of whom returned. "So many, so many," she recalled. The war meant factory work. "I had a bunch of jobs, including working on a drill press," she said. She once lost half of her hair when it caught in the press. She also worked in a shipyard and took on a second job at a soda fountain. While it was a difficult time to be a teenager, she remembers how the nation unified. "We were together as a country during World War II," she said. "But we've done nothing but fight wars since. That's all we do now, bomb people." Not one to mince words, she said she has "lived through 17 U.S. presidents and one stupid SOB." In 1946, she bought a 1938 Cadillac and a trailer and headed to the West Coast with a friend. "It was a pimp car, and it took us 13 days," she said with a laugh. She kept detailed notes along the 2,448 miles of Route 66 and described California as "America's best kept secret" at the time. Williams was working for AT&T in Rhode Island and transferred to California, staying with the company for 35 years as a telephone operator. She said operators sometimes listened in while couples engaged in phone sex. "We would listen, but if you were caught, the company would fir...

By 1935 the material conditions of the average America were still unacceptably low and millions had no hope of private employment. Help was on the way though, and FDR would spare no expense in making the new Works Progress Administration a success.    Bibliography for this episode:    Taylor, Nick American Made, The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work Bantam Books 2008 Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945 Oxford University Press 1999 Hiltzik, Michael The New Deal: A Modern History Simon and Schuster 2011 Schlesinger Jr, Arthur M. The Politics of Upheaval 1935-1936: The Age of Roosevelt Volume III First Mariner Books 2003 Katznelson, Ira Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time W.W. Norton and Company, Inc 2013 Smith, Jason Scott A Concise History of the New Deal Cambridge University Press 2014 Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 1932-1940 Harper-Perennial 1963   Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Collective bargaining is the foundation that organized labor is built on. Truly, it's at the heart of what unions are and what unions do for their members. When UUP negotiates a contract for its members, our union has a equal hand in determining terms of employment—including compensation, job protections, benefits, work hours and more—with our employer, the state of New York. Over the years, UUP has achieved many gains through collective bargaining, from securing health care benefits and per-course minimum pay for part-time employees to annual across-the-board salary increases for our members and everyone we represent in our bargaining unit. In our current contract, which expires July 1, we negotiated to have New York's Paid Parental Leave—up to 12 weeks of guaranteed, fully paid leave following the birth, adoption or foster placement of a child—added to our agreement with the state. We also established 7-year and 12-year retention awards based on an employee's length of service—a UUP goal for decades. We also maintained our health benefits package with no increases in copays or employee share of premiums. These gains were not easily gotten. They never are. In this episode of The Voice Podcast, host Fred Kowal--who's also UUP's statewide president--talks to three people who were at the table to negotiate UUP's last three contracts with the state of New York. They are: Former statewide Vice President for Academics Jamie Dangler, chief negotiator for our 2011-2016 contract, easily one of UUP's most difficult contracts to negotiate.  Elizabeth Hough, UUP's former counsel to the president, who was at the table for two UUP contracts, the 2016-2022 agreement and the union's current 2022-2026 contract, which expires July 1. UUP Chief Negotiator Bret Benjamin served on UUP's Negotiations Team for the 2016-22 agreement and was chief negotiator for our current contract. He's also chief negotiator for a new contract we're negotiating with the state. In Labor Lookback, Mike Lisi explores the impact President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration had on workers and the entire country during the Great Depression. He also looks at the life of folk icon Pete Seeger, a longtime union supporter. Kowal discusses the brings home the importance of collective bargaining to unions in Kowal's Coda. Music used in this podcast: "It's Got to be Love" - Henry King & His Orchestra with vocal by Joseph Sudy  "Solidarity Forever" - Pete Seeger 

Lewisville Regional Park reopens Wednesday after a fire destroyed the Central picnic shelter in the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 12. The shelter, built between 1936 and 1940 under the Works Progress Administration, was one of six original structures in a park listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Clark County Sheriff's Office is investigating. https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/lewisville-regional-park-will-reopen-wednesday-may-13/ #LewisvilleRegionalPark #ClarkCounty #Vancouver #WashingtonState #ParkFire #ClarkCountySheriff #HistoricPreservation #WPA #PublicSafety

Have you ever noticed a branded stamp in the sidewalk? Keen-eyed Chicagoans have found some that date back to Depression-era infrastructure projects by the Works Progress Administration. Who were the workers behind the WPA and why did they brand Chicago sidewalks? We explore the labor history under our feet.

What the Stone Did Not ForgetThe lineage of the sacred feminine from Neolithic Europe all the way to the Stardust Lineage.There is an image of a woman small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. She is less than four and a half inches tall, carved from Neolithic limestone over 28,000 years ago near the Danube River in what is now called Austria. She is all curved. A sacred feminine body with a round belly, full breasts, wide hips, a body in its fullness and generative power, honored in the most permanent material available.She has no face. She does not need one. She is not a portrait of an individual woman. She is every woman. And she is a statement about what the female body means, what it carries, what it represents, and the cosmology of the people who made her. She is, of course, the Venus of Willendorf.She was once tinted with red ochre, the same iron-rich pigment as human blood, and women's blood. Even in the act of carving, there was an awareness of the connection between body, earth, and cosmos. The stone itself was not incidental. The stone holds what time cannot otherwise keep. The stone holds the story and remembers.Across a vast arc of prehistoric Europe and Asia, from France to Siberia, archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of similar figurines spanning thousands of years of human creative life. Each one encoded the same understanding. The female body is sacred. It doesn't represent the sacred. It is the sacred and created from the sacred. She is the source. She is the organizing principle of human life.Honoring the feminine because of matriarchy was not something radical, was not feminism. It was not simply embedded into the fabric of early human cultures. It was actually what the fabric was woven from — not just embedded, woven from. It is the very fibers of the tapestry.And this story lasts for thousands and thousands and thousands of years before the eventual widespread emergence of organized warfare, before the legal and theological structures that would later declare the female body a problem to be managed and named, before the invention of land ownership.The stone did not forget, even as later cultures obscured, suppressed, and reinterpreted and renamed what these figurines meant. The stone holds the story. The clay holds the imprint.Marija Gimbutas and the Language of the Sacred BodyMuch of what we know about these ancient cultures comes from the work of Marija Gimbutas, the Lithuanian-American archaeologist, Professor Emeritus at UCLA, and one of the most important and most contested scholars in the 20th century. She spent decades excavating what she called Old Europe, the Neolithic cultures of prehistoric Europe that flourished before the arrival of the patriarchal peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppes beginning around 4000 BCE. In the regions of what is now known as Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania, the Cucuteni-Trypillia era, she documented cultures that developed sophisticated symbolic systems over thousands of years, deeply rooted in agricultural art and the cyclical understandings of life.In thousands of figurines, burial sites, ceremonial objects, and symbolic markings, she identified a coherent visual language — circles, spirals, triangles, and the female form encoding an entire civilization's understanding of life, death, the regeneration cycle, and the sacred. This is not primitive decoration. These are not fertility charms made for male desire. These are acts of reverence and collaboration, a co-creative relationship, symbols encoded into stone and clay, telling a story about who we were and perhaps who we could be.And she found no weapons there until later.Her interpretation, by the way, has been challenged and debated by subsequent scholars. Her naming, her description of the archaeomythology of the ancient mothers — to this day, archaeologists are trying to disprove her theories and relabel her findings.And yet the figurines — it's even hard to call them that. The mother. She just exists. The symbols recur across vast distances and thousands of years with a consistency that really demands no explanation. We honored her and her body. Whatever the precise nature of the social structures that produced them, the female body represented in these artifacts is the power. She is the primary symbol through which a civilization found its meaning.That understanding did not disappear when the cultures that held it were disrupted. It went underground, literally, and it survived in objects and then modern day practices that the dominant culture wasn't successful in stamping out.So much they took from us. So much we remembered. The stone remembers, and the stardust bones remember.Lenore Thomas Straus — Choosing the MotherThis is how it leads into our Stardust Lineage.In 1937, sculptor Lenore Thomas Straus received a commission through the Public Works Administration — sometimes called the Works Progress Administration — in Greenbelt, Maryland. This is one of the New Deal communities being built during the Depression, supported by the Roosevelts' vision for an American public life. Lenore worked on multiple projects connected to this era of public art, and photographs document her alongside Eleanor Roosevelt in a hard hat.Lenore also made a note that these communities were being built for white people, but by Black people. That is part of the story. The untold story.For the Greenbelt commission, Lenore was given latitude to choose her subject. It was going to go in the town square. She chose a mother and child — not a warrior, not a statesman for the area, not an allegory of progress or industry. A mother kneeling, with her child holding a cup with both hands. It is carved across three four-foot limestone blocks from Indiana, twelve feet of stone placed in public space, and functional — a water fountain. Just like a woman, she wanted to make sure it made sense. Utility and reverence made inseparable, the act of offering water given permanent form in stone. The sculpture was commissioned in 1937 and completed in 1939.This is, of course, a conscious choice. With the full range of American civic iconography available to her, with the imprimatur of federal commission behind her, Lenore Thomas Straus chose to place the sacred feminine body in a public square — a mother and a child.She also carved in a separate commission the Preamble to the Constitution in stone, also in Maryland.She knew what she was doing. She was doing what the Neolithic carvers had done across thousands of years — inscribing the female body and the values of a society that honors life in the most permanent material available.She wrote of her relationship to carving stone as an artist: Quietly, I bow to the stone.To our community, this summarizes the root system of Intentional Creativity. The sentence holds an entire philosophy. The sculptor does not dominate the material. She listens to it. She honors what it carries. She brings her full devotion to bear before she raises a hand to shape it.Greenbelt, Maryland is where Lenore Thomas Straus is from — Prince George's County, Maryland.Lenore Thomas Straus became the teacher of a young artist named Sue Hoya Sellers. She recognized Sue when Sue was seventeen years old. Sue had ridden seven miles on dirt roads to find her, a portfolio strapped to her bicycle, clothes starched and ironed, two years of preparation. Lenore called her a young artist, and Sue was one.Among the things Lenore passed to Sue was an understanding that the sacred feminine image belonged in the hands of women — that carving was not decoration, that it was transmission, and honestly, a form of decolonizing the female body.Sue carried this forward in her own large-scale work, including a monumental pregnant woman carved in wood commissioned for Alice Walker that stands at Stardust Ranch in Sonoma — the sacred feminine body again in the most permanent material available, given to the woman who had sat at the table with Sue, given to the writer who told me that to be happy is one of the most revolutionary acts.And Sue passed this assignment to me when I was twenty-four. Sue co-mothered me, and this was among the most sacred things she passed forward.A Cold Day and a Palm-Sized PrayerI remember the day.It was cloudy and cold on the mountain. Sue and I, months before, had gone out to dig the very clay from the earth — red clay. She wanted me to understand the whole cycle of making. Finally, the clay was made. It was placed in my hands, and she said: make it fit the palm of your hand. For prayer. Put your intention into it.I brought the clay into my hands and began to shape it. I didn't know what it would become, but I knew that I was called to make the Sacred Mother. It was the first thing I ever made out of clay.Amazingly, years after Sue's death, Lenore's daughter Nora sent me a small figurine carved in stone — one of Sue's earliest works — a goddess figurine, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It was only then, holding that piece, understanding what Sue had been handed and what she handed to me, that I received the full weight of the assignment — not as an instruction, as a lineage, as a specific, unbroken transmission of an understanding that Lenore had carried from her own teachers, and they from theirs, all the way back to the women who pressed their hands into cave walls and shaped limestone into figurines small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.It makes me think of my recent visit to Malta — how the Sleeping Lady of Malta is so tiny she can almost fit in the palm of your hand. But there were also sculptures so huge they were claimed to be made by giantesses. Lenore and Sue did the same thing — made the tiny and the large.Lenore was a Norwegian woman. She decided to carve an enormous sculpture, a mother and child. She went on to carve the Preamble to the Constitution in stone. She taught Sue and Sue taught me — from hand to hand and really from heart to heart.And when I think of this teaching and share it with my students today, I feel the throughline of the sacred feminine image always emerging and becoming and arriving in and through our hands. Back at the beginning, right at the time I made that sculpture, I knew I wanted to change the way that women were treated and the way that the face of the feminine was regarded in my lifetime.Thousands of paintings are part of it. The carrying on of a Stardust Lineage — from Neolithic limestones to these stardust bones.Us. We.Footnotes(1) The Venus of Willendorf is housed in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. On the red ochre tinting and its connection to blood symbolism in prehistoric ritual contexts, see: Jill Cook, Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind (British Museum Press, 2013); Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (HarperCollins, 1989).(2) On the geographic distribution of similar prehistoric female figurines: Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (1989), Introduction; Cook, Ice Age Art (2013).(3) Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe (HarperCollins, 1991). On the Kurgan hypothesis and the cultural transition beginning around 4000 BCE.(4) On the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture: Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (1989). See also: John Chapman, Fragmentation in Archaeology (Routledge, 2000) for a more recent treatment.(5) Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (1989). On the visual symbolic language of prehistoric European artifacts.(6) For scholarly critique of Gimbutas's methodology, see: Lynn Meskell, “Goddesses, Gimbutas and ‘New Age' Archaeology,” Antiquity 69 (1995): 74–86. For a balanced recent assessment, see: Douglass Bailey, Prehistoric Figurines: Corporeality and Representation in the Neolithic (Routledge, 2005).(7) Lenore Thomas Straus, Mother and Child, Indiana limestone water fountain, commissioned 1937, completed 1939, Greenbelt Homes Inc., Greenbelt, Maryland. Commissioned through the Public Works Administration / Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. Photographic documentation of Straus with Eleanor Roosevelt held in the Stardust Lineage archive. For archival verification, consult Greenbelt Museum records.(8) Lenore Thomas Straus, Preamble to the Constitution, stone, Greenbelt, Maryland. Documented by personal visit. For archival citation, consult Greenbelt Museum records and WPA Federal Art Project documentation.(9) Lenore Thomas Straus, Stone Dust. Exact page number to be confirmed before publication. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

1. Headline: The Birth of the Federal Theater Project Guest Author: James Shapiro On April 14, 1936, the Lafayette Theater hosted an integrated crowd for the premiere of an all-Black production of *Macbeth*. This era-defining moment was made possible by the Works Progress Administration under Harry Hopkins, who launched Federal One to employ artists during the Great Depression. Hopkins believed in putting people back to work in fields that suited their skills rather than manual labor. He recruited Hallie Flanagan, an experimental theater professor from Vassar College, to lead the newly formed Federal Theater Project, which eventually reached millions across twenty-nine states. (1)1939 OKLAHOME

This week, we explore the long and winding history behind the creation of a Botanical Garden in Atlanta - a dream that took more than 50 years to become reality. The story begins with Eugene Schofield Heath, who first pushed for a garden in the city in 1918. From ambitious Works Progress Administration projects along the Chattahoochee River to stalled plans caused by World War II, Atlanta repeatedly tried, and failed, to establish a permanent botanical garden. It wasn't until the 1970s, when civic leaders and garden advocates rallied around a new site in Piedmont Park, that the idea finally took root. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: thevictorialemos@gmail.com Facebook | Instagram 

Lucille Clifton survived cancer four times. She maintained that her mother would not let her die until she had finished her work on Earth. That work? Writing poetry. A year before she passed away, Lucille Clifton was honored at the Furious Flower Poetry Conference at James Madison University where she spoke to With Good Reason's Sarah McConnell about inheriting her mother's rage and commitment to writing. And: A whole lot can happen in a Southampton County minute. Latorial Faison's Pulitzer Prize nominated poetry collection Nursery Rhymes in Black animates the education of her rural Virginia childhood. Later in the show: In 1941, Remica Bingham Risher's paternal great-great-great grandmother Minnie and maternal grandmother Mary never met— but they had been within one mile of each other under extraordinary circumstances. Minnie was interviewed for the Works Progress Administration's Slave Narratives project on her Petersburg front porch. Just down the road, Mary was taken to the Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane for “water in the brain” – what we know now as postpartum depression. Nearly a century later, in Remica Bingham-Risher's Room Swept Home, they meet.

Fourteen years ago this week, The Flood had a wonderful evening with a local legend, a gentle soul named Mark Keen. Visiting from his Pittsburgh home, Mark sat in on harmonica for a rollicking evening of blues. Growing up in Huntington, Mark and a long-time Flood buddy, guitarist Randy Brown, went all through school together here back in the ‘70s. Mark didn't get back to Huntington very often, but when he did, Randy brought him around to jam with The Flood on the evening of Nov. 9, 2011. The video above — shot by Flood manager Pamela Bowen — is a homage to that night.The Keen FamilyIt was one of Mark's rare visits back to his hometown since his father's death. Leonard Keen died in 2009 at age 94 after nearly 50 years of running a fixture on Huntington's 9th Street, Keen Jewelers.Born in Cincinnati in 1914, Leonard served in the U.S. Navy and during the Great Depression worked for the federal Works Progress Administration.In a story in his “Lost Huntington” column in The Herald-Dispathc, local historian James E. Casto quoted Keen as saying, “My wife was a native of Huntington. So during a visit to her parents, we decided that Huntington would be a good place to open a store.”Keen and his wife Betty Ann moved from Louisville to Huntington and in April 1958, Mayor Harold Frankel helped cut the ribbon at their new store, which was located at 322 9th St. Exactly 20 years later, on April 16, 1978, after urban renewal forced the jewelry store to relocate, Frankel again did the honors, helping Keen cut the ribbon at a new location, just down the street at 419 9th St.Leonard and Betty's son Mark was born in 1952 and grew up in Huntington, a talented drummer and harmonica player who performed with bands here and later in the Pittsburgh area.Mark's PassingAfter The Flood's delightful jam that November evening at the Bowen House, we never got to see Mark again. A half dozen years later, he passed away at 65 at home in Oakmont, Pa., of natural causes.Following a celebration of Mark, he was interred at Huntington's Spring Hill Cemetery. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Episode Summary:Tune in for an important update on The People's Recorder!Host Chris Haley shares the state of the podcast now in the wake of recent funding cuts and also the exciting plans we have coming up over the next few months, including a sneak preview of "Gospel of Fear," our trilogy of episodes about Congressman Martin Dies, the playbook he used to attack the WPA and the Federal Writers' Project, and how we're all still feeling the impact of that playbook today.The People's Recorder is also now on Patreon! Support the podcast and help keep these stories coming and out in the world where they belong. Become a patron for only $5/month and receive access to exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, AMA events, and more!For more information and to sign up, visit: www.patreon.com/peoplesrecorderImage Description and Credit: Protestors in Center City Philadelphia, 1939, staging a symbolic "funeral" for the Federal Writers' Project, a Works Progress Administration program soon to be gutted by federal budget cuts. From the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.Episode Credits: Director: Andrea KalinProducers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James MirabelloEditor: Ethan OserFeaturing Music from Pond5For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folklore extant, and a significant portion is devoted to folk music and song. John Minton's Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives (UP of Mississippi, 2024) examines the musical references in these narratives. A combination of reference information and analysis, Minton contextualizes and scrutinizes the vocal and instrumental music the narrators talked about, explains the various musical and cultural influences on Black folk music, and discusses the place of music and dance in the lives of enslaved people. He covers instrumental music and social dancing, spirituals and hymns, singing games and lullabies, ring plays and reels, worksongs, minstrel songs, ballads, war songs, slavery laments, and more. In the course of this exhaustive book, Minton helps his readers understand the lives of the narrators and the conditions in which they lived before and after emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folklore extant, and a significant portion is devoted to folk music and song. John Minton's Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives (UP of Mississippi, 2024) examines the musical references in these narratives. A combination of reference information and analysis, Minton contextualizes and scrutinizes the vocal and instrumental music the narrators talked about, explains the various musical and cultural influences on Black folk music, and discusses the place of music and dance in the lives of enslaved people. He covers instrumental music and social dancing, spirituals and hymns, singing games and lullabies, ring plays and reels, worksongs, minstrel songs, ballads, war songs, slavery laments, and more. In the course of this exhaustive book, Minton helps his readers understand the lives of the narrators and the conditions in which they lived before and after emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folklore extant, and a significant portion is devoted to folk music and song. John Minton's Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives (UP of Mississippi, 2024) examines the musical references in these narratives. A combination of reference information and analysis, Minton contextualizes and scrutinizes the vocal and instrumental music the narrators talked about, explains the various musical and cultural influences on Black folk music, and discusses the place of music and dance in the lives of enslaved people. He covers instrumental music and social dancing, spirituals and hymns, singing games and lullabies, ring plays and reels, worksongs, minstrel songs, ballads, war songs, slavery laments, and more. In the course of this exhaustive book, Minton helps his readers understand the lives of the narrators and the conditions in which they lived before and after emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folklore extant, and a significant portion is devoted to folk music and song. John Minton's Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives (UP of Mississippi, 2024) examines the musical references in these narratives. A combination of reference information and analysis, Minton contextualizes and scrutinizes the vocal and instrumental music the narrators talked about, explains the various musical and cultural influences on Black folk music, and discusses the place of music and dance in the lives of enslaved people. He covers instrumental music and social dancing, spirituals and hymns, singing games and lullabies, ring plays and reels, worksongs, minstrel songs, ballads, war songs, slavery laments, and more. In the course of this exhaustive book, Minton helps his readers understand the lives of the narrators and the conditions in which they lived before and after emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In this episode of Art Heals All Wounds, I sit down with Larissa Trinder, the Assistant Vice President for Arts in Medicine at NYC Health + Hospitals. Larissa shares the transformative power of art within healthcare, discussing how intentional art initiatives and community engagement can improve hospital environments, support staff, and promote wellness for patients—including those in marginalized communities.Key Topics Covered·       Larissa's Path to Arts in Medicine: Larissa shares her personal journey, starting with her son's experience with dyslexia and the role of art in boosting his self-esteem, ultimately leading to his career as an animator. ·       History of NYC Health + Hospitals' Art Collection: The hospital system holds over 7,500 works of art, one of the largest public art collections in NYC, originating from the 1930s Works Progress Administration. The collection includes iconic works like Abram Champanier's Alice in Wonderland panels and a Keith Haring mural raising AIDS awareness.·       Art as a Tool for Engagement and Healing: Larissa explains how art programs serve not just to beautify spaces, but to foster community, support staff well-being, and highlight critical social issues like gun violence and support for asylum seekers.·       Highlighted Projects:o   Art programs in correctional health services at Rikers Island, including a mural at the reentry center co-created by incarcerated individuals and artist Dindga McCannon.o   Guns Down, Life Up—an arts initiative embedded in hospital violence prevention programs.Upcoming Events & Announcements·       Documentary Premiere: Hidden Art Healing Walls will air on WNET's Treasures of New York and all PBS stations in early 2026, showcasing the Art in Medicine program.·       Major Exhibition: An exhibition of the Abram Champanier murals opens at the Museum of the City of New York, June–September 2026—the museum's largest show of the year.·       New Exhibitions:o   We Belong Here (opens June 4, 2026): An exhibition highlighting immigrant support through NYC Care, with works by three immigrant artists displayed citywide.o   Housing for Health/Street Health Outreach: In collaboration with NYU's Healing Arts Week (fall 2026), featuring art created by patients experiencing homelessness.How to Learn More·       Bloomberg Connects App: Search for NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine to view a digital collection and learn more about their programming.·       Official Website: NYC Health + Hospitals – Arts in Medicine (Note: The site is being updated but contains extensive information.)·       Book: Healing Walls – Features photos and stories of the community mural program.·       Therman Statom·       Roger UlrichConnect with Art Heals All WoundsWebsite: arthealsallwoundspodcast.comCredits·       Music: By Ketsa and Lobo Loco·       Editor: Iva Hristova

Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (U Chicago Press, 2025) offers a history of how encounters between architects and people with disabilities transformed modern culture. Window Shopping with Helen Keller recovers a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities. David Serlin reveals how people with sensory and physical impairments navigated urban spaces and helped to shape modern culture. Through four case studies--the lives of Joseph Merrick (aka "The Elephant Man") and Helen Keller, the projects of the Works Progress Administration, and the design of the Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped--Serlin offers a new history of modernity's entanglements with disability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture

Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (U Chicago Press, 2025) offers a history of how encounters between architects and people with disabilities transformed modern culture. Window Shopping with Helen Keller recovers a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities. David Serlin reveals how people with sensory and physical impairments navigated urban spaces and helped to shape modern culture. Through four case studies--the lives of Joseph Merrick (aka "The Elephant Man") and Helen Keller, the projects of the Works Progress Administration, and the design of the Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped--Serlin offers a new history of modernity's entanglements with disability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (U Chicago Press, 2025) offers a history of how encounters between architects and people with disabilities transformed modern culture. Window Shopping with Helen Keller recovers a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities. David Serlin reveals how people with sensory and physical impairments navigated urban spaces and helped to shape modern culture. Through four case studies--the lives of Joseph Merrick (aka "The Elephant Man") and Helen Keller, the projects of the Works Progress Administration, and the design of the Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped--Serlin offers a new history of modernity's entanglements with disability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThe Doan Brook Watershed Partnership (DBWP) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) are collaborating on a stream-restoration project to address wall deterioration, improve fish habitat, and restore natural stream function through Cleveland's Cultural Gardens along MLK Boulevard. Sections of the channel's stone walls, built during the Works Progress Administration, have broken apart, and local experts are working to balance historic preservation with ecological restoration.In this discussion, Emily Kao (DBWP) and Jenn Brancho (USACE) describe their organizations' measured approach to planning a revitalized urban waterway. We learn how channelization has dramatically altered the stream's natural functions, and how the partnership can deliver a comprehensive restoration strategy that honors both ecological needs and cultural heritage. 

3/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Ferdinaand the Bull."

1/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "It Can''t Hppen Here"

2/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Dance of the Nations"

4/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Mikado"

6/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 federal Theater "She Stoops to Conquer"

7/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Ferdinand the Bull"

8/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Power"

5/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 Federal Theater "Panics of 1938"

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER: 8 /8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER:  5/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935 FEDERAL THEATER

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER:  6/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 FEDERAL THEATER 

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER:  7/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER: 4 /8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1953 HUAC

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER: 3 /8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 "IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE"

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER:  2/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1935-39 FEDERAL THEATER

HUAC'S FIRST TARGET WAS THE FEDERAL THEATER:  /8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1940 HUAC

New Orleans City park is home to some of the world's oldest oak trees. How was the park shaped by the depression and a hurricane? More importantly, how did the trees get some strange names?

David T. Beito's most recent book, and the subject of this conversation, is The New Deal's War On the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance (buy it through the link!), published by the Independent Institute in 2023. The presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal have now largely passed from living memory.  When I was in junior high school in the 1970s, however, many of the teachers had not only lived through the New Deal but remembered it as an almost sacred moment.  We watched scratchy black-and-white movies in class about the great success of FDR's New Deal in ending the Great Depression, the soundtrack blaring with “Happy Days Are Here Again.”  David Beito's book is about the dark side of all that, the almost crazy abuse of American civil liberties under FDR's administration.  FDR's Congressional allies, including future Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and Sherman Minton, rifled through individual tax returns and more than 3 million Western Union telegrams to find dirt on outspoken opponents of the New Deal. They proposed criminalizing "false" news. They used regulatory power and private coercion to drive virtually any criticism of the New Deal from the new medium of radio.  And, finally, they put more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps built by the famous Works Progress Administration, and kept them there long after any argument for military necessity had passed.  And that isn't the end of it by any means! And please listen to the last part, in which we discuss the frosty even if perhaps unsurprising silence with which academic historians have responded to David's excellent book. Listen on Apple, if you prefer, or Spotify. X/Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 and Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast

5/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H rom 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1920 GLOBE THEATER NYC

6/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H rom 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1919 MISSOURI

7/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H rom 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1915 WASHINGTON DC

8/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H rom 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.5  1905 HIPPODROME NYC

GOOD EVENING: The show begins in Pennsylvania with Salena Zito commenting on the maverick and compelling Senator John Fetterman of Braddock, PA. 1912 Breaker Boys Pennsylvania CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR FIRST HOUR 9-915 #KeystoneReport: John Fetterman just didn't care to go to Chicago. Salena Zito, Middle of Somewhere, @DCExaminer Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Post, SalenaZito.com 915-930 #PacificWatch: #VegasReport: The Sphere brings in $1 million a day. @JCBliss 930-945 #SmallBusinessAmerica: The Fed and small business. @GeneMarks @Guardian @PhillyInquirer 945-1000 #SmallBusinessAmerica: Boomers sell to Millennials. @GeneMarks @Guardian @PhillyInquirer SECOND HOUR 10-1015 #CALIFORNIA: Gavin Newsom left off the stage at Chicago, why? Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution 1015-1030 #KURSK: Another nuclear power plant in a war zone. Henry Sokolski, NPEC 1030-1045 #SCOTUS: On "price-gouging" home mortgage "subsidizing" and other micromanagement tools. Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution 1045-1100 #SCOTUS: Both parties and candidates fail on entitlements. Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 5/8: The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two-thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted "un-American" activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House Un-American Activities Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, "the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent." A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1115-1130 6/8: The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War Kindle Edition by James Shapiro (Author) 1130-1145 7/8: The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War Kindle Edition by James Shapiro (Author) 1145-1200 8/8: The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War Kindle Edition by James Shapiro (Author) FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 LANCASTER REPORT: zDiscounts: Jim McTague, former Washington Editor, Barrons. @MCTagueJ. Author of the "Martin and Twyla Boundary Series." #FriendsofHistoryDebatingSociety 1215-1230 #ITALY: Overtourism. Lorenzo Fiori, Ansaldo Foundation 1230-1245 #NASA: Starliner's fate. Bob Zimmerman BehindtheBlack.com 1245-100 am MOON: China strikes water. Bob Zimmerman BehindtheBlack.com

4/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1940 FDR at Pear lwith Nimitz and MacArthur

1/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1924 FDR nominating Al Smith

2/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1934 FDR

3/8:  The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by  James Shapiro  (Author)  https://www.amazon.com/Playbook-Theater-Democracy-Making-Culture-ebook/dp/B0CGTQFQ8H From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre's incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal. 1936 FDR and Sara Roosevelt

Welcome to The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series. I'm your host, Paul Vogelzang, and today we have a fascinating episode lined up for you. We're delighted to have returning guest, Smithsonian Associate David Taylor with us, an acclaimed author and co-producer of the Smithsonian documentary film, “Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America.” David is here to share his insights on his upcoming Smithsonian Associates Walking Tour, titled ‘New Deal Projects Walking Tour,' on the New Deal, a transformative period in American history that not only aimed to revive the economy but also left an indelible mark on the arts and culture.Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was a bold initiative to use government resources to address crucial public services and stimulate economic growth. Yet, Roosevelt himself predicted that in a hundred years, the New Deal would be remembered more for its contributions to the arts than its job relief efforts. Today, we'll explore that intriguing prediction through David's expertise and his engaging walking tour of Washington, D.C.Smithsonian Associate David Taylor will take us on a journey through time, beginning at Judiciary Square, where we'll see public sculptures and dramatic courthouse bas reliefs by notable artists like John Gregory. Our route includes the Henry F. Daly Building, a prime example of Classical Moderne architecture funded by the Works Progress Administration, and the Federal Trade Commission Building, adorned with monumental Art Deco sculptures created by WPA artists. We'll also discuss the renovations of the National Mall and Washington Monument, pivotal projects of the New Deal era.We'll conclude our exploration at the Department of the Interior, home to over 40 New Deal-era murals and photomurals by the legendary Ansel Adams. Smithsonian Associate David Taylor's walking touroffers a unique opportunity to discover these still-visible landmarks and learn about their historical and cultural significance.So, put on your walking shoes and get ready to delve into the rich artistic legacy of the New Deal with our distinguished guest, Smithsonian Associate David Taylor. Join us now for an enlightening conversation on The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series. My thanks to David Taylor and his upcoming Smithsonian Associates Walking Tour, titled ‘New Deal Projects Walking Tour,' on the New Deal, a transformative period in American history that not only aimed to revive the economy but also left an indelible mark on the arts and culture.  My thanks to you our wonderful audience here on The Not Old Better Show Science Interview Series on radio and podcast.  My thanks to Executive Producer Sam Heninger for all his work on audio and making things run smoothly here on the show.  Please be well, be safe and Let's Talk About Better ™.  The Not Old Better Show Science Interview Series on radio and podcast. Thanks everybody and we'll see you next week.

What is populism, anyway? There's a lot of talk about populists and the concept of populism in today's political discourse but little talk about what the roots are and what it actually means. Author and labor educator Steve Babson joined me in the studio to discuss his book, "Forgotten Populists: When farmers turned left to save democracy." This conversation hits a number of points: 03:29 - Populism as an alternative to capitalism 05:40 - One of the most notable populists was legendary Detroit mayor Hazen Pingree, who was both an entrepreneur and a one-time factory worker. His policies revolutionized the city and set it on a path for its golden age. 09:03 - We discuss how different American elections were, as there was no secret ballot. 11:03 - Changing rules 13:19 - The legacy of populism 14:19 - The Works Progress Administration, the New Deal, and examples locally like Keyworth Stadium that were built using populist policies 16:43 - A historical comparison of populism 18:11 - How is the modern UAW different than the past, and the populist threads in that? 19:47 - Why author Steve Babson wrote this book Feedback as always - dailydetroit - at - gmail - dot - com or 313-789-3211 Follow us on Apple Podcasts: https://lnk.to/dailydetroitonapple  Or Spotify: https://lnk.to/dailydetroitonspotify  Thanks to our members: http://www.patreon.com/dailydetroit  Or those who do a one-time contribution: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/dailydetroit