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American History Tellers

American History Tellers

Wondery

1 Creator

1 Creator

The Cold War, Prohibition, the Gold Rush, the Space Race. Every part of your life - the words you speak, the ideas you share - can be traced to our history, but how well do you really know the stories that made America? We'll take you to the events, the times and the people that shaped our nation. And we'll show you how our history affected them, their families and affects you today. Hosted by Lindsay Graham (not the Senator). From Wondery, the network behind American Scandal, Tides of History, American Innovations and more.

Listen to American History Tellers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season. Unlock exclusive early access by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today by visiting wondery.com/links/american-history-tellers/ now.

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120 Listeners

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Top 10 American History Tellers Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best American History Tellers episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to American History Tellers for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite American History Tellers episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

American History Tellers - The Great Depression - The Crash  | 1

The Great Depression - The Crash | 1

American History Tellers

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02/20/19 • 37 min

The Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt on October 29, 1929, with the collapse of the U.S. stock market. A year earlier, president Herbert Hoover had coasted to victory by promising the American people “a chicken for every pot” and “a car in every backyard.” Lured by the promise of skyrocketing markets, many first-time investors got caught up in margin trading, borrowing money to make bigger stock purchases than they could actually afford. It was a foolproof way to make money, so long as stock prices kept rising.

But then, on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, more than sixteen million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. By the market’s close, investors had lost tens of billions of dollars — and kicked off a decade that would reshape American institutions, even as labor unrest, racial tensions, and the dark shadow of nativism pushed back from all sides.

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15 Listeners

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4 Comments

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American History Tellers - California Water Wars - A River in the Desert | 1
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01/22/20 • 36 min

By the turn of the twentieth century, Los Angeles had grown from a dusty, crime-ridden pueblo into a thriving metropolis. The only problem was that it was growing too fast. With no consistently reliable water source and a desert climate leading to a decade-long drought, the city would have to begin looking elsewhere.

In the Owens River Valley, over two hundred miles north of the city, a vast, rushing river, fed by Sierra mountain snow, lay the solution. But how to get the water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles? City water superintendent William Mulholland and former Los Angeles mayor Fred Eaton devised a breathtakingly simple plan: they would build an aqueduct. As Mulholland began sketching out an engineering vision for the project, Eaton secretly purchased land rights in the Owens Valley.

But Eaton’s methods left many valley residents bewildered and angry, setting up a decades-long battle for survival that would pit a metropolis against a small ranching community.

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11 Listeners

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American History Tellers - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - Wildcat  | 1
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10/23/19 • 39 min

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan, claiming the lives of 146 garment workers — mostly women and girls. It was one of the deadliest workplace disasters in American history. Caused by a combination of carelessness and poor safety measures, the fire eventually set off a wave of workplace reforms that changed industry in America and sent New York party politics in a totally different direction.

But in the years before the fire, the workers of the Triangle factory were focused on a different issue — advocating for higher pay. Facing long hours and unsympathetic bosses unwilling to implement change, the women decided they had only one option left.

It was time to go on strike.

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10 Listeners

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American History Tellers - California Water Wars - Building the Dream | 2
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01/29/20 • 37 min

By 1907, the city of Los Angeles had found a solution to its water problem. Two hundred miles north in the Owens River Valley was a never-ending source of water. Los Angeles Water Department superintendent William Mulholland set about constructing one of the largest public works projects the state of California has ever seen. But first, he would have to convince the voters of Los Angeles to approve the project. And then, he would have to build it himself.

For five years construction crews filed into the desert, building a massive aqueduct system that would ferry the water all the way to the thirsty city. Along the way, Mulholland would encounter problems with bureaucrats, bad food, and dynamite. With the project hurtling towards completion, serious doubts would be raised about graft and self-interest. Was the Los Angeles aqueduct really just about water? Or was it set to make a handful of rich men even richer?

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7 Listeners

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American History Tellers - Dutch Manhattan - Henry Hudson’s Big Mistake | 1
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09/04/19 • 35 min

In 1609, a headstrong English sea captain named Henry Hudson set out on behalf of the Dutch East India Company to find a trade route to Asia — and promptly found himself and his crew stranded in icy waters off the coast of Norway. As supplies dwindled, Hudson announced to his frostbitten crew that the ship would change course. They set off across the Atlantic Ocean in search of an alternative route through the North American continent.

Hudson never found the Northwest Passage, but he did come across something else on that journey — a small island the native people called Manna-hatta. That settlement would eventually give rise to a new Dutch colony called New Netherland, with Manhattan Island, or New Amsterdam, as it would come to be known, as its capital. New Amsterdam would come to be defined by two key Dutch values: tolerance and capitalism. This series by Russell Shorto, based on his book The Island at the Center of the World, traces how Manhattan’s brief chapter as a Dutch colony shaped the city for centuries to come.

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7 Listeners

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American History Tellers - California Water Wars - “There It Is—Take It” | 3
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02/05/20 • 37 min

By 1912, the Los Angeles aqueduct project was nearing completion. But as it approached the finish line, fears were growing among the public of a vast conspiracy, fanned by socialist Job Harriman. With the formation of the Aqueduct Investigation Board, engineer William Mulholland found his methods and his purpose suddenly under a microscope. Land deals from nearly a decade ago would threaten to derail the entire project, just a year shy of its completion.

As the roaring Twenties loomed, Los Angeles would grow exponentially. But far north, in Inyo County, the ranchers whose water had been taken from them were gearing up for the first of many retaliations.

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7 Listeners

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American History Tellers - California Water Wars - Collapse  | 5

California Water Wars - Collapse | 5

American History Tellers

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02/19/20 • 37 min

With the failure of the Watterson brothers’ banks, the Owens Valley community was forced to abandon its fight for water rights against the city of Los Angeles. William Mulholland, the Los Angeles water department superintendent, could finally breathe a little easier. The city now had full control over its water supply for the foreseeable future.

But he would discover that some things can’t be foreseen. Construction had finished in 1926 on the last of the nineteen dams that lined the aqueduct. Standing 200 feet tall, the St. Francis dam held back billions of gallons of water. But by spring of 1928, troubling cracks were beginning to appear in the dam’s surface. The events of March 12, 1928, would lead not only to a terrible catastrophe, but would forever change the way the citizens of Los Angeles thought about William Mulholland -- the man who brought them water.

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7 Listeners

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3 Comments

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American History Tellers - Roaring Twenties | The Age of Jazz | 2
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10/06/21 • 40 min

In the 1920s, Americans moved to the city in droves, and a new, diverse generation sparked an era of dizzying social change. It was the Age of Jazz, a time when Black Americans brought a revolutionary new musical style to northern cities. Free-spirited flappers haunted urban nightclubs. And Harlem, New York became the epicenter of a renaissance in Black artistic and political expression.

But rapid changes in the city sparked fear and backlash in the countryside. Rural white Americans vigorously defended traditional religious values, and fundamentalist preachers drew massive audiences. Meanwhile, a resurgent Ku Klux Klan drew millions of new members by targeting not just Black Americans, but also Jews, Catholics, and recent immigrants.

In 1925, the divide between urban and rural America came to a head in a sleepy town in eastern Tennessee, where the sensational “Scopes Monkey Trial” pitted the forces of science and religion against each other.

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In the wake of the biggest workplace catastrophe in the city of New York, the survivors of the Triangle fire and the families of the victims could only watch from the sidelines as the case against the Triangle bosses went to trial. The 146 deaths resulting from the fire had been sifted through the state’s legal machine and condensed into a single woman: a 24-year-old sewing machine operator named Margaret Schwartz.

In December 1911, the general sessions court presided over by Judge Thomas Crain heard the People of New York vs. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The prosecution had a strong piece of physical evidence and a compelling witness. But Harris and Blanck had a lawyer whose courtroom rhetoric might get his clients off scot-free.

If you enjoyed American History Tellers, be sure to check out Lindsay Graham’s other shows, American Scandal and American Elections: Wicked Game.

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6 Listeners

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American History Tellers - The Bastard Brigade - The Strangest Man | 4
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08/07/19 • 39 min

By mid-1944, the Allies’ fight to track down and stop the Nazi atomic program had met with failure and disappointment. And so the Manhattan Project took a new tack by recruiting and developing atomic spies — including a backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox named Moe Berg.

Although little known today, Berg was one of the most famous athletes of his day, and a certified genius. He could charm sports writers and fans alike with his tales of palling around with Babe Ruth and other celebrities, but he also held degrees from Princeton, Columbia, and the Sorbonne and spoke a dozen languages. When World War II broke out, Berg volunteered to work on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services as a spy.

Over time, however, Berg’s focus would shift from espionage toward assassination. Soon, he would travel abroad to target the most feared scientist in the world and the sharpest mind in the Nazi Uranium Club: German physicist Werner Heisenberg.

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6 Listeners

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FAQ

How many episodes does American History Tellers have?

American History Tellers currently has 461 episodes available.

What topics does American History Tellers cover?

The podcast is about Education For Kids, Kids & Family, History and Podcasts.

What is the most popular episode on American History Tellers?

The episode title 'The Great Depression - The Crash | 1' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on American History Tellers?

The average episode length on American History Tellers is 33 minutes.

How often are episodes of American History Tellers released?

Episodes of American History Tellers are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of American History Tellers?

The first episode of American History Tellers was released on Dec 13, 2017.

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Comments

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Miette Craig

@kaymiette

Mar 14

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Absolutely love this show, so good at keeping the listener (me at least) invested and interested!!

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