Building the Nation
Brian talks with historian Zaheer Ali to find out why the Nation of Islam found such a strong foothold amongst African Americans during the Civil Rights era.
View ArticleThe Craft of the Matter
The Guys talk with a listener about the history of craft brewing in America. The Guys talk with a listener about the history of craft brewing in America.
View Article42 – Hidden World of Traveller Girls
Stories of young Irish Traveller women. Travellers —the people of walking, sometimes called the gypsies of Ireland. Exploring ancient and modern Traveller rituals that cling on the edge of the Celtic...
View ArticleThe Forgotten Women of Ireland's Easter Rising Rebellion
This year, commemorations are taking place on both sides of the Atlantic to mark the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising. On April 24, 1916 — the day after Easter — some 1,600 Irish nationalists...
View ArticleThe Women Who Shaped the Politics of the Civil War Alongside Lincoln's Generals
The wives of Lincoln's top generals greatly influenced their husbands' politics and decisions during the Civil War. In Lincoln’s Generals’ Wives: Four Women Who Influenced the Civil War for Better and...
View ArticleGoing To The Chapel
The month of June gets its name from Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. This could be part of the reason why June continues to be the most popular month to get married. In this hour of BackStory, we...
View ArticleContenders: Women Who Fought for the White House
If Hillary Clinton wins in November, she will become the first female President in American history. But she is not the first woman to seek this office. Today, we look back at three of the most...
View ArticleWhat To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - it’s a phrase we’ve all heard. But do we really know what Thomas Jefferson meant by that? For that matter, did Jefferson place a period or comma after...
View ArticleTalk of the Nation
The 2016 presidential race switches into high gear this month with the back-to-back Republican and Democratic party conventions. Before they became heavily scripted affairs for TV, conventions were...
View ArticleBazaar Behavior
The Guys talk with a listener about when and why American children began to buy Christmas presents for their parents. The Guys talk with a listener about when and why American children began to buy...
View ArticleHayes vs Tilden. Showdown at the Capital
As Washington prepares for the next four years, BackStory looks back at some of the more dramatic presidential transitions from the past. On this show, the Guys explore several high-stakes presidential...
View ArticleThe Pioneering Women Who Built New York
Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this segment. New York City history is often associated with powerful men like William "Boss" Tweed, former Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, and artists like Norman...
View ArticleThe Last Civil War Widows
Daisy Anderson and Alberta Martin lived what seemed like parallel lives. Both had grown up poor, children of sharecroppers in the South. Daisy in Tennessee; Alberta in Alabama. Both women got married...
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Giving Voice to the History of American Women
The Center for Women's History has one major goal: to challenge your (probably) male-centric understanding of American history. That doesn't mean removing men altogether; rather, it's about...
View ArticleMiss Subways
Most beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, one contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl. Each month starting in 1941, a young woman was elected...
View ArticleRemembering New York Suffragettes Who Marched 100 Years Ago
On this day, 100 years ago, the women of New York won the right to vote. This was three years before the 19th amendment was passed nation-wide.But New York was far from leading the women's rights...
View ArticleThe Story of Jane
Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in American life and politics. 45 years after Roe vs. Wade – our country is still split. It’s easy to forget that it wasn’t so long ago when abortions were...
View ArticleWell Aren't You Just the Cutest Bunch of Accomplished Women Pilots!
"Do you fly in flat shoes, high heels, or silk stockings?" That was an actual question posed to a group of women pilots at a press conference in New York in 1965. They were about to participate in the...
View ArticleFly Girls
In the early 1940s, the U.S. Air Force faced a dilemma. Thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to military bases nationwide, yet most of America’s pilots...
View ArticleImmigrants in NYC; Speaker Corey Johnson; Daily News Decimated; She Built NYC
Coming up on today's show: Julia Preston, contributing writer for The Marshall Project and former immigration correspondent for The New York Times, talks about her reporting on how President Trump's...
View ArticleReal Women Need Statues
Alicia Glen, New York City deputy mayor for housing and economic development, discusses She Built NYC, a new initiative to commission a public monument or artwork on city property with a focus on...
View ArticleThe United States of Anxiety Season Three: There's an Election Coming
Women gained the right to vote nearly a century ago. Yet, power is still concentrated in the hands of men. In a year that’s seen a surge of female candidates, the question at the heart of the 2018...
View ArticleThe Dream Was Not Mine
Jennifer Willoughby was in an abusive marriage. Saily Avelenda was unhappy with her congressman, who'd held office for over two decades without facing a serious contender. They didn’t know they were...
View ArticleWe've Been Here Before
When Barbara Mikulski arrived in the Senate, all the podiums were built for men… and so was Washington's power structure. So she changed it. In this episode, Mikulski and three of her female Senate...
View ArticleThe Pedestal
Paula Casey is on a mission. She wants to erect a statue in Memphis dedicated to those who fought for a woman’s right to vote more than a century ago. The problem: There’s a Confederate monument in the...
View ArticleThe 'Indoor Man' and His Playmates
Playboy was never just about the pictures or the articles. The magazine helped create a men's liberation movement, founded on the notion that men could have anything they wanted. From Donald Trump to...
View ArticleThe Original Nasty Woman
Jeannette Rankin had a belief: That women were essential to the health of our democracy. She became the first woman elected to Congress over a century ago. Now, Kathleen Williams is vying to follow in...
View ArticleIda B. Wells
Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission:...
View ArticleThe Women of Texas's Secret Resistance
Rural Texas has a reputation as solid Republican territory, but hidden within those large swathes of red are small, individual flecks of blue. In this episode, we bring you the story of a group of...
View ArticleThe Right Kind of Woman
Women running for office are often forced to play by different rules. We look at two candidates: Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Mikie Sherrill in suburban New Jersey. Both are Democrats fighting their...
View ArticleWhat Does the Right Kind of Woman Sound Like?
Shrill, strident, bossy. These are the misogynistic slurs women often face when they run for elected office. In this episode, we meet Rena Cook, a voice coach in Oklahoma who’s training progressive,...
View Article¡Sí Se Puede!
Before “Yes we can!”, there was “¡Sí se puede!” – the workers’ rallying cry coined by lifelong activist Dolores Huerta. In this episode, Huerta (now 88) is interviewed by her daughter Juana about the...
View ArticleThe Seen and the Unseen
Two weeks ago, a seven-year-old girl died in Customs and Border Patrol custody. This week, On the Media considers how coverage of her death has resembled previous immigration story cycles. Plus, we...
View ArticleChallenge: Women Are for Life, Not Just for International Women’s Day
This Friday, March 8, marks an important day at WQXR: a 24-hour marathon of some of the best and most unique music in the classical repertoire — that was all written by women. For the first time, we’ll...
View ArticleThe Clintons on Gutsy Women
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic nominee for president in 2016, former Secretary of State, former U.S. senator from New York and former first lady of the United States, and her daughter Chelsea...
View ArticleNew York's 'Vaccine Passport'; Chauvin Trial Opening; Groundbreaking Women;...
On today's show:New York recently launched a vaccine passport called the "Excelsior Pass." Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Linux Foundation of Public Health, talks about what it is, and how...
View ArticleFly Girls
Soon after he entered office, President Biden issued an executive order allowing transgender people to serve in the military. It was the latest in a long series of shifts in who can serve and who...
View Article'Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League'
Beginning in 1967, the National Women's Football League spread to nineteen cities in the U.S and lasted for over two decades. But many have never heard the stories of teams like the Toledo Troopers and...
View ArticleA Book on the History of the Barbizon Hotel
[REBROADCAST FROM March 16, 2021] A new book tells the history of the Barbizon Hotel, a New York City residential hotel for women that served as a home for many local greats from Sylvia Plath, to Joan...
View Article188 - Fast Food and Radical Rooflines: Helen Fong Shapes Los Angeles Coffee...
Helen Fong, one of the few women practicing architecture in the US in the 1950s, is best known for her “Googie” California coffee shop architectural style. Pann’s Coffee Shop, Denny's, Bob's Big Boy—...
View ArticleBanging on the Door: The Election of 1872
Voting rights was just as hot an issue in 1872 as it is today. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women went to cast a ballot in the election - and Anthony ended up arrested and tried. But another...
View ArticleHow Having A Record Number Of Women In Congress Changes The Policy Agenda
Why is it important, in terms of policy, that women play a role as legislators in Congress?On Today's Show:Susan Page, USA Today Washington bureau chief and the author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi...
View ArticleWomen's Work: STEM
As part of Women's History Month, we're sharing stories of the women who moved into traditionally-male professions. Today, Kate Zernike, New York Times reporter and the author of The Exceptions: Nancy...
View ArticleMeasuring The 'Glass Ceiling' For Working Women Around The World
Balancing work and family is often seen as a choice that primarily affects women. But many countries have policies that mean that women don't have to choose one over the other. On Today's Show:The...
View Article210-Ray Eames—Industrial Designer & Artist: Beauty in the Everyday
Many know Ray Eames as the small, dirndled woman behind her more famous husband, Charles Eames. But Ray was the industrial designer bending plywood in the spare bedroom, a talented artist who saw the...
View ArticleMeet Miss Subways
Beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, one contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl. Each month starting in 1941, a young woman was elected “Miss...
View Article215—Prince and the Technician
In 1983 Prince hired LA sound technician Susan Rogers, one of the few women in the industry, to move to Minneapolis and help upgrade his home recording studio as he began work on the album and the...
View ArticleThe Girls of the Leesburg Stockade
On July 19, 1963, 30 Black girls were arrested while marching to protest segregation in Americus, Georgia. After spending a night in jail, they were transferred to the one-room Lee County Stockade and...
View ArticleArchitect Anna Wagner Keichline: The Legacy of Invention
Anna Wagner Keichline (1889–1943) was the first registered woman architect in Pennsylvania and was among the first registered women architects in the United States. During her long career, she designed...
View ArticleEmily Dickinson's Hidden Kitchen—Black Cake
Deep in the hidden archives of Harvard’s Houghton Library are the butter stained recipes of Emily Dickinson. Who knew? Emily Dickinson was better known by most as a baker than a poet in her lifetime....
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