Best Kelly Therese Pollock Podcasts (2024)

1
The Auburn Prison System & the Case of William Freeman 54:09

2d ago54:09

54:09

In 1817, the second state prison in New York opened in Auburn, situated on a fast-flowing river so waterpower could be used to run machinery in the factories that would be housed in the prison. In a new practice of incarceration that would come to be known as the Auburn System, the prisoners labored in silence during the day for the profit of the p…

1
Quilting & the New Deal 41:51

9d ago41:51

41:51

As part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), so-called “unskilled” women were put to work in over 10,000 sewing rooms across the country, producing both garments and home goods for people in need. Those home goods included quilts, sometimes quickly-made utilitarian bedcoverings, but also artistic quilts worthy of exhibition. Quilts were feat…

1
The Federal Theatre Project 45:43

16d ago45:43

45:43

Between 1935 and 1939, the Federal Theatre Project, part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), employed over 12,000 actors and put on over 1200 productions in 29 states. Led by Hallie Flanagan, the FTP, using only a small fraction of the total WPA budget, employed theater professionals; entertained audiences, some two-third of whom had never …

1
The Red Summer of 1919 & Black Resistance 44:28

23d ago44:28

44:28

In 1919, racial tensions in the US, exacerbated by changes brought about by the first wave of the Great Migration and by the return of Black soldiers who demanded equal citizenship from the country they’d fought for, boiled over into a summer of violence. In Washington, DC, 39 people died after days of fighting between white mobs and Black citizens…

1
The Reconstruction Era & its Aftermath 50:25

30d ago50:25

50:25

As the Civil War was drawing to a close, President Lincoln was preparing for what came after, with plans for reunification of the country, and he began to advocate for limited suffrage for Black Americans. John Wilkes Booth’s bullet cut short those plans, and Southerner Andrew Johnson, who was much more sympathetic to the former Confederacy, succee…

1
The Southern Plantation System 46:56

1M ago46:56

46:56

Fictional depictions of Southern plantations often present romanticized visions of genteel country life, but for the people enslaved on plantations the reality was that of a forced labor camp. At the same time the plantation was also their home. And although they had no choice in where or how they lived, enslaved people did work to make their resid…

1
Slavery & Incarceration in New Orleans 41:33

1M ago41:33

41:33

Shortly after New Orleans became a US city (via the Louisiana Purchase), the municipal council established one of the country’s first professional salaried police forces and began operation of Police Jail, both efforts aimed at the capture and control of enslaved people who had run away from or otherwise disobeyed their enslavers. The history of Ne…

1
The Jazz Maestros of Jim Crow America 45:19

2M ago45:19

45:19

Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie came of age in a deeply segregated country, battling racism to become celebrated musicians, composers, and band leaders whose music lives on. Joining me this week to discuss the lives and careers of these three musical geniuses is writer and journalist Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellin…

1
Negro League Baseball 46:18

2M ago46:18

46:18

In its earliest years, the National League was not segregated, and a few teams included Black ballplayers, but in 1887 major and minor league owners adopted a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” that no new contracts would be given to Black players. In 1920, pitcher and manager Rube Foster founded the first of the Negro Leagues, the Negro National Le…

1
Log Cabin Republicans and the Gay Right 45:34

2M ago45:34

45:34

In 1977, a California state senator named John Briggs took to the steps of City Hall in San Francisco to announce a ballot initiative that would empower school boards to fire gay teachers based only on their sexual orientation. In response, gay activists around California mobilized, including gay Republicans, who formed among the first gay Republic…

1
American Posture Panic 47:52

2M ago47:52

47:52

For several decades in the 20th Century, American universities, including elite institutions, took nude photos of their students, sometimes as often as twice a year, in order to evaluate their posture. In some cases students had to achieve a minimum posture grade in order to graduate. How did that practice develop, and how did it end? This week we’…

1
The History of DARE 44:36

3M ago44:36

44:36

In the fall of 1983, the LAPD, under Chief of Police Darryl Gates and in collaboration with the LA Unified School District, launched Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), sending 10 police officers into 50 elementary schools to teach kids how to say no to drugs. By the time DARE celebrated its 10-year anniversary, there were DARE officers…

1
Alice Roosevelt Longworth 45:08

3M ago45:08

45:08

When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, his eldest child, 17-year-old Alice, rose quickly to celebrity status. The public loved hearing about the exploits of the poker-playing, gum-chewing “Princess Alice,” who kept a small green snake in her purse. By the time she died at age 96, Alice, whose Dupont Circle home included an embroidered pi…

1
Eleanor Roosevelt's Visit to the Pacific Theatre during World War II 42:01

3M ago42:01

42:01

In August 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt set off in secrecy from San Francisco on a military transport plane, flying across the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t until she showed up in New Zealand 10 days later that the public learned about her trip, a mission to the frontlines of the Pacific Theater in World War II to serve as "the President's eyes, ea…

1
Eliza Scidmore 43:27

3M ago43:27

43:27

Journalist Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore traveled the world in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, writing books and hundreds of articles about such places as Alaska, Japan, China, India, and helping shape the journal of the National Geographic Society into the photograph-heavy magazine it is today. Scidmore is perhaps best known today for her long-ru…

1
Foreign Missionaries & American Diplomacy in the 19th Century 43:16

4M ago43:16

43:16

In 1812, when the United States was still a young nation and its State Department was tiny, American citizens began heading around the world as Christian missionaries. Early in the 19th Century, the US government often saw missionaries as experts on the politics, culture, and language of regions like China and the Sandwich Islands, but as the State…

1
Tammany Hall, FDR & the Murder of Vivian Gordon 40:06

4M ago40:06

40:06

In 1931, Judge Samuel Seabury was leading an investigation for Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt into corruption in New York’s magistrate courts when a witness in the investigation named Vivian Gordon was found murdered in the Bronx. Because of the public demand for answers in this high-profile murder case, FDR could no longer keep his uneasy peace wi…

1
The Combahee River Raid of 1863 46:07

4M ago46:07

46:07

Starting in November 1861, the Union Army held the city of Beaufort, South Carolina, using the Sea Islands as a southern base of operations in the Civil War. Harriet Tubman joined the Army there, debriefing freedom seekers who fled enslavement in nearby regions and ran to seek the Union Army’s protection in Beaufort. With the intelligence Tubman ga…

1
The History of Ice in the United States 43:19

4M ago43:19

43:19

Today, Americans consume 400 pounds of ice a year, each. That would have been unfathomable to people in the 18th century, but a number of innovators and ice barons in the 19th and 20th centuries changed the way we think about the slippery substance. Joining me in this episode is writer Dr. Amy Brady, author of Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rink…

1
The History of Blue Jeans 41:26

5M ago41:26

41:26

If you’re like most Americans – or most people on earth – you have a pair of jeans, or maybe five, in your wardrobe. There’s a decent chance you’re wearing jeans right now. These humble pants were invented by a Reno tailor in the 1870s in response to a frustrated customer whose husband kept wearing through his pants too quickly. How, then, did they…

1
The History of Pinball 51:07

5M ago51:07

51:07

In January 1942, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia sent New York City police out on an important mission; their objective: to find and destroy tens of thousands of pinball machines. But some of pinball’s most important innovations, including the development of flippers, happened in the decades that it was banned in New York and many other US cities. This w…

1
The History of US Foreign Disaster Relief 42:43

5M ago42:43

42:43

In 1812, the United States Congress voted to provide $50,000 to assist victims of a horrific earthquake in the far-away country of Venezuela. It would be another nine decades before the US again provided aid for recovery efforts after a foreign rapid-onset natural disaster, but over time it became much more common for the US to help in such emergen…

1
LSD, the CIA & the History of Psychedelic Science 43:37

5M ago43:37

43:37

In 1938, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally developed the potent psychedelic LSD, although it would be several years before Hofmann realized what he’d created. During the Cold War, the CIA launched a top-secret mind control project, code-named MKUltra, experimenting with LSD and other psychedelic substances, drugging military personnel, CIA …

1
Clotilda: The Last U.S. Slave Ship 41:44

5M ago41:44

41:44

In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the last slave ship landed in the United States from Africa. The transatlantic slave trade had been illegal in the US since 1808, but Alabama enslaver Timothy Meaher and his friends were so sure they could get away with it that they made a bet and hired Meaher’s neighbor, William Foster, to captain a voyage to …

1
The History of Mormonism 44:50

6M ago44:50

44:50

In 1830, amid the Second Great Awakening in the burned-over district of New York State, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery ordained each other as the first two elders in what they then called the Church of Christ. Within eight years, the Governor of Missouri issued an executive order that members of the church, by then known as The Church of Jes…

1
The History of College Radio 45:42

6M ago45:42

45:42

Almost as soon as there were radio stations, there were college radio stations. In 1948, to popularize FM radio, the FCC introduced class D non commercial education licenses for low-watt college radio stations. By 1967, 326 FM radio signals in the United States operated as “educational radio,” 220 of which were owned and operated by colleges and un…

1
Love Actually & the Healing Power of Christmas Films 44:52

6M ago44:52

44:52

What makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? How do Christmas movies react to – and help us heal from – collective trauma? How can a British Christmas movie feel quintessentially American? We discuss all that and more this week at the 20th Anniversary of Love Actually, with G. Vaughn Joy, a film historian, writer, podcast host, and PhD candidate…

1
Mollie Moon 45:57

6M ago45:57

45:57

Stories of the Civil Rights Movement don’t often center the fundraisers, often Black women, whose tireless efforts made the movement possible; today we’re featuring one of those women. Mollie Moon, born in 1907, the founder and first chairperson of the National Council of Urban League Guilds, raised millions of dollars for the Civil Rights Movement…

1
“What can we do as community to protect each other?” (w/ Angela Ferrell-Zabala, ED of Mom’s Demand Action) 30:17

7M ago30:17

30:17

Are you looking for some hope and next steps when it comes to combatting gun violence in your community and nationally?This week we spoke to Angela Ferrell-Zabala from Mom’s Demand Action to dig into the seemingly intractable issue of gun violence and learn about how Mom’s Demand Action, their affiliated organization Students Demand Action, and the…

1
Jewish War Brides of World War II 46:02

7M ago46:02

46:02

In the ravages of post-World War II Europe, some Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust found the beginnings of a new life when they met – and married – American (and Canadian and British) men serving with the Allied forces. These women were part of a much larger group of war brides, who came to the United States in such large numbers that they re…

1
Merze Tate 47:23

7M ago47:23

47:23

Scholar Merze Tate, born in Michigan in 1905, overcame the odds in what she called a “sex and race discriminating world,” to earn graduate degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University on her way to becoming the first Black woman to teach in the History Department at Howard University. During her long career, Tate published 5 books, 34 jour…

1
Black Civil Rights before the Civil Rights Movement 48:15

7M ago48:15

48:15

The beginning of the Civil Rights Movement is often dated to sometime in the middle of the 1950s, but the roots of it stretch back much further. The NAACP, which calls itself “the nation's largest and most widely recognized civil rights organization,” was founded near the beginning of the 20th Century, on February 12, 1909. As today’s guest demonst…

1
The Long History of the Chicago Portage 47:08

7M ago47:08

47:08

When Europeans arrived in the Great Lakes region, they learned from the Indigenous people living there of a route from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, made possible by a portage connecting the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River. That portage, sometimes called Mud Lake, provided both opportunity and challenge to European powers who struggled to u…

1
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy 54:39

8M ago54:39

54:39

Before Europeans landed in North America, five Indigenous nations around what would become New York State came together to form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. When the Europeans arrived, the French called them the Iroquois Confederacy, and the English called them the League of Five Nations. Those Five Nations were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, C…

1
Gun Capitalism & Gun Control in the U.S. after World War II 53:04

8M ago53:04

53:04

In 1945, the population of the United States was around 140 million people, and those Americans owned an estimated 45 million guns, or about one gun for every three people. By 2023, the population of the United States stood at just over 330 million people, and according to historical data from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosi…

1
The History of the Nutrition Facts Label 44:49

8M ago44:49

44:49

If you go to a grocery store in the United States and pick up a box of cereal, you expect to find a white box on the back of the package with information in Helvetica Black about the food’s macronutrients (things like fat and protein) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). The Nutrition Facts label is so ubiquitous that you may not even notice…

1
The History & the Present of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe 40:13

8M ago40:13

40:13

During the 19th Century, the Northern Cheyenne people made a number of treaties with the United States government, but the U.S. repeatedly failed to honor its end of the treaties. In November 1876, the U.S. Army, still fuming over their crushing defeat by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne at the Battle of Little Bighorn, attacked a village of Northe…

1
The Borinqueneers of the Korean War 38:26

9M ago38:26

38:26

In 1950, President Harry Truman ordered US troops to the Korean peninsula to help the South Koreans repel the invading North Korean People’s Army, which was supported by the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and China. One of the regiments shipped overseas to fight was the 65th Infantry Regiment, the Borinqueneers, made up of soldiers from Puer…

1
“There's somebody in every town who is a busybody.” (w/ Carla Nordstrom, Retired Teacher and Community Activist) 47:23

9M ago47:23

47:23

Are you retired and looking for a way to get involved?A few weeks ago we heard from a listener looking for information about how to approach activism as a retired person. She was sick of postcarding and other activities that don’t feel effective, so we decided to chat with the busiest retired activist we know…Lila’s mother, Carla Nordstrom! In our …

1
The Student Right in the late 1960s 44:02

9M ago44:02

44:02

In the late 1960s, as college campuses became hotbeds of liberal protest, conservative college groups, like the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI), the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), and College Republicans, backed by powerful conservative elders and their deep pockets, fought back, staging counter protests, publishing conservative…

1
The History of the National Organization for Women (NOW) 47:08

9M ago47:08

47:08

At the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women, a group of women, led by writer Betty Friedan and organizer and attorney Pauli Murray, decided that to make progress they needed to form an independent national civil rights organization for women. Within months, the National Organization for Women had 300 founding members, a s…

1
"Can I actually bring something to this work to this fight? That is going to add value?" (w/ Hannah Fried, Executive Director of All Voting is Local) 31:46

9M ago31:46

31:46

Are you interested in aiding in the fight to make the vote more accessible in your state or community?Hannah Fried is a lawyer by trade who worked for the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama before founding All Voting is Local, a non-profit that works in eight states to protect the vote at the local level. She talks us through the foundin…

1
The Murder of Maria Cornell 45:54

9M ago45:54

45:54

When farmer John Durfee found the body of a local factory girl hanging from a fence post on his property on the morning of December 21, 1832, he and the rest of the townspeople assumed she had died by suicide. But a cryptic note she had left among her possessions pointed the investigation in a different direction, and the ensuing murder trial captu…

1
The Great New York City Fire of 1776 45:02

9M ago45:02

45:02

Just days after British troops captured New York City from General Washington and his army in September 1776, fire broke out, destroying a fifth of the city. The British blamed rebels who had remained hidden in Manhattan, but Washington, who had been ordered by Congress to leave the city standing on his retreat, never claimed responsibility, though…

1
The History of Drag in New York City 44:39

10M ago44:39

44:39

RuPaul’s Drag Race first aired on TV in 2009, but the New York City drag scene that launched RuPaul started over a century earlier. From drag balls to Wigstock, New York has long been considered the capital of drag culture. Joining me in this episode to discuss New York City’s rich history of drag is writer Elyssa Maxx Goodman, author of Glitter an…

1
“At the end of the day, when you're talking about activism, it's just a bigger word for care.” (w/ Sabrina Cartan of Fandom Forward and director Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael) 41:50

10M ago41:50

41:50

Are you a part of a fan community and wondering how to use your passion and interest to make the world a better place? Sabrina Cartan and Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael are organizers, creatives, fans, and believe communities organized around pop culture are inherently political and ripe for organizing. Sabrina talks about the power of fan movements and …

1
Thomas Smallwood and the Underground Railroad 55:16

10M ago55:16

55:16

Over the course of just one year in the early 1840s, Thomas Smallwood, a recently emancipated Black man, with the assistance of the New England educated white abolitionist Charles Torrey, arranged for around 400 enslaved people to escape the Baltimore and DC area for freedom in Canada. While the abolition movement was still debating the best path f…

1
“Think of graphic design not as self-expression but as visual communication.” (w/ Innosanto Nagara, graphic designer and best-selling author and illustrator of children’s books about activism and organizing ... 33:06

10M ago33:06

33:06

Thinking about how to effectively use graphic design in your organizing work?Innosanto Nagara is a designer who has long used his visual communication skills in his organizing, but found a unique way to help the next generation join the fight by writing and illustrating the best-selling board book A is For Activist. So began a successful second car…

1
Phillis Wheatley 49:50

10M ago49:50

49:50

One of the best known poets of Revolutionary New England was an enslaved Black girl named Phillis Wheatley, who was only emancipated after she published a book of 39 of her poems in London. Wheatley, who met with Benjamin Franklin and corresponded with George Washington, was the first person of African descent to publish a book in English. Wheatley…

1
“One of the best things lawyers can do is have the courage to speak out.” (w/ Brett Edkins, Managing Director for Policy & Political Affairs at Stand Up America) 37:28

10M ago37:28

37:28

Terrified about the state of SCOTUS and the courts and wondering how you can take action to support court reform?We started this podcast in the days after Dobbs, so we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Brett Edkins from Stand Up America to chat about his journey from law school to advocacy, how lawyers can use their skills to advocate for and su…

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Kelly Therese Pollock Podcasts

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