191: Saving American History

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How is the history of a nation remembered? Well -- it all depends on what you keep. We’re talking about recipes, your old record collection, wedding dresses, newspapers, family letters or even your own personal diary. These are the types of documents future generations depend on to understand past American culture.
On this episode, Joanne, Ed and Nathan talk about the people who decided to take it upon themselves to collect stuff they knew people would care about someday -- even if others thought they were weird.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment
0:04.5	for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining
0:08.9	Davis foundations.
0:14.0	From Virginia Humanities, this is backstory.
0:22.0	Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.
0:26.2	I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:27.2	I'm Nathan Connolly.
0:28.8	I'm Ed Ayers.
0:29.8	Nathan Ed, I want to introduce you to a historical character who I'm particularly fond
0:36.0	of.
0:37.0	I'll look forward to meeting him or her.
0:38.2	He's a little quirky but really interesting.
0:40.4	Picture this.
0:41.4	It's Washington DC.
0:42.4	It's 1802.
0:43.8	A man named William Plumer has just been elected to the Senate from New Hampshire, so the
0:48.0	Capitol is his base.
0:50.2	Imagine Plumer as a guy.
0:52.1	He's kind of tall.
0:53.2	He's kind of thin.
0:54.2	He's not really a flashy dresser in that sense.
0:56.1	He's kind of New Englandish.
	...

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