ASHP Podcast - podcast cover

ASHP Podcast

American Social History Project · Center for Media and Learningashp.cuny.edu
The American Social History Project · Center for Media and Learning is dedicated to renewing interest in history by challenging traditional ways that people learn about the past. Founded in 1981 and based at the City University of New York Graduate Center, ASHP/CML produces print, visual, and multimedia materials that explore the richly diverse social and cultural history of the United States. We also lead professional development seminars that help teachers to use the latest scholarship, technology, and active learning methods in their classrooms.

Episodes

David Ruggles, Radical Black Abolitionist, and the Reform Tradition in Antebellum America

Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate UniversityNew York Public LibraryHistorian Graham Russell Gao Hodges leads a discussion of the life of David Ruggles, black abolitionist of the 1830s, conductor of the Underground Railroad in New York City, author of numerous, ground-breaking pamphlets, editor of the nation’s first black magazine, and later, a doctor of hydrotherapy. This 50 minute podcast places Ruggles in the context of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad in New York City and in the nat...

Dec 22, 201151 min

Grassroots Politics and Reconstruction

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY“Ballots and Blood: The Grassroots Struggle for the Future of Reconstruction”The Graduate Center, CUNYJuly 19, 2010The Reconstruction era was marked by both triumph and defeat as the newly emancipated slaves and their allies attempted to establish full political and economic freedoms in the face of violent opposition. While planters were initially successful in limiting the rights that accompanied emancipation, by the late 1860s freedpeople responded ...

Dec 11, 20111 hr 17 min

Scott Reynolds Nelson: Civil War Myths and Misinformation

Scott Reynolds Nelson, William and Mary CollegeCivil War @ 150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In his 18 minute talk, Scott Reynolds Nelson contrasts three common images or notions from the Civil War with lesser known aspects that prevailed in the nineteenth century. While Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party are generally perceived as do-gooders, Nelson describes the paramilitary Wide Awake Clubs within the Party that Southerners feared as a potentially i...

Nov 24, 201118 min

Gary W. Gallagher: Civil War Myths and Misinformation

Gary W. Gallagher, University of VirginiaCivil War @150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In this 16 minute talk, Gary W. Gallagher describes the ways that northerners viewed the war and their commitment to the nation as a union. While not downplaying the importance of emancipation, Gallagher argues that the concept of union was paramount for most northerners. They viewed southern slave owners as oligarchs who threatened the nation’s founding principles and the ...

Nov 17, 201116 min

Gregory Downs: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, City University of New YorkCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor Downs presents the range of approaches taken by scholars over the last twenty-five years to discuss the American Civil War. From debates on slavery and the slave South, to sectional conflict and Indian history, there existed pockets of energy on the conflict that decidedly changed, but rem...

Oct 18, 201119 min

Stephanie McCurry: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

Stephanie McCurry, University of PennsylvaniaCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor McCurry describes how she wrote her latest book, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, to bring the social history of the Confederacy into a historiography that has up until now focused mainly on the Union and viewed the Confederacy primarily in military and political terms. She remin...

Oct 18, 201117 min

James Oakes: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

James Oakes, CUNY Graduate CenterCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011In his twenty minute presentation, historian James Oakes counters revisionist interpretations that claim the North did not go to war to end slavery. Historians have often viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as the point in the Civil War when it changed from being a war for union to a war for emancipation, but Professor Oakes argues for the need to examine the pre-war orig...

Oct 18, 201123 min

Like It’s Still Going On: A Civil War Sesquicentennial Reading and Discussion [part 1]

Frank Bidart, Wellesley CollegeVijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence CollegeKevin Young, Emory UniversitySally Dawidoff (moderator), American Social History ProjectThe Association of Writers and Writing Programs ConferenceWashington, DC, February 5, 2011In the first part of this two-part panel discussion, held at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, distinguished contemporary American writers Frank Bidart, Vijay Seshadri, and Kevin Young talk about writing about the Civil War 150...

Sep 26, 201135 min

Herbert Sloan: A Living Constitution

Herbert Sloan, Barnard CollegeA Living ConstitutionDecember 13, 2010Legal historian Herbert Sloan argues against the theory of originalism in making the case for a “Living Constitution.” Sloan cites the lack of evidence from the Constitutional framers themselves to explain the difficulty of determining with any certainty their “original intent.” He also documents the belief of at least some framers that the Constitution would have to change and grow to accommodate new challenges and circumstance...

Sep 16, 201137 min

Mae Ngai: Historical Perspectives on Labor and Immigration Policy

Mae Ngai, Columbia UniversityRemembering the Triangle Fire – Labor and Immigration PolicyThe Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 24, 2011Historian Mae Ngai spoke on a panel as part of the 100th anniversary remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She provides a historical perspective on the often contentious relationship between organized labor and immigrant activism. This fifteen-minute talk spans U.S. history from the racialized arguments of Samuel Gompers, to the more inclusive rhetoric of the 196...

Sep 09, 201118 min

Janice R. Fine: Immigrant Workers Then and Now

Janice R. Fine, Rutgers UniversityRemembering the Triangle Fire – Immigrant Workers Then and NowThe Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 24, 2011Political scientist and labor studies professor Janice Fine spoke on a panel as part of the 100th anniversary remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She contrasts the situation of immigrant workers in at the turn of the twentieth century with low-wage immigrant workers today. This nineteen-minute talk covers the issues of migration and the role of migrants ...

Sep 09, 201119 min

Like It’s Still Going On: A Civil War Sesquicentennial Reading and Discussion [part 2]

Frank Bidart, Wellesley CollegeVijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence CollegeKevin Young, Emory UniversitySally Dawidoff (moderator), American Social History ProjectThe Association of Writers and Writing Programs ConferenceWashington, DC, February 5, 2011In the second part of this two-part panel discussion, held at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, distinguished contemporary American writers Frank Bidart, Vijay Seshadri, and Kevin Young talk about writing about the Civil War 15...

Sep 06, 201130 min

Stan Deaton: Civil War Myths and Misinformation

Stan Deaton, Georgia Historical SocietyCivil War @ 150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In this 12 minute talk, Stan Deaton (Senior Historian at the Georgia Historical Society) discusses the challenges his institution faces when discussing and commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. With many people unconvinced that the Civil War was fought to preserve and extend slavery, Deaton explains that we must rely on evidence on the ground in ...

Jul 20, 201113 min

What If Poor Mothers Ran the World? Rethinking the War on Poverty

Annelise Orleck, Dartmouth CollegeCUNY, Graduate CenterIn the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, poor mothers in New York City and across the United States took charge of their lives and their communities, using federal anti-poverty dollars to build health clinics, serve free meals to poor children, publish community newspapers and even open free public swimming pools. Many of these programs were so successful that they literally extended life expectancies in poor communities. In this talk for New York Ci...

May 19, 201150 min

U.S. Territorial Expansion

Jay Gitlin, Yale UniversityU.S. Territorial Expansion: From the Louisiana Purchase to the California Gold RushThe Graduate CenterFebruary 22, 2011Historian Jay Gitlin examines American diversity through the lens of westward expansion rather than immigration. In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of people who spoke a different language, held different religious beliefs, and came from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds became U.S. residents through territorial acquisition, conquest, and...

Apr 05, 201154 min

Cubano New York: Nineteenth Century Immigrants to the World's Sugar Capital

Lisandro Pérez, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNYCubano New York: Nineteenth Century Immigrants to the World’s Sugar CapitalThe Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 4, 2011In the nineteenth century, Cubans were the largest Latin American or Spanish-speaking population in New York City. Lisandro Pérez discusses the importance of these immigrants to both Cuban and U.S. history in conversation with ASHP/CML staff members Andrea Ades Vásquez and Pennee Bender. Due to New York City’s importance in sug...

Mar 11, 201134 min

Immigrants of the Irish Famine (1845-1855)

Carol Groneman, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNYCUNY, Graduate CenterHistorian Carol Groneman, whose dissertation grounds the scholarship of ASHP’s documentary “The Five Points: New York’s Irish Working Class in the 1850s,” looks at what happened when immigrants of the Irish famine came to the United States (1845-1855):How were they perceived?What institutions were built from their participation?What meaning might we extract from their experience?How does their experience resonate for ...

Feb 25, 201153 min

Teaching With Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series

Donna Thompson Ray, American Social History ProjectCUNY, Graduate CenterIn this three-part video podcast, ASHP/CML’s Donna Thompson Ray shares the benefit of her area of expertise with New York City Department of Education teachers in a discussion about the work of artist Jacob Lawrence. Eliciting contributions from teachers, Thompson Ray leads a conversation about Lawrence’s Migration Series and how educators can, and do, use the images in the series to teach students about the Great Migration....

Feb 10, 20111 hr

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Fritz Umbach and Kojo Dei, John Jay College, CUNY“Teaching America and the Slave Trade in Global Perspective”The Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 8, 2008While most Americans understand slavery solely through the prism of its existence in the Americas, in fact the “peculiar institution” as practiced in the new world makes up only a small part of the global history of slavery. Historian Fritz Umbach and anthropologist Kojo Dei outline the complex history of slavery within African societies, along wit...

Jan 18, 201154 min

Free Blacks in the South: The Life of Thomas Day

Peter H. Wood, Duke University Professor Emeritus“Thomas Day: Nineteenth-Century Free Black Cabinetmaker”The Graduate Center, CUNYNovember 8, 2010How might a southern-born free black also be an abolitionist? ASHP staff member, Donna Thompson Ray, interviews historian Peter H. Wood about the life of cabinetmaker, Thomas Day, and how his experience as a free black characterized nineteenth-century race relations in the South. Wood provides an assessment of Day’s life as a business owner, family man...

Jan 07, 201151 min

Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement

Premilla Nadasen, Queens College, CUNYWomen and Black Freedom: Rethinking the Civil Rights MovementThe Graduate Center, CUNYApril 22, 2010Historian Premilla Nadasen examines the importance of women in the Black Freedom Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In Part 1 of this podcast, she outlines how the traditional narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, which tended toward “great men approach” is being expanded in three ways: 1) the timeframe is extended beyond 1955-1968; 2) the geography is expand...

Dec 07, 201049 min

Slavery and Community

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY“Power & Slavery: Slave Communities in the Antebellum South”The Graduate Center, CUNYDecember 4, 2008Historian Gregory Downs explores the capacity for individual and social resistance evident in the American system of slavery. In the antebellum South, American slaves worked to build communities through religion, family, political networks, and communities of shared experience. In attempting to partially redefine slavery on their own terms in these...

Apr 21, 20101 hr

Hispanic Migration to the United States

Carlos Sanabria, Hostos Community College, CUNY“Demographic Revolutions: Hispanic Migration to the United States”Hostos Community College, CUNYApril 24, 2009Why did we come here? And why are we so poor? Historian Carlos Sanabria discusses migration and the situation of the U.S. Hispanic population in the post-World War Two period. He outlines areas of study such as the demographic revolutions which led to the growth, dispersal, and diversity of the Hispanic population in the U.S.; migration stor...

Nov 02, 200932 min

Women's History, Women's Activism: The Shirley Chisholm Center

Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College“Women’s History, Women’s Activism: The Shirley Chisholm Center at the CUNY Graduate Center”The Graduate Center, CUNYNovember 14, 2008Historian and educator Barbara Winslow (Brooklyn College) discusses the life and times of Shirley Chisholm, the legendary African-American activist, Congresswoman, and presidential candidate. Winslow places Chisholm’s legacy in the context of the feminist movement and the struggle for civil rights, putting special emphasis on the B...

Sep 16, 200927 min

Many Paths to Progressive Reform

Nancy Hewitt, Rutgers University“Many Paths to Progressive Reform: New Perspectives on the Progressive Era”The Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 27, 2007Early twentieth-century progressivism was a constellation of efforts undertaken by a wide range of people whose perspectives on reform were rooted in their race, class, region, and religion. In this talk to New York City teachers, Nancy Hewitt weaves together the “big P” progressivism of major reform campaigns, which are well represented in most histor...

Jul 28, 200948 min

The Vietnam War: What Were We Fighting For?

Christian G. Appy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst“The Vietnam War: What Are We Fighting For?”The Paley Center for MediaMay 14, 2008Christian G. Appy (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), historian and author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides, shares the historical insights gleaned from his investigation of the Vietnam War from American and Vietnamese perspectives. His extensive research, which involved hundreds of oral history interviews with American veterans as wel...

Jul 16, 200950 min

“They Said It Couldn’t Be Done!”

Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., The Graduate Center, CUNY“They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, But the Tuskegee Airmen Did It”The Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 27, 2009Educator Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. shares his personal history of race in the United States as seen through the perspective of World War II. Dr. Brown describes incidents of discrimination and social injustice that propelled him into a life of activist politics. Brown recounts his upbringing in black middle-class Washington in the 1920s and 30s, and h...

May 18, 200931 min

Freedom and the U.S. Civil War

Jeanie Attie, Long Island University“The Problem of Freedom in the U.S. Civil War”The Graduate Center, CUNYOctober 13, 2006Historian Jeanie Attie examines the significance of slavery to the people who fought in and lived during the American Civil War. The enslaved, as constant observers of the lives of free men, clearly understood the value of freedom. Free whites in the antebellum South had a stake in preserving a state of “un-freedom” within their society because “un-freedom” ultimately define...

May 14, 200940 min

What’s New about the New Deal?

Gerald Markowitz, John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY“FDR, The Depression, and the New Deal: What Was New?”The Graduate Center, CUNYOctober 23, 2007In this presentation to New York City teachers, historian Gerald Markowitz discusses Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. He begins by focusing on what was new about the New Deal, including the government’s response to the Great Depression, the relationship of the government to the people, and changes in the definition of freedom. Markowitz c...

May 11, 200945 min

Mid-Nineteenth Century Irish Immigrants and Race

Kevin Kenny, Boston College“Irish Americans and the Meaning of Race in the Mid-Nineteenth Century”The Graduate Center, CUNYDecember 13, 2007Speaking before an audience of New York City teachers, historian Kevin Kenny describes the profound impact of the first great wave of Irish immigration to the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century. Swelling the populations of major U.S. cities in a way that no previous immigrant group had ever done, the Irish played a central role in the growth of cities in the...

May 06, 20091 hr 3 min
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