This month, we're doing something a little different. There are some amazing podcasts out there that give us a view of America through a distinctive lens. One of our favorites is Sidedoor: A podcast from the Smithsonian.

Every episode, host Lizzie Peabody sneaks listeners through Smithsonian's side door to search for stories that can't be found anywhere else.

We're excited to share one of those stories. “King’s Speech” is about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the evolution of his iconic I Have a Dream speech. It’s fascinating to chart the history of his speech and to hear how Dr. King was influenced by poet Langston Hughes, who worked with the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s and co-wrote a play with one of the writers featured in the People's Recorder, Zora Neale Hurston.

Guests:

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

Enjoy the episode! To hear more, search for Sidedoor wherever you get your podcasts or go to www.si.edu/sidedoor.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

This episode features two more stories of outsiders remaking themselves and California history.

Eluard McDaniel left the Jim Crow South for California as a boy, and remade himself as an activist and writer on the West Coast. His account of his life brought him national attention when it appeared in American Stuff, a book of creative works by members of the Federal Writers’ Project and Federal Art Project selected by Henry Alsberg.

Miné Okubo was a rising artist with the Federal Art Project who drew on her art and her life story to depict a hidden history of injustice during World War II in her book Citizen 13660. Even decades later, a culture of silence surrounded that experience – until her book won an American Book Award and became testimony that sought redress for Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.

Speakers:

David Bradley, novelist

Seiko Buckingham, niece of Miné Okubo

Jeanie Tanaka, niece of Miné Okubo

David Kipen, journalist and author

Links and Resources:

"American Stuff" anthology by members of the Federal Writers' Project and prints by the Federal Art Project

'Citizen 13660" short film by the National Park Service

"Sincerely, Miné Okubo" short film from the Japanese American National Museum

"Pictures of Belonging" 2024 art exhibition

Eluard McDaniel entry, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

Reading List:

Citizen 13660, by Miné Okubo

Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road, by Greg Robinson

The Dream and the Deal, by Jerre Mangione

“Bumming in California” by Eluard McDaniel, in On the Fly: Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879 – 1941, PM Press

The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley

Dear California, by David Kipen

Black California, edited by Aparajita Nanda

California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Jared Buggage, Mariko Miyazaki, Kate Rafter and Amy Young

Featuring music and archival from:

Pete Seeger

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Manny Harriman Video Oral History Collection, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU Special Collections.

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Humanities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

California has always attracted outsiders, from the Gold Rush in the 1800s to young actors and filmmakers drawn to Hollywood. California was especially a place of migration during the Great Depression, when tens of thousands came searching for jobs and new beginnings.

This is the first of two episodes about writers displaced by the Depression who took different paths to remaking themselves in California and documenting America. Future composer Harry Partch was more comfortable as a migrant than in straight mainstream society. Tillie Olsen found her way from Nebraska to become a reporter-activist who faced long odds to becoming a writer as a woman in the 1930s.

With their work on the Federal Writers’ Project, Olsen and Partch helped create an expansive picture of California, people in migration, and the day-to-day reality that included deep labor unrest. Tensions that roiled across America boiled over in the California Writers’ Project, signaling the struggles to come in the national office.

Speakers:

David Bradley, novelist

Mary Gordon, novelist

Andrew Granade, musicologist and biographer

David Kipen, journalist and author

Links and Resources:

California and the Dust Bowl - Oakland Museum of California

California Gold: Story Map of 1930s California Folk Music

"What Kind of Worker is a Writer" (about Tillie Olsen) by Maggie Doherty in The New Yorker

"I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen

"U.S. Highball," composed by Harry Partch, performed in 2018

Harry Partch: The Outsider

Reading List:

California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen

Harry Partch, Hobo Composer, by S. Andrew Granade

Tell Me a Riddle, by Tillie Olsen

The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley

Payback: A Novel, by Mary Gordon

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Tim Lorenz, Steve Klingbiel, Sarah Supsiri, and Ethan Oser

Featuring music and archival from:

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

BBC

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Humanities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.