Podmasters is a weekly column where staff writers Andrea Alfano and Laura Rosenfeld highlight the podcasts you need in your life. Every week, they tackle a new genre, recommending everything from well-known series to little-listened-to-gems that will make you laugh, cry and learn. This week, Andrea Alfano spotlights five podcasts that will take you back in time to experience some of the amazing stories that your teachers didn't get to in history class.
A great story is timeless. That's why history podcasts are so wonderful - they bring you the stories that are so powerful they still strike a chord years, decades, or even centuries later.
But my favorite thing about history podcasts is that they often serve as modern packages of oral history. Many of the podcasts below feature original interviews with the fascinating people who were a part of that history, and capture a sense of nostalgia that helps bring the story to life.
These five podcasts will reach into obscure corners of history as well as familiar ones, and will introduce you to some incredible characters along the way. They also all focus on American history - I have yet to find a non-American history podcast that doesn't sound like someone is reading a textbook. But if you know of any great ones, please do mention them in the comments.
1. The Memory Palace
Each episode of The Memory Palace manages to immerse you in an illuminating scene from the past in what often feels like an impossibly short period of time. The minimalistic yet incredibly rich stories host Nate DiMeo tells tend to have an eerie, haunting quality about them, but they are by no means historical ghost stories. They are tales of the world's first Ferris wheel being built above Lake Michigan, showing up Paris's Eiffel Tower in grandeur, and then getting dismantled for scrap metal less than 15 years later; and of the heartbreaking events that led Samuel Morse to develop the telegraph. Many episodes are under five minutes long, most are under 10, and all will leave you feeling like you just drifted out of a daydream at their end.
2. Fugitive Waves
The stories on Fugitive Waves come from the archives of the radio duo The Kitchen Sisters. Eclectic in subject matter and old-timey in tone, this podcast is filled with surprising stories "from the flip side of history." Sometimes an episode focuses on a single person, such as the first woman police commissioner of San Francisco (who happens to also be a transgender woman), and others hone on a particular place or group, like the Green Street Mortuary band which plays at more than 300 funerals every year.
3. State of the Re:Union
More concisely known as SOTRU, this podcast looks at a different community in each episode to tell the story of the United States. It takes you into the lives of people growing up in the Bronx back in the days when the borough was literally burning, and reveals the not-so-sweet history of sugar in Hawai'i. A lot of excellent investigative reporting goes into many of the episodes as well, and you are always left feeling like an instant expert.
4. Gravy
Deliciously soulful, Gravy tells stories about Southern food that showcase the evolution of the American South. You will learn about the history of a pie named after the Kentucky Derby and hear a Thanksgiving story about the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina. You will meet an elderly French woman who loves to listen to T-Pain and makes a living writing personality-packed restaurant reviews that she still only publishes in print. And you will get very, very hungry.
5. BackStory
On BackStory, self-proclaimed American History guys Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh feels like the best of The History Channel in podcast form. Most episodes look at a broad topic such as trash and track its role in America through history. That sounds like it could be very boring, until you learn that thousands of pigs once roamed Manhattan eating trash because butchers saw this as a great way to get free meat and clean up at the same time.
Photo: publicradioexchange | Flickr
