Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy explores the history of the Christmas tree, tracing how an evergreen that once carried ancient winter meaning became a central symbol in American Christmas traditions. He follows its path from early European customs to the first Christmas tree celebrations in the United States, and explains why the tree still feels essential to the season. S...

On this episode of Our American Stories, "Wild Bill" Donovan was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man President Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. “Wild” Bill was the director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency). He is known as the founding father of both the CIA and the mili...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Muniz remembers a night in the mountains of northern New Mexico when a long delay, an old station, and a clearing sky created a moment he didn’t expect. As he stood beside his father, he watched a small, steady light cross the darkness, and that quiet evening became the first time he understood how big the world above him really was. Support t...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the nineteenth century, a woman’s future could collapse overnight. If a husband died, disappeared, or fell into debt, she often had no legal claim to the house she lived in. The Homestead Law changed that. As historian Jean Stuntz tells it, the law created a small but powerful shield that prevented families from losing the one thing they could not...

On this episode of Our American Stories, much of what’s known about legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre has been kept between the goalposts. So, Greg Hengler sat down with Brett in his Hattiesburg, Mississippi, home for part five of our five-part series. In this conversation, the long-time Green Bay Packers star and Super Bowl champion reflects on the moments, challenges, and memories that...

On this episode of Our American Stories, long before Nashville was known for neon lights and record labels, a small candy company introduced something new to the South. The Goo Goo Cluster blended chocolate with a handful of familiar ingredients, but the people behind it poured family history and hometown pride into every batch. As the years passed, the candy found its way into lunch pails, store...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Our American Stories  listener Roger Latham grew up believing Santa was just a story—until one Christmas when someone unexpected changed everything. Roger shares the memory that helped him understand why kindness sometimes shows up in the plainest clothes and why he never forgot the man he came to call the real Santa. Support the show ( https://w...

On this episode of Our American Stories, long before superheroes saturated movie screens and Halloween aisles, they lived quietly on pulp pages shaped by the anxieties and ambitions of 20th-century America. Industrial cities were growing, families were struggling, and people craved symbols of justice that felt larger than life but still recognizably human. World War II historian and author of Supe...

On this episode of Our American Stories, every Sunday,  Our American Stories  host Lee Habeeb speaks with Mitchel "Big Mitch" Rutledge, who has spent more than forty years serving a life sentence in Alabama. Each call traces the shape of faith, regret, and forgiveness inside a place built for punishment. Support the show ( https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate) Support the show: http...

On this episode of Our American Stories, the 1621 Thanksgiving has become one of the most recognizable stories in American culture, but many details we repeat today weren’t part of the original event. What actually happened was shaped by necessity, diplomacy, and the realities both groups faced. The latter holiday developed slowly as Americans looked for shared traditions. Robert Tracy McKen...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before it became the fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving was just one of many autumn celebrations scattered across the country. In the mid-1800s, Sarah Josepha Hale, already known for writing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” saw an opportunity to unite the nation around a shared tradition. For decades, she wrote to governors, editors, and finally...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Thomas Jefferson is America’s “everyman” because he has been embraced at one time or another by nearly everyone. Historian and acclaimed author of  American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson , Joseph E. Ellis, shared the story of Jefferson’s journey through American history at the U.S. Library of Congress. Support the sh...

On this episode of Our American Stories, each December, a small volunteer-run “store” opens for families who could use extra help during the holidays. Parents walk through the space like any other shop, choosing toys that fit their kids without paying a cent. Jonathan Mattox, co-chairman of The Christmas Store in Oxford, Mississippi, reflects on how this forty-plus-year tradition grew...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when the Cabbage Patch Kids hit store shelves in 1983, parents felt a pull they hadn’t sensed from a toy before. Crowds formed before sunrise, and the pressure inside those shops grew in a way that felt unfamiliar for the holiday season. What started as a rush for one doll ended up reshaping the way Americans braced for the day after Thanksgiving. Toy...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when a group of refugees from Bosnia arrived at her Iowa church, Joy Neal Kidney watched them step carefully into a world that felt nothing like the one they had escaped. One family in particular carried the quiet weariness of people shaped by war, and Joy’s family decided to give them something familiar to hold onto: a Thanksgiving dinner. Joy joins...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before he ever wore his trademark hat on the sidelines, Tom Landry was a young man trying to build a future during the hard years of the Depression. He joined the University of Texas football team, flew combat missions in World War Two, and returned home to begin a professional career that brought both recognition and pressure. But even as the wins piled up...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Tony Sarg never set out to become the quiet genius behind one of America’s most cherished traditions, yet his imagination is the reason Thanksgiving morning feels like magic. Long before millions tuned in to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Sarg was busy turning puppetry, engineering, and whimsy into something completely new. His early...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Heidi Viars spent her days juggling kids and household chaos, convinced she didn’t have room for much else. Her neighbor, Tom, kept mostly to himself after retiring from the Chicago police force, and the two lived side by side without knowing each other for years. Things shifted the day Heidi slowed down enough to notice he was slipping. One small act...

On this episode of Our American Stories, most Americans grew up thinking Thanksgiving had always fallen on the same Thursday in November. In Lincoln’s time, it was set on the last Thursday of November, and that habit settled in for generations. Then Franklin D. Roosevelt shifted the holiday earlier, hoping that a longer shopping season would lift a struggling Depression-era economy. The chan...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Donna’s daughter Cassie was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, everyday life became harder to manage. Donna realized their family needed a different way to live, something that gave Cassie steady structure and gave others with special needs a place to belong. So they opened a resale shop and built it around employment opportunities fo...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Eisenhower’s name sits on the interstate signs, but Charles Zug wanted to understand whether he truly deserved that place in history. His work traces the creation of the Federal Highway Act and shows how the idea of national road building developed long before Eisenhower reached the White House. Zug explains the moment when the plan finally gained mom...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early years of the war, the United States was preparing its soldiers and building an army that was not yet ready for a direct fight in Europe. Britain, still recovering from being pushed off the continent, knew it could not return to France without risking another disaster. Both nations wanted to stop Germany, yet neither could strike at its center....

On this episode of Our American Stories, Tom Waits has a voice and style that feel carved out of another world, yet many people first meet his work through other artists. One of his earliest songs, “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You,” is a perfect example. It drifted from Waits’ small club beginnings to the radio through bands like 10,000 Maniacs, much like “D...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Chuck Colson once operated at the center of Washington power as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon. Watergate brought that world crashing down, sending him into a federal prison and into a reckoning he never expected. In this final interview before his passing, Colson looks back on the scandal, the time behind bars, and the shift in faith that shape...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Joy Neal Kidney has always loved Thanksgiving, and it makes perfect sense why. Her family was there at the first one. One branch survived a fall from the Mayflower in the middle of the ocean, and another began with a child who lost both parents before being taken in by a family whose story led straight to that early gathering. Joy shares why the holiday has...