Everything is a Primary Source

S4E1: "Here's the Story"  The Brady Bunch (1969-1974) as a primary source.  Recorded during a NHCSS webinar in April, 2024 Add to the conversation and help build educational materials here: www.everything-history.com/bradybunch

 This is a special bonus episode of the Everything is a Primary Source Podcast, the show where popular culture is looked at to learn about history. Eric Paul. We’re celebrating Independence Day with a pair of interviews with some young historians that were recorded last year at Exeter New Hampshire’s Independence Day festivities at the American Independence Museum.

Summer Bonus Episode Just in time for Canada Day, which celebrates the 1867 merging of the different parts of Canada into one confederation, here's my conversation with Michele, an experiential educator from the Maritime Provinces.  She and I met at the Association for Experiential Education conference this Spring and had a wonderful conversation comparing the movement and settlement histories of...

S3E34: "Lucky to Be There" Season Finale What a way to cap off season 3 of the Everything is a Primary Source podcast; it was an absolute honor and pleasure to speak with storied 60s photographer Rowland Scherman and his friend, Michael E Jones, two makers and stewards of historical documents.   This podcast is a bit different from most EPS episodes in that we don't dissect a single piece of media...

 Today we’re headed to the public library where, after 1994, you could borrow a copy of both Forrest Gump the novel and Forrest Gump the movie.  Plenty of people, including my first guest, did not realize that the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film began life as a book by celebrated writer Winston Groom, published in 1986. That’s a tendency credited to the positive critical and popular response the Tom Han...

S3E32: "The Flowers are Still Standing!"  Today’s episode has us going back forty years to talk about one of the first–and one of the biggest—blockbuster movies of its era, 1984’s Ghostbusters .  I spoke with Michael, a native New Yorker who now lives and teaches in Minnesota, and we chatted about some of the analytical questions needed to define Ghostbusters as a document of its time and place—th...

S3E31: "At Large" 2004 fits into a rather brief era when documentary films were marketed on the same level as other theater-bound movies.  It is also a time period where more and more people were becoming acutely aware of counting calories and organic choices at the grocery store.  This was a perfect recipe for "Super Size Me," Morgan Spurlock's hands-on experiment with fast food and its ill healt...

S3E30: "Dawning of a New Era" Twenty years ago saw the Internet evolving in ways unimagined just a few years before.  Mike, a fellow teacher, joins the EPS Podcast to dissect Eve Online, the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, which could be the best example of the radical changes taking place at the time on the World Wide Web.

S3E29: "Not as a 'Was', but an 'Is'"  This episode touches on the Civil War’s presence in American popular culture by way of two artifacts-- Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, published in 1885, and the National Civil War Wax Museum which opened in Gettysburg Pennsylvania in April 1962—with a pair of interviews that were recorded on the same day last summer. I’m not exactly sure why these artifacts conne...

S3E28: "Ship of Dreams" This episode reaches across the 20th century, connecting 1912 to 1997 through Titanic ; the ship itself and its Edwardian-era disaster, as well as the 1997 blockbuster film about it that was such a huge success. I spoke with Gena Oppenheim, the Senior Education Fellow for the Hamilton Education Program at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the leading organization in history edu...

 Welcome to the Everything is a Primary Source Podcast, where we use popular culture to learn about history. It was this week in 1917 that the United States entered World War I, so what better time than now to dissect the song that is forever attached to America’s involvement in the Great War, George M. Cohan's "Over There." Everything is a Primary Source is building a digital archive, and you can...

S3E26: "Bringing Home the Bacon" Today’s episode starts about bacon and eggs but ends up a conversation about industry and infrastructure. You’ll have to listen to see how it gets there. I was so glad to be joined by two fellow social studies teachers-turned-podcasters, Phil and Phil of Canajoharie High School in New York, co hosts of the Missing Chapter Podcast to chat about the famous Beech-Nut...

S3E25: Cards, Cards and More Cards An episode made from two podcast karaoke interviews. Part 1) Comedian Shawn Carter talks Garbage Pail Kids Part 2) Bryson discusses Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes and Pokemon cards

S3E24: "It Stinks?" I ran into a fellow NH social studies teacher, Jeff, this Fall while recording at the NCSS conference in Nashville, and he and I gave 90s TV's The Critic a pretty solid critique.

S3E23:  "These Go to 11" Deremy joins the show again, but this time with his Pop Culture Five podcast cohost, Thomas.  Thomas has another show,  SNL Hall of Fame , and I couldn't think of a better pair of guys to help break down the 1984 Rockumentary/Mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap."

S3E22: "A Great Migration of Culture" My drop-in guest, Gloria wished to talk about music related to the Great Migration of the 20th century, and we did, but we also found ourselves covering a great many other topics related to the mass movement of African Americans from the Southeast to points North and West between 1910 and 1970.

S3E21: "Heal the World" CeCe from History Co:Lab and their Ambie Award -nominated podcast, UnTextBooked stopped by to talk about "We Are the World" the 1985 fundraising single organized by Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to respond to the devastating famine affecting millions in Ethiopia in the time period.  What can this song featuring over two dozen musicians tel...

S3E20: "The Ballad of Adam and Eve" Jeremy of the Society for Commercial Archeology joins the show again, this time to dissect the 1999 comedy, "Blast from the Past" as a document of its era.

S3E19: "Usher-ing in a New Era" Katarina, a fellow social studies educator with whom I spoke in her home city of Nashville, Tennessee this past fall, chose to talk about Usher’s 2004 hit with Ludacris and Lil John, “Yeah,” when she stopped by my booth,  and see what it can tell us about the time period. Perfect timing because I’m releasing this episode on Super Bowl Sunday 2024, where Usher is goi...

S3E18: "A Little Wilder" Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles" just turned 50 and what better time to look at it as a document of its time period.  I was joined by Caroline in Nashville back in December to get her take on the Western Comedy, and comedy movies in general.

S3E17:  "When Dookie H it the Fans" My guest for this episode, New England punk rocker Dave Strong , points to Green Day's  Dookie as a touchstone record as it opened up a new world of music for him. Add me and countless others to the list of teenagers of the time period who changed direction in musical tastes thanks to Green Day showing up in the mainstream.

S3E16: "Not Worrying, 1964 Edition" I met JF at Strawbery Banke Museum this past summer and he was more than happy to use 1964's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" as a jumping off point to discuss the Cold War, historiography and how the world has taken shape over the last 60 years.

S3E15:  "It's a Bicentennial, Man" Segment 1: Disney Yearbook 1988 with Nicki of GBH Segment 2: American Friends of Lafayette looks forward to bicentennial of the Marquis's Grand Tour of the United States

S3E14: "So if you really love Christmas..." My wife, Erin the Tie Dye Libraryn , and I talk about 2003's Love Actually as a document of two decades ago.

S3E13: "A Charlie Brown Die Hard Hook Christmas" This episode is comprised of three interviews held over the course of three different podcast karaoke events. Segment 1: Noella and I talk "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) at the NCSS Conference in Nashville Segment 2: Adam settles the "Die Hard" (1988) debate at the NHCSS Conference in Concord, NH Segment 3: I speak to Danny about "Hook" (1991) j...