American History Tellers

For centuries, sailors and merchants dreamed of finding a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the narrow isthmus of Central America. But no natural passage existed. To get ships across the fifty-mile stretch of land, someone would have to dig a canal. The French tried first, and failed. Then, in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt and the U.S. took on the challenge. Struggling ag...

It’s perhaps the most iconic of American monuments -- the Statue of Liberty. A towering 305-foot sculpture of copper and steel that is synonymous with American values of liberty, freedom and self-determination. But it began as a gift from France. And when it first arrived on American soil, its future was far from certain. For over a decade, artists, craftsmen and everyday people from France and th...

After the 1871 fire destroyed a third of their city, Chicagoans wanted to do more than rebuild. They wanted to envision a new kind of American city. That included everything from changes to fire codes and labor laws to an entirely new style of architecture -- the skyscraper. Professor Ann Keating is an urban historian and expert on Chicago history both before and after the Great Fire. She and Lind...

As dawn broke on October 10, 1871, the dazed survivors of the Great Chicago Fire stumbled through their burned and battered city. A 30-hour inferno had reduced Chicago to ashes. Homes and business were replaced by gaping holes and smoldering rubble. Tens of thousands of people had lost their houses and jobs. Many had lost loved ones. As aid poured into the city, officials turned their attention to...

Just before midnight on October 8, 1871, the inferno that had ravaged Chicago’s West Side leapt the Chicago River. A wall of flames surged toward downtown, threatening to devour Chicago’s most magnificent hotels, offices, and government buildings. Mayor Roswell B. Mason raced to the Chicago courthouse, but he would soon find he was helpless to save his city. Panic-stricken South Side residents str...

In 1871, Chicago was the fastest growing city in the world. Built almost entirely of wood, it was also a tinderbox. That October, a severe drought ravaged the city. Fires ignited constantly, and Chicago’s firefighters were at their breaking point. But the worst was yet to come. On a hot, windy night, a fire broke out in a barn owned by Irish immigrants Catherine and Patrick O’Leary. By the time fi...

As America prepares to swear in a new president, we’ll look back to the inaugurations of the past. Jim Bendat, author of Democracy's Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President, 1789-2013 , joins us as we cover the friction between the outgoing and incoming president, the Capitol Hill breach on January 6th, and how inaugurations have served as a powerful reminder of the strength of American de...

Once the coal miners lost the Battle of Blair Mountain, the story of their uprising was suppressed, and their leader Frank Keeney eventually faded into obscurity—even among members of his own family. But historian Charles Keeney, Frank Keeney’s great grandson, has made it a personal mission to raise public awareness of the mine wars and the pivotal role his ancestor played.  Charles Keeney is...

The Coal Wars reached an explosive climax in August 1921, as thousands of miners furious over the death of their hero Sid Hatfield shouldered their weapons and marched south. Their destination was Mingo County, where they hoped to free their fellow miners jailed under martial law. But first, they would have to cross Blair Mountain and armed men led by Logan County’s ruthless anti-union Sheriff Don...

In May 1920, Sheriff Sid Hatfield won the loyalty of Mingo County’s miners after a deadly gun battle that left seven Baldwin-Felts agents dead on the streets of Matewan, West Virginia. That summer, the coal companies brought in trainloads of strikebreakers to get the mines running again. But local miners were electrified by the Matewan Massacre and they waged an all-out guerilla war as Hatfield aw...

In March 1913, famed labor activist Mother Jones was locked up in a shack in Pratt, West Virginia, suffering from pneumonia and a high fever as she awaited court martial. For a year, the striking miners she led endured hunger and violence as they waged their desperate battle for the right to organize. Now, their struggle hung in the balance. West Virginia was under martial law, and hope for victor...

In the early 20th century, coal was the fuel that powered the nation. But the men who mined it in the rugged and remote hills of West Virginia endured harsh exploitation by the coal companies that controlled their lives. In the spring of 1912, miners in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley rose up against the companies and their powerful allies in law enforcement with a strike for their right to join a...

Throughout our series, we've seen how social movements and partisan politics helped influence the decisions of landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, and thus shape America itself. But how did the Supreme Court get so powerful when America's founders imagined a more limited role? Today, the idea of court-packing, first proposed by Roosevelt to push through his New Deal agenda, is back as a way to rein...

In 1970, a 22-year-old woman in Texas named Norma McCorvey tried and failed to get an abortion from her doctor. Abortion was illegal in Texas, just as it was in most states. Women hoping to terminate their pregnancies had few options, and many resorted to risky back-alley procedures. McCorvey was soon introduced to a pair of young lawyers who hoped to go to court to challenge the Texas law banning...

The morning of Nov. 8, 2000, Americans woke up to an undecided election. Pollsters had predicted a close race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush, but no one knew just how narrow the margins would be. It all hinged on Florida, where 25 electoral votes were up for grabs. Over the next 36 days, armies of lawyers waged a bitter fight to determine how to count the votes in...

Before the 1950s, the Supreme Court was best known as an institution that adhered to the status quo. It often sought to protect the rights of property owners and businessmen, shying away from cases that took direct aim at controversial social or political issues. But when a popular former California governor became Chief Justice in 1953, all that changed. Earl Warren’s court would take on some of...

Through most of 1941, as fighting raged across Europe, the United States held back from entering the war. That all changed in December, when Japanese fighter planes bombed Pearl Harbor and the nation found itself mobilizing for World War II. Suddenly, the frenzy to fight enemies abroad turned to suspicion against those at home. President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the military t...

After the Civil War, America began to rebuild a shattered nation. For the first time, the country could create a society without slavery, and a nation where Black people could forge their own path as independent citizens. But by the 1890s, the laws and policies that promised new rights for Black citizens in the South were under assault. In Louisiana, white politicians attempted to turn back the cl...

In the early 1800s, the United States was growing rapidly, seeking land and resources for its expanding population. But the growth threatened Native American communities throughout the East. In the southern Appalachia region, the Cherokee Nation held millions of acres of prime farmland and forests, managed by a centuries-old tradition and a thriving government. But the state of Georgia, and a rele...

After the War of Independence, the new American government created the Supreme Court to be have the final word on disputes that the states couldn’t settle. But at first, the Court was anything but Supreme. For nearly a decade, Congress and the President held the real power. In practice the Supreme Court was weak, ineffectual and disorganized – a post so unappealing that many men turned down nomina...

The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano...

The 1929 stock market crash saw 14 billion dollars vanish in a matter of hours — and with it, the Republican party’s decades-long grip on American politics. As Americans lost their livelihoods, they turned to President Herbert Hoover for relief. But the self-made man who had so successfully reversed his own fortunes seemed unable to do the same for his country. With discontent growing, Hoover turn...

As the Civil War came to a close, the government set its sights once again on the future of the United States. Working closely with a Republican President, the Republican Congress expected a swift and peaceful road to Reconstruction. But then, a mere four weeks into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the country in the hands of Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had personally...

The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of all stripes. While the Whig Party collapsed over the issue, Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and a new...

Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams through what some called a “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. The maneuver was masterminded by hot-headed but politically savvy Henry Clay, who with Adams, announced their intent for far-reaching new federal programs. Fierce opposition to these policies united pro-Jackson supporters who formed a new party, the...