The Preamble

Welcome to our new series, Taken: Native Boarding Schools in America where we dive into the complex history of the United States Government's intervention of Indigenous tribes and culture. We’re going to go beyond the Trail of Tears and into the federally mandated programs that took Native children from their homes and placed them in boarding schools. It’s a history of erasure, dominance, violence...

Writer Ally Henny joins Sharon today to talk about Bruno. But in this context, Bruno–always around, but only talked about in hushed tones–is race. Ally and Sharon have a candid conversation about the pitfalls of Respectability Politics and how white people can do better when it comes to getting uncomfortable in conversations about race. Ally’s new book, I Won’t Shut Up: Finding Your Voice When the...

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with author of the book Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union , Richard Kreitner. Richard and Sharon talk about the theme of division throughout American history. We may say we are one nation, united, but there have always been ideas, events, and people who have challenged that noti...

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It gets Interesting, Sharon welcomes guest Dr. Kerry Sautner, the chief learning officer at the National Constitution Center. Kerry and Sharon talk about civic education, and how it can be a building block for a great democracy–but just as important as learning from our past is learning how to communicate and collaborate in the present. Join us to learn more abou...

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon welcomes back David Rubenstein to talk about his new PBS series, Iconic America. The series takes a look at eight different American symbols, from Cowboys to the Hollywood sign. These recognizable pieces of America have surprising histories, and Sharon and David discuss how symbols evolve and take on new meaning over time. Special thanks to our gue...

Sharon’s guest on today’s episode on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting is author Alexandra Robbins, the author of several New York Times bestsellers. Her newest book, The Teachers , goes behind the scenes to show readers what life is like for teachers in America. She follows three teachers through their trials and triumphs over the course of one school year. Learn about their challenges with being...

Joining Sharon today is Colin Woodard, the director of the Nationhood Lab. Colin is an expert on the regional cultures that make up the United States, and while we tend to think of regional differences as disagreements about our political views, the cultural history goes much deeper than that. Colin has studied how these geographical regional divides pertain to gun violence in America, and his con...

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with Jonathan Eig, the author of the new Martin Luther King Jr. biography, King: A Life . Eig spent six full years researching and writing about King’s life. He shares countless moments and pieces of King’s story that get left out of the general image we have of the I Have a Dream preacher. He also argues that, through honoring the Civil Righ...

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with Yale professors and two of the authors behind Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. Initially a class in Yale’s humanities program, Life Worth Living sought to find answers to the age-old philosophical question: what’s the meaning of life? The book brings the classroom lessons to a new audience, and Sharon talks t...

To kick off a new season of guest interviews, Sharon sits down with the amazing Nedra Tawwab: bestselling author, relationship therapist, and boundaries expert. Nedra and Sharon talk about some of the key ideas Nedra shares in her latest book, Drama Free , and about how to navigate unhealthy family dynamics and relationships and move them into a healthier space. The change starts with us. Special...

Do you celebrate National Beer Day on April 7th every year? Did you even know that the U.S. has a National Beer Day? We do! And it’s all thanks to our 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his signing of the Cullen-Harrison Act. Celebrated across the country in 1933, the act was just one small step on the path to the ratification of the 21st Amendment and the final nail in the coffin for Prohi...

At its beginning, prohibition was spearheaded by outspoken women. Women who saw a need for social change and then set up the scaffolding to build, what they thought, would be a better America. So maybe it won’t be a surprise to hear that the repeal of Prohibition began in pretty much the same way. By the late 1920s, it was clear to many that Prohibition was a big flop. It was especially clear to o...

In the middle of the 1920s, when Prohibition was at its peak, leaders and law enforcement could go one of two ways: they could crack down on Volstead Act violators… or they could look the other way. Today, we’ll meet the first two women governors in the nation’s history–and a couple of lawmen–and learn how they handled their duties during Prohibition.  Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer:...

In its fight for a dry, anti-alcohol nation, the Anti-Saloon League recruited the Ku Klux Klan to join its mission to make Prohibition the law of the land. Klan members themselves weren’t specifically pro-Temperance, but they were happy to use dry laws as a way to target and perpetrate violence against Black Americans, immigrants, Jews, and Catholics. But the power of the Klan was beginning to fad...

How did one of the most popular movies in the country–a blockbuster of epic proportions–fuel the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan? And how, in just a few short years, did the Klan grow from small pockets of state chapters into a national social organization with a membership in the millions? The KKK and the prohibitionists of the 1920s worked hand-in-hand to turn America into a dry, white, Protestant-r...

On today’s episode of our series on Prohibition, we talk about two things that go hand in hand with the enforcement of dry laws: crime and cocktails. The spread of both was a direct consequence of the 18th amendment as mobsters ruled the violent industry of bootlegging and the rough liquor they sold was made more palatable with mixers.  Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer: Heather Jackson...

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, it’s a battle between the lawman and the barkeep; we’re going to explore the New York jazz and speakeasy scene. Along the way, we’ll meet a few people who embodied that old adage: sometimes appearances can be deceiving. And, of course, if there’s anywhere in time and place to reinvent yourself, it’s New York City in the 1920s. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Ex...

By 1920, America was officially a dry country. In theory. In practice, the law came with enough loopholes that opportunists found plenty of ways to make, trade, sell, and guzzle vast quantities of alcohol. Some turned to religion and some walked into a pharmacy with a doctor’s note. Still others knew how to rig the system so well that they made their fortunes and even got away with murder. Hosted...

As the country went dry at the start of 1920, Americans were ready for a new leader. A stand-up guy, they thought, someone who reflects our morals–a man of the people. The elected Warren Harding, a handsome Ohioan who prided himself on his all-American principles. But behind closed doors, Warren Harding, 29th President of the United States, hid a plethora of dark secrets. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon...

Today, we’re going to meet the most powerful woman in America during the Prohibition era. Mabel Walker Willebrandt was the Assistant Attorney General and it was her job to enforce the 18th amendment and prosecute those who flouted the new laws of Prohibition. With a boss that didn’t think she’d succeed and a lazy department who didn’t want to work for a woman, Mabel went after some of the most not...

Today in our series about Prohibition, we learn more about the crusade to turn America into a dry nation. It may surprise you to learn that it wasn’t spearheaded by only white Christian women who disapproved of saloons and whiskey. Leaders in the growing civil rights movement also pushed for temperance, and one woman convinced the government that the path to prohibition was best paved through the...

Welcome to the first episode in our new series, From Hatchets to Hoods: The Mayhem of a Dry America! We’re going to begin our series a number of years before the iconic 18th Amendment went into effect, with a growing movement born of domestic and religious fervor, and the women who were gutsy enough to face social problems head on… a hatchet in hand. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Give to the Winds Thy...

Today on the show, Shannon McKenna Schmidt joins Sharon to talk about the trifecta of listener-favorite subjects: an American First Lady, World War II, and a secret adventure. Shannon’s new book, The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back , chronicles Eleanor Roosevelt’s journey to the Pacific theater during wartime. The five week trip took her th...

On this episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with Ilyon Woo, author of the new book, Master Slave Husband Wife , a love story between William and Ellen Craft. You may not be familiar with their names, but the Crafts were a determined enslaved couple who made their escape through disguise and performance, and in their success, defied the limitations of gender and race. Hosted b...

Today, on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, co-founder of the website Wait But Why? joins Sharon to talk about a few big ideas, like censorship, the future of big tech, the role of government, and what we can do to combat corruption. They also talk about bad drawings of stick figures, and his new book, What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies . Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Tim Urban...