Tour Guide Tell All

This week, to kick off some spooky themes for the spooky month of October, the Rebeccas delve into the fascinating, ethereal world of American Spiritualism; the belief that the dead are real spirits still among us, with otherworldly knowledge, who can be contacted and can communicate with us from the beyond! Learn how the belief in Spiritualism took off in this country, especially during the tragi...

Did you know that Secret Service wouldn't start protecting the President until after 3 presidential assassinations (and many more attempts?) Becca and Rebecca talk about the assassination of President McKinley and its effect on the presidency today. Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtothepod? Email us  tourguidetellall@gmail.com Support Tour Guide Tell All: • Want...

Welcome to the start of Tour Guide Tell All Season Two! Rebecca and Becca are back to talk about some Labor History for September. We are starting with a natural disaster that wasn’t so natural after all, the Johnstown Flood Join us as we discuss Gilded Age era excess and those who paid the most horrific price for that excess.  Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtot...

Listener request! A pod listener has requested that we talk about: The Donner Party! One of the most famous stories about the early west, an infamous tale of misunderstanding, bad advice, arrogance and tenacity.    Join Rebecca and Becca as we continue our occasional series on the Wild West by discussing some of the most infamous western travelers, the Donner/Reed Party   Comments or Questions? Or...

For nearly 15 years, Tobias Lear served as George Washington's right hand man. Join Becca and Rebecca for his many career changes, scandalous life and what happened to George Washington's diary?  Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtothepod? Email us tourguidetellall@gmail.com Support Tour Guide Tell All: Want to send a one off donation to support the podcast team? W...

This week we have a scandal of a different kind, a darker kind. We are tackling the story of Evelyn Nesbit and the architect Stanford White. A story about desire and greed at the height of Gilded Age New York. Join Becca and Rebecca for a story that isn’t a good guy versus bad guy, but a story with two and a half bad folks, and a tragically abused victim.   Comments or Questions? Or have an idea f...

Join us for a very special interview with DC educator and author, Joann Hill! Joann shares her experience as a lover of all things DC and her new book, Secret Washington, DC: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Joann chats with Becca about her book writing process, what the book offers locals and visitors, and shares one of her favorite chapters - tune in to hear which First Lady had a p...

A more modern story for you history lovers, Becca and Rebecca bring you back to 1976 to talk about Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole & others.   Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtothepod? Email us tourguidetellall@gmail.com   Support Tour Guide Tell All: Want to send a one off donation to support the podcast team? We have a venmo @...

Becca and Rebecca discuss the Pearl Incident - a dramatic attempted escape of enslaved persons in Washington DC - that most people have never heard of.   I really feel like this should be a better known event ... The Pearl Incident was the largest non violent attempted escape of enslaved people in our nation's history.   Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtothepod?...

Apologies to all our incredible listeners! Tours are up and running and we had some technical issues to work out, so we are a bit behind on releasing episodes. However, we wanted to drop this particular episode on this special day as our nation comes together to honor and remember the incredible sacrifices made by our Armed Forces throughout history. We could think of no better way to mark the occ...

"There are just case after case after case where Brandeis is going to write dissents or write opinions that are going to be cited for years and years to come, that are going to be so influential...Things that we really do take for granted, when it comes to ideas like free speech and the right to privacy, that are just so so key to what I think we think of when we think of the United States today."...

It’s (almost) Mother’s Day and we are celebrating Tour Guide Tell All style! We thought it might be fun to see a different side of our presidents, talking about them as family men, and discussing the trials and tribulations of being a presidential child. Join Becca and Rebecca as we discuss the often scandalous, occasionally disappointing, and always interesting history of presidential children. C...

Apologies to all our faithful listeners! We ran into some technical issues with our software and equipment so we are a bit late posting this episode. Thank you for your patience! _________________________ We're wrapping up our April episodes with one of the most interesting women to live in Washington, D.C. - Marjorie Merriweather Post.  Learn about her four husbands, multiple estates and mansions...

“Sometimes there are events in history that are overblown, and sometimes there are events in history that are “underblown”; this one is perfect. We make as big a deal out of it (The Gold Rush) as we should, because it is a big deal. It’s not one of those things that’s like, ‘oh, it was bigger in pop culture than it really was!’. Nooo….The California Gold Rush is really foundational in understandin...

"(WWI) is a war that is under-studied in the United States. Somebody said this to me once, that we feel about World War II in the United States, the way that Europeans feel about World War I....World War I is the big trial, and World War II is kind of this thing that happened afterward. And to wit, we have a friend, Matilda...and she moved to a teeny tiny town in the middle of nowhere France for a...

There are few events in American history that are truly a crossroads of people, ideas, and technology but the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is one of them. Join us as we discuss this landmark event that brought together notable names, amazing inventions, and some of our favorite foods and drinks while also marking our nation’s transition into the 20th Century.  Comments or Questions? Or have a...

“He’s so fun to talk about. I think he’s kind of perfect for April Fools because the story is just so over the top and ridiculous.” We have something special for April Fools, a scandal for the ages, full of murder, sex, intrigue and the US Congress! We are talking about the scandalous life of Dan Sickles. Daniel Sickles was a bad husband, a murderer, and a questionable member of Congress. Join us...

This is a special re-release of one of our very first episodes, dropped today to mark the 40th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC.   Thank you for a year of supporting us!   --------------(Original Release Notes)---------------   “Ronald Reagan, I don’t care what you think about his politics, and we live in a very left of center city, but I don’t care wha...

“So as FDR is approaching her about joining his cabinet, about becoming this cabinet appointee, she has adapted a very specific look, which is sort of no nonsense, black and navy suits, very little makeup...she was very reserved...just very quiet and to the point. But she wrote somebody and basically said that women in politics were accepted if they reminded men of their mothers. So this is what s...

"When it came to...rhetorical style, Flo was a down and dirty kinda type...Let’s say the uncomfortable thing, let’s get up into our uncomfortable space, because that’s where we can start to move past, and start getting the real work done. And I think she acted on that in every facet of her life." March is Women's History Month and our team is diving deep into the lives and legacies of a few incred...

‘Everybody has heard the name, and I feel like there’s an overview where everyone has this shared collective experience of Pocahontas, and as you’re probably not going to be surprised to learn, almost none of that is true.’ March is Women’s History Month! We continue our stories about incredible women in American history by looking at one of our earliest celebrities: Pocahontas! More myth than fac...

"I think she’s really remarkable because she never paints herself as an angel either.  She realizes that first of all, that’s never going to work, and second of all, that’s not real."   March is Women's History Month and our team is diving deep into the lives and legacies of a few incredible women from American History.  We are kicking off this month with the story of a woman whose name is not wel...

"Bullard, son of an enslaved man and a Creek Indian woman, who escaped the racism of the American south, was in Paris with a pocketful of money. His dream was finally realized. Except it was 1914."   Have you ever heard of Eugene Bullard? He was unrecognized even in his own time here in the United States, but the Black Sparrow lived many lifetime's worth of adventures in his 66 years. From runaway...

"It’s fascinating how much in a short, relatively short political career, she is so admired, she is so celebrated….she is called a genius, she is called a hero; the salvation of American politics! She was called the best politician of the century, but also she faced incredible criticism from all sides. Which is not surprising because she was a Black woman in politics." Our Black History Month seri...

“I got the idea to do this topic specifically on Twitter, someone tweeted about how when Hiram Revels, the very first African American Senator was appointed, because all senators in those days were appointed, he takes his seat and there was a big controversy about whether he should be seated and some segregationist senators literally turned their backs on him on the floor of the United States Sena...