This American Life Archive

183: The Missing Parents Bureau 20.04.2001 ↓

Women planning to get pregnant with the help of a sperm bank tell us about the questions they wrestle with of how much they want to know about the fathers of their kids.

182: Cringe 13.04.2001 ↓

Tales of personal humiliation, romance gone wrong, and people who profoundly misjudge how they're perceived by others.

181: The Friendly Man 06.04.2001 ↓

Stories from Scott Carrier, whose strange and compelling tales sound like nothing else on the radio.

180: Return to Childhood 2001 23.03.2001 ↓

Alex Blumberg tries to find a woman who babysat him when he was nine, and other stories of people trying to revisit their childhoods.

179: Cicero 16.03.2001 ↓

The story of what was, at one time, one of most notoriously racist and corrupt suburbs in America.

178: Superpowers 23.02.2001 ↓

Which is better: flight or invisibility?

177: American Limbo 09.02.2001 ↓

Stories of people living completely outside the grid of American life.

176: Two Nations, One President 26.01.2001 ↓

Democrats explain why they're having trouble getting over the 2001 election, and Republicans explain why this is so infuriating.

175: Babysitting 05.01.2001 ↓

A brother and sister decide to invent children to babysit, as an excuse to get out of their own house.

174: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones 29.12.2000 ↓

A live show taped for our fifth anniversary.

173: Three Kinds of Deception 15.12.2000 ↓

A story of self-deception, a story about deceiving others, and a story about accidental deception.

172: 24 Hours at the Golden Apple 17.11.2000 ↓

One day in a Chicago diner.

171: Election 03.11.2000 ↓

Stories for the eve of the 2000 presidential election, in which we try to look beneath the candidates' soundbites.

170: Immigration 13.10.2000 ↓

We look at a 1996 immigration law that is too obscure for most of us to have heard of, but which affects tens of thousands of lives in huge ways.

169: Pursuit of Happiness 29.09.2000 ↓

What does it mean to grow up in a country with an inalienable right to pursue happiness?

168: The Fix Is In 15.09.2000 ↓

We go inside the back rooms of one multinational corporation and hear the intricate workings of how they put the fix in.

167: Memo to the People of the Future 08.09.2000 ↓

Stories of people who are trying to control how they'll be seen by generations to come.

166: Nobody's Family Is Going to Change 11.08.2000 ↓

Does anyone's family ever change?

165: Americans in Paris 28.07.2000 ↓

David Sedaris takes Ira on a tour of his favorite spots in Paris.

164: Crime Scene (2000) 07.07.2000 ↓

Crime scenes and the stories they tell.

163: Can You Fight City Hall…If You Are City Hall? 30.06.2000 ↓

Stories of people who stand up alone for what's right, damn the consequences.

162: Moving 23.06.2000 ↓

Stories of people who did not want to move but circumstance forced their hands.

161: Million Bubbles 02.06.2000 ↓

A look at what's going on inside the individual glass and steel worlds of our cars.

160: Character Assassination 19.05.2000 ↓

David Foster Wallace reports on a turning point in the 2000 presidential primary.

159: Mother’s Day 12.05.2000 ↓

Stories of moms: How they treat us, how we treat them.