Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, John Humphrey had been told his heart could stop without warning. Doctors had discovered a dangerous arrhythmia, and surgery was coming. But before the procedure, John wanted one more chance to take the mound with his teammates. His parents watched from the bleachers. An AED sat nearby in case his heart failed. Then John went out and pitched the game of his...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Ed Sullivan couldn't sing, dance, act, or tell a joke. He wasn't even particularly comfortable in front of a camera. Yet for more than two decades, millions of Americans tuned in every Sunday night to watch him introduce the biggest names in entertainment. It was an unlikely destination for a poor kid from Harlem who spent years chasing success as a sportsw...

On this episode of Our American Stories, by 1864, the Confederacy was losing the Civil War on the battlefield. But hundreds of miles behind Union lines, Confederate agents were fighting a very different kind of war. Working out of secret bases in places like Montreal, they gathered intelligence, plotted acts of sabotage, worked with Northern antiwar activists, and searched for ways to disrupt the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1942, Elizabeth and Robert Dexter took charge of the Unitarian Service Committee's relief office in Lisbon, Portugal, as Jews and other desperate refugees fled Nazi-occupied Europe. Many arrived without valid papers, having crossed borders illegally and hidden in freight trains, vegetable carts, and anywhere else they could find safety. With Portuguese a...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1847, Samuel Colt's firearms business was all but dead. Then Texas Ranger Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker came to him with an idea for a massive new revolver built for mounted combat. Walker had carried Colt's earlier guns in battle and knew exactly what he wanted improved. Together, the two developed a six-shot revolver unlike anything American soldiers...

On this episode of Our American Stories, from the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement, the biblical prophet Daniel has served as an enduring American symbol of courage in the face of unjust authority. His refusal to abandon his faith, even when threatened with the lions' den, offered Americans a powerful example of standing firm when human laws conflicted with a higher moral law. Rabb...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Dave Cobb grew up in Savannah, Georgia, listening to everything from church hymns to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. He didn't discover country music until moving to California and working with Shooter Jennings, which introduced him to the music of Waylon Jennings and eventually led him to Nashville. There, Cobb became one of the most acclaimed producers in...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1940, 26-year-old Roswell and Marjorie McClelland put aside the academic and professional lives they had planned and sailed for Europe with the Quakers' American Friends Service Committee. War had already engulfed the continent, and the young American couple soon found themselves helping Jewish and political refugees fleeing the Nazis. For our ongoing se...

On this episode of Our American Stories, on May 12, 1864, a large oak tree stood in the middle of some of the fiercest fighting of the Civil War. For nearly 20 hours, Union and Confederate soldiers battled at close range at the Bloody Angle during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Thousands of bullets ripped through the air, and so many struck the oak that they eventually cut through its tru...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before PEZ dispensers came topped with Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus, and superheroes, PEZ was a benign Austrian peppermint marketed to adults as an alternative to smoking. Then PEZ came to America and flopped. Instead of giving up, the company decided to change course, and a candy once meant for adults found an entirely new audience in American children. Shawn...

On this episode of Our American Stories, at 11 years old, Victoria Arlen's body began shutting down. Eventually, she lost the ability to move or communicate and spent nearly four years in a vegetative state while doctors told her family she would never recover. What they didn't know was that Victoria was still there. She could hear them, understand them, and remember everything. Then one day, she...

On this episode of Our American Stories, a century ago, Tampa, Florida, was "Cigar City." Some 150 factories filled the city, where workers rolled more than 500 million cigars by hand each year. One by one, those factories disappeared as the industry changed and production moved overseas. Today, only one remains. The J.C. Newman Cigar Company still makes cigars in Tampa using many of the same meth...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in February 2021, a historic winter storm brought much of Texas to a standstill. Tim Hennessey and his wife, Debbie, braved the icy roads to pick up groceries for themselves and some friends. Then, while they were shopping at their local H-E-B, the power went out. The checkout lines quickly filled, but instead of asking customers to wait, employees began wa...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1852, Constantino Brumidi arrived in New York as a refugee from Rome. He was already an accomplished artist, but in America, he found the work that would consume the rest of his life. For the next twenty-five years, Brumidi climbed scaffolds, painted ceilings, and covered the halls of the U.S. Capitol with scenes drawn from American history and the ideal...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Horst Schulze, co-founder of Ritz-Carlton and author of  Excellence Wins , built his career around a simple idea: every employee has the power to define an entire organization in the eyes of a customer. Years ago, before speaking to hundreds of managers at a Chicago bank, Schulze decided to experience the bank's heavily advertised customer service for...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1890, Nellie Bly completed a journey that seemed almost impossible, circling the globe in just 72 days. Inspired by Jules Verne's  Around the World in Eighty Days , Bly traveled by ship, train, horse, rickshaw, and more, even stopping in France to meet Verne himself. But her famous race around the world was only one chapter in the remarkable life of...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Elizabeth Jennings was on her way to church when a New York City streetcar conductor ordered her off. She refused. The conductor and driver forcibly dragged her from the car, leaving her bloodied and bruised. Jennings got back up and climbed aboard again. The year was 1854, nearly  100 years  before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus...

On this episode of Our American Stories, after winning its independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas faced a new challenge: surviving as its own country. The young republic struggled with debt, threats from Mexico, conflicts on the frontier, and political divisions over whether its future lay as an independent nation or as part of the United States. Meanwhile, the question of annexing Texas became t...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of just over 100,000 people. It is smaller than many cities with minor-league baseball teams, yet somehow it is home to one of the most famous and valuable franchises in professional sports. Almost every other small industrial town that helped build the early NFL eventually lost its team. So how did the Green Bay Packe...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Carl Albert stood just 5 feet 4 inches tall, but during one of America’s biggest political scandals, he carried more than his share of the weight. As the Watergate scandal unraveled the Nixon presidency, the Speaker of the House, known as the "Little Giant from Little Dixie," became an anchor of stability. He put country over party and helped steer Co...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Simon Estes grew up poor in the coal-mining town of Centerville, Iowa, in a tiny house without running water or electricity. His father, the son of former slaves, couldn't read, and segregation shaped Simon's childhood. But inside his family's church, there was music, faith in God, and a remarkable voice that would take him far beyond anything he could have...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Sergeant Alvin York, the reluctant World War I infantryman who became one of America’s most decorated soldiers, has stood as a symbol of courage and sacrifice for over a century. Born in the mountains of Tennessee, Sgt. York’s early life was shaped by deep religious convictions that initially made him a conscientious objector. But on the battlef...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Leslie Leyland Fields flew from her home in Alaska to Indiana to spend two weeks beside her best friend, Linda, who was dying of stage IV ovarian cancer. When it was finally time to leave, Leslie believed they still had months together. A week later, she learned that Linda was nearing the end. Then, while Leslie was trying to make her way home, a mechanical...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Walter Gretzky passed away at 82, people didn’t just remember him as the father of Wayne Gretzky. They remembered the man who stood quietly behind the scenes for decades, offering time, stability, and a kind of presence that never asked to be noticed. The backyard rink he built in Brantford became the foundation of Wayne’s earliest training...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when the Joplin EF5 tornado struck on May 22, 2011, entire neighborhoods disappeared in seconds. But the storm took more than lives and homes. It also swept away the irreplaceable pieces of the lives lived inside them. Wedding portraits, baby pictures, and snapshots of loved ones were ripped from homes and scattered across the surrounding countryside for mi...