32.B.) FDR's death & the history of presidential mourning, an interview with Lindsay Chervinsky & Matthew Costello
"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them," - FDR on Bill of Rights Day, 1941. ~~~ Every president's death is mourned differently. What do those differences tell us about the evolving culture of our nation? Historians Lindsay Chervinsky and Matthew Costello join me to discuss their new book Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, with a deeper dive on the death of FDR 82 days into the start of his fourth term...
3 Apr 202348min
32.A.) FDR and the New Deal, an interview with Eric Rauchway
"I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, July 2, 1932, upon accepting the Democratic nomination for president ~~~ Did the New Deal get the United States out of the Great Depression? Or was it World War II? Just how successful was the New Deal anyway? Eric Rauchway, a distinguished professor of history at UC Davis and the author of Why the New Deal Matters, Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal, and The...
20 Mars 202357min
32.) Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1933-1945
"This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." - Franklin Roosevelt ~~~ When FDR was sworn in on March 4, 1933, the nation, and the world, were in dire straights. Nation's around the world had abandoned democracy for militaristic authoritarian solutions, and many Americans were tempted to join them. Radio priest Father Coughlin espoused an American fascism from the right, while Louisiana kingpin Huey Long flirted with a socialist form of dictatorial power on the left. As if t...
6 Mars 202358min
31.C) Herbert Hoover & the origins of The Great Depression, an interview with Robert McElvaine
"The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis," - Herbert Hoover, on the eve of the Great Depression, Oct. 25, 1929 What caused the Great Depression? Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College and the author of Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the “Forgotten Man” and The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941, argues the very factors that made the 1920's roar were the instrum...
20 Feb 202358min
31.B) Herbert Hoover, the first businessman president, an interview with David Hamilton
"It simply comes to this: men hate me more after they work for me than before. They don't need think they are coming to a snap. They're coming to a perfect hell and I am the devil." - Herbert Hoover, 1897, written from the gold fields of Australia. The United States had seen generals, publishers, history professors, and lawyers - oh so many lawyers - become president. But it had never had a businessman president before Herbert Hoover. David E. Hamilton, a history professor at the University ...
6 Feb 202356min
31.A.) The political evolution of Herbert Hoover, an interview with Thomas Schwartz
"My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.” - Herbert Hoover Herbert Hoover entered government a self-described progressive. But by the time the end of his life, his opposition to the New Deal had some calling him a father of modern conservativism. What's the truth of the matter? Join me as I talk to Thomas Schwartz, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Muse...
16 Jan 202358min
31.) Herbert Hoover 1929-1933
"In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land." - Herbert Hoover. ~~~ Herbert Hoover made his fortune as a mining engineer, made his name as a humanitarian leader, and lost his reputation as a president. Nobody knew the great Depression was coming when they elected Hoover, but the great irony of his presidency is that, after savings millions of lives as a humanitarian during national and global emergencies, he's the first guy most Americans would have ...
2 Jan 202357min
30.A.) Calvin Coolidge turns PR into Presidential Relations, an interview with David Greenberg
History remembers Calvin Coolidge as "Silent Cal," but the notoriously quiet president was also an early adopter of emerging forms of mass media, such as radio and motion picture. Join me as I talk to historian David Greenberg, author of Calvin Coolidge and Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency, about how Coolidge quietly became one of the more effective image manipulators of the early 20th century. Support the show
19 Dec 202254min
