History Author Show

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John U. Bacon – The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

April 23, 2018 - Our time machine travels back 100 years, to witness the split-second explosion that blew a chunk of Halifax, Nova Scotia off the map. On December 6, 1917, this key city in supplying the Allies in the Great War, suffered the largest man-made explosion prior to the bombs that ended World War Two -- something that caught the attention of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb." On the shore in Canada to witness the collision in the harbor is John U. Bacon, author of The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism. John U. Bacon teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the University of Michigan. He's written five New York Times bestsellers, including Three and Out, Fourth and Long, and, Endzone. You can catch him often on NPR and national TV, as well as JohnUBacon.com, @JohnUBacon on Twitter, or Facebook.com/JohnUBaconAuthor.

Sheila Myers – The Night is Done: A Durant Family Saga Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

April 9, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to 1931 to conclude the Durant Family Trilogy. Moving on from the Gilded Age, we'll catch up with William and Ella, the adult children of Union Pacific Railroad tycoon Dr. Thomas C. Durant, in the final years of their complicated lives. Our guest, Sheila Myers, first introduced us to the family in her novel, Imaginary Brightness, as they had their comfortable lives in London shattered by an economic panic. Book 2, Castles in the Air, saw the William and Ella locking horns, as their father continued to exert influence on their lives from beyond the grave. In the conclusion, The Night Is Done, William and Ella cast their eyes back on their lives, and confront the stark truth about their legacy and long-gone fortune. Sheila Myers is an associate professor at Cayuga Community College, which feeds her passion for the Durant family in upstate New York's Adirondack Mountains. You can follow her on Twitter @SheilaMMyers or visit her online at WWDurantStory.com. And you can listen to our previous interviews on both Imaginary Brightness and Castles in the Air in our archives at HistoryAuthor.com, or wherever you're listening.

Esther Crain – The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

March 26, 2018 - It's a special episode, recorded live on the campus of New York University at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, co-sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The spot at No. 20 Bowery is in sight of the Cooper Union where Abraham Lincoln gave the 1860 speech that launched him into the presidency, and steps from 114 Bowery, where Steve Brodie bragged about jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. It's also just a few blocks from Manhattan's oldest bar, McSorley's Old Ale House, familiar to those of you who enjoyed my chat with Rafe Batholomew on his memoir Two and Two: McSorley's, My Dad, and Me. Joining me at NYU is of my all-time favorite time-travelers, Esther Crain, the great and powerful Oz behind the wildly popular blog, Ephemeral New York, which runs under the tagline: "Chronicling an ever-changing city through faded and forgotten artifacts." Esther is also the author of 2014's New York City in 3D In The Gilded Age, a box set that not only offered a book with Esther's sharp writing and rare images compiled by the New-York Historical Society, but also a Stereoscopic Viewer to bring the turn of the last century to life in three dimensions. Esther has spent 15 years writing and editing for top consumer magazines and health/lifestyle websites including Cosmopolitan, Self, Shape, Glamour, Women's Health, and Health magazines. Now she's back on our bookshelf with The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910. Visit her blog at EphemeralNewYork.Wordpress.com, where you can sign up for emails of each new article she posts. You can also follow her @EphemeralNY on Twitter or like her on Facebook page. Special thanks for this installment goes to Nick Hirshon of William Paterson University and Pamela Walck of Duquesne University for inviting us to close out the JJCHC.

M. Evelina Galang – Lolas’ House: Filipino Women Living with War Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

March 12, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Philippines during the Japanese occupation the Second World War. Once in the South Pacific, we'll bear solemn witness to crimes against women who have been denied the justice and compensation for the atrocities they suffered in the name of the emperor. Our guide on this journey is M. Evelina Galang who brings us Lolas' House: Filipino Women Living with War. The Imperial Japanese Army kidnapped over 1,000 Filipino women and girls, part of a staggering 400,000 women across forced Asia into sexual slavery. Incredibly, and to Japan's shame, to this day their government denies the crimes of its wartime regime, unlike the heirs of their fascist Axis allies in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime. M. Evelina Galang is the author of several books and the editor of Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian-American Images. She directs the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami and is core faculty and board member of Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). She wrote the novel, Her Wild American Self, which The New York Times Book Review praised and named a notable book. You can find our guest online at MEvelinaGalang.com, or follow her on Twitter at the handle HerWildAmSelf.

Philip Jett – Death of an Heir Feb 26, 2018

Show notes

February 26, 2018 - Our time machine travels to 1960 and pulls over at a secluded bridge on a lonely Colorado road. We're there to witness a crime of greed and envy, when a bitter escaped convict with delusions of high IQ snatches the 44-year-old CEO of Coors as he makes his way to the family brewery. We follow this tale of true crime in the new book: The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty. Sitting beside us in our squad car as the kidnapper pounces is attorney Philip Jett, who brings us this chilling account of the Coors family’s gilded American dream that turned into a nightmare. Find our guest online at PhilipJett.com or @PhilipJett on Twitter.

Sandra Neil Wallace – Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

February 12, 2018 - For Black History Month, our time machine piles readers 4 to 8 years old into their car seats, and introduces them to a hero who overcame segregation and many other obstacles, to pursue his artistic dream -- and that's after being a star NFL player. Returning to the show is Sandra Neil Wallace, who last joined us with her husband and co-writer Rich Wallace to discuss their books Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story and Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sacrifice for Civil Rights. You can hear those conversations in our archives at HistoryAuthor.com or wherever you catch the show. Sandra's latest book is titled Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery. In it, young readers will find the story of a pro-football player, brought to life with by Sandra's prose and Bryan Collier's watercolors. Bryan Collier is an award-winning illustrator, whose art won first place in a 1985 congressional competition and later earned him a scholarship to New York City's Pratt Institute. Watch him draw at this Facebook Live event or check out his work at BryanCollier.com. You've seen Sandra Neil Wallace's work as a news anchor and ESPN sportscaster, and you'll recall that she was the first woman to host an NHL show on network television. Visit her at SandraNeilWallace.com, @SandraNWallace on Twitter and Facebook.com/SandraNeilWallace.

Laurie Gwen Shapiro – The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica Jan 29, 2018

Show notes

January 29, 2018 - Our time machine heads south to the other land down under for a chilly Jazz Age adventure. Our guide on this journey is Laurie Gwen Shapiro who brings us the story of a scrappy Polish-American kid from Manhattan's Lower East Side, who explores the Roaring '20s final frontier. Her book is The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica. It's the spectacular, true story of Billy Gawronski who snuck onto the flagship of famed explorer Richard E. Byrd, demanding a place among the crew and on the pages of history. Laurie Gwen Shapiro is a native of Billy Gawronski's corner of Manhattan, and you've seen her writing in New York Magazine, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as in her history column The Forward, focusing on unsung heroes. She is also a documentary filmmaker who won an Independent Spirit Award for directing IFC’s Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale and an Emmy nomination for producing HBO’s Finishing Heaven. Visit her online at LaurieGwenShapiro.com, follow her @LaurieStories on Twitter and Instagram, or toss a like to Facebook.com/LaurieGwenShapiro.

Paula Tarnapol Whitacre – A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time Jan 15, 2018

Show notes

January 15, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Union-occupied city of Alexandria, Virginia, to get an abolitionist woman's perspective during America's Civil War. Our guide on this journey is Paula Tarnapol Whitaker, author of A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time: Julia Wilbur's Struggle for Purpose. Paula met up with us in Virginia at the Lyceum, Alexandria's History Museum, where we felt close to this woman ahead of her time. In the fall of 1862, with the Civil War raging, 47-year-old Julia Wilbur said goodbye to the family farm near Rochester, New York, and boarded a train to the capital of a divided nation. An ardent abolitionist, Wilbur spent most of the next several years in Alexandria, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C. Pushing back against the limitations women faced at the time, Julia Wilbur aided escaped slaves and hospitalized Union soldiers, later serving in the Freedman's bureau as African-Americans made their first steps to full citizenship. Based on diaries, letters, and other primary sources, A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time introduces us to a woman who threw herself into a changing society, and helped bend it in the direction of liberty. You can find our guest online at PaulaWhitacre.com, @PTWhitacre on Twitter, or Facebook.com/PTWhitacre. *According to our new schedule, our next episode will be on January 29th.

Tom Grace – Undeniable: A Nolan Kilkenny Thriller Dec 31, 2017

Show notes

January 1, 2018 - Happy New Year, history lovers! To kick off 2018, we welcome thriller author Tom Grace to discuss the sixth novel in his series featuring ex-Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny: Undeniable. Tom's novels feature cutting-edge technology, and we discuss how DNA science is solving historical mysteries. Did Adolf Hitler have a son? Was Warren G. Harding our first black president? What sinister uses will criminal minds cook up when editing DNA is as easy as editing a Word document? Ancestry.com is set to double their database to 12 million people in the New Year. Our trained genealogist can help you unlock the history written in your chromosomes at HistoryAuthor.com/Family-History. Find Tom online at TomGrace.net, on Twitter @Tom_Grace, or like him as Facebook.com/AuthorTomGrace. All his novels are available in paperback from Regnery Fiction. Tom has guest hosted on the History Author Show three times. Jeanne Walker Harvey: Maya Lin: Artist - Architect of Light and Lines. Hugh Howard: Architecture's Odd Couple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson. Gerald Posner: God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.

Orson Welles, Lionel Barrymore – A Christmas Carol Dec 25, 2017

Show notes

December 25, 2017 - This week, our time machine visits 1939, clicks on the radio, and listens to The Campbell Playhouse production of A Christmas Carol hosted by Orson Welles and staring Lionel Barrymore as Ebenezer Scrooge. When Charles Dickens published the story in 1843, he did so as what we'd call social commentary, reflecting the soul-searching of his fellow Britons about the true meaning of Christmas. Even 175 years later, we can see the importance of Dickens' central themes in our own world, where so many TV shows have parodied the tale. Like the WPIX Yule Log here in New York City, Lionel Barrymore's Christmas Eve performances grew into a tradition from the first in 1934 to his final appearance in 1953, a year before his death. Barrymore also features in a great television Christmas tradition, as the miserly Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, written by a fellow Rutgers alumnus: Philip Van Doren Stern. We hope you enjoy listening to this radio play and the interview with Mr. Welles that follows, as much as we enjoyed researching the stories behind it. As Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, everyone."

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