Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words
Melissa: 16 Years Later
As an 18 year old raised in the foster care system, Melissa took NPR listeners along when she gave birth to her son Issaiah. Sixteen years later she chronicles her life as a working single mother.
ListenThe Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home
A group of residents of The Presbyterian Home use tape recorders to document their lives.
ListenPortraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places
The Last Man on the Mountain
In the 1990s, Arch Coal began mining Pigeonroost Hollow. Now Jimmy Weekley is the last person left there.
ListenLiving with Dying
On Valentine’s Day 2020, Peter Fodera’s heart broke. He nearly died. Peter sat down with his daughter who knows a thing or two about death.
ListenHistories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.
Identical Strangers
Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were both born in New York City and adopted as infants. When they were 35-years-old, they met, and found they were “identical strangers.”
ListenMy Iron Lung (Revisited)
Paul Alexander, one of two people in the United States relying on an iron lung, died recently at 78 years …
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