Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life
Graphic
Listen

Featured story: Mandela’s Election: 30 Years Later

Mandela was a lawyer, freedom fighter, leader of the African National Congress, and finally, president.

Graphic
Listen

Featured story: Working, Then and Now

We present a special, one hour episode of our series The Working Tapes of Studs Terkel.

Graphic
Listen

Featured story: My Iron Lung (Revisited)

Paul Alexander, one of two people in the United States relying on an iron lung, died recently at 78 years …

History
Graphic
History
Graphic
History
Graphic

Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words

Graphic

Majd’s Diary: Two Years in the Life of a Saudi Girl

Majd wants to be a scientist. Her family wants to arrange her marriage.

Listen
Graphic

My So-Called Lungs (Revisited)

Laura Rothenberg tried to live a normal life, with lungs that betrayed her and the awareness that she might not live to see her 30th birthday.

Listen

Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

Graphic

Walter Backerman, Seltzer Man

Once there were thousands of seltzer men in New York City. Today, Walter Backerman is one of the last.

Listen
Graphic

Centenarians in Lockdown

Winner of the 2020 Third Coast Festival Award! Joe Newman is 107 years old. He recorded himself and his fiancé, Anita Sampson on her 100th birthday.

Listen

Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

Graphic

How to Lose an Election: A History

In every U.S. presidential election since 1896, the losing candidate has given a concession speech.

Listen
Graphic

West Side Story: Michael Farmer and the Murder that Shocked New York

More than fifty years ago, Puerto Rican and black gang members in New York City fatally stabbed Michael Farmer, a white teenager.

Listen
css.php