Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life
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Featured story: The Gospel Ranger

Outside the Appalachian mountains, his name was barely known. But Claude Ely influenced some of the pioneers of rock & roll.

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Featured story: Mandela’s Election: 30 Years Later

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

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Featured story: Working, Then and Now

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

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

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The Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home

A group of residents of The Presbyterian Home use tape recorders to document their lives.

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Amanda’s Diary: Girlfriend

Amanda is gay. Amanda’s family is Catholic. And she’s having a hard time convincing her parents that this is not “just a phase.”

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Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

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The Last Man on the Mountain

In the 1990s, Arch Coal began mining Pigeonroost Hollow. Now Jimmy Weekley is the last person left there.

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Home is Where You Park Your Mini Van

As the pandemic hit, Naida Lavon found herself without a home and without a job. Part of our Hunker Down Diaries series.

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Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

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The Dropped Wrench

Sometimes we make mistakes. They just don’t always happen in a nuclear missile silo. This story was produced in collaboration with This American Life.

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A Museum of Sound

Thanks to the Music Modernization Act, tens of thousands of recordings made before 1923 will enter the public domain for the very first time on January 1, 2022.

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