In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters

The Pit Stop is a weekly mini-episode from In The Past Lane, the podcast about history and why it matters. Every Monday The Pit Stop tells you what happened in American history this week - in under 5 minutes! We drop these minis in between our full-length episodes that feature interviews with historians about their latest books, feature pieces, and more.  For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

The Pit Stop is a weekly mini-episode from In The Past Lane, the podcast about history and why it matters. Every Monday The Pit Stop tells you what happened in American history this week - in under 5 minutes! We drop these minis in between our full-length episodes that feature interviews with historians about their latest books, feature pieces, and more.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, It’s our annual St Patrick’s Day episode, in which we explore the stories of two Irish Americans very few people remember, but who in their day were quite famous. One is William Joyce, who was known during World War II as Lord Haw Haw. And the other is Virginia Tighe, who in the late 1950s was also known as Bridey Murphy. You won't want to miss these two intriguing stories that involve Nazis and reincarnation.

The Pit Stop is a weekly mini-episode from In The Past Lane, the podcast about history and why it matters. Every Monday The Pit Stop tells you what happened in American history this week - in under 5 minutes! We drop these minis in between our full-length episodes that feature interviews with historians about their latest books, feature pieces, and more.  For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, it’s Part 3 of our multi-episode examination of the Gilded Age. We look at some of the people and organizations that took on the era's problems, including Henry George, Mary Elizabeth Lease, the Knights of Labor, and the People’s Party. We discuss how they pushed the nation to rethink its commitment to small and decentralized government, arguing that a laissez-faire approach to big business would lead to the disintegration of American democracy.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, it’s Part 2 of our multi-episode examination of the Gilded Age - a hard look at the era’s dark side and rising fears of: 1) the US regressing toward a European-style society dominated by an entrenched aristocracy 2) the rise of powerful corporations and the extraordinary political power wielded by industrialists 4) diminishing upward mobility 4) the troubling arrogance of industrialists 5) and the soaring incidence of labor-capital conflict.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we begin a multi-episode look at that fascinating period known as the Gilded Age. We’ll begin by discussing the current interest in the Gilded Age and the attendant, disturbing question: are we living in a second Gilded Age? Then we’ll examine the positive aspects of the Gilded Age that suggested to many Americans that it was indeed a “golden age” of progress. This will set up our next episode that delves into the darker side of the Gilded Age.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at the complicated history of black athletes in US history. I’ll speak with historian Louis Moore, author of two new books on African American athletes, I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915 (University of Illinois Press), and We Will Win The Day: The Civil Rights Movement, The Black Athlete, And The Quest For Equality (Praeger).

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at the history of one of the more troubled regions in the nation, Appalachia. In particular, we’ll examine the backstory to how Appalachia became one of the poorest places in the US, and why it has stayed poor. I’ll speak with historian Steven Stoll about his new book, Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia. His book offers an important corrective to some of the underlying assumptions found in the bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Va

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at the fractious and imperfect, but also quite revealing relationship between two of the most brilliant Founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The two came from radically different backgrounds, but nonetheless became friends and key figures in the revolutionary struggle. To make sense of this odd couple relationship, I’ll speak with historian Gordon Wood to talk about his latest book, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at how in the decades before the Civil War, proslavery southerners dominated US foreign policy and promoted a vision of an ever expanding empire of slavery, both within the US but also throughout the western hemisphere. I’ll speak with historian Matthew Karp about his new book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at a crucial war in American history that’s often overlooked, the War of 1812. I’ll speak with historian Willard Sterne Randall about his book, Unshackling America: How the War of 1812 Truly Ended the American Revolution. As you’ll hear, he argues that the American Revolution didn’t really end in 1783. Rather, it wasn’t until the US won the War of 1812 that the nation truly gained its independence.

This week at In The Past Lane, the American history podcast, we look at the history behind the unending problem of racial segregation in US society. I’ll speak with scholar Richard Rothstein about his book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Racial segregation, he argues, was not caused by poverty or because some prefer to live with people of their own race. Rather, it was driven by federal laws and policies that promoted segregation and perpetuate black povert

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, we examine the history behind the first Thanksgiving in 1621. In particular, we look at a little-known event that preceded the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1620. It was an epidemic that raged across southern New England for four years and devastated the Native American population. As a result, this epidemic helped pave the way for the success of the European migrants who would soon begin arriving in the region.

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, I interview historian Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands: The US during Reconstruction & the Gilded Age, 1865-1896. In this extraordinary period, industrialization booms, mass migration surges into the West, and the South is reincorporated back into the Union. But it’s also a period of political turmoil, strikes, anti-immigrant sentiment, fear of big business and inequality, and a white supremacist uprising to impose the Jim Crow orde