Jill Lepore goes back to her first archive — the public library in the town where she grew up. In this season finale, old books, hot dogs, and a town hidden beneath a lake. For a transcript of this episode, click here.
Wachusett: How Boston’s 19th Century Quest for Water Changed Four Towns and a Way of Life by Eamon McCarthy Earls
The story of weather forecasting is the story of how humans came to think they could predict the future. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at the history of meteorology, and the story of a revolutionary cloud scientist who tried to control the weather. For a transcript of this episode, click here.
Weather Matters: An American Cultural History Since 1900 by Bernard Mergen
First Woman: Joanne Simpson and the Tropical Atmosphere by James Rodger Fleming
Television Weathercasting: A History by Robert Henson
CBS Conquest: Cloud Studies (1958)
The Papers of Joanne Simpson at the Harvard Schlesinger Library
In 1920, a young writer named Hugh Lofting published the first Dr. Dolittle story. A century years later, Jill Lepore goes in search of the new Dr. Dolittles changing the world of animal science. Specifically, dog science. For a transcript of this episode, click here.
“In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae
The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz
What Dogs Know by Juliane Bräuer and Juliane Kaminski
“Darwin and Vivisection” from University of Cambridge
The Animal Mind: A Text-book of Comparative Psychology by Margaret Floy Washburn
Special thanks to Pace Amidon, Wes Crawford, Emily-Jane Dawson, Joseph Dusenbury, Kyle Huizenga, Neil Knobloch, Ben Meyer, Amy Mitchell, Linda Whiting, Gabe Wilson, and the Rohrbacher family.
During the 1970s farm crisis, a young family nearly lost everything as family farms and agricultural folk knowledge began to vanish. Then, they invented a board game. For a transcript of this episode, click here.
The Farming Game website
“Farmer Bets The Ranch on Board Game and Now He’s Reaping Riches,” Sept. 11, 1994. Aviva L. Brandt. Associated Press.
“Games People Invent: For Farmers” by Michael Guilfoil. Dec 28, 1979. Washington Post.
“From baling hay to making hay with farm game: Inventor turned farm desperation into prosperity” by Mairi MacLean. November 12, 1999. Edmonton Journal.
“Goldendale couple markets farm game” by Charles Lamb October 14, 1979.
“Farm Ruin, in a Roll of the Dice” by Ellen Barry. November 9, 1993. The Moscow Times.
“George Rohrbacher: Game is serious business for a Klickitat County farmer” by Leah Beth Ward. April 9, 2006. Yakima Herald-Republic.
Back To The Land: The Enduring Dream of Self-Sufficiency in Modern America by Dona Brown
Broken Heartland: The Rise Of The Rural Ghetto by Osha Gray Davidson
The Farm Crisis by Iowa PBS
“‘Everyone was Pounding on Us’: Front Porch Politics and the American Farm Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s” by Michael Stewart Foley in the Journal of Historical Sociology.
Perilous Bounty by Tom Philpott
“How America’s Food Giants Swallowed The Family Farms” by Chris McGreal (The Guardian)
Every Farm A Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture By Deborah Fitzgerald
Special thanks to Pace Amidon, Wes Crawford, Emily-Jane Dawson, Joseph Dusenbury, Kyle Huizenga, Neil Knobloch, Ben Meyer, Amy Mitchell, Linda Whiting, Gabe Wilson, and the Rohrbacher family.
This episode, the celebration of an anniversary — sort of. The anniversary of a dream. An alternate history: imagining what the world might be like if, fifty years ago, in 1972, Americans had ratified an Environmental Rights Amendment. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting not only protection–but representation–to the natural world. For a transcript of this episode, click here.
“Should Trees Have Standing? — Toward Legal Rights For Natural Objects” by Christopher Stone (1972)
“Climate Change: A Threat to Human Wellbeing and Health of the Planet” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2022.
“Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727” Opinions. (1972)
“Cuyahoga River Fire.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
“The Conservation Governor: Redefining Environmentalism” from Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day.
CBS News’ Earth Day Coverage.
Rachel Carson’s Congressional Testimony, June 4, 1963.
What if there were a way to stop politicians from lying on social media? Jill Lepore heads to a local high school to test out a crazy idea: Should juries of high school history students decide whether each and every political ad is true enough to be posted to social media?
Read MoreWhat if there were a way to stop politicians from lying on social media? Jill Lepore heads to a local high school to test out a crazy idea: Should juries of high school history students decide whether each and every political ad is true enough to be posted to social media?
Read MoreWhat if one book could contain the sum of human knowledge? Jill Lepore looks at the history of an improbable Enlightenment idea, tracing it from Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia and beyond.
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