American Rhapsody

A pioneer of a street-theater approach to activism, Abbie Hoffman played a key role in the Chicago police riot of 1968 and the ensuing court case known as the trial of the Chicago 7. Johanna Hoffman Lawrenson discussed their shared life together, both in the spotlight and on the run. Robert Abzug and Thorne Dreyer […]

A pioneer of a street-theater approach to activism, Abbie Hoffman played a key role in the Chicago police riot of 1968 and the ensuing court case known as the trial of the Chicago 7. Johanna Hoffman Lawrenson discussed their shared life together, both in the spotlight and on the run. Robert Abzug and Thorne Dreyer […]

Don Carleton speaks with Daina Berry, chair of the Department of History at UT Austin. Her research and teaching—which focuses on the history of the enslaved—has utilized many of the Briscoe Center’s collections, in particular the Natchez Trace Collection, a which documents life in the Lower Mississippi River Valley from the 1760s to the 1920s. […]

Sometimes, politics is so nasty, so partisan, that you better laugh—or else you might cry. Molly Ivins was a legendary reporter and columnist — hilariously acerbic, staunchly feminist and uniquely Texan — who pilloried the powerful and defended democracy. She is the subject of “Raise Hell” a documentary biographic by filmmaker Janice Engel. This episode […]

Investigative reporter Wayne Barrett began reporting on Donald Trump in 1979. He was perhaps the first journalist to take Trump seriously and became a renowned authority on the would-be president, as well as a mentor to a new generation of muckraking journalists. Barrett died the day before Trump took the oath of office. Fran Barrett […]

Don Carleton speaks with Ben Wright about the Briscoe Center’s Texas Oil Industry records, which help document the miseries of the Spanish Flu pandemic between 1918 and 1920. Austin American-Statesman columnist Michael Barnes and Christopher Rose Ph.D., a lecturer at St. Edwards University, join later in the episode to discuss the pandemic’s effects in the […]

On each episode of American Rhapsody, we interview those who have witnessed American history firsthand: politicians, reporters, photographers, and activists—all of whom have since donated their personal or professional archives to the Briscoe Center. We also interview historians, filmmakers, and other researchers who work in the center’s collections. These collections are the evidence of the past. […]