Banjo Strings and Drinking Gourds

It's finally summer and that means it's time to indulge in some vacation reading. But have you ever picked up that guilty pleasure book or the classic you swear you'll make it through this year and wondered just how novels and fictional stories came to be? In this episode, we talk about how the art of fiction has changed forms over the centuries and just how the novel developed and proliferated. We'll also talk about the chronology of each genre, and some of those will surprise you with how far back they go!

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

Have you ever wondered just how the interpreters at the Frontier Culture Museum are able to talk about the why and how people left their homes for America? In this podcast, we talk about, and read from, primary sources about immigration. Letters, diaries, memoirs and more provide a detailed look into not only the push/pull factors behind the decision to leave Europe, or indeed return home, but also the fierce propaganda wars that were being waged. Accounts from enslaved persons provide a counterpoint to the relative luxury of choice the Europeans had in deciding whether or not to relocate to the colonies.

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Johann Sebastian Bach, Italian Concerto BWV. 971. 2 Andante

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Smallpox is no joke. Having just experienced a world-wide pandemic of a virulent virus, we have a little more inkling about what people in the past faced with smallpox, but nowhere near on the same scale. Smallpox, while eradicated as an infectious agent at large, remains one of the deadliest diseases yet known. In this episode our guest, Lucy Abell, discusses just how dreadful smallpox was to historic populations, but also how smallpox was the inspiration behind our modern understanding of infections and vaccines.

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Saint-Saens, Danse Macabre Op. 20, The University of Chicago Orchestra

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Today's episode takes you behind the scenes to our Costume Shop where our Costume Coordinator, Sam McGinty, researches, organizes, and produces the historically accurate clothing interpreters wear on site. Helping him are typically a quartet of interpreters who are familiar with or learning about hand sewing in a historic manner. Today, they discuss their current projects, how they produce garments for the interpreters, and their worst sewing mistake ever.

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

Happy April Fool's Day! In this episode, we treat you to some of the most infamous pranks and hoaxes in history. Everyone enjoys pulling the wool over someone's eyes and some of these notorious pranks and pranksters achieved heights of greatness most of us can only aspire to.

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Mozart, Sonata KV 331 Rondo alla turca, Markus Staab

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

How many times have you stopped a conversation to either groan at or admire a pun? We all drop inadvertent puns into conversation. Sometimes we don't even catch them. Wordplay has been around as long as there has been language, but English really seems to lend itself to sly wit. In this episode, we discuss the rise and fall of the much maligned pun, playing with logic for riddles, and the advent of slang.

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Saint-Saens, The Carnival of The Animals- XIV. Finale, Seattle Youth Orchestra 

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

We all have our routines, whether it be to grab a cup of coffee on the way to work or indulge in a cup of tea in the afternoon.  The luxury of our choices was surprisingly the same for colonial Americans. In this episode, we discuss the availability, popularity, and social context of each of the main non-alcoholic drinks of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. You might be surprised by some of it!

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Georg Phillip Telemann, Trio Sonata for Flutes and Piano in A Minor, II-Allegro

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

In this second half, we discuss the changes cotton production brought to the United States. Mechanization and factory towns shifted the economics not only of sleepy agricultural communities, but the country as a whole. Of course, factory work brought its own significant problems, but we really can't deny the long-term impact of cotton on the formation of the modern world. 

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Beethoven, Sonata No. 4 in E Flat Major, Op. 7-III. Allegro, Paul Pitman

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day

There are a lot of things that have changed the world. The Roman Empire, the Age of Sail, the printing press, etc. But cotton usually doesn't make that list. The unassuming seed of the cotton plant, covered in white, wispy fibers perfect for spinning into cloth isn't usually considered a major player on the world stage. But in actuality, the industrialization behind the production of cotton textiles made massive changes to the very fabric (pun fully intended) of the modern world. In this first of two parts, we talk about the mechanization of cotton production and the economic and social impacts that reverberated through the world.

Intro music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Georg Phillip Telemann, 4 Concerto for 4 Violins II. Grave, Viola Viva

George Friedrich Handel, Recorder Sonata in F, HWV 369, II. Allegro, Telemann Trio

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day 

Have you ever wondered how interpreters learn historic trades? Our guests today discuss how they learned, or are learning, historic trades like woodworking, tin smithing, and tailoring. They cover the historical context of their trade, just what contemporary tradesmen would be doing, how people learned historically, and how they themselves have learned. 

Intro Music: Zac Bell

Transition Music: Telemann Partita B flat, Largo, Telemann Trio

Exit Music: Jean Claude Hatungimana

Cover Art: Emily Noble Day