Sidedoor

We’re hard at work producing the next season of Sidedoor, but just in case you can’t get enough Smithsonian podcasts we’re sharing a special guest episode of Portraits, from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. In this episode, grassroots organizer Dolores Huerta talks about how she took on the status quo (in a wrinkled sweater) during the landmark Delano Grape Strike. All the time, she fought on two fronts: resisting exploitation and also resisting sexism, sometimes from within the very labor movement she helped to launch. You can subscribe to Portraits wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re hard at work producing the next season of Sidedoor, but just in case you can’t get enough Smithsonian podcasts, we’re sharing a special guest episode of Collected, from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. In this first episode of the series, co-hosts Dr. Crystal Moten and Dr. Krystal Klingenberg discuss the multiple definitions of Black Feminism, joined by guests Dr. Brittney Cooper, Paris Hatcher, Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Feminista Jones. You can subscribe to Collected wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re hard at work producing the next season of Sidedoor, but just in case you can’t get enough Smithsonian podcasts, we’re sharing a special guest episode of AirSpace, from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. This story is about a truly intoxicating period of American history – Prohibition! In this episode of AirSpace, you’ll learn how banning alcohol in the U.S. gave the fledgling air travel industry the shot it needed to get off the ground. You can subscribe to AirSpace wherever you get your podcasts.

When a 200-year-old legal document anonymously arrived at his office, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives conservator William Bennett assumed it would be full of boring legal jargon. Instead, he found a juicy tale of family betrayal that would forever change what we thought we knew about the founding of the Smithsonian.

Speakers:

William Bennett, conservator at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and Archives

Social: @rwilliab (Instagram), @SirWilliamB (Twitter)

Heather Ewing, author of The Lost World of James Smithson, and Associate Dean at New York Studio School

Social: @HPealeEwing

Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large

An accident that nearly killed Beatrice Kenner when she was five years old scarred her face for life, but it also gave her a determination to create solutions wherever she saw obstacles. This drive and ingenuity made her one of the most prolific African American inventors of the mid 20th century. This time on Sidedoor, we explore what might be Beatrice Kenner's greatest invention of all: an innovation for periods in a period of innovation.

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. At least, that's what we were taught in school. But when historians go searching… there’s no proof to be found. In this episode of Sidedoor, we unravel this vexillological tale tall to find out how this myth got started, and who Betsy Ross really was.

Guests:

Jennifer Locke Jones, political and military history curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

Twitter: @jonesjl_si

Marc Leepson, journalist, historian and author of the book Flag: An American Biography

@MarcLeepson

https://www.marcleepson.com/

Book link: https://www.amazon.com/Flag-American-Biography-Marc-Leepson/dp/0312323093

Marla R. Miller, historian and author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America

Twitter: @MarlaAtLarge

Book link: https://www.amazon.com/Betsy-Making-America-Marla-Miller/dp/0805082972

Baseball fan or not, you know this song…or at least, you think you do. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is one of the top three most recognizable songs in the country, next to “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Happy Birthday.” But long-forgotten lyrics reveal a feminist message buried amid the peanuts and cracker jack.

Speakers:

Before here was here Raven was a white bird, and the world was in darkness. So begins the story passed down among the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial. This origin story has survived by passing from the lips of one person to the ear of another – from generation to generation. In this episode of Sidedoor, Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary shares it in a new way: leading us on a journey from darkness to light through dozens of luminous glass sculptures.

Speakers

Miranda Belarde-Lewis, independent curator and assistant professor of Information Science at the University of Washington

IG: miranda505

Preston Singletary, internationally acclaimed Tlingit glass artist

IG: @prestonsingletaryglass

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PrestonSingletaryGlass

Emil Her Many Horses, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

IG: @SmithsonianNMAI | Twitter: @SmithsonianNMAI

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech is one of the most famous speeches in the world. But it almost didn’t happen. If you look at King's typed manuscript of his speech —which is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture— you won't find the phrase "I Have a Dream." But even though Dr. King's speech was improvised, that doesn't mean it wasn't years in the making. In this episode of Sidedoor, we trace the evolution of King's dream, from a secret friendship, to an experimental poem, to the speech we all know today.

Guests: 

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture  

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

It’s easy to think artificial intelligence is objective. It doesn’t have emotions. It operates based on cold hard calculations. But artificial intelligence is built on human intelligence, and it may be carrying our old prejudices into the future with us. In this episode of Sidedoor, we step into the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition to meet a very special robot who asks us to consider: whose image will be reflected in our AI future?

Speakers:

Stephanie Dinkins, transdisciplinary artist and professor at Stony Brook University

Twitter: @dinkinsstudio @stephdink

Instagram: Dinkins.studio, stephanie.dinkins

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.stephaniedinkins.com

Ashley Molese, a curator of the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition

Social media: @smithsonianAIB, #TheFUTURES