You might have heard that the U.S. turns 250 this year. It’s a big, corporate to-do — the phrase “America 250” is plastered all over baseball hats and bags of potato chips. 

But what do Americans really make of this anniversary? The historian Jill Lepore and audiomaker Sophie Crane wanted to find out. They sent reporters all across the country, from California to Louisiana to Vermont, to listen to what people had to say about it.

This piece is part of a project called The Listeners, an experiment in hyperlocal documentary storytelling from the Transom Story Lab. 

You can find the Transom post here and the New Yorker Radio Hour presentation here.

Reporting by Eve Abrams in Louisiana, Scott Carrier and Jenny Ament in Utah, Erica Heilman in Vermont, Yohance Lacour in Illinois and David Weinberg in California. It was produced by Sophie Crane. Mix and sound design by Josh Crane with music from Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans of Stellwagen Symphonette. 

Special thanks to Jay Allison, Jen Jerrett and David Krasnow.

The Brave Little State team is Josh Crane, Sabine Poux and Burgess Brown. Our intern is Sarah Bokelberg. Our executive producer is Angela Evancie. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.