🎙️ Unscripted America

🎙️ Unscripted America

By GIJoeReligion & Spirituality
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🎙️ Unscripted America episodes

  • Victoria Arlen: "I Had Prepared to Die. I Hadn't Prepared to Live."
    On this episode of Our American Stories, at 11 years old, Victoria Arlen's body began shutting down. Eventually, she lost the ability to move or communicate and spent nearly four years in a vegetative state while doctors told her family she would never recover. What they didn't know was that Victoria was still there. She could hear them, understand them, and remember everything. Then one day, she blinked twice for her mother and proved she had been there all along.

    Victoria would go on to win Paralympic gold, become a world record holder and broadcaster, learn to walk after a decade in a wheelchair, and compete on Dancing with the Stars. But behind those extraordinary accomplishments, she was still carrying years of unaddressed trauma. Victoria, author of The View Is Worth It, shares how a devastating breaking point forced her to confront her past, rediscover her faith, find forgiveness, and turn her pain into a purpose of helping others. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    31 min
  • It Takes 3 Years and 300 Pairs of Hands to Make This Cigar
    On this episode of Our American Stories, a century ago, Tampa, Florida, was "Cigar City." Some 150 factories filled the city, where workers rolled more than 500 million cigars by hand each year. One by one, those factories disappeared as the industry changed and production moved overseas. Today, only one remains. The J.C. Newman Cigar Company still makes cigars in Tampa using many of the same methods that helped make the city famous.

    Drew Newman, the great-grandson of company founder Julius Caesar Newman, takes us inside the last cigar factory in Tampa and into a craft that begins years before a cigar is ever rolled. Tobacco must be grown, harvested, naturally fermented, aged, blended, and finally rolled by hand. A single cigar can take three years and pass through some 300 pairs of hands before it is finished. Drew shares the history behind an American industry and how his family is working to keep its traditions alive for another generation. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    8 min
  • When a Grocery Store Gave Everything Away for Free
    On this episode of Our American Stories, in February 2021, a historic winter storm brought much of Texas to a standstill. Tim Hennessey and his wife, Debbie, braved the icy roads to pick up groceries for themselves and some friends. Then, while they were shopping at their local H-E-B, the power went out. The checkout lines quickly filled, but instead of asking customers to wait, employees began waving them toward the doors. Take your groceries. Get home safely. Don't worry about paying.

    Tim couldn't stop thinking about what he had witnessed. When he got home, he wrote about it on Facebook in a post he and Debbie called "The Heart of America." Within days, tens of thousands of people had shared it. Tim Hennessey shares how a grocery store, a winter storm, and a simple act of generosity reminded him of the kindness happening every day across America. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    21 min
  • Constantino Brumidi: America's Michelangelo
    On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1852, Constantino Brumidi arrived in New York as a refugee from Rome. He was already an accomplished artist, but in America, he found the work that would consume the rest of his life. For the next twenty-five years, Brumidi climbed scaffolds, painted ceilings, and covered the halls of the U.S. Capitol with scenes drawn from American history and the ideals of his adopted country.

    His greatest work waited 180 feet above the Rotunda floor. There, inside the Capitol dome, Brumidi painted George Washington, known to many as "America's Indispensable Man," rising into the heavens surrounded by Liberty, Victory, Fame, and figures representing the original thirteen states. Our own Lee Habeeb shares how an Italian immigrant came to paint The Apotheosis of Washington, earning a remarkable nickname of his own in the process: “America’s Michelangelo.” Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    10 min
  • How Ritz-Carlton Co-Founder Horst Schulze Defines Excellence
    On this episode of Our American Stories, Horst Schulze, co-founder of Ritz-Carlton and author of Excellence Wins, built his career around a simple idea: every employee has the power to define an entire organization in the eyes of a customer. Years ago, before speaking to hundreds of managers at a Chicago bank, Schulze decided to experience the bank's heavily advertised customer service for himself. One encounter with a teller gave him a lesson he would repeat for the next fifteen years.

    Schulze shares his simple formula for service excellence, explains the difference between merely completing a transaction and earning a customer's loyalty, and shows why leaders can't afford to let even one employee define their organization through poor service. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    8 min
  • Nellie Bly’s Race Around the World in Seventy-Two Days
    On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1890, Nellie Bly completed a journey that seemed almost impossible, circling the globe in just 72 days. Inspired by Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, Bly traveled by ship, train, horse, rickshaw, and more, even stopping in France to meet Verne himself. But her famous race around the world was only one chapter in the remarkable life of one of America's most fearless journalists.

    Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Pennsylvania, Bly challenged expectations about what women could do, reported on the lives of factory workers, confronted political repression in Mexico, and famously went undercover inside a New York City mental asylum to expose the horrific treatment of its patients. Our own Lee Habeeb shares the story of the pioneering reporter, adventurer, inventor, and businesswoman who refused to accept the limits placed on women in her time. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    11 min
  • Before Rosa Parks, There Was Elizabeth Jennings: America's First Freedom Rider
    On this episode of Our American Stories, Elizabeth Jennings was on her way to church when a New York City streetcar conductor ordered her off. She refused. The conductor and driver forcibly dragged her from the car, leaving her bloodied and bruised. Jennings got back up and climbed aboard again. The year was 1854, nearly 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

    What followed was a court battle that would turn the city on its head, and Jennings would turn to a young lawyer taking on one of his first cases: future President Chester A. Arthur. Jerry Mikorenda, author of America's First Freedom Rider, shares the remarkable and forgotten story of Elizabeth Jennings, the family that taught her to fight for her rights, and the landmark legal victory that helped challenge segregation on New York City's public transportation decades before the Civil Rights Movement. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    28 min
  • Only Human: Stubborn
    Have you ever noticed how hard it can be to walk in the right direction? Not physically - but metaphorically. Sometimes, we LOOK like we're walking in the right direction, but inside we've straying to the left and to the right. This stubbornness is something that God doesn't really want in our hearts. This week, we'll deal with our stubborn hearts.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    1 hr 26 min
  • From Nation to State: Why Texas Joined the Union
    On this episode of Our American Stories, after winning its independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas faced a new challenge: surviving as its own country. The young republic struggled with debt, threats from Mexico, conflicts on the frontier, and political divisions over whether its future lay as an independent nation or as part of the United States. Meanwhile, the question of annexing Texas became tangled in the national debate over slavery and America's growing belief in Manifest Destiny.

    Texas State Historian Monte Monroe tells the story of the Republic of Texas, from the presidencies of Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar to the political battle that finally brought Texas into the Union in 1845. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    21 min
  • The Green Bay Packers: The NFL Team That Shouldn't Exist
    On this episode of Our American Stories, Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of just over 100,000 people. It is smaller than many cities with minor-league baseball teams, yet somehow it is home to one of the most famous and valuable franchises in professional sports. Almost every other small industrial town that helped build the early NFL eventually lost its team. So how did the Green Bay Packers survive and turn the city into "Titletown, USA"?

    This is the remarkable story of how community ownership, championship football, a new stadium, the rise of Vince Lombardi, and a strategic battle over nearby Milwaukee helped keep the Packers in the NFL's smallest market. We'd like to thank Maapify for helping us share this story. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unscripted-america--7423192/support.
    18 min

About 🎙️ Unscripted America

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UNSCRIPTED AMERICA – Real People. Real Lives. No Perfect Story.

Welcome to Unscripted America, a modern American lifestyle podcast about real people, real experiences, and the realities of life…