The Road to Now

The FBI has been the subject of criticism and concern since it was founded in 1908, but it has nevertheless become one of the most powerful, stable, and mythologized branches of the Executive Branch of the US government. In this episode, Steve Underhill joins us to discuss the origins of the FBI, the role J. Edgar Hoover played in making the modern Brueau, and how that greater history of the FBI can help us understand how they’ve approached their seizure of documents from Mar-a-Lago and the subsequent attack from Donald Trump. Dr. Stephen M. Underhill is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Marshall University, where he studies the rhetoric of law enforcement. His book The Manufacture of Consent: J. Edgar Hoover and the Rhetorical Rise of the FBI was published in 2020. This is a rebroadcast of RTN #247, which originally aired on September 19, 2022. The original episode was edited by Gary Fletcher. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Stephen Foster was America’s first great published musician. He wrote some of America’s great folk songs, including “Oh, Suzanna,” “Camptown Races” and “Hard Times Come Again No More,” and his music was the inspiration for Paul Green’s play “The Stephen Foster Story,” which is performed every summer in Bardstown, Kentucky. In this episode we speak with two of the artists involved in that play- Donna Phillips and Johnny Warren- as well as My Kentucky Old Kentucky Home State Park Mansion Supervisor, Richard Blanton, to learn more about Foster’s life, their work in preserving his memory, and how it all can help us understand our past.   If you’re traveling through Kentucky, make sure to check out dates for “The Stephen Foster Story” and visit My Old Kentucky Home Mansion!   This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Ben & Bob kick off the new year with a conversation over some current events, including the history of New Year’s Resolutions (and why Bob doesn’t make them) and the 14th Amendment, and Ben shares what he learned about North Carolina history during his holiday road trip from Nashville, TN to Concord, NC to visit his family. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.   Relevant links: -“Swept Away w/ John Logan & John Gallagher Jr.” The Road to Now #219      -on Apple podcasts       -on Spotify -John Pierce, “The Reasons for Secession: A Documentary Study,” from American Battlefield Trust (Battlefields.org), Updated October 3, 2023. -“The Disqualification Clause,” What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law, episode 78, December 12, 2023. -Robert Harrell (the Fort Fisher Hermit) at Wikipedia.org.

Dr. Eric Smoodin, film historian at the University of California- Davis and author of Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity and American Film Studies, 1930-1960, joins Bob and Ben for the history of the people, the industry, and law that made Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life into one of America’s quintessential Christmas films. Ben & Bob are taking a few weeks off for the holidays- we'll be back with all new episodes on January 8! This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

The suburbs have long been a symbol of American prosperity in the post-WWII era. Yet the contrast between suburban wealth and “inner city” poverty overlooks the stories of those living in suburbia who were unable to reach “the good life.” In this episode Ben & Bob talk with Tim Keogh, whose new book In Levittown’s Shadow: Poverty in America’s Wealthiest Suburb (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2023), explores the history of suburbanization in Long Island, New York, and argues that post-WWII prosperity relied on those impoverished suburbanites who we’ve since forgotten.   Dr. Tim Keogh is assistant professor of history at Queensborough Community College, part of the City University of New York.   This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

As the person responsible for documenting the Obama Administration, Pete Souza spent more time with Barack Obama than almost anyone else, which left him with some deep in sights on Obama and the office of the Presidency. In this episode, Pete joins Bob for a conversation about his work as Chief Official White House Photographer, the state of American politics, and the power of photography. Pete’s most recent book, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents (Little, Brown, & Co, 2018) uses photography to contrast the stark differences between the Presidency of Barack Obama and that of Donald Trump.   If you enjoy this conversation, make sure to check out Pete’s other appearances on the show in episodes #251 & #151.   This is a rebroadcast of RTN #131, which originally aired on June 3, 2019. The original episode was edited by Gary Fletcher and Bob Crawford; this rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.    

Faith has played an important role in American history, but not always in the ways we’d expect. In this episode, Andy Polk joins Bob and Ben to explain how politicians, advertising executives and public relations experts bypassed America’s religious leaders, ignored theological debates, and dismissed historical evidence to fabricate and sell a story of America’s religious origins that served their own political needs. That story remains with us today so, to quote the title of Andy’s op-ed in The Tennessean: “When you hear ‘In God We Trust’, pay attention to what comes next.”   Dr. Andrew R. Polk is Associate Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University and the author of the new book, Faith In Freedom: Propaganda, Presidential Politics, and the Making of an American Religion (Cornell University Press, December 2021).   This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.   This is a rebroadcast of RTN #216, which originally aired on December 13, 2021. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.    

Bob welcomes Mark McKinnon for an exit interview about his work as co-producer and co-host of The Circus. Showtime announced last week that after eight seasons and 130 episodes this would be the final season of the political docuseries.   Mark reflects on chronicling American political history as it happened from 2016 to 2023, during a turbulent period in American history that includes the rise of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, a once in a century pandemic, and the largest war in Europe since WWII.   This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Monsanto’s Past, Our Future w/ Bart Elmore   The Monsanto Company officially ceased to exist when it was acquired by Bayer in 2018, but its legacy lives on in courtrooms, factory towns and farms across the globe. Today the company’s name is most associated with the herbicide Roundup and genetically modified seeds, but Monsanto also served as a leading producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, an essential supplier of caffeine and saccharin to Coca-Cola in Coke’s early years, and the sole US producer of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). In short, Monsanto’s history is one that will continue to shape the US well into the future.   In this episode, Bart Elmore joins Bob and Ben to talk about his new book Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Future (W.W. Norton, 2021), and how a small midwestern company founded in 1901 became an agricultural powerhouse by selling solutions to the problems it helped to create.    Dr. Bartow Elmore is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University where he specializes in Global Environmental History and the History of Capitalism. He is also the author of the award-winning book Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W. W. Norton, 2015). You can follow him on twitter at @BartElmore.   You can hear Bart’s other appearances on The Road To Now in episode #140:  Citizen Coke: The History of Coca-Cola w/ Bartow Elmore and #277: Country Capitalism w/ Bartow Elmore.   This is a fully re-edited and audio-enhanced rebroadcast of RTN Episode 208, which originally aired on September 27, 2021. This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Two things you probably don’t know: 1) your favorite museum probably holds human remains and 2) it’s completely legal to sell human bones on the internet. Not surprisingly, those two things have caused a lot of controversy. In this episode, Tanya Marsh joins Ben for a conversation about recent developments in the legal-social-political nexus of dead bodies; the controversy surrounding the acquisition and treatment of human remains in American museums and what we’ll simply call “the Harvard morgue case.”   Tanya Marsh is Professor of Law at Wake Forest University, where she specializes in the law of human remains. She is the author of The Law of Human Remains (2015) and co-author (with Daniel Gibson) of Cemetery Law: The Common Law of Burying Grounds in the United States (2015).   This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.   Articles mentioned in this episode: Zachary Small, “Facing Scrutiny, a Museum That Holds 12,000 Human Remains Changes Course,” New York Times, Oct. 15, 2023.   Alyssa Shotwell, “Activists Took Over Museum After Victims’ Bodies of the 1985 Philadelphia Bombing Found,” The Mary Sue, Sept. 15, 2023.   Abby Patkin, ”Group indicted for allegedly stealing and selling body parts from Harvard morgue,” Boston.com, June 15, 2023.   Tanya Marsh, “Is it Illegal to Sell Human Remains,” The Conversation, June 30, 2023.