Radio Curious

PT Barnum, sometimes known as the Prince of Humbug, was born in Connecticut in 1810. In many ways, he personified the American character that Frenchman Alexis De Tocqueville described in his book, “Democracy in America.” Barnum delighted in making money and telling the truth, as he saw it. Some truths were told in the political arena, where he was twice a member of the Connecticut legislature and, in the interim, Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Some of his truths were lies when they were told to other people, like the history of some of his circus performers. Other truths were told in his newspapers. PT Barnum, ‘PT’ as he liked to be called, was best known as the creator of the ‘Best Show On Earth,’ the Barnum and Bailey Circus. I spoke with PT Barnum, personified by Doug Mishler, in the studios of Radio Curious in July of 1996 when this program was originally broadcast.

P.T. Barnum recommends “My Toils and Struggles,” the autobiography of PT Barnum. Doug Mishler recommends “The Culture of Complaint,” by Robert Hughes.

Originally Broadcast: July 24, 1996

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Democracy in America

In 1831, a 25 year-old Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, trained as a lawyer, and preoccupied with democracy, came to the US to study this new political scheme. Alexis de Tocqueville and his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, arrived at Newport, RI, in an America comprised, then, of 23 states and 13 million people. They stayed for nine months, and then returned to France at which time de Tocqueville began his epic poem entitled “Democracy in America.” At a time then when slavery was an economic base in the South, and abolitionism was beginning to thrive in the North, America had three frontiers: geography, industry, and democracy. In this program of Radio Curious, we’ll be talking with Alexis De Tocqueville, through the person of Chautauqua scholar, Dick Johnson.

Alexis de Tocqueville recommends “Democracy in America,” by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Originally Broadcast: July 17, 1996

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass were good friends from the mid 19th century to the late 19th century, and were active leaders in the fight for the rights of women and blacks throughout their lives. From time to time they got together to visit and talk about America, as they knew it. In this archive edition of Radio Curious recorded in May 1996, I met with Chautauqua scholars Sally Roesch Wagner and Charles Pace who portrayed Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass and asked them each to tell us what it was like to be an American during their life time.

The book Frederick Douglass recommends is, “The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces Together With Rules, Which Are Calculated to Improve Youth and Others, in the Ornamental and Using Art of Eloquence” by Caleb Bingham. The book Charles Pace recommends is, “W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868 to 1919,” by David Levering Lewis.

The book Elizabeth Cady Stanton recommends is, “The Woman’s Bible” edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The book Sally Wagner recommends is, “The Homesteader: A Novel,” by Oscar Micheaux.

Originally broadcast: July 3, 1996

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People who crave space, freedom, adventure, and opportunities have long been attracted to Alaska. In June of 1996 I spoke with Niilo Kopanan, the son of Finnish immigrants who grew up in New York City and moved to a mountain ridge near Fairbanks, Alaska in 1952. At that time, land there was still open for homesteading. He located his 160 acres and filed a homestead on the ridge where he still lives. After several years there, in the mid 1950s, he returned to the lower 48 states to earn a Ph.D. Yet the magnet of Alaska pulled him back where he became a university professor and a member of the Alaska legislature, and he’s been there ever since.

Niilo Koponen, Ph.D. recommends “The life story of Elizabeth Morgan” by Ernest Morgan. 12

Originally Broadcast: June 18, 1996

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In 1995, James A. Getty, who appears in public as Abraham Lincoln, visited Ukiah, California and joined us in the studios of Radio Curious. In talking with President Lincoln about his life, the events of his time and about his presidency, the conversation focused upon the economics of the mid-19th century. I asked Mr. Lincoln to give us his opinion about the effect that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin had on the spread of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln and James Getty recommend “Malice Toward None,” by Steven Oats.

Originally Broadcast: March 7, 1996

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FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose

Agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have a history of illegal break-ins to homes and offices and conducting wiretaps without a search warrant. In the years when J. Edgar Hoover was the Director of the F.B.I., these warrantless break-ins came to be known as “black-bag jobs”. This archive edition of Radio Curious is a December 1995 interview with Wesley Swearingen a former F.B.I. agent, who in 1995 wrote “FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose.”  His book describes some of the “black-bag” warrantless searches in which he was involved and his opinion of those activities. He ends his book by saying that the Hoover era will continue to haunt the F.B.I. because Hoover knowingly undermined the United States Constitution. When I spoke with Wesley Swearingen, I asked him what he meant by that.

Wesley Swearingen recommends “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover,” by Anthony Summers.

Originally Broadcast: December 20, 1995

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The Wild Muir

One of the greatest early conservationists of America was a Scottish immigrant named John Muir who, as a young boy, went first to Wisconsin and then later, as a young man in the 1860s, moved onward to California. A friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, he successfully sought to preserve the spectacular Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada range; it was joy in his lifetime. Yet the loss of the equally spectacular Hetch Hetch Valley to a dam to provide water for San Francisco was his greatest sorrow. John Muir founded the Sierra Club and is credited with founding the National Park System in the United States.

I visited with John Muir in the person of Lee Stetson in the studios of Radio Curious in October of 1995 and discussed his life and observations.

We begin with his comments on the effect that extinction of so many species during and since his lifetime has had on the Earth’s remaining species.

The book that Lee Stetson recommends is his own, “The Wild Muir,” by Lee Stetson

The book that John Muir recommends is “Sixty Miles From Contentment,” by M.H. Dunlop.

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Tangier Island is a remote community in North America in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Located twelve miles across the water from Crissfield, Maryland, the closest larger community, Tangier Island for a long time was isolated and insular. Some have called it a language fossil because many people speak with an accent close to that of Elizabethan England. Dewey Crockett was born and grew up on the island. In 1995, when this program was recorded, he was a social studies teacher, a Methodist minister, the Mayor, and the undertaker for Tangier Island. I spoke with Dewey Crockett about Tangier Island, its history, and some of the issues of the time.

Dewey Crockett recommends “The Parson of the Island,” by Adam Wallace.

Originally Broadcast: August 7, 1995

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Please join me as we go back in history to the year 1584, to the East Coast of what is now the United States. In that year, Queen Elizabeth the First, then the Queen of England, sent Sir Walter Raleigh in command of three seafaring expeditions to what they called the New World. These expeditions landed on the central coast of what is now North Carolina and became the first English settlements in North America. They called the region Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth the First, the maiden Queen of England. The Cultural Resources Division of the North Carolina Division of History has recreated a model of the seafarers’ ship, called Elizabeth the Second, which carried these small groups of soldiers across the ocean in 1585. In-character actors, talking as real people living in 1585, are on site near Roanoke, North Carolina. I first spoke with a man who called himself Sgt. Hugh Griffin. He claimed to be in charge of the small outpost, one of several they established on their arrival a few days before.

Originally Broadcast: July 1, 1995

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