Audio Postcards
We’re looking for short pieces (no more than two minutes) that pair a strong sense of place with an historical perspective. “Historical perspective” can be interpreted broadly — it could entail visiting the site of a famous battle or speech, but it could also deal with family stories, local lore, a quirky tradition, etc. The postcard should be driven by the sounds of the place, though narration is certainly also fine. We’d be especially interested in postcards from areas outside the east coast. Pitch in the comments below, or email us at BackStory@virginia.edu.
I am an American living in Vienna, Austria. It is not widely known, but Mark Twain lived here in Vienna from 1897-1899. He came here in order to provide piano lessons for his daughter from a well-known pianist. This period was also very productive for him as an author. However, for the purposes of this postcard, it is also the case that this was a time of great political drama within the Habsburg empire. Among other things, a highly disputatious parliament was formed and anarchists were raising mayhem among the aristocracy of Europe.
In 1898 the Habsburg empress, Elizabeth, was famously assassinated by an anarchist. Her funeral was a sort of valedictory moment for Habsburg pomp and imperial power. As it happens, Mark Twain was living in a hotel right across from the Capuchin Church where Habsburgs had been buried from time immemorial. Twain had a ringside seat for the funeral and wrote an essay describing it.
There is something about imagining the great American wit being confronted by this moment of European tragedy on the spot where I routinely have coffee that is enduringly fascinating. I would love to somehow create an audio postcard from the Hotel Ambassador from which Twain observed the funeral.
QuoteOne of my favorite traditions in my adopted home of New Haven, Connecticut, is Powder House Day, an annual commemoration of an event from the beginning of the American Revolution. On a Saturday in April, members of the Governor’s Foot Guard, a 200-something year-old militia group, re-enact not a battle, but . . . a slightly heated bureaucratic dispute. The story is that when word of the battles in Lexington and Concord reached New Haven, the militia (led by local druggist Benedict Arnold, when he was still on our team) was eager to go join the fighting. But they needed the town selectmen to give them the keys to the powder house so they could get gunpowder for their weapons. The selectmen wanted to take a “wait and see” attitude, but Arnold said they’d take the powder with or without the keys, and so the selectmen relented. Each year, the Foot Guard members march to the steps of New Haven’s City Hall and knock on the door. One of their members plays Arnold, and usually the mayor of New Haven plays the first selectman. They argue according to a traditional script, and then the mayor brings out an enormous pair of prop keys and hands them over. There are bands, and cannon fire, and people “huzzah”-ing, and it all takes place on the New Haven Green, where the original event happened. I think it’s a unique and fun piece of American history.
QuoteHere’s the script the players follow in the re-enactment: http://www.footguard.org/script.html
OK, this is still on the East Coast, but I have both a show topic and a postcard idea to pitch to you – the history of rearranging the landscape. I work in Boston, a city that has added acres and acres of land to itself by moving hills, filling seas, and digging big holes. I would love to hear a show about how – and why – work like that has been done over the years.
For a postcard, I would like to stand on Congress St in Boston, with the busy tourist destination of Faneuil Hall behind me, on the original shoreline of Boston. You get road noise, people walking around, and street performers. The harbor is blocks away. Then, transfer to Belle Isle Marsh in East Boston – the only salt marsh left in the city (a city which was mostly salt marsh originally.) Just the soundscape difference alone should be interesting.
Thanks!
Quote-Sylvia
I would love to see a story about how people with disabilities were treated in the past. I know about amazing people like Hellen Keller, but what did people with issues like blindness and deafness do in the 18th century.
What about people with Autism? When did institutionalization become a way to deal with those with disabilties? When did people start rejecting institutionalization?
QuoteI may have a audio postcard for you or possibly a short segment. I live in Iowa, surrounded by soy beans, pigs and, of course, corn. I have lived in Iowa most of my life and was surprise to learn, just recently, that corn picking/shucking/jerking was considered a sort of sport here at one time. Thanks to a shift in thinking (promoted by the likes of Henry Wallace), corn cob size gave way to farm size and machines replace the shuckers in quick time. There’s not much I can even find on this through the internet but I might be able to at few historical societies around here.
I’m also a big film buff and have kind of taken a fasination with the film projection process of Cinerama. Cinerama was attempt to win back TV fans to the theater by the showing one movie, joined togetherby three different screens. These screens would wrap around a theater audience, giving them a kind of early IMAX experience. It was huge. in the 1950′s. The first venture “This is Cinerama” was the number 1 movie of 1952. A few other Cinerama movies followed but only a couple that had any sense of story. The fad died out in the early sixites as it gave way to the cheaper more practical Panavision.
QuoteWhat about an audio blurb on polar bear plunge traditions? Pretty sure they go back about 100 years in some US cities. In some cities, i.e., here in Seattle, it’s good for squeals and just plain fun with friends, family and neighbors. In other cities, it’s a charity event that raises big bucks every New Year’s Day. I don’t know about other cities, but here in Seattle it’s also a tribute to the outdoors – despite the rain and gray skies, people in the Pacific Northwest love the outdoors – what better way to display one’s allegiance to Mother Nature than to plunge into frigid lake waters (Lake Washington) on a chilly winter morning?
As for outdoors/sports events and charities — the current marathon charity craze in the US does not appear to be a passing phase, and it would be interesting to learn about how this tradition emerged and evolved. What does it say about Americans, about sense of community, and obligations to others, our worldview?
QuoteMy great grandfather homesteaded. The land he claimed was in western Nebraska, in the Sandhills. My mother grew up on this land. The land is rolling hills that produces grass. It is not really suitable for crops, so beef cattle were well-suited here. This is what my great grandfather and grandfather raised.
I once heard the Homestead Act at the only land reform program in US history. This “land reform” took land from American Indians and gave it to poor whites (and some blacks) Knowing this part of my family history is painful. My mother speaks of the difficulty of settlers in this area, the courage of pioneer women who were often alone at home while the man of the house was out working the land. She knew that it was not unusual for woman to have to defend her home and children when attacked by American Indians. But she also speaks of the brutality of Europeans as we took the land from human beings who had lived on it for centuries. From here, I have learned that the realities of life do not always produce clear moral answers.
During grandpa’s time on the land, the US government was building dams all over the place. As a child visiting family in Nebraska, I remember stopping for a picnic overlooking a small lake – on the way to see the ranch Mom grew up on. After eating, we were sitting looking at the lake. Mom said, “As a girl, I used to jump across that”. A dam created this lake, and buried grampa’s best grazing field. It was a devastating event in his life. History has shown that dam-building was often a mistake, and some are being torn down.
When grampa ranched, there was a huge resevoir of water underneath that part of Nebraska. Ranchers could drill a well, put up a windmill to power the pump, and their cattle always had plenty of water. During his time of ranching, many people were using this water to irrigate and grow other crops. Today that resevoir has shrunk, and the soil is so poor, it cannot support crops other than grass.
From this land, Mom learned about our relationship to the earth, our relationship to people who are different than us, and about strong family ties. Though I never lived there, I feel like that land has fed my life in powerful ways.
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