Showing results by narrator "Jim Seybert" in All Categories

In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its soldiers defeated Spain and pacified nationalist insurgencies in both Cuba and the Philippines. Despite their lack of experience in colonial administration, American troops also ruled and transformed the daily lives of the 8 million people who inhabited these tropical islands.

Before the advent of radio and television, Americans learned about their world through magazine articles such as those written by Cleveland Moffett and published in this collection published in 1903. From Steeple Climbers to Wild Animal Trainers, Railroad Engineers to Deep-Sea Divers, these jobs, which we now find quaint (and in many cases extinct) helped build America at the beginning of the 20th century. If Moffett were reporting today, these would be podcasts or YouTube videos.

The 1918 lynching of Mary Turner by a white mob in Brooks County, Georgia, is remembered and studied mainly because of the horror of an allegedly pregnant woman's murder. In Mary Turner and the Mob, author Thomas Aiello asserts that the gruesome details of Turner's execution have distracted historians from investigating the larger context of these terrible events. Turner was murdered but not pregnant, the author contends, and Walter White, the NAACP investigator in the case, knew this but obscured the facts because of the story's effectiveness.

Early Oklahoma was a haven for violent outlaws and a death trap for deputy U.S. marshals. The infamous Doolin gang's OK Hotel gunfight left five dead. Killers like Bible-quoting choir leader Deacon Jim Miller wreaked havoc. Gunslinger femme fatale Belle Starr specialized in horse theft. Wannabe outlaws like Al Jennings traded train robbing for politics and Hollywood films. And Elmer McCurdy's determination and inept skill earned him a carnival slot and the nickname "the Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up."