Radio Diaries
By Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
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Description
First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm.
Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
CleanA Voicemail Valentine | Audio love letters from 1930s and 1940s. | 2/11/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
2 |
CleanThe Border Wall | Stories about walls and borders, and what happens when – instead of people crossing the border – the border crosses the people. | 1/16/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
3 |
CleanThembi's Diary | Thembi Ngubane carried a tape recorder from 2004 to 2005 to document her life. She was willing to speak out at a time when few South Africans were willing to say, “I have AIDS.” | 12/19/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
4 |
CleanBonus Episode: Hear the World Differently | There’s an old saying that “sound is like touch from a distance.” We think it’s a perfect metaphor for what we do at Radio Diaries. | 12/9/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
5 |
CleanA Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music | November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men – an ocean apart – sat before a microphone and began to play. | 11/15/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
6 |
CleanThe Song That Crossed Party Lines | Our country is so politically polarized these days, it’s hard to remember a time when Republicans and Democrats could agree on anything at all. But once upon a time (80 years ago), there was a song that brought red and blue together. | 11/1/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
7 |
CleanCampaigning While Female | Stories of three women who launched bids to be President of the United States: Victoria Woodhull, Margaret Chase Smith, and Shirley Chisholm. | 10/18/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
8 |
CleanServing Time 9-5: Diaries from Prison Guards | Audio diaries from prison guards at Polk Youth Institution in North Carolina. | 10/4/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
9 |
CleanMatthew and the Judge | We gave Judge Jeremiah, a Rhode Island juvenile court judge, and Matthew, a 16-year-old repeat offender, tape recorders. Through their audio diaries, Matthew and the judge tell the same story from two different sides of the bench. | 9/20/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
10 |
ExplicitPrisoners of War | An uprising at an American military prison in Vietnam. | 8/29/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
11 |
CleanLast Witness: Mission to Hiroshima | Russell Gackenbach is the only surviving crew member from the mission to bomb Hiroshima. | 8/6/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
12 |
CleanNelson Mandela at 100 | Award-winning audio series documenting the struggle against apartheid. | 7/17/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
13 |
CleanBusman’s Holiday | The story of William Cimillo, the NYC bus driver who went on a 1,300 mile detour to Florida. | 6/21/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
14 |
CleanLast Witness: The General Slocum | Adele Wotherspoon is the last survivor of the General Slocum disaster of 1904. | 6/14/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
15 |
CleanLast Witness: Surviving the Tulsa Race Riot | Olivia Hooker is the last surviving witness to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. | 5/31/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
16 |
CleanFly Girls | The story of the WASPs, Women Air Force Service Pilots. | 5/3/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
17 |
ExplicitStrange Fruit, Revisited | James Cameron is the only known person to have survived a lynching in America. | 4/19/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
18 |
CleanCrime Pays | There's a program in Richmond, CA that has a controversial method of reducing gun violence in their city: paying criminals to not commit crimes. Sounds crazy, but the even crazier part is...it works. | 4/6/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
19 |
CleanThe Green Book | A guide to "traveling while Black" during Jim Crow. A story from our friends and fellow Radiotopians at 99% Invisible. | 3/22/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
20 |
CleanDeported: Weasel’s Diary | At 26-years-old, Jose William Huezo Soriano—a.k.a. Weasel—was deported back to his parents’ home country, El Salvador, a country he hadn’t seen since he was 5. This is his audio diary. | 3/8/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
21 |
CleanNine Months Before Rosa Parks | You've heard of Rosa Parks, but do you know about Claudette Colvin? | 2/27/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
22 |
CleanA Voicemail Valentine | Audio love letters from the 1930s and 1940s. | 2/14/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
23 |
ExplicitThe Story of Jane | Before Roe vs. Wade, an underground abortion service in Chicago helped women get abortions. | 1/19/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
24 |
CleanThe Dropped Wrench | Sometimes, we make mistakes. Human error. It happens all the time. It just doesn’t always happen in a nuclear missile silo. A collaboration with This American Life. | 12/23/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
25 |
CleanMajd’s Diary: Two Years in the Life of a Saudi Girl | Majd wants to be a scientist. Her family wants to arrange her marriage. | 11/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
26 |
CleanUnder the Radar | 16 years after recording his teenage diary, Juan now lives in Colorado. He has a house, a good job, and three American kids. But...he’s still undocumented. | 11/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
27 |
CleanJuan’s Story, Live at the Moth | Juan crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally as a teen, and settled with his family in Texas. In 1996, he recorded an audio diary for our Teenage Diaries project. Now he tells his story live at The Moth. | 10/23/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
28 |
CleanThe Two Lives of Asa Carter | Asa Carter and Forrest Carter couldn’t have been more different. But they shared a secret. | 10/5/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
29 |
CleanThe Last Place | When you spend so much of your life getting to the next stage, thinking about the next move, what is it like to find yourself at...the Last Place? In this episode, we bring you audio diaries from a retirement home. | 9/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
30 |
CleanThe Working Tapes of Studs Terkel (Hour Special) | For Labor Day, we're bringing you a special, one hour episode of our series The Working Tapes of Studs Terkel. | 9/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
31 |
ExplicitWillie McGee and The Traveling Electric Chair | A granddaughter's search for the truth. | 8/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
32 |
CleanMiss Subways | Most beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But this contest celebrated something different: the everyday working girl. | 7/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
33 |
CleanMexico ’68 and the Tlatelolco Massacre | A Movement, a Massacre, and Mexico’s Search for the Truth | 6/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
34 |
ExplicitThe Rubber Room | Meet the NYC teachers who are "doing time." | 6/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
35 |
CleanThe Oddest Town in America | Gibsonton, Florida: Where the Sideshow went to Retire | 5/19/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
36 |
CleanRadio Diaries Live at the Moth | For Mother's day, we're bringing you our diarist Melissa's story, as she told it live at The Moth. | 5/4/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
37 |
CleanThe Gospel Ranger | Outside the Appalachian mountains, his name was barely known. But Brother Claude Ely influenced some of the pioneers of rock & roll. | 4/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
38 |
CleanRemembering Robben Island | Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada served more than 2 decades in prison alongside Nelson Mandela. He died this week, at the age of 87. | 3/31/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
39 |
CleanThe Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. Baronowski | In 1966, a young Marine took a reel-to-reel tape recorder with him into the Vietnam War. | 3/16/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
40 |
CleanWeasel’s Diary, Revisited | At 26-years-old, Jose William Huezo Soriano—a.k.a. Weasel—was deported back to his parents' home country, El Salvador, a country he hadn't seen since he was 5. | 3/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
41 |
CleanThe Last Civil War Widows | Two of the last surviving Civil War widows. | 2/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
42 |
CleanThe Border Wall (Updated) | What happens when, instead of people crossing the border, the border crosses the people. | 2/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
43 |
CleanStrange Fruit (Updated) | British Singer Rebecca Ferguson wanted to sing the song "Strange Fruit" at Donald Trump's Inauguration. This is the story behind the song. | 1/19/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
44 |
CleanBusman’s Holiday | In 1947, a New York City bus driver who took his municipal bus on a 1,300 mile detour. | 12/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
45 |
CleanThe Working Tapes – Part 4 | Three generations of father-son auto mechanics....a new story from our series, The Working Tapes. | 12/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
46 |
CleanMarch of the Bonus Army | In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, a group of World War I veterans set up an encampment in Washington D.C. vowing to stay until they received their government bonuses. | 11/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
47 |
CleanThe Song that Crossed Party Lines | The story of a quirky song...that had the power to bring Democrats, Republicans, and Communists together in 1940. | 11/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
48 |
CleanThe Working Tapes – Part 3 | A private eye, a jockey, a hotel piano player....voices from The Working Tapes. | 10/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
49 |
CleanThe Working Tapes – Part 2 | A Chicago police officer, a female advertising executive, a gravedigger...voices from Studs Terkel's Working Tapes. | 10/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
50 |
CleanThe Working Tapes – Part 1 | Stories from Studs Terkel's Working Tapes an auto union worker, a switchboard telephone operator, and a press agent. | 9/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
51 |
CleanThe Working Tapes – A Preview | Our new series "Working: Then & Now" runs from Sept 25 - October 2 on NPR, and in upcoming episodes of the Radio Diaries Podcast. This is a sneak peek of The Working Tapes. | 9/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
52 |
CleanFrom Flint to Rio | Claressa Shields was a 17-year-old from Flint, Michigan, with a dream -- to become the first American woman to win Olympic gold in boxing. And she did just that. | 7/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
53 |
CleanContenders: The Veep | Throughout American history, only 14 VPs have ever gone on to the presidency. The rest have been mostly forgotten. And not many people would remember the name Alben Barkley, except for two things: his nickname, the “Veep, | 7/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
54 |
CleanContenders: Say it Like You Mean it | Throughout American history, one of the most important job qualifications for the office of President has been the ability to deliver a speech that will rally the people. This is Part 2 of our series, Contenders: Portraits of some of the most groundbre. | 7/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
55 |
CleanContenders: Women Who Fought for the White House | Portraits of some of the most groundbreaking and unusual presidential candidates -- who never won the White House. This is the first in our 3-part series: Contenders. | 6/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
56 |
CleanMajd’s Diary: Two Years in the Life of a Saudi Girl | Majd wants to be a scientist. Her family wants to arrange her marriage. | 5/31/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
57 |
CleanA Mother, Then and Now | We catch up with Melissa, who recorded a diary about being a teen mom in 1996. | 4/28/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
58 |
CleanRadio Diaries Turns 20! | 20 years ago, NPR’s All Things Considered began running our occasional series, Teenage Diaries… which then grew up to become Radio Diaries. Today on the podcast, we check in with our very first diarist, Amanda Brand. | 4/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
59 |
CleanThe Man in the Zoo | In 1906, New York's Bronx Zoo was the largest zoo in the world. That year, the zoo introduced a new exhibit that would quickly became its most popular attraction. In the monkey house, right next to an orangutan, there was a man...inside a cage. | 3/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
60 |
CleanClaudette Colvin: “A Teenage Rosa Parks” | Nine months before Rosa Parks, a 15-year-old girl refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL. | 3/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
61 |
CleanIdentical Strangers | Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were both born in New York City and adopted as infants. When they were 35 years old, they met and found they were “identical strangers.” | 2/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
62 |
CleanFrankie’s Second Chance (Updated) | Frankie is hoping for a second chance. | 2/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
63 |
CleanFriday Night Lights | Football, Frankie said, had completely changed him. He was no longer seen as a loser. Although the same couldn’t be said for the Valley Head Tigers. | 1/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
64 |
CleanThe Ski Troops of WWII | The Skiers Who Fought the Nazis | 1/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
65 |
CleanFrom Prison to President | Four years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, he became president of South Africa. And yet, those 4 years were among the bloodiest and most painful for all South Africans – black and white – as they struggled toward the transition to maj | 12/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
66 |
CleanThe Last Place | When you spend so much of your life getting to the next stage, thinking about the next move, what is it like to find yourself at...the Last Place? On this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, we bring you audio diaries from a retirement home. | 12/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
67 |
CleanA Guitar, A Cello, And The Day That Changed Music | November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men – an ocean apart – sat before a microphone and began to play. One was a cello prodigy who had performed for the Queen of Spain; the other played guitar and was a regular in the juke joints | 11/19/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
68 |
CleanThe Story of ‘Ballad for Americans’ | How a ten minute operatic folk cantata managed to unite Democrats, Republicans and Communists. | 11/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
69 |
CleanServing 9-5: Diaries from Prison Guards | Audio diaries from officers who work behind bars at North Carolina's Polk Youth Institution. | 10/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
70 |
CleanThe Man Who Put the ‘P’ in NPR | In this golden age of podcasting, a conversation about the past and future of public radio with the author of the original NPR mission statement. | 10/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
71 |
CleanCrime Pays | This month's podcast is about what it takes to get people to change. We focus on a group of people that might be the hardest to change - or at least they’ve had the most money thrown at them in hopes of change: Criminals. | 9/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
72 |
ExplicitStrange Fruit | An eerie photograph, a famous song, and the man who lived to tell the story. | 8/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
73 |
CleanMandela’s Prison Years | Chapter 3 of our documentary (and 2015 Audiobook of the Year) Mandela: An Audio History. | 7/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
74 |
CleanA Visit to the Memory Palace | Do you remember the first podcast you ever fell in love with? | 6/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
75 |
ExplicitMatthew and the Judge | Audio diaries from a repeat offender, and his judge. | 6/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
76 |
CleanSeeing the Forrest Through the Little Trees | The true story of the untrue story of The Education of Little Tree. | 5/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
77 |
ExplicitThe Traveling Electric Chair | Bridgette McGee grew up knowing nothing about her grandfather, Willie McGee. Now she is on a quest to unearth everything she can about his life – and his death. | 5/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
78 |
CleanFrom Bullets to Balance Sheets | As a teenager, Kamari Ridgle was a drug dealer and drive-by shooter until a near-death experience led him to his true love…accounting. | 4/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
79 |
CleanThe Square Deal | Meet George F. Johnson, one of America's first 'welfare capitalists.' | 4/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
80 |
CleanFly Girls | In the early 1940s, the government launched an experimental program to train women pilots. They were known as the WASPs, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. | 3/19/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
81 |
CleanClaudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks” | "History had me glued to the seat." | 3/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
82 |
CleanFirst Kiss | Josh Cutler has Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts. In this episode, listen to his teenage diary about getting his first kiss. | 2/12/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
83 |
CleanThe Greatest Songwriter You’ve Never Heard Of | You probably don't know her name, but you definitely know her songs. Rose Marie McCoy passed away recently at the age of 92. On this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, we’re remembering Rose and her music. | 2/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
84 |
CleanGeorge Wallace and the Legacy of a Sentence | It was just a single line in an inauguration speech given 50 years ago. But Alabama Governor George Wallace’s ‘Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever’ is remembered as one of the most vehement rallying cries against racial equa | 1/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
85 |
CleanThe View from the 79th Floor | On July 28, 1945 an Army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. | 1/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
86 |
CleanMiss Subways | A beauty pageant, for the working girl. | 12/22/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
87 |
CleanLast Man on the Mountain – Updated | In West Virginia, people say that in the old days, communities turned into ghost towns when the coal ran out. Now, they turn into ghost towns when mountaintop mines move in. | 12/10/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
88 |
CleanBusman’s Holiday | The story of William Cimillo, a New York City bus driver who snapped one day in 1947, left his regular route in the Bronx, and drove his municipal bus down to Florida. | 11/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
89 |
CleanWeasel’s Diary, Revisited | Jose William Huezo Soriano - aka Weasel - is a 26-year-old Los Angeles resident who gets deported to his parents' home country of El Salvador, which he has not seen since the age of five. | 11/7/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
90 |
CleanWhen Ground Zero was Radio Row | For more than four decades, the area around Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan was the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. | 10/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
91 |
CleanWhen Borders Move | What happens when, instead of people crossing the border, the border crosses the people? | 10/6/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
92 |
CleanWorking, Then and Now | To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Studs Terkel's "Working," we bring you two of the lost interviews that never made it into the book: Helen Moog, a taxi driver and grandmother of five who happened to drive Studs to the Youngstown, | 9/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
93 |
CleanStrange Fruit – Voices of a Lynching | An eerie photograph, a famous song, and the man who lived to tell the story. | 8/25/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
94 |
CleanThe Gospel Ranger | Outside the Appalachian mountains, his name was barely known. But Brother Claude Ely influenced some of the pioneers of rock & roll. | 7/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
95 |
Clean“Halfrican” Revisited | When Jeff Rogers was 16 years old he started referring to himself as a “halfrican.” Jeff has a black father and a white mother. And like many teenagers, he was trying to figure out who he was. | 6/22/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
96 |
CleanWalter the Seltzerman – It’s Not Easy Being Last | Once there were thousands of seltzer men in New York City. Today, Walter Backerman is one of the last. | 6/2/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
97 | CleanVideoVideo Podcast: Help Kickstart Our New Season | Check out our Kickstarter video. (Ira Glass has a cameo! ) If we reach our goal, we'll put out the Radio Diaries Podcast twice as often. Biweekly! bit.ly/RDKickstarter | 5/28/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
98 |
CleanThe Long Shadow of Forrest Carter | Asa Carter and Forrest Carter couldn't have been more different. But they shared a secret. | 5/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
99 |
CleanThe Day Nelson Mandela Became Nelson Mandela | The moment Nelson Mandela really became Nelson Mandela was on April 20th, 1964 - fifty years ago today. It happened when he stood up in a stuffy South African courtroom and gave a speech. | 4/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
100 |
CleanFrankie’s Teenage Diary, Revisited | "I went from being on the front page for football, representing my itty-bitty school, to being on the front page as a thief and a meth head." - Frankie Lewchuck | 3/20/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
101 |
CleanWillie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair | On the night of May 7th, 1951, in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse. They came to witness an execution. Willie McGee was a young black man who had been accused of raping a white woman... | 2/18/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
102 |
CleanTeenage Diaries Revisited 1-Hour Special | A lot of life happens in 16 years. | 1/13/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
103 |
CleanA Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music | What would it sound like if one of the world's greatest classical cellists, and the most legendary blues guitarist of all time...jammed together? | 12/20/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
104 |
CleanMandela: An Audio History | The struggle against apartheid, told by the people who lived it. | 12/5/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
105 |
CleanThe Last Man on the Mountain | A profile of the last man standing. | 11/14/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
106 |
CleanThe View From the 79th Floor | On July 28, 1945 an army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. Stories from the day a plane crashed into the Empire State Building. | 10/15/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
107 |
CleanTeenage Diaries Revisited: Juan | 16 years ago, Juan reported on his life as a recent Mexican immigrant living in poverty in Texas. In his new diary, Juan takes us on a tour of the life he has built since he first crossed the Rio Grande. | 8/19/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
108 |
CleanBurma ’88: Buried History | 25 years ago, university students in Burma sparked a countrywide uprising. They called for a nationwide strike on 8/8/88, a date they chose for its numerological power. | 8/8/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
109 |
CleanTeenage Diaries Revisited: Melissa | Melissa's Teenage Diary and her new 'grown-up' diary from Teenage Diaries Revisited. | 6/11/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
110 |
CleanTeenage Diaries Revisited: Josh | Josh’s audio diaries about trying to live a normal life with a brain that often betrays him. | 5/29/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
111 |
CleanTeenage Diaries Revisited: Amanda | 16 years after her Teenage Diary, Amanda goes back to her parents to find out how they came to accept having a daughter who is gay. | 5/16/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
111 Items |
Customer Reviews
One of the best in podcasting
Radio Diaries Podcasts is one of the smartest podcast to date. Each one is heartfelt, interesting and genereously recorded by each person. I've learned something from each one and have been patiently waiting for more. Thank you to the participants and to Joe Richman. Brilliant! Please....more!
Short but sweet
I was just lucky enough to recently come upon this podcast. After 3 episodes I was hooked and after a marathon of episodes I felt the need to write and say just how wonderfully insightful this podcast is. Meaningful and intriguing stories so eloquently told that a listener can easily be incapsulated into the tale.
Addictive!!
Definitely a fan. If you're into short and unusual stories, then this is well worth a try.
Please don't let your fans down. We want more!!!
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