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Featured story: Meet Miss Subways
Beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, the Miss Subways contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl.
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Featured story: The Gospel Ranger
Outside the Appalachian mountains, his name was barely known. But Claude Ely influenced some of the pioneers of rock & roll.
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Featured story: Mandela’s Election: 30 Years Later
Mandela was a lawyer, freedom fighter, leader of the African National Congress, and finally, president.
History
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Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words
Melissa’s Diaries: Teen Mom
Melissa never meant to get pregnant. But now, after 12 years of living in the foster care system, she’s trying to build the family she never had.
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Matthew and the Judge: Juvenile Court Diary
Through their diaries, Matthew and Judge Jeremiah tell the same story from two different sides of the bench.
ListenPortraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places
Walter Backerman, Seltzer Man
Once there were thousands of seltzer men in New York City. Today, Walter Backerman is one of the last.
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Home is Where You Park Your Mini Van
As the pandemic hit, Naida Lavon found herself without a home and without a job. Part of our Hunker Down Diaries series.
ListenHistories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.
Ballad for Americans
How a ten minute operatic folk cantata managed to unite Democrats, Republicans and Communists.
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A Guitar, A Cello, and The Day That Changed Music
November 23, 1936, was a very good day for recorded music.
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