In this podcast by the Kansas Museum of History, museum curators use a rather vicious-looking hammer as a spring board to discuss the (literal) saloon-smashing crusade of Carry Nation.

This podcast from the Kansas Museum of History looks at a painting commissioned by Henrietta Briggs-Wall of Hutchinson, Kansas for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The curators discuss the controversy surrounding this painting's representation of the rights of 19th century women in politics and society.

University of Iowa professor Marshall Poe interviews Jennifer Burns about her book Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, on the life and times of Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand.

Boston College professor Kevin Kenny discusses his book Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment with University of Iowa professor Marshall Poe. The book looks at the downfall of Quaker William Penn's ideal of peaceful coexistence between Native Americans and colonists.

From the National Constitution Center website:

"The National Constitution Center welcomes Visiting Scholar A.E. Dick Howard, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia School of Law, for a discussion about the founding periods in France and America, including how the U.S. constitutional experience influenced the debates on the first French Constitution and the divergence in French and American constitutionalism after those early years."

To listen to this lecture, scroll to the August 3rd, 2009, program.

From the Library of Congress website:

"Author Ralph Eubanks discusses his personal story that began with his grandparents: James Richardson, a white man from a middle-class family, who defiantly married Edna Howell, a light-skinned black woman in 1914 in Alabama."

Professor Marshall Poe interviews Charles Postel, author of The Populist Vision, which examines the Populist Party, a turn-of-the-19th-to-20th-century party anchored by western farmers.

Professor Marshall Poe interviews Mark Bradley, author of Vietnam at War, a text that examines the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point of view, particularly the North Vietnamese.

From the "Littoral," blog of the Key West Literary seminar website:

"This recording from the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar consists of an hourlong conversation between Vidal and Jay Parini, his literary executor, a poet, biographer, and critic. Vidal discusses the influences on his work as a historical novelist, his views on the American educational system, and his admiration for figures including Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. George W. Bush, then serving his final week in office, is the target of particular scorn, as Vidal levels a litany of complaints accusing his administration of 'shredding' the Bill of Rights and striving 'to make lying the national pastime.' In a question-and-answer session, Vidal discusses efforts to bring Tennessee Williams's final play to the public, as well as his feelings on disgraced financier Bernard Madoff and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin."

From the National Constitution Center website:

"With the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views became the seventeenth president of the United States. In a surprising turn of events, Andrew Johnson was charged with the reconstruction of the defeated South, including the extension of civil rights and suffrage to African American Southerners. It quickly became clear that the president supported the enactment of 'black codes' and would block efforts to force Southern states to guarantee full equality for African Americans, igniting a fierce battle with congressional Republicans. Acclaimed author David O. Stewart returns to the Constitution Center to discuss the impeachment trial of President Johnson, which became the central battle of the struggle over how to reunite a nation after four years of war."

To listen to this lecture, scroll to "Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson," which is the June 26, 2009 post.