History

The historical museum in Lyme is wrapping up a summer exhibit on wedding gowns. The exhibit offers insight into the evolution of women’s styles and it also shares some intimate stories of town residents.

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This week, we're going deep into our country's founding through radio drama, the classic musical "1776," and the inside story of a New Hampshire-based fake news site. 

•  Civics 101 student contest winner Adia Samba-Quee's radio drama "Unconventional"
• The continued relevance of the musical "1776"
• Don't believe the headlines: fake news in New Hampshire

  It wasn't gold, money or skeletons.

But the newly-found items, including old ledgers, now-vintage fans and Civil War bonds, locked for decades in an old safe in a first floor committee room, were still exciting to a few curious minds at the New Hampshire State House. 

In our continuing series Only in New Hampshire, we tackle listener questions about the Granite State communities and occasionally get the chance to uncover a bit of hidden history.

So here’s a perfectly timed question from Katelin in Northwood. She wrote:

“I heard Northwood had some kind of important link on the way we celebrate Thanksgiving. I looked but never found it. Any ideas?”

This weekend at the Pine Hill Cemetery in Dover, the dead will come back to life...sort of.

As part of the Woodman Museum’s "Voices from the Cemetery" event, local volunteer-actors will portray some of the famous -and infamous- Dover residents buried in the centuries-old cemetery.

NHPR’s Jason Moon caught up with the actors as they were rehearsing earlier this week and sends this postcard.

Economist and Harvard professor Mihir Desai uses philosophy, film, literature, and history to analyze finance as an institution built on morality and humanity. His book , The Wisdom of Finance, explores how the financial industry can be understood through culture, and how deeply finance impacts our personal lives. 

This show originally aired on July 25, 2017. 

If you find yourself in downtown Berlin, New Hampshire, take a glance at the Androscoggin River. There, in the middle of the water, you’ll notice a long, straight line of small rocky islands poking through the surface.

On today's show:

• Producer Hannah McCarthy takes a drive up to Livermore to find out why a recent census listed the ghost town's population as "3". You can read more and listen to the story again here.
• Civics 101: Church & State
• Producer Molly Donahue answers the Only in New Hampshire question: is it true there's a secret list of archaeological sites in New Hampshire? 
• Less is the new novel of the by Andrew Sean Greer, the O. Henry Award winning author who will be at Writers in the Loft on Monday, July 24. 
• Inspired by today's show and want to join in a dig this summer? You can learn more about the State Conservation and Rescue Archaeology Program (SCRAP) here.

Aerosmith has been going strong for decades, but the legendary rock band actually traces its roots back to New Hampshire.

Lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry met in Sunapee, where they spent their childhood summers, and the rest is rock history.

On Saturday, the Sunapee Historical Society will be transformed into a shrine of sorts for the band when it hosts Aerosmith History Day.

Memorabilia spanning the band’s nearly 50-year career will be on display.

Several organizations are coming together to address what they say has been an abrupt and sharp decline in basic historical knowledge among New Hampshire students.

New Hampshire Historical Society president Bill Dunlap sounded the alarm in an op-ed earlier this month, saying this knowledge deficit could have dramatic consequences for the state.

On today's show:

• Civics 101: Budget and Appropriations
• "Viva La Arquitectura!" from 99% Invisible. You can listen to this story again at PRX.org. 
• Curtis Wilkie is co-author of The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign along with Thomas Oliphant. 
• "Artist Matt Patterson Goes in Search of a Turtle Muse"

On today's show:

• Romie Stott is a film maker and writer and she wrote about the secret language of flowers for Atlas Obscura in “How Flower Obsessed Victorians Encoded Messages in Bouquets."
• "Daisy Supply Chain" from Outside/In. 
• "Atom in the Garden of Eden" from 99% Invisible. You can listen to this story again at PRX.org. 

The Vietnam War is largely recalled as a mistake, either in the decision to engage there or in the nature of the engagement.  Veterans of the war remain largely anonymous figures.  Enduring Vietnam recounts the experiences of the young Americans who fought in Vietnam and of families who grieved those who did not return. We talk with author James Wright about the “baby boomers” who grew up in the 1950s, why they went into the military,  how they describe serving in “Nam” and their experiences coming home.

GUEST:  James Wright is author and editor of several history books and a former history professor at Dartmouth College as well as former Dartmouth College President.

This program was originally broadcast on 4/27/17.

Update: The diary sold at auction Wednesday, April 26, for $718,750. R.R. Auction, based in Amherst, New Hampshire, coordinated the sale. The buyer is a Massachusetts-based collector.

In the summer of 1945, between his military service and first campaign for Congress, John F. Kennedy traveled across Europe working as a journalist.

JFK kept a diary during those months on the road. The historical document reveals a future President trying to make sense of a rapidly changing post-war world--and it’s now being put up for bid by a New Hampshire auction house.

On today's show:

• Civics 101: Veto
• "Crazy Bet" from producer Nate DiMeo and The Memory Palace. Listen again at PRX.org. 
• Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh was born in Damascus, but now lives in New York, where he wakes up to bad news each day. He’s going to be performing with the Kinan Azmeh CityBand at Phillips Academy Exeter tonight at 7:00pm and at the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts tomorrow, April 19th at 6:30pm to celebrate the band's 10th season together. This is our previous conversation with Kinan and composer Kareem Roustom, recorded in 2013.

• "The Gift of Music" from Masumi Hayashi-Smith and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Listen again at PRX.org. 

On today's show: 

• Eric Liu is founder and CEO of Citizens University and author of the new book You're More Powerful Than You Think. He’ll be talking about the book at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester on Friday evening, April 21 at 6:00 pm.
• Journalist and author Rinker Buck talked with us about his book, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, part history, part travelogue, and part family memoir. Listen again. 
• Meaghen Brown is an Associate Editor at Outside Magazine, where she wrote about Overtraining Syndrome: a debilitating disease that is incredibly hard to diagnose.  Listen again.

On today's show:

• Civics 101: Gerrymandering
• "George Jones: He Stopped Loving Her Today" from producers Ben Manilla and Devon Strolovitch. Listen again at PRX.org.
• Sushma Subramanian wrote about the legacy left behind in Guatemala, 70 years after American researchers infected locals with syphilis and gonorrhea in her article "Worse Than Tuskegee". 
• "AKA Leo" from Nate DiMeo and The Memory Palace. Listen again at PRX.org.

On today's show:

• Last year, Virginia spoke with Katherine Towler whose book The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is now out in paperback. 
• "Friday Night Lights" from Meg Cramer and BackStory with the American History Guys. Listen to this story again at PRX.org.
• We did a final check in with R.C. Thomas who wrapped up the RPM Challenge at the end of February.
• "Whistle Register" from The World According to Sound. Listen to this story again at PRX.org. 
• The Bookshelf: Keiselim Montas and the Art of the Haiku
• "Music Never Dies" from producer Jessica Ripka. Listen to this story again at PRX.org.