This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the first great police scandal in US history. It occurred in the mid-1890s in New York City when an investigation into the NYPD exposed widespread corruption and brutality throughout the force, from its highest-ranking … [Read more...]
Episode 197 Brutality & Lawlessness: America’s First Great Police Scandal
Episode 177 How Radicals Transformed the US
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, I speak with Holly Jackson about her new book, American Radicals: How 19th Century Protest Shaped The Nation.” Jackson is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has written widely on US … [Read more...]
Episode 043 The Goat Castle Murder in Jim Crow Mississippi
This week I speak with historian Karen Cox, author of a new book titled: Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. It tells the incredible story of a murder that took place in Natchez, Mississippi in 1932. It’s a captivating tale in its own right, but as you’ll soon hear, the … [Read more...]
Episode 029 Spies, Traitors, & Saboteurs: Civil Liberties in Times of National Crisis
This week, In The Past Lane is in Chicago to check out a cool history exhibition and speak with John Russick of the Chicago History Museum. The exhibition, "Spies, Traitors, and Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America," was originally created by the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC in the … [Read more...]
Episode 022 The History of Mass Incarceration in the US, Part 2
Why are so many Americans in prison? Right now, there are 2.3 million Americans held in US prisons. That's a HUGE number, relative to the overall US population. The US makes up just 5% of the world's population, but we hold 25% of the world's prison population. Put another way, 1 in 4 people held in … [Read more...]