Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, most people know the story of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Fewer know what happened next. After flames destroyed the heart of the city and left more than 100,000 people homeless, Chicago didn’t collapse. It rebuilt faster and bigger than anyone thought possible. Businesses reopened while the rubble was still smoking. New buildings rose within months. And in just a few decades, the c...

On this episode of Our American Stories, beards may feel like a modern trend, but they’ve been shaping ideas about manhood for thousands of years. In some eras, a clean-shaven face signaled order, discipline, and respectability. In others, a beard stood for strength, rebellion, or independence.

Christopher Oldstone-Moore, the author of Of Beards and Men, and a history teacher at Wright State University, tells...

On this episode of Our American Stories, growing up in rural Alabama, Edie Hand shared an idyllic childhood with her three younger brothers, known as the Blackburn boys. Days were filled with horses, imagination, and dreams of the futures they would one day live.

Those dreams were cut short by tragedy. One by one, Edie lost all three brothers, each death arriving in a different season of her life and leaving a deeper mark th...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before founding Express Employment Professionals, Bob Funk believed his life’s work would be in the ministry. Instead, he discovered that helping people find jobs could become a calling of its own.

Raised in poverty and shaped by hard work from an early age, Funk built a staffing company grounded in integrity, faith, and service. Over four decades, his mission to connect workers...

On this episode of Our American Stories, as a child, Deborah Freeburg learned what faith, perseverance, and family looked like by watching her parents care for their own. Years later, she entered a new and frightening season when her father’s health declined and the roles reversed.

In this listener's story, Deborah shares what it meant to become her father’s caregiver, tending to him through illness, loss of inde...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Jamie Scott was born, he was placed for adoption and raised by loving parents in North Carolina. For decades, he lived a full life without searching for his biological family. Then a simple DNA test changed everything.

In this listener's story, Jamie explains how taking a test through AncestryDNA revealed siblings, cousins, and a family history hidden in plain sight, all in his o...

On this episode of Our American Stories, The Chosen is the first multi-season television series about the life of Jesus Christ, and it has become one of the most successful faith-based projects in entertainment history. What began as a small, crowdfunded Christmas special has grown into a global phenomenon with hundreds of millions of views worldwide.

Here to tell the story behind ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Roger Latham was handed a few handwritten pages years after his mother’s death, he did not expect them to change the way he understood her, or himself. Written in pencil and tucked away without intention of publication, the poem revealed a depth and inner life he never knew she possessed.

In this moving story, Roger reflects on discovering his mother’s hidden gift for...

On this episode of Our American Stories, more than 150 years after his death, Jesse James remains one of the most famous and misunderstood figures in American history. Was he a Robin Hood style folk hero, or a ruthless criminal shaped by war and revenge?

Historian Roger McGrath traces Jesse James’s life from his childhood in Civil War–era Missouri through his years as a Confederate guerrilla, bank and train robbe...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Andrew Thompson shares another slice of his guide to understanding the baffling mini-mysteries of the English language, this time diving into how the phrases “bite the bullet” and "bless you" came to be. His book, Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: The Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions and Fun Phrases, is a must-read. Be sure to check it out!

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On this episode of Our American Stories, during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, an American reconnaissance armored car faced one of Nazi Germany’s most feared weapons, a massive Tiger tank. By every measure, it should have been an impossible fight.

Our regular contributor, The History Guy, shares the tale of how a lightly armed U.S. M8 armored car encountered a German Tiger tank near the crossroads town of St...

On this episode of Our American Stories, writer Taylor Brown shares a deeply personal eulogy for his father, a lifelong motorcyclist who taught him about patience, character, and what it means to choose what is hard over what is easy.

Originally published in Garden & Gun, the piece traces their bond through long rides, shared roads, and the quiet lessons passed from father to son. From childhood trips on the back of...

On this episode of Our American Stories, why is it illegal to shoot rabbits from a motorboat? Or to import skunks into certain states? And who decided these things needed to be written into law in the first place?

Author Winter Prosapio joins Our American Stories to explore the strange, funny, and often forgotten laws that still exist across the United States. Drawing from her book Weird U.S. Laws, she explain...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jimmy Neary arrived in New York City from County Sligo, Ireland in 1954 with almost nothing but a gift for people. After finding work at the New York Athletic Club and learning the restaurant trade under famed Irish restaurateur P.J. Moriarty, he opened Neary’s near 57th Street and First Avenue and turned it into a Manhattan institution.

Told by his daughter, Una Neary, this is ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom and her family turned their watchmaker’s home into a refuge for Jews facing deportation and death. Working with the Dutch underground, they built a hidden room behind a false wall, where hundreds found shelter from the Gestapo. Their courage came at a terrible cost. Corrie and her sister Betsie were arrested and sent to pri...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Deon Joseph has worked in law enforcement for more than two decades, spending much of that time in places where support systems rarely hold. The people he meets are often in crisis, and the job asks more than it once did. He reflects on how expectations have shifted, how officers adapt when there’s nowhere else to send someone, and what it means to keep doing the work when most of the ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, best known as the wife of Jack London, Charmian Kittredge London was far more than a companion to a literary giant. She was a writer, photographer, athlete, traveler, and intellectual partner whose contributions were long overlooked or misrepresented. Author and historian Iris Jamal Dunkle shares the story behind her groundbreaking biography, the first full-length account devoted solely to C...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1984, Los Angeles police officer Bob Alaniz arrested a suspicious car thief without realizing he was detaining one of California’s most dangerous serial killers. That man was Richard Ramirez, later known as the Night Stalker. Though Ramirez was released, the fingerprints Alaniz took during booking would become the key to identifying him months later, after a single print was recover...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Andrew Thompson shares another slice of his guide to understanding the baffling mini-mysteries of the English language—this time exploring the phrase “propose a toast” and others. His book, Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: The Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions and Fun Phrases, uncovers the quirky roots behind the words we use every day. Be sure to check i...