American history, read aloud from ordinary people's letters
American Epistles tells American history through the letters, diaries and journals of ordinary people, which host Susan reads aloud at length. Its stories run in multi-part arcs, such as thirteen parts with Western homesteader Elinore Rupert and a series on Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
PRESS PLAY
American Epistles tells history through the mail. Its raw material is letters, journals and diaries written by ordinary Americans. Host Susan reads them aloud and adds enough context to explain who wrote them and why. The documents carry most of the weight. Her commentary fills the gaps between them with census figures, legal background and the pressures that shaped a writer's choices. The show prefers long arcs to one-off stories. Its thirteen-part run with homesteader Elinore Rupert follows her letters from the Western frontier, and the host reckoned it covered about four years of Elinore's life over roughly six months of episodes. The letters are vivid on their own. In one, a stranger at a campfire asks whether she had taken him for an old devil, then recalls the dangerous early days of the country. In another, she helps a frightened young mother through a birth by firelight, and the baby is named Star after the morning star. The last part turns to her meeting with Mormons, including a letter in which a plural wife defends her husband and blames the law that made him cast her off. Susan is frank about the run, calling it educational, sometimes entertaining and at times challenging. The Chinese immigration series goes into harder material. One excerpt comes from an immigrant held in a wooden building after more than twenty days at sea, wishing only to land in San Francisco. Another is a first-person account of being put aboard a steamship to California by a stranger and crying all the way over. The series reads a contract that added months of service for every stretch of illness, quotes the Rev. Otis Gibson's testimony to the California Senate, and explains how the tongs ran the trade in women and girls. The frame is national, too. Figures trace Chinese immigration from 4,000 in 1850 to 35,000 in 1860, and an 1869 Vicksburg Times editorial shows how parts of the postwar South looked to Chinese labor after emancipation. Hostile voices are allowed to speak. The host reads an 1892 San Francisco Call article on the Tape family in full because she wanted listeners to hear the reporter's attitude toward a Chinese American family. That reporter admits he first took the story of a young Chinese woman devoted to photography for a fairy tale. Difficult material comes with a spoken warning at the top of an episode. Episode titles are quoted lines, such as 'Your pork and beans must be out of a can.' Large events like emigration and settlement come through at the scale of one person's letter.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants history from the ground up, told in the words of homesteaders, immigrants and other ordinary people rather than summarized by a narrator. It also suits someone prepared to hear difficult primary sources, including period racism and accounts of trafficking.
What sets it apart: Instead of retelling events, American Epistles reads the sources themselves at length: letters, diaries, contracts and newspaper articles, including hostile ones left intact so the attitudes of the time can be heard. Multi-part arcs give one writer time to become a familiar voice, as Elinore Rupert does across thirteen parts.
… the story of our country, one letter at a time.
A miner's testimony starts the Mine Wars story; you meet the witness before the textbook.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Chinese-American family answers the press's disbelief with a steady claim to California as home.
American Epistles follows an 11-year-old girl who came to San Francisco from Shanghai in 1868, entered the care of the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society, and was given the name Mary McGladdery by the home.
Chinese women's immigration stories emerge through contracts, testimony, trafficking, and lives presented as varied rather than singular.
Chinese women's immigration history comes through as a set of sharply different lives, not a single story of arrival. The episode opens with A-Fang Moy, brought to New York in 1834 as part of a campaign to sell Chinese goods, then widens to women whose journeys were shaped by…
A detained traveler's letter opens a human-scaled account of Chinese labor, scapegoating, and exclusion.
American Epistles frames Chinese immigration through the shock of arrival: after more than 20 days of wind and waves, a traveler reaches America safely only to be held in a wooden building, still yearning for San Francisco.
A final letter turns Mormon rules, family sorrow, and pioneer labor into an intimate reckoning.
American Epistles ends its time with Eleanor Rupert Stewart by turning from Mormon tithing, manifestos, and public doctrine toward the private strain of plural marriage.
A rough Wyoming breakfast shows how hardship can make pleasure sharper.
Eleanor Rupert's October 8, 1913 letter turns the search for hired help into a small, sturdy study of frontier pleasure. Sent toward Bridger Bench by Aurelia Timmons, Rupert stops with Hiram K.
War history with mud on its boots.
Strange history, sharply bottled.
Tank markings, trick cigarettes and the war's fine print.
Outnumbered units, remembered under fire.
Battle maps, war films, and patient context.
American Epistles centers the Tape family's fight over San Francisco school segregation, after 8-year-old Mamie Tape was blocked from Spring Valley Primary School because she was Chinese.
American Epistles host Susan Ochere traces Chinese women's immigration experiences from A-Fang Moy's 1834 commercial exhibition to Chinese American voting and professional education.
Angel Island detained immigrants for weeks or months, while Ellis Island admitted almost 98% of arrivals within hours, and nearly 10% of Angel Island detainees were deported.
Susan Orchard closes American Epistles with Eleanor Rupert Stewart's two November 1913 letters, one centered on Mormon polygamy and one on ranch work.
["American Epistles's \"Your pork and beans must be out of a can.\" follows Eleanor Rupert on an October 8, 1913 drive across Wyoming toward Bridger Bench after Aurelia Timmons writes asking for work at $3 a week.", "Eleanor crosses mountains, buttes, ravines, and the Latara Ranch, where Greasy Pete is said to be \"on a tear,\" before she camps with Hiram K.
American Epistles host Susan Ochere presents Eleanor Rupert Stewart’s January, February, May, and June 1913 letters, including a Christmas journey to an isolated mountain camp.
American Epistles host Susan Ochere traces U.S.
American Epistles follows Eleanor Rupert Stewart’s trip from Wyoming ranch country to a remote cattle camp after Clyde describes two thieves stealing 30 horses from a ranch 75 miles away.
American Epistles host Susan Archidant examines women homesteaders and westward migration through the Homestead Act, which offered eligible applicants 160 acres for an $18 fee and five years to prove up their claims.
American Epistles presents Eleanor Pruitt-Rupert Stewart's October 1911 letters about Wyoming neighbors, travel, family life, and homesteading.
American Epistles presents Eleanor Pruitt Rupert Stewart’s 1910 account of the Edmondson family and Cora Bell’s life on a Wyoming homestead.
American Epistles continues Eleanor Rupert's 1909 letters to Juliet Coney about homesteading near Wyoming after Rupert leaves Denver.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson examines the final phase of the West Virginia Mine Wars, moving from the 1917 UMWA election of Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney to the 1920 Mingo County strike.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson examines the 1912 Paint Creek and Cabin Creek strikes within West Virginia's 1912–1922 Mine Wars.
Susan Stevenson begins a three-part American Epistles series on the West Virginia mine wars, covering conflicts between mine workers and owners from 1912 to 1922.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson examines Freedom Summer, 1964, through John Lewis’s reflections and letters from activists, volunteers, politicians, and Mississippi residents.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson uses more than 20 redacted letters to examine why African Americans left the South during the first Great Migration, especially in 1916 and 1917.
Susan Stevenson examines how Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Peter Randolph, and others described literacy as a route toward religious understanding, mobility, and freedom under slavery.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson examines how enslaved African Americans pursued literacy despite anti-literacy laws, patrols, fines, whippings, and threats of sale or death.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson introduces Bethany Vaney's 1889 narrative as a firsthand account of literacy, slavery, faith, family separation, and resistance.
American Epistles host Susan Stevenson examines Freedom Summer 1964 through letters and testimonies about Black voter registration in Mississippi.
Susan Stevenson’s American Epistles examines Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Summer Project launched in June 1964 through Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, voter registration, and a Democratic National Convention challenge.
This episode explores American welfare work during World War I, focusing on the efforts of women and organizations like the Red Cross and YMCA.
A podcast exploring American history through personal letters, this episode focuses on women's contributions during World War I.
This episode explores the Great Migration through letters from African Americans seeking information about moving to Chicago.