Is this a breakdown or a breakthrough? A history of turning 40 and the midlife crisis with Corinne Fay

Little House on the Prairie, The Bicentennial, and How History Came Alive in the 1970s with M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska

I sat down with historian M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska, author of History Comes Alive, to figure out why America decided to throw itself a birthday party in the middle of Watergate, and what that has to do with the strange, sputtering rollout of the 250th happening right now. We get into Nixon hijacking a nonpartisan commission, a very wagon train crossing the country to meet Gerald Ford, and the queer and Black history organizers who used the bicentennial's grant money to build the public history field as we know it. It turns out nostalgia isn't good or bad, it just is, and the receipts are more interesting than the fireworks. This month’s patreon episode is a 411 episode on the bicentennial. Join the $5/month tier to hear it now.  Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney [https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney]  Suggest a future episode topic here: https://www.patreon.com/MaryMahoney/posts/running-list-of-159302658?collection=1744255 [https://www.patreon.com/MaryMahoney/posts/running-list-of-159302658?collection=1744255]  Timestamps * 00:08 – Welcome, and why the bicentennial matters for America 250 * 02:05 – MJ on stumbling into a dissertation topic nobody else wanted * 06:32 – How Americans went from watching history to living inside it * 14:23 – Reenactment, Reagan's Oval Office for kids, and "Hippies Living History" * 20:37 – 1966: Johnson forms the first bicentennial commission * 29:12 – Nixon takes over and wants fireworks, not history * 32:56 – Philadelphia's World's Fair collapses under its own weight * 34:33 – The People's Bicentennial Commission crashes the Boston Tea Party * 38:26 – The Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation and the fight for historic sites * 1:04:05 – MJ's hot take: the 250th is just the 1893 World's Fair with worse merch TRANSCRIPT Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nuDQ8GbcGKv4DmoAJ3jkPUutO8dpuDzq2oFO3SCnWpY/edit?usp=sharing [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nuDQ8GbcGKv4DmoAJ3jkPUutO8dpuDzq2oFO3SCnWpY/edit?usp=sharing]  Connect with Mary: * Website: www.marymmahoney.com [http://www.marymmahoney.com] * Instagram: @mimimahoney [https://www.instagram.com/mimimahoney/?hl=en] * Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com [MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com] Connect with M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska: * Website: https://mjrymszapawlowska.com/ [https://mjrymszapawlowska.com/]  * Book: History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s [https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781469633862] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Vanilla Ice, the Queen, and 8,000 Alphabet Noodles: The 411 on the Bicentennial

America is turning 250 this year, and to make sense of the chaos of America 250 (Vanilla Ice on the National Mall, a Confederate flag at the Great American State Fair) I had to go back to the last time we tried this. The Bicentennial, 1976. LBJ started with an earnest planning commission. Nixon gutted it and replaced them with his buddies. Sound familiar? The country was exhausted by Watergate, Vietnam, and inflation, so we reached for nostalgia instead. Little House on the Prairie, anyone? On this episode, I take you on what The Bachelor would call "a journey" through the highs, lows, and huhs? of the bicentennial. On tap: why America is so obsessed with celebrating itself and what that's looked like in the past, the mission and merch of the bicentennial, the protests, and, inexplicably, the queen.  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Field Guide to Nepo Babies with Fran Hoepfner

This episode, I chat with Fran Hoepfner — critic, Vulture writer, and author of The Field Guide to Nepo Babies — to trace nepotism from the medieval Catholic Church all the way to Bronny James and Kai Trump. They get into who's doing it right (Ben Platt's Rachel Zegler solidarity era, Romy Mars booking a helicopter and owning it on TikTok), who's doing it wrong (Jack Schlossberg, reheating his family's nachos), and whether Jesus Christ is technically a nepo baby. Spoiler: it depends on your theology (but it’s also making me want to rewatch Jesus Christ Superstar). Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney [https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney]  TIMESTAMPS * (00:00) Cold open / Fran's cat Bandit joins the show * (03:10) The meritocracy myth and why nepo babies make us angry * (08:08) Ben Platt's PR redemption arc * (12:29) How nepotism started in the Catholic Church (hi, Borgias) * (15:10) Was Jesus a nepo baby? * (20:00) Emeril Lagasse IV and the "no seriously he earned it" profile * (28:21) Bronny James and the tragedy of an impossible legacy * (32:06) Chet Hanks: performance art or just vibes? * (35:24) Jack Schlossberg, least favorite nepo baby, explained * (43:38) Fran's favorites: Laura Dern, Jason Schwartzmann, the Gummers * (48:18) Kai Trump's "just a regular girly" era and Tiffany Trump's strange tragedy * (53:23) The takeaway: don't apologize, don't be boring, and if you have money, do something good TRANSCRIPT Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ghO5c8muWn77GzbPfNGP84l06ixrr8RNt4URRQDdn8/edit?usp=sharing [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ghO5c8muWn77GzbPfNGP84l06ixrr8RNt4URRQDdn8/edit?usp=sharing]  Connect with Mary: * Website: www.marymmahoney.com [http://www.marymmahoney.com] * Instagram: @mimimahoney [https://www.instagram.com/mimimahoney/?hl=en] * Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com [MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com] Connect with Fran: * Read Fran’s Book! [https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781523530465] The Field Guide to Nepo Babies (https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781523530465 [https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781523530465] )  * Subscribe to Fran Magazine: https://franmagazine.substack.com/ [https://franmagazine.substack.com/]  * Website: https://www.franhoepfner.fyi/ [https://www.franhoepfner.fyi/]  * Instagram: @franhoepfner [https://www.instagram.com/franhoepfner/?hl=en#]   Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm [http://libro.fm]. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb [https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb] )  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Anne of Green Gables: The One and Only (A Love Letter to the Miniseries starring Megan Follows)

Is your life a perfect graveyard of buried hopes? Have I got the episode for you! This month, I sit down with fellow historian and lifelong Anne devotee Samantha to talk about the thing that started it all: Kevin Sullivan's 1985 miniseries adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, starring Megan Follows. They get into what it meant to find Anne as a girl, why it still hits different as an adult, the queerness you can absolutely read into it if you're paying attention, the absolutely wild copyright drama that shaped the whole Kevin Sullivan universe, and what Lucy Maud Montgomery's own life might tell us about why she wrote the story she did. Plus: trivia, a trip to PEI, a lunch with Lucy Maud Montgomery's actual granddaughter (and what it's like to attend a conference with her descendants), and a very firm stance on Part Three. Long episode. Worth every minute. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney [https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

"Does She Sing?" Sarah, Plain and Tall and the History of “Wives Wanted” with Sara Petersen

We need to talk about Sarah, Plain and Tall. Yes, the children's book. Yes, it will make you cry. I'm joined by the brilliant Sara Petersen — writer of the In Pursuit of Clean Countertops newsletter and author of Momfluenced — to revisit Patricia MacLachlan's 1985 masterpiece, and I promise we are not being dramatic when we say it holds up. It more than holds up. It destroys you. We get into the very real and very wild 19th-century practice of advertising for a wife (one man received 794 letters, 13 daguerreotypes, and one thimble — just leaving that there), why Sarah Wheaton is a genuinely subversive heroine who would absolutely not survive the Ballerina Farm comment section, and what tradwife culture fundamentally misunderstands about what life on the prairie actually looked like for women. Spoiler: it was not sourdough and calico aesthetics. It was getting on the roof. We also talk grief and longing, Frontier House (the PBS show that radicalized a generation of history nerds), the Hemingway comparisons this book actually deserves, and why a scene involving three colored pencils might be the most emotionally efficient ending in American literature. Stay tuned for a future 411 episode connecting all of this to the longer history of Wives Wanted culture — and yes, 90 Day Fiancé. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney [https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney]  TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – Introduction: Why Sarah, Plain and Tall made us cry  05:30 – The real history of Wives Wanted ads (794 letters, 24 shirt buttons, one thimble)  13:00 – What this book is actually about: grief, longing, and Caleb's unanswerable question  22:00 – The yellow bonnet arrives: why Sarah puts everyone at ease immediately  27:00 – Tradwives vs. homesteaders: what trad wife culture gets completely wrong about the past  36:00 – Frontier House, Doctor Quinn, and our shared disease of prairie nostalgia  44:00 – The colored pencils ending, and why Patricia McLachlan is a genius TRANSCRIPT Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1543EYkJM9RvhFTP3nh0Dy_mxzQOPO5DhxlLoINm0fUk/edit?usp=sharing [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1543EYkJM9RvhFTP3nh0Dy_mxzQOPO5DhxlLoINm0fUk/edit?usp=sharing]  Connect with Mary: * Website: www.marymmahoney.com [http://www.marymmahoney.com] * Instagram: @mimimahoney [https://www.instagram.com/mimimahoney/?hl=en] * Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com [MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com] Connect with Sara: * Website: https://sara-petersen.com/ [https://sara-petersen.com/]  * Twitter/X: @slouisepetersen * Instagram: @slouisepetersen  * Book: Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture [https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9780807093382] * Newsletter: In Pursuit of Clean Countertops [https://www.patreon.com/cw/SaraPetersen] * Podcast: Clean Countertops [https://pod.link/1872096797] Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm [http://libro.fm]. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb [https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb] )  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.