Advertise on podcast: American History Tellers

By the fall of 1883, Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and his team had abandoned the safety of their fort on the shores of Lady Franklin Bay and begun a treacherous journey roughly 250 miles south down Ellesmere Island’s coast to Cape Sabine. There, Greely hoped a relief ship would be waiting for them. Failing that, he expected there to be caches of supplies that had been left to help his team survive the winter. But after weeks of navigating through dangerous ice floes, the men arrived at their destination only to face the crushing realization that they would have to endure another long Arctic winter with only minimal food and shelter.

In the late summer of 1882, it became clear to Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and his men that the ship scheduled to bring them additional supplies was not going to arrive before the seas froze and became impenetrable. As winter approached, the men hunkered down in their shelter, but tensions grew between them as they endured months of darkness. They held out hope for another ship in the summer of 1883, but little did they know that disaster had struck the crew that was sent to aid them. When the ship didn’t arrive by August, Greely faced a difficult decision to try to keep his men alive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1881, Army Lieutenant Adolphus Greely embarked with a team of men on a dangerous and ambitious journey over 1,000 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Their official mission was to collect scientific data on the Arctic climate, but Greely also harbored plans to break the record for reaching farther north than any human in recorded history. To prepare, Greely studied previous Arctic expeditions extensively and made meticulous plans to keep his men safe. But after arriving at their base, the remote location and harsh Arctic conditions soon made it clear that their mission would be more difficult than they imagined.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

More than 70 years have passed since ferries of immigrants arrived at Ellis Island. But the site is still alive with the memories of all those who entered full of hope for the future — and anxious to become Americans. In this episode, Lindsay is joined by two people who work at the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Foundation. Stephen Lean is the director of the Records Discovery Center, and Riley Dominianni is a research assistant there. Both have found that the archives can be surprisingly personal.  You can search for your family in the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Foundation’s database, the Arrival Records Collection, which contains records for Ellis island, but also for other points of entry across the U.S.— including Massachusetts, Florida, Hawaii, California, and more.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the immediate aftermath of America’s entry into World War I, federal agents began rounding up hundreds of German nationals and detaining them at Ellis Island, designating them as “alien enemies.” After the war, anti-immigrant sentiment intensified as eugenic theories of racial hierarchy gained popularity. By the 1920s, Americans were willing to accept sweeping changes to the nation’s immigration laws, with the introduction of quotas setting numerical limits on new arrivals. As the country closed the door on immigrants, Ellis Island was transformed into a facility for detention and deportation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt vowed to crack down on the corruption and mistreatment that plagued Ellis Island. He appointed William Williams as the new Commissioner of Immigration and tasked him with cleaning up the Immigration Service. But Williams’ strict interpretations of federal immigration law drew criticism from German American and Jewish community leaders. As immigration to the United States reached an all-time peak, Ellis Island became the primary battleground in a fierce national debate over what it meant to become American. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the 19th century, economic turmoil, political unrest, and religious persecution drove record numbers of Europeans to American shores — making New York City the busiest port of entry. But new immigrants faced a dizzying array of conmen and thieves eager to prey on their confusion. In 1892, the U.S. government reined in the chaos by establishing a federal immigration depot on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Over the next three decades, a small group of government inspectors would confront one of the largest mass migrations in the history of the world. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After a late-night police raid on the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ community fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village. Suddenly, the LGBTQ rights movement found itself catapulted onto the national stage.   But questions of how radical an approach to take would pit young activists against the pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s. Even with the formation of new organizations like the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, questions emerged. Would it be better to take part in the political process? Or to stage confrontational “zaps?” These new groups would soon be engulfed by in-fighting over goals, strategy, membership, and how the LGTBQ rights movement fit into the larger landscape of radical activism. Meanwhile, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson would form their own group – one that would speak directly to issues facing unhoused people, and the trans community in New York city. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resistance at restaurants in San Francisco and Philadelphia showcased the building tension as trans activists challenged long-standing policies of discrimination. But leading gay rights groups continued to stress a calm, non-confrontational approach to reform. That all changed in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn.  For police, it was just another raid, but this time would be different: the Stonewall’s patrons would fight back. The clashes on Christopher Street would become an uprising against police oppression with long-lasting reverberations for the LGBTQ rights movement. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the 1960s dawned, LGBTQ activists began to voice frustration with the gradual approach to civil rights advocated by groups like the Mattachine Society. If LGBTQ people wanted to make real progress, they concluded, they would need to take direct action — starting with tactics shared with the Black civil rights movement.  Through protests and sit-ins in places like New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco, LGBTQ activists started agitating for greater rights. They would tackle employment discrimination along with the widespread issues of police harassment, abuse, and entrapment, which targeted LGBTQ people nationwide.  But as white gay activists pushed for acceptance by a white, middle-class American majority, transgender activists and people of color faced even greater challenges related to their race and gender identity. They would respond by forging their own communities and strategies to protect themselves from harassment and violence. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the summer of 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked a riot on the streets of Greenwich Village. The protest marked a turning point in the gay rights movement. But the famed resistance in New York capped a movement that had been building for nearly two decades in America, as LGBTQ people mobilized to fight widespread and pervasive discrimination. In the years following World War II, members of the LGBTQ community faced broad discrimination — from strict laws that oppressed them, churches that declared their very existence sinful, and a government that demonized them. They would push back against the American Psychological Association, the FBI and finally, the courts. Slowly, LGBTQ activism would emerge from out of the closet and onto the American scene. This series follows strands of the gay rights movement in America from 1950 until 1970. But it’s just the beginning of a story about a fight for social and political equality — a battle that’s still being fought today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1894, a young Utah ranch hand named Robert LeRoy Parker – already going by the alias "Butch Cassidy" – was convicted of horse theft and sent to a Wyoming penitentiary. It was a minor crime that set the course for a much larger criminal career. After his release, he went on to earn a fearsome reputation as the mastermind of a gang of outlaws known as the Wild Bunch, before he and his partner, the Sundance Kid, led lawmen on an international manhunt that would cement his place as one of the West's most enduring legends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1875, Bass Reeves became one of the first Black men to serve as a deputy U.S. marshal in the West. Reeves had been born into slavery, but after a violent confrontation with his owner, he fled to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. There, for three decades he used his knowledge of Indian languages and his expert marksmanship to hunt down murderers, horse thieves, and bootleggers across 75,000 square miles of remote terrain. As stories of his exploits spread across the frontier, he would become one of the most renowned and feared lawmen in the history of the West. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1865, James Butler Hickok, an Army scout and itinerant gambler better known as “Wild Bill,” shot a man dead in the town square of Springfield, Missouri. The gunfight became known as the first recorded quick draw duel, and Hickok became famous overnight. He parlayed his newfound fame into a job as a deputy U.S. marshal, and before long he was one of the most recognizable lawmen on the frontier. But Hickok’s reputation as a fearless gunslinger and a high-stakes gambler put a target on his back – one that haunted him to the end of his days.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1821, a little-known backwoods hunter named David Crockett won a seat in the Tennessee legislature, despite having little formal education and virtually no political experience beyond his gift for spinning a good story. It marked an unlikely turning point for a man who would become a symbol of the American frontier, which was then rapidly expanding as settlers pushed into land long inhabited by Indigenous peoples.  Ultimately, Crockett's frontier persona would prove his greatest political asset, eventually carrying him all the way to Congress. But once there, he would break with his own party over Native removal, before heading to Texas for one final, fateful stand at the Alamo. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.