Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, a wagon train heading west might carry dozens of families, hundreds of animals, and almost no formal government. Before setting out, the travelers had to decide who was in charge, how disputes would be settled, and what would happen if someone broke the rules. So they wrote constitutions. In mining camps, prospectors did much the same thing, establishing claims, assembling juries, and creating their own systems of justice when there was no sheriff or courthouse nearby.For our Rule of Law series, P.J. Hill, rancher and co-author of The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier, shares how Americans built order on the frontier from the ground up. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Our American Stories, John Jacob Astor arrived in America in 1784 with little money and an eye for opportunity. He began trading furs, built a commercial empire that stretched across the continent, and then made an even bigger bet on the future of New York City. As Manhattan expanded, the land Astor had quietly accumulated became extraordinarily valuable. By the time he died, the German immigrant who had started with nothing had become the richest man in America.Here’s the story of how an immigrant fur trader built the first great fortune in America. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Our American Stories, Americans eat roughly 4.5 million tons of bananas every year. They’re cheap, plentiful, and so ordinary that most of us toss a bunch into the shopping cart without giving them a second thought. But getting that banana onto the supermarket shelf required ships, railroads, enormous corporations, and a global trade that helped shape American involvement in Central America. The fruit even gave us the term “banana republic” and one of America’s favorite desserts: the banana split.Our regular contributor, The History Guy, shares the surprisingly complicated history behind one of America’s favorite fruits. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Our American Stories, Bob Huff grew up outside Dayton, Ohio, in a three-room house without indoor plumbing, raised largely by a single mother who taught him that when something needed to be done, you went to work. Years later, that lesson followed Bob and his wife, Lynn, into a struggling 35-bed nursing home they bought with $1,000 borrowed for the down payment. There was no staff of executives waiting for them. Bob and Lynn cooked meals, washed dishes, painted walls, cared for patients, and did whatever else was necessary to keep the place running.Bob shares how that first gamble became a lifetime of buying troubled nursing homes and rebuilding them around a simple principle: care for every patient as you would your own mother or father. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Our American Stories, Sidney Poitier arrived in New York as a teenager with almost nothing. He sometimes slept on rooftops and in pay toilets, worked as a dishwasher, and could barely read. When he auditioned for the American Negro Theater, he was thrown out and told to go find work washing dishes. Instead, Poitier taught himself to read, changed the way he spoke by imitating voices on the radio, and learned how to act. Within a decade, he was one of Hollywood's biggest stars.Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis history professor and author of Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon, shares the story of how a poor boy from the Bahamas became a groundbreaking American actor. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.