Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
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About This Podcast
First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm
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Recent Episodes
30 Years of Teenage Diaries
This year marks 30 years since we first worked with teenagers to record stories about their lives. Over the years, people have often asked us, whatever happened to them? What happened to Juan,…
The Almost Astronaut
When it comes to the space race, we all know names like Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin. But in most moments in history, there are a few names that fall through the cracks. One of those names is Ed…
Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair
This episode includes topics and archival audio that some people will find disturbing.Seventy-five years ago, on the night of May 7th, 1951, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse…
Sealab: A Home on the Ocean Floor
From ancient myths of sea monsters lurking below to Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the ocean has long been both a source of fear and fascination. For Captain George Bond, a Navy…
Guest Spotlight: William Parker's War on Slave Catchers
This week we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel.April 3, 1951. A man who escaped slavery is grabbed off the streets of Boston and thrown…
Detained: A Homecoming
Last week, Leqaa Kordia, young Palestinian woman from Paterson, New Jersey, walked out of an ICE detention center in Texas. Kordia had been held for more than a year. Radio Diaries has been following…
The Real Refugees of Casablanca
When the Hollywood classic, Casablanca, was released in 1943, moviegoers were thrilled by the love story. Humphrey Bogart stars as the cynical owner of Rick’s Cafe, a nightclub in Morocco. Ingrid…
Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 3: The Trial
This is the final episode of our series about Isaac Woodard, a Black soldier who was beaten and blinded by a white police officer in 1946. In the last episode, radio host Orson Welles, who was…
Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 2: Officer X
Last week, we shared the story of Isaac Woodard, a Black soldier who was brutally beaten by a white police officer in South Carolina. No one knew the name of the police officer. Or even the town…
Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 1: The Bus Ride
On February 12, 1946, a Black soldier was heading home from WWII when he was brutally beaten by a white police officer in South Carolina. No one knew the identity of the police officer. No one even…
TRAILER: Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier
On February 12, 1946, an African American soldier heading home from WWII was attacked by a white police officer somewhere in South Carolina. The soldier's name was Isaac Woodard.No one knew the…
Remembering Claudette Colvin
A little over a decade ago, we went to interview a woman at her small one-bedroom apartment in a sprawling complex in the Bronx. She was living a quiet and somewhat anonymous life. But many years…
The First Computer Dating Service: Operation Match
Looking for love is an art, not a science. People have been trying to crack the code, with mixed success, for a long time. This week we're going back to the 1960s, when a couple Harvard students had…
This Short Life
Today on the show, we sit down with photographer Andrew Lichtenstein to discuss his new book, THIS SHORT LIFE, which combines photo essays with audio testimonies about 12 Americans, from a West…
Detained: The Last Columbia Protester
In April 2024, over 100 students were arrested during protests outside Columbia University, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Leqaa Kordia, a young Palestinian woman living in Paterson, New Jersey,…
Identical Strangers
Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were both born in New York City and adopted as infants. When they were 35 years old, they met and found they were “identical strangers.”This story originally aired on…
The Gospel Ranger
This is the story of a song, "Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down." It was written by a 12-year-old boy on what was supposed to be his deathbed. But the boy didn't die. Instead, he went on to…
The Working Tapes, Revisited
In the early 1970s, author Studs Terkel interviewed the owners of Duke & Lee's Auto Repair in Geneva, Illinois, for his bestselling book, Working. He went to talk to them about fixing cars. What…
The Last Place
When you spend so much of your life moving around, getting to the next chapter, what's it like to find yourself in the last place?This week, we revisit audio diaries from a retirement home. Learn…
The View from the 79th Floor
Eighty years ago, on July 28, 1945, an Army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound…
Frequently Asked Questions
Radio Diaries has published 268 episodes since May 2013, covering topics in Documentary, Society & Culture.
Radio Diaries is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 19m.
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