TR-50546-14 NEH Application Cover Sheet America's Media Makers PROJECT DIRECTOR Mr. R. Andrew Higgins Wyndham E-mail:[email protected] Director, VFH Media Programs Phone(W): 434-924-6894 145 Ednam Drive Phone(H): Charlottesville, VA 22903-4629 Fax: 434-296-4714 UNITED STATES Field of Expertise: Literature: British Literature INSTITUTION Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA UNITED STATES APPLICATION INFORMATION Title: BackStory with the American History Guys--Finding the American Way (series) Grant Period: From 5/2014 to 4/2016 Field of Project: History: U.S. History Description of Project: BackStory with the American History Guys, a national, weekly one-hour broadcast show and podcast???-a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) at the University of Virginia--requests an America???s Media Makers grant of $234,868. Funds will be used to produce a special series of 22 radio programs that will ultimately comprise three mini-series. Under the banner "Finding the American Way," the grant-funded episodes will be paired with lesson plans and packaged for educational purposes. Partners include the National Council for History Education, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and HISTORY (History Channel). BUDGET Outright Request $234,868.00 Cost Sharing $1,131,617.00 Matching Request Total Budget $1,366,485.00 Total NEH $234,868.00 GRANT ADMINISTRATOR Mr. Robert M. Merhige E-mail:[email protected] Director, Grants and Contracts Phone(W): 434-924-4270 1001 North Emmett Street Fax: 434-982-3096 PO Box 400195 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4195 UNITED STATES BackStory with the American History Guys TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS -Page 1 2. PROJECT NARRATIVE A. Program Description -Page 3 B. Content and Creative Approach -Page 6 C. Episodes -Page 16 D. Audience -Page 18 E. Format -Page 18 F. Rights and Permissions -Page 18 G. Distribution Plan -Page 18 H. Scholar/Collaborators & Program Hosts -Page 20 I. Media Staff -Page 21 J. Progress -Page 21 K. Work Plan & Production Model -Page 22 L. Evaluation -Page 22 M. Fundraising -Page 22 N. Organizational History -Page 23 3. TREATMENT/DESIGN DOCUMENT A. Contents: Finding the American Way -Page 24 B. Series I. Americans at Work -Page 26 C. Series II. American Believers -Page 48 D. Series III. Americans in the Public Square -Page 75 4. IMAGES -Page 101 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY -Page 107 6. RÉSUMÉS & COMMITMENTS -Page 125 A. Résumés of Media Producers -Page 126 B. Résumés of Hosts/Scholars -Page 138 C. Letters of Commitment /Media Hosts -Page 145 D. LETTERS/PARTNERING AGENCIES -Page 152 7. WORK SAMPLE -Page 153 8. BUDGET FORM -Page 154 (Continued, over) GRANT11474733 -- Attachments-ATT1-1234-CONTENTS.pdf 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS, continued APPENDICES (Internal page numbering) APPENDIX A. LETTERS Part 1—Letters from Scholars Part 2—Letters from Administrators & Humanities Professionals Part 3—Letters from Public Radio Professionals B. FANMAIL C. GUESTS D. WORKPLAN-details E. BROADCASTS/STATIONS F. EPISODES G. HISTORY H. BIBLIOGRAPHY GRANT11474733 -- Attachments-ATT1-1234-CONTENTS.pdf II. NARRATIVE A. Introduction, Program Description & Nature of Request Public radio’s contemporary take on American history, BackStory with the American History Guys is a national, weekly one-hour broadcast show and podcast—a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) at the University of Virginia. BackStory/VFH requests an America’s Media Makers grant of $234,868, toward a combined BackStory budget of $1,366,485 for fiscal 2015 and 2016. Funds will be used to produce a special series of 22 radio programs— 15 new and 7 repurposed—that will ultimately comprise three mini-series. The shows will focus on how America’s defining ideas, emerging social movements, and evolving conception of personal rights have been expressed and contested in the spheres of work, religious belief, and civic life. As they are produced during two years, the episodes will be integrated into BackStory’s progression of 104 weekly broadcasts and podcasts—reaching a broad national and international audience. Under the banner Finding the American Way, the grant-funded episodes will additionally be packaged and promoted for educational purposes. They will be paired with lesson plans, with shows also divided into topical segments suited for use in the classroom. The thematically linked shows and audio segments will be made available and promoted as resources in collaboration with the National Council for History Education, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and HISTORY (History Channel), as well as via BackStory’s website, social media, and various instructional sites. Added to other episodes in BackStory’s archive, the Finding the American Way series will in particular constitute a valuable educational resource, an asset available to teachers and students for years to come. Presented in BackStory’s signature style, linking present and past, moving from today’s headlines to drill down into U.S. history in an accessible way, the three program series— American Believers, Americans at Work, and Americans in the Public Square—will be led by BackStory’s hosts, historians Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, and Peter Onuf. These scholars use everyday language to plumb historical depths, delving deeply into the complexities of a topic from a variety of perspectives, providing synthesis and analysis. The trio delivers deeply informed talk, spanning three centuries of American history. Offering lively, non-partisan conversation—an exploration of ideas, events, and their continuing impact on us—they debate each other, introducing diverging historical interpretations. They also engage listeners who call in; introduce topical features; and interview many other nationally recognized scholars in the humanities, additionally tapping into a range of on-the-ground experts, from the conventional to the offbeat. From episode to episode in Finding the American Way, Ed, Brian, Peter, and their guests will investigate how work life, religious expression, and civic aspirations have shaped American lives and history, bumping up against fundamental questions of freedom, equity, race, gender, individual rights, cultural pluralism, federalism and the struggle to sustain a national community. On the air or on the web, the resulting programs, evincing aspects of American identity, will highlight the nature of interpretation—introducing broadcast listeners, podcasters, teachers and student scholars to novel ways of thinking about America’s past in light of current happenings and attitudes. BackStory isn’t history the way some experience it—a long march of names and dates. Moving GRANT11474733 -- Attachments-ATT2-1235-NARRATIVE.pdf 4 from today’s headlines, the show brings historical perspective to daily events, focusing on such wide-ranging topics as the history of marriage, extreme weather, birthing, time, home ownership, apocalyptic thinking, college sports, alcohol, the post office, the War of 1812, emigration, American exceptionalism, the Mississippi river, and data collection, among many others (a complete listing of BackStory’s weekly episodes through July 2013 appears in Appendix F). The show gives listeners a new sense of chronology—one founded on an appreciation of how movements, ideas, and experience intersect, ebb and flow, and are transformed over time. The hosts explain and illustrate how things were, back in the day, using the passage of time as a medium of reflection—thinking broadly and synthetically about change in American history. The result: Radio that has the easy style of a stimulating chat with bright friends around the kitchen table. BACKSTORY ON THE AIR The program’s approach appeals to a broad audience and continues to gain fans: BackStory launched as a weekly in May, 2012 (the show was previously produced monthly) and is already regularly broadcast by 36 primary public radio stations, serving 72 communities in 20 states and Washington, D.C. Among these are WBEZ, Chicago; WAMU, Washington; KSTX, San Antonio; WFYI, Indianapolis; Vermont Public Radio, WHRV, Norfolk; KVCR, San Bernardino; KCPW, Salt Lake City; WSNC, Winston-Salem; KUOW-HD, Seattle; and WABE-HD, Atlanta. More than 40 public stations, many in major markets, also regularly air the program as a “special”—among these, WLRN, Miami; KNPR, Las Vegas; WCPN, Cleveland; WFPL, Louisville; WWNO, New Orleans; WFIU, Bloomington; KBSX, Boise; KSFC, Spokane; KUOW-FM, Seattle; and WABE-FM, Atlanta. In the Washington, DC, Metro market, as ranked this spring by Arbitron, BackStory is the number one show for its Sunday morning time period on WAMU, with an audience share of 20.5; since the show began running on WAMU in July 2012, the number of listeners for its time spot has increased by more than fifty percent. In Chicago, where BackStory runs early Sunday evening, WBEZ’s fall audience was up 51 percent for its time slot and was holding the audience of the show that precedes it (Car Talk) so well that the station’s marketing department approached us about scheduling a live promotional event in that city. Meanwhile, Vermont Public Radio reported a doubling of their fall Arbitron numbers for BackStory, suggesting the breadth of the show’s demographic appeal. And at WMRA, Harrisonburg—just over the mountain from our home base in Charlottesville—news was that not only had BackStory multiplied the station’s audience several-fold from fall surveys of the last two years but was also drawing more than double the audience of the programs that precede and follow its broadcast at 4:00 PM on Sundays. BACKSTORY ON THE WEB VFH is positioning BackStory as an important addition to the cultural conversation of the country, working to increase engagement with historical issues in everyday life, as well as the classroom. To address the needs and potentials, BackStory pays special attention to building its presence in the rapidly expanding online market for digital audio. With a significant and growing Internet presence, the program solicits and responds to web-based comments by way of the In the Works and Pitch a Show sections at backstoryradio.org, show development in dialogue with the digital community.