American Icons: Superman
Kurt Andersen goes up, up and away with Superman and finds out why "The Man of Steel" remains as popular and elusive as ever.
Kurt Andersen goes up, up and away with Superman and finds out why "The Man of Steel" remains as popular and elusive as ever.
Kurt Andersen goes up, up and away with Superman and finds out why "The Man of Steel" remains as popular and elusive as ever.
“Migrant Mother” was one of thousands of pictures Dorothea Lange took on assignment for the federal government, documenting the poverty of the Dust Bowl. Before it had that iconic title, the 1936 photo was captioned “Destitute peapickers in California.” But this was the one that stuck ...
In the ballad, told countless times over more than a century, the railroad worker John Henry wins a race against a new steam-powered drill, but the victory is Pyrrhic: he collapses, saying “Give me a cool drink of water before I die.” “Did he win? Did he lose?,” wonders novelist Colson Whitehead ...
Susan Eloise Hinton was a teenager when she wrote The Outsiders, the story of rival gangs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She used the pen name “S.E.” so readers wouldn’t know she was a girl, and bought a Camaro with the earnings. “Some of [the novel’s] faults, like its over-the-top emotions and ...
Emily Dickinson is one of those writers whose life is as famous as her writing: after she died, having spent much of her life writing at home, her sister found nearly two thousand poems in her bureau. "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," Dickinson’s fantasy of getting picked up by the grim reaper ...
It set the model for the hit family sitcom. Lucy's weekly antics and humiliation entered the DNA of TV comedy: from Desperate Housewives to 30 Rock – writers can’t live without Lucy.
Kurt Andersen follows the yellow brick road through America’s favorite story and discovers places in the Land of Oz more wonderful, and weirder, than you ever imagined.
Around 1961, Andy Warhol started painting cans of Campbell's soup, in all 32 varieties. He liked to tell people that his mother made him Campbell's soup and that's why he painted it. The soup cans are probably the most recognizable images in American art, and Warhol intended ...
Dallas has been off the air for 20 years but it's still considered one of the most successful television shows in history. Next month the cable network TNT will launch a new season of the series. We sent Julia Barton to Southfork Ranch (and beyond) to understand ...
Susan Eloise Hinton was a teenager when she wrote The Outsiders, the story of rival gangs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She used the pen name “S.E.” so readers wouldn’t know she was a girl, and bought a Camaro with the earnings. “Some of [the novel’s] faults, like its over-the-top emotions and ...
This is the home of America’s aspirations and its deepest contradictions. Thomas Jefferson was as passionate about building his house as he was about founding the United States. Yet Monticello was a plantation worked by slaves, some of them Jefferson’s own children.
In this Peabody Award-winning show, Kurt Andersen sets sail in search of the great white whale.
Twenty years ago this month, a new sound blasted the cobwebs out of every radio station in America. It was angry and bracingly cynical; the album featured a naked baby swimming toward a dollar bill dangling on a fish hook, and it went #1 in the blink of an eye. In the words of music scholar Joshua Clover ...
When Malcolm X was assassinated at 39, his book nearly died with him. Today it stands as a milestone in America’s struggle with race.
It set the model for the hit family sitcom. Lucy's weekly antics and humiliation entered the DNA of TV comedy: from Desperate Housewives to 30 Rock – writers can’t live without Lucy.
He was the most famous American in the world – a showman and spin artist who parlayed a buffalo-hunting gig into an entertainment empire. William F. Cody’s stage show presented a new creation myth for America.
It’s been a century-and-a-half since a minstrel tune called “Dixie” debuted in New York. The song went viral, and soon North and South alike were whistling “Dixie.” With the outbreak of the Civil War, “Dixie” became an anthem of the antebellum way of life. And today we are still fighting over “Dixie.”
"Dallas" has been off the air for 20 years but it's still considered one of the most successful television shows in history. Studio 360 listener Laura Detre nominated “Dallas” on our American Icons website, and we liked her idea so much, we went to Southfork Ranch to understand how Dallas changed the way the world sees America.
Kurt Andersen explores how episodes of false identity, living large, and murder in the suburbs add up to the great American novel.
Using a whammy bar and a fuzz box, Hendrix captured the sound of bombs falling overseas and screaming protestors. “I didn’t think it was unorthodox,” Hendrix said. “I thought it was beautiful.”