PODCAST · history
Abbreviated Bios
by Steven R. Yoder
Abbreviated Bios are short biographies of Americans and others, who made an impact on this country and who should be better known.
Episodes
-
George Gershwin: Pioneering Composer
George Gershwin took jazz and adapted it to classical music concertos. He was one of America's greatest composers.
-
Zebulon Pike, explorer and soldier
Zebulon Pike explored much of the Louisiana Purchase that Lewis and Clark missed. He was also a hero of the War of 1812.
-
Kenneth Roberts: Great American Historical Novelist
Kenneth Roberts wrote intense novels about the early years of the American Republic. He also tried to rehabilitate the reputation of American traitor Benedict Arnold.
-
Charles Drew: Pioneer in Plasma
Charles Drew trained himself to be the number one expert in blood storage. His innovations would later save millions of people.
-
General Samuel Armstrong: Mentor to Booker T. Washington
General Samuel Armstrong opened a school for former slaves after the Civil War to train them in how to make a living.
-
Joseph Warren: the forgotten Patriot Leader
Joseph Warren was one of the most important Patriot leaders in the events just prior to the American Revolution. He is mostly forgotten today because he died at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
-
George Chaffey: Irrigating Southern California
George Chaffey was a pioneer in irrigation. He developed towns in California and Australia, electrified them and created the Imperial Valley.
-
Benjamin Church: The hero of King Philip's War
Benjamin Church is known and the first army ranger and used those tactics to defeat King Philip's forces in the war of that name.
-
Charles Curtis: Native American Vice President
Charles Curtis started out life on an Indian Reservation and made it all the way to the Vice-Presidency.
-
George Bancroft: creating the U.S. Naval Academy
George Bancroft was America's first great historian but more importantly established the U.S. Naval Academy.
-
Timothy Dwight: Standing against French Deism
Timothy Dwight, as president of Yale, resisted the influence of French Revolution ideas, which resulted in revival breaking out.
-
Judith Reisman
Judith Reisman is the woman who exposed Alfred Kinsey's experiments as a fraud.
-
John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope was one of the last neo-classical architects in the U.S. The buildings he designed are some of the most beautiful in the country.
-
Robert Smalls: Using his slavery skills to escape
Robert Smalls, as a slave, was trained to be a wheelman on a steamboat. He would use those skills to escape and turn the ship over to the Union Navy.
-
George Wythe: The Founder who was Murdered
George Wythe was a founder who was far ahead of most of the others on race relations and wrote legal opinions to undermine slavery.
-
Nathaniel Hawthorne: America's First Great Writer
Nathaniel Hawthorne was America's first great novelist. He wrote one of the most required books to read in high school, The Scarlet Letter
-
James Wilkinson: The Spy Who got Away With It.
General James Wilkinson was for 12 years the senior soldier in the U.S. Army. All during that time, he was a paid agent of the Spanish empire. He was never definitively caught during his lifetime.
-
Russell Kirk
Russell Kirk was a public intellectual and writer who gave conservatism its name.
-
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley was a Soviet spy who switched to the American side, disrupting KGB operations throughout the U.S.
-
Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers was an important civil rights leader in Mississippi. He was assassinated in 1963.
-
Frederick T. Gates
Frederick Gates was the man most responsible for the rise in scientific medicine which led to Big Pharma.
-
David Hosack
David Hosack was not only the attending physician at the Hamilton-Burr duel, he also found the first botanic garden in America to train medical students. He was the first American doctor to regularly use the stethoscope.
-
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan, the Old Commoner, was a 3-time presidential candidate who later became a Secretary of State. Sadly, he is only remembered for a wildly inaccurate portrayal of him in the movie "inherit the Wind." Learn who he really was.
-
Andrew Mellon
Andrew Mellon served 3 Presidents as Secretary of State and helped create the Roaring 20s economy. He made a big profit from it, too.
-
Albert G. Spalding
Albert G. Spalding helped establish baseball as America's National Pastime and created a sporting goods company that still supplies sports equipment to people around the world.
-
Henry M. Morris
henry Morris is considered the "Father of Creation Science" and was partly responsible for the lessening belief in the theory of evolution.
-
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank experimented with plants by cross breeding them in order to create disease resistant and tastier fruits and vegetable, most of which we still eat today.
-
Henry J. Kaiser
Henry J. Kaiser was an amazing businessman who built dams, brought the steel industry to California, constructed ships during WWII, made the Jeep brand popular around the world and created the HMO.
-
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun is considered a villain of American History. He considered slavery to be a positive for society. Some progressives are stealing his ideas today.
-
Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warren was one of America's Founding Mothers and the writer of the first complete history of the American Revolution.
-
Gouverneur Morris
When we read the Constitution, we read Gouverneur Morris' words.
-
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an early American artist who founded the Hudson River School of landscape art. Since this is a painter and Anchor now supports, video, this episode is a video presentation.
-
Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Walker was the only woman ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. She was also considered a freak of nature in the 1800s for insisting on wearing pants. She accomplished a lot in her life.
-
James K. Polk
James K. Polk accomplished so many things for the U.S. in his one term that he should be considered one of America's great presidents. But few people have ever heard of him. You will, however, if you listen to this episode.
-
William Wells Brown
William Wells Brown wrote the first novel by an African American in America. It took on the topic of President Jefferson fathering children by one of his slaves.
-
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell explored the Colorado River by boat over the dangerous rapids of the Grand Canyon. He is also one of the reasons so many Dams were built in the west to save water.
-
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Thomas Nelson Jr. was a signer of the Declaration of Independence who lost his fortune because of his support of the Patriot cause. Yet he never regretted his actions.
-
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was a Conquistador stranded in North America during the 1530s. He went from Conquistador to slave to healer in his struggle to survive. The previous version of this had another episode attached. How? I don't know.
-
Frederick Funston
Frederick Funston, at 5 foot 4 and 115 pounds did not look like a great military officer. He overcame those perceptions to become an American hero of the Philippine insurrection.
-
William Seward
William Seward was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State and survived an assassination attempt on the same night Lincoln was killed.
-
Lew Wallace
Civil War general Lew Wallace wrote the best-selling American novel of the 1800s, Ben Hur.
-
Matthew Maury
Matthew Maury developed the scientific specialty of Oceanography and got the idea for it by reading the Bible.
-
James A. Garfield
Garfield was a brilliant and kind man who was shot 3 months into his presidency.
-
Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis Schlafly helped shape the modern Republican Party. Learn about her in this episode of Abbreviated Bios.
-
Stephen Collins Foster
Stephen Foster was the first great American songwriter who, unfortunately, died in obscurity.
-
Richard Mentor Johnson
Richard Mentor Johnson was the 9th Vice-President of the U.S. who had an unusual personal life for that time in U.S. History.
-
Introducing Abbreviated Bios Podcast
There will be a new Abbreviated Bio each week. Among the people being profiled in upcoming episodes will be James K. Polk, Richard Johnson, Calvin Coolidge, Benjamin Banneker, Phyllis Schlafly, and Pio Pico.
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Abbreviated Bios are short biographies of Americans and others, who made an impact on this country and who should be better known.
HOSTED BY
Steven R. Yoder
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Abbreviated Bios have?
Abbreviated Bios currently has 47 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Abbreviated Bios about?
Abbreviated Bios are short biographies of Americans and others, who made an impact on this country and who should be better known.
How often does Abbreviated Bios release new episodes?
Abbreviated Bios has 47 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Abbreviated Bios?
You can listen to Abbreviated Bios on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Abbreviated Bios?
Abbreviated Bios is created and hosted by Steven R. Yoder.
URL copied to clipboard!