The Story of the United States in 100 Objects

Timothy Griffiths
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Married non-historians Tim and Andrea dig through 250 years of American history, one object at a time. A rushed, ink-smudged broadside. A pair of Olympic running shoes. A rock from another world. Each episode, they pick one artifact, have it out about what it actually means, and try not to talk over each other while doing it. Some episodes they agree. Some episodes they don't. Either way, you get the real story behind the object, plus a running spirited conversation between two people who love this country, love each other, and are both a little too competitive about knowing the better fact. 100 objects. 250 years. One nation of imperfect people doing extraordinary things, narrated by two imperfect people who are pretty sure they are right.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    Object #3 - NY Waterway Ferry (Imperfect People Doing Heroic Things)

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. A commuter ferry that runs between New Jersey and Manhattan is named after a man who never captained a ship in his life. Tim and Andrea take on an object related to September 11, 2001, not a piece of wreckage, but the Father Mychal Judge, a NY Waterway ferry named for the FDNY chaplain who became Victim 0001, the first certified death of the attacks. They trace Judge's own story first: a Brooklyn kid who shined shoes at Penn Station, was ordained as a Franciscan priest, got sober through AA in the 1970s, spent his life ministering to the people the church and the country were least comfortable with, and ran straight into the North Tower to pray with the dying. Then they discuss a piece of history most people have never heard of, the largest maritime evacuation in American history, a Dunkirk-scale rescue of Lower Manhattan on 9/11 by hundreds of ordinary boat captains with no orders and no plan, a story that surprised even Tim (Andrea already knew it). The same boat later turned up pulling passengers out of the Hudson during Capt. Sully's landing. From there they widen out to the country's immediate reaction, the grounded skies, the filled blood banks, the sold-out flags, and close on the 9/11 Commission's own hard verdict on itself: the attacks "should not have come as a surprise." A ferry that runs the same river every day, named for a man who ran the other direction on the worst morning in the city's history.

  2. Sep 7

    Object #2 - "I Voted" Sticker (Every American's Civic Duty)

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Nobody can actually agree on who invented the "I Voted" sticker, and that might be the most American thing about it. Tim and Andrea trace the sticker back past its familiar 1987 design, sketched at a dining room table by a geologist named Janet Boudreau, through a 1920 women's suffrage button and a wave of "VOTE" branded gear made for a newly-enfranchised generation of 18 year olds in the 1970s. Then they zoom out from the sticker to the messier history underneath it, the open, sometimes violent public voting of the mid-1800s, and the slow shift to a private, secret ballot by the turn of the century. Along the way they run the actual numbers on who's eligible to vote versus who actually shows up, and the gap is worse than either of them expected going in. The episode closes back where the series started, tying the sticker to Episode 1's "all men are created equal" line through five constitutional amendments and the Voting Rights Act, the better part of two centuries spent trying to make that promise literally true at the ballot box. A two-cent sticker. A much bigger, still-unfinished argument about who actually gets a say.

  3. Aug 31

    Object #1 - The Dunlap Broadside (Birth Certificate for a Nation)

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Before the famous signed parchment existed, there was a rushed overnight print job that actually told America independence had been declared. Tim and Andrea open the series with the Dunlap Broadside, the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence, run off overnight by a 29 year old Irish immigrant printer working against a deadline set by men who had just committed treason. No signatures except two printed names. Ink smudges from being folded before it dried. A print run that historians still can't nail down to an exact number. And two of the best true stories in the whole 100 object list riding along with it: a $4 flea market frame that turned out to be worth 8.14 million dollars, and a spy's copy that sat quietly in British archives for 250 years before a researcher found it in 2026, catalogued as evidence against the very rebellion it now helps commemorate. It's history, plus marriage, plus an honest look at what "all men are created equal" didn't quite mean yet in 1776. Imperfect people. Extraordinary things. That's the whole show, starting right here.

    Object #1 - The Dunlap Broadside (Birth Certificate for a Nation)

  4. Season 1 Trailer

    Introductory Episode: We Started a History Podcast

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Welcome to The Story of the United States in 100 Objects. Before we get into the objects, artifacts, and arguments, Tim and Andrea sit down to introduce the show: what it is, why they're doing it, and what you can expect from the next 100 episodes. In this episode: Who Tim and Andrea are (married, competitive, self-described "non-historians")The idea behind the show: telling the story of America through 250 years of objects, from a rushed printer's broadside to a rock from another worldHow episodes will work, one object per episode, plus the running debate between two people who don't always agree on what it meansWhat's coming up first: Episode 1 will be a birth certificate. You'll have to subscribe to find out whose birth certificate it is.Thanks for being here for the introductory episode. Subscribe now so you don't miss Object #1.

    Introductory Episode: We Started a History Podcast

Trailer

About

Married non-historians Tim and Andrea dig through 250 years of American history, one object at a time. A rushed, ink-smudged broadside. A pair of Olympic running shoes. A rock from another world. Each episode, they pick one artifact, have it out about what it actually means, and try not to talk over each other while doing it. Some episodes they agree. Some episodes they don't. Either way, you get the real story behind the object, plus a running spirited conversation between two people who love this country, love each other, and are both a little too competitive about knowing the better fact. 100 objects. 250 years. One nation of imperfect people doing extraordinary things, narrated by two imperfect people who are pretty sure they are right.

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