Tracing The Path: The Connected 20th Century

Dan R. Morris - 20th Century Historian
  • 5.0 (16)
  • History
  • Updated Monthly

Tracing The Path is a 20th Century History podcast exploring how ordinary people, products, ideas, events, and places unexpectedly shaped the modern world. Every episode begins with something familiar—a word, a company, a song, an invention, a historical event, or a cultural phenomenon—and follows the surprising chain of connections that made it matter. Why did a grocery store change the course of the Cold War? How did a simple greeting become part of everyday life? What do advertising agencies, world leaders, musicians, inventors, and soft drink companies have in common? More than you might think. Hosted by award-winning storyteller Dan R. Morris, Tracing The Path connects familiar people, products, events, and places you never knew were linked, bringing together the forgotten figures, unexpected decisions, remarkable coincidences, and cultural turning points that shaped the 20th Century—and continue to influence our lives today. Inspired by the storytelling traditions of Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt, Charles Osgood, and Garrison Keillor, each episode approaches 20th Century History not as a collection of isolated events, but as an interconnected story waiting to be traced. The individual pieces of these stories may already be known. What makes Tracing The Path different is the way those pieces are brought together—creating stories you've never heard before about things you thought you already knew. Whether we're exploring world-changing inventions, iconic brands, cultural turning points, political upheavals, or everyday objects with extraordinary histories, the result is designed to leave you with that rare feeling: “I had no idea.” Because the modern world didn't appear overnight. Someone built it. Something changed it. And everything is connected. New episodes monthly, plus bonus Addendum episodes featuring the stories that didn't make the final cut. Visit TracingThePath.com for episode transcripts, discussion questions, trivia, and additional resources.

  1. 4d ago

    1/2 Cup of American History

    What can a recipe tell us about American history? A lot more than what’s for dinner. In this episode of Tracing the Path, we follow the American recipe from handwritten collections and community cookbooks to corporate test kitchens, radio programs, recipe contests, and the cards tucked inside kitchen boxes. Along the way, we’ll discover how recipes helped sell bananas, why suffragists published cookbooks, how a pincushion promotion helped create Betty Crocker, how Tupperware transformed the American kitchen, and how a second-place cake at the Pillsbury Bake-Off turned an obscure baking pan into an American icon. Because a recipe doesn’t just tell you how to make something. Look closely enough, and it can tell you what Americans were buying, what technology they had, how companies marketed to them, how women were identified, and even what was happening in the country at the time. It turns out you can teach a surprising amount of American history with just 1/2 cup.

    1/2 Cup of American History

  2. Aug 4

    The Conversation: Pepsi Cracked the Iron Curtain

    Today we're looking at some of the wow! moments from the Pepsi episode. Specifically we're going deeper on the Pepsi Refresh Superbowl campaign, Pepsi's Navy, the Marriott Loan and the time capsule that is a Pepsi Can Collection.

    The Conversation: Pepsi Cracked the Iron Curtain

  3. Jul 31

    When Pepsi Cracked the Iron Curtain

    The Cold War wasn't fought only with missiles. It was also fought with supermarkets, television cameras, vodka, and a simple paper cup filled with Pepsi. This month, Tracing The Path follows the surprising chain of events that led an American soft drink behind the Iron Curtain—and a Russian vodka into American liquor stores. Along the way you'll discover the forgotten friendship between Russia and the United States, the invention of videotape by Ampex, the famous Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, and the remarkable business deal that briefly made Pepsi the owner of the world's seventh-largest navy. It's the story of how commerce, technology, and ordinary consumer products accomplished what politics often could not. And why, decades later, Vladimir Putin chose to reverse nearly all of it.

    When Pepsi Cracked the Iron Curtain

  4. Jun 30

    The Hero at the Edge of the Map

    No matter what hero story you read or hear, the location it takes place will be in total alignment with the era it was written. And it has changed over time because society always pushes the hero to face the unknown at the edge of the map. In today's episode we cross paths with Homer, Daniel LaRusso, John Steinbeck, Edgar Rice Burroughs, George Lucas, HG Wells, Joseph Campbell, Shrek and Galileo.

    The Hero at the Edge of the Map

  5. May 30

    One Step Leads to Another

    Today's episode is Part 3 of our Origin Story Series about the start of Tracing The Path. Today's story touches on Russia's Yuri Andropov, Mark Twain, Bram Stoker, Nicolae Ceaușescu the Austro Hungarian Empire, the University of Nebraska, Auschwitz, the Sound of Music and the concept of manifestation.

    One Step Leads to Another

  6. May 2

    The Conversation: Yeltsin's Grocery Revolution

    In today's episode we discussion the evolution of grocery stores, as discussed in Episode 78. Life in Romania, automatic sliding doors, Walgreens lighting, Rachel's dads inventions and the plight of A&P.

    The Conversation: Yeltsin's Grocery Revolution

  7. Apr 30

    Yeltsin's Grocery Revolution

    When Boris Yeltsin came to the United States in 1989 to speak, visit with the President and see the Statue of Liberty, his entire outlook on the world changed in one :20 minute moment. But it wasn't NYC or Miami or President Bush. It was Randall's Grocery Store in Webster Texas.  This is the story of the history of that moment. In this episode we cross paths with Marjorie Merriwether Post, IBM, Spectra-Physics, Wrigley's Gum, James J. Hill, Clarence Saudners, Williams Leslie Maxson, Boris Yeltsin and Grape Nuts.

    Yeltsin's Grocery Revolution

  8. Apr 1

    The Conversation: World's Best Music

    Are those really the world's most famous tunes? Rachel and I discuss the "easter eggs" of the show, whether they are songs and more ludicrousness.  Foreigner, Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday . . . what do you think?

    The Conversation: World's Best Music
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5
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

Tracing The Path is a 20th Century History podcast exploring how ordinary people, products, ideas, events, and places unexpectedly shaped the modern world. Every episode begins with something familiar—a word, a company, a song, an invention, a historical event, or a cultural phenomenon—and follows the surprising chain of connections that made it matter. Why did a grocery store change the course of the Cold War? How did a simple greeting become part of everyday life? What do advertising agencies, world leaders, musicians, inventors, and soft drink companies have in common? More than you might think. Hosted by award-winning storyteller Dan R. Morris, Tracing The Path connects familiar people, products, events, and places you never knew were linked, bringing together the forgotten figures, unexpected decisions, remarkable coincidences, and cultural turning points that shaped the 20th Century—and continue to influence our lives today. Inspired by the storytelling traditions of Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt, Charles Osgood, and Garrison Keillor, each episode approaches 20th Century History not as a collection of isolated events, but as an interconnected story waiting to be traced. The individual pieces of these stories may already be known. What makes Tracing The Path different is the way those pieces are brought together—creating stories you've never heard before about things you thought you already knew. Whether we're exploring world-changing inventions, iconic brands, cultural turning points, political upheavals, or everyday objects with extraordinary histories, the result is designed to leave you with that rare feeling: “I had no idea.” Because the modern world didn't appear overnight. Someone built it. Something changed it. And everything is connected. New episodes monthly, plus bonus Addendum episodes featuring the stories that didn't make the final cut. Visit TracingThePath.com for episode transcripts, discussion questions, trivia, and additional resources.

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