PODCAST

Photo of the Day Podcast

Brenda Elthon

A little history. look.substack.com

history

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3:06

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/08

It is June 10, 1861.On June 8, Tennessee voters went to the polls and chose to secede from the Union in an election marred with allegations of fraud.But military mobilization in Tennessee, under the pro-secession governor, has been underway for weeks.A Nashville man whose name is P. Burns is writing to his friend Ann in Missouri.Arrived in my old State of Tennessee [after traveling] and never saw the like.Men, women and children are imbued with the spirit of war. Get full access to Photo of the Day

4:02

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/07

It is the summer of 1929.Winston Churchill is crisscrossing Canada and the US on a three-month lecture tour.A mere member of Parliament and no longer serving in government, he was preparing to write a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, the famous general who had led British armies to victory over the French two hundred years before.Beginning in Canada, then heading south, to California, Churchill met titans in the American financial world and Hollywood royalty.And while many were

4:45

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/05

Allied air forces have struck the German war machine over the past two days.Targets included the Krupps factory in Essen, which manufactures tanks, artillery, naval guns, armor plate, munitions, and submarines for the German military.Also struck was the Renault vehicle factory in Billancourt, near occupied Paris.Marshall Pétain, the Vichy head of state in occupied France, decried the Billancourt attack.Pétain claimed that he, and not De Gaulle, the ‘émigré rebel chief in London,’ was providing

2:11

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/04

Today, a parable of leaders and their people.Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

1:49

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/03

“The uninitiated might tell you that Christmas is the best day of the year because you get things.But old hands at the Christmas thing know that it frequently disappoints.The gifts are small and predictable and they set parents off in a squabble about spending money.But nobody ever squabbles about the circus coming to town.Hot off the train, they march up Main Street like a royal procession. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

1:58

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/02

It is June 6, 1944.Photographer Robert Capa is aboard a troop ship heading towards Omaha Beach.He will be the only civilian photographer to document the D-Day landings. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

3:40

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/04/01

It is August 27, 1930.John Beemster, the secretary of a Chicago charity, is writing to President Hoover.It is a difficult time.The stock market crash happened ten months ago.Since then, banks have begun to fail and people are losing their savings.Factory production has begun to decline, businesses are closing and unemployment is rising.In the spring, a severe drought struck the Plains.Crops and livestock were lost and some farmers, especially renters, are abandoning their land.Other countries have

3:04

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/31

It is July 18, 1863.Confederate soldier George Robinson is writing to his wife, Elvira, from a convalescent camp in Virginia where he is recovering from a fever.George enlisted with a South Carolina infantry unit thirteen months ago.On July 2, his unit assaulted Federal forces in a peach orchard near Gettysburg on the second day of the three-day battle. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

5:10

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/29

Three Munich University students were executed last week after the Gestapo discovered a cell of activists there who were writing and distributing anti-Nazi literature on campus.The Gestapo then closed the university for a day, and when it reopened, many students were missing, suggesting that others have been arrested.This comes one month after siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, members of the White Rose student resistance group on the Munich campus, were beheaded for posting anti-Nazi flyers. Get full

4:00

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/28

It is July 2, 1863, and the afternoon temperature in Gettysburg has reached the low 80s.Daniel Sickles, the commander of a Federal force of ten thousand men, has set up his field headquarters on the outskirts of town beneath a large swamp white oak on Peter Trostle’s farm.The shade of the oak tree, then seventy-five years old and of good size, offered a welcome respite from the damp heat wafting across the open farm fields.Rain was coming. Get full access to Photo of the Day at

3:08

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/27

It is March 9, 1865.Iowa farmer Jozef Kostlan, a recent immigrant, is writing to his family in Bohemia, whom he left in the 1850s.His journey to America had begun on an emigrant ship in Bremen, Germany, then a major debarkation port for European emigrants.After arriving in New York, he took a six-day train trip to Chicago, followed by another train trip to Cedar Rapids, in eastern Iowa, a place in which many Czech immigrants had settled.After years of effort, Jozef owns an eighty-acre farm and five

2:23

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/26

“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.In the history of the earth, the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir.Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night.Here is action untied from strings, necessarily blind to particulars and details, magnificently moving in masses.Here is the hospitality which for ever indicates heroes. Get full access to Photo of the Day at

1:59

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/25

It was a young man’s war.The story is written on their faces.And the old man, Edward Steichen, took their pictures.No glory shots.Just ‘a day in the life’ of young warriors Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

2:57

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/24

It is July 9, 1876.Army Captain Thomas Tolman is writing to his brother from Fort Sully, in the Dakota Territory.George Armstrong Custer and his company have been dead for two weeks.Two years earlier, Custer had led an expedition of a thousand cavalry soldiers, Indian scouts, journalists and gold miners to the Dakota’s Black Hills, in violation of a treaty with the Sioux, to investigate reports of gold deposits there.Tom’s letter tells a tale of dashed hopes.The government’s treaty violation to

4:32

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/22

Armored units of the US Third and Seventh Armies have smashed through disorganized German defenses in southwestern Germany.The American advance has narrowed the German escape route to the east to twenty miles.American aircraft have pounded German convoys heading East, destroying hundreds of vehicles of all types, including 82 horse-drawn vehicles.Between 30,000 to 45,000 German troops have been captured in the last 48 hours.Meanwhile, a radio report says the Americans have thrown up a huge

1:19

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/21

Today, some old words of resilience from William Ernest Henley which are said to have comforted Nelson Mandela during his long South African imprisonment.Out of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

2:38

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/20

It is October 19, 1842.Charles Dickens’s travel memoir of his six-month trip across North America has been published.It is a work filled with details of places and people, customs and institutions.And Dickens, ever the keen observer, finds much about America to admire.But American society has flaws, Dickens says.Among them is the love of the ‘good deal’ and the idolization of successful businessmen. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

2:34

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/19

It is Elvis Presley’s break-out year.He records his first number one hit, “Heartbreak Hotel,” appears on television and on the Las Vegas Strip, and signs a seven-picture movie deal with Paramount.Norma Jeane Mortenson changes her legal name to Marilyn Monroe.She marries playwright Arthur Miller and earns a Golden Globe nomination for her role in the film “Bus Stop.” Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

1:56

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/18

It is July 1931.Nineteen-year-old New York art student Jackson Pollock is writing to a friend about his cross-country hitchhiking trip home to Los Angeles for the summer.Evidence of the country’s slide into economic depression was everywhere to be seen.For this budding artist, the three-week trip is a joyful immersion in ‘local color.’“My trip was a peach.I got a number of kicks in the butt and put in jail twice with days of hunger, but what a worthwhile experience. Get full access to Photo of the

2:45

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day Podcast ·

2025/03/17

It is July 19, 1863.A soldier from New York named Calvin Haynes is writing to his wife, Lucy, from a Federal encampment in northern Virginia.Two weeks earlier, he had fought at Gettysburg, and he describes the battle in this letter.Dear Wife,We have had an awful march and a terrible battle.A great many of our boys were killed or wounded. Get full access to Photo of the Day at look.substack.com/subscribe

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Photo of the Day Podcast

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