Episodes

  • The First Department of Education

    The First Department of Education
    Jun 12 2025
    Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as a way to help reunify a broken country. A year later, it was basically shut down. But the story of that first department's birth – and death – set the stage for everything that's come since.

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    48 mins
  • The Woman Behind The New Deal

    The Woman Behind The New Deal
    Jun 5 2025
    From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transformed how people in the U.S. lived and worked. Today on the show: how a middle class do-gooder became one of the savviest and most powerful people in American politics — and built the social safety net we have today.

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    49 mins
  • We the People: Search and Seizure

    We the People: Search and Seizure
    May 29 2025
    The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." But — what's unreasonable? That question has fueled a century's worth of court rulings that have dramatically expanded the power of individual police officers in the U.S. Today on the show, how an amendment that was supposed to limit government power has ended up enabling it. This episode originally published in 2024.

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    48 mins
  • War Crimes

    War Crimes
    May 22 2025
    On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two world wars, to the hallways of the Hague, to see how the modern world has tried to define — and prosecute — war crimes. This episode originally aired at "The Rules of War" in 2024.

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    51 mins
  • The Tax Collector

    The Tax Collector
    May 15 2025
    Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the IRS into one of the U.S. government's most powerful tools — and most effective weapons.

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    52 mins
  • California's 'Bum Blockade'

    California's 'Bum Blockade'
    May 8 2025
    The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in American history, tried to close California's borders to stop it.

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    52 mins
  • Motherhood

    Motherhood
    May 1 2025
    Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now. And the fantasy of an ideal mother remains powerful, even as real-life parents struggle to reconcile its demands. Today on the show, three myths of motherhood, and the people who have fought to break them down. This episode originally ran in 2023 as The Labor of Love.

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    51 mins
  • The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service

    The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service
    Apr 24 2025
    When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one had actually offered him a job – but he'd campaigned for Garfield, so he assumed he'd be rewarded. That was the spoils system, and it was how the government worked.

    But President Garfield didn't hire him. Guiteau was furious. And on July 2, 1881, he followed Garfield to a Washington D.C. train station and shot him.

    Today on the show: how an assassination meant to restore the spoils system instead led to its end, and birthed the modern federal workforce.


    An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that Abram Garfield fought a fire with his brothers. In fact, he fought the fire with his neighbors.

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    50 mins
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