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Featured Podcast Episodes

  • Episode 24

    ‘Beauty is Remembered’: A Mother’s Fight for Public Housing

    Who are the heroes of your neighborhood? In our latest episode, we honor the legacy of Ms. Beauty Turner, the namesake of our flagship oral history training programs. A mother, journalist, historian, and community activist based in the Robert Taylor Homes, Ms. Beauty embodied what it means to devote oneself to their neighborhood and its people.
  • Promo thumb for Out of the Archives, Episode 23, This is Still My Neighborhood

    Episode 23

    ‘This is Still My Neighborhood’: Memories of Taylor St. and The Village

    In this episode, Narrators Janetta Pegues and Allen Schwartz share insights about the Near West Side’s different periods of redevelopment and change, including the construction and development of University of Illinois Chicago in the 1960s and the ongoing gentrification of Little Italy.
  • Promo thumb Card for Out of the Archives, Episode 22, The Act of Loving

    Episode 22

    The Act of Loving

    “The Act of Loving,” shares stories of all sorts of love in public housing, expanding our definition of what love means.

About this Season

In season 4, you will hear episodes #23 – 26, our first foray into writing and editing the podcast with a seasonal format in mind.

Season 4 engages public housing residents’ conversations about equity and displacement, blending these insights with reflections on their hopes and dreams for public housing communities and lands. This season, the curatorial team is also experimenting with sound design to give listeners a more intimate encounter with residents’ memories and the history.

Museum staff has experimented with different curatorial approaches for Out of the Archives over the years. Season 1 focuses its curation around unique themes, such as sports or entrepreneurship practices in public housing, whereas season 2 uses a more free-form approach that lets the stories speak for themselves. Season 3’s practice mixes the two methods and also remixes select episodes with more historical context through staff narration. Season 4 engages public housing residents’ conversations about equity and displacement, blending these insights with reflections on their hopes and dreams for public housing communities and lands. This season, the curatorial team is also experimenting with sound design to give listeners a more intimate encounter with residents’ memories and the history.

Out of the Archives is written and produced by the National Public Housing Museum and mixed and mastered by Seth Engel. Our theme song, “Born in the Blues,” was written, performed, and recorded the late Keith Hudson, a former Stateway Gardens resident. The logo was designed by Andy Hendricks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons license Attribution, Non Commercial and Non Derivatives. The logo, in black, white, and gray, features two C’s for Creative Commons, a person icon for attribution, a dollar symbol crossed out for non commercial, and an equal symbol for no derivatives.

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Episode 24 Details

Who are the heroes of your neighborhood? In our latest episode of Out of the Archives, “Beauty is Remembered: A Mother’s Fight for Public Housing,” we honor the legacy of Ms. Beauty Turner, a mother, journalist, historian, and community activist who lived in Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes for over a decade. Listen to Larry Turner, the eldest son of Ms. Beauty, other former Robert Taylor residents, and even Ms. Beauty herself discuss the community’s rich and complex history. Their reflections underscore why neighborhood heroes like Ms. Beauty are critical to every community.


Content Notes: This episode discusses themes of death/dying, drug use, state-sanctioned displacement, and houselessness. Please take care while listening.

Episode 24 transcript here.

Narrators: Larry Turner, Troy Gaston, Patricia Porter, Betty Thompson, Richard Morgan. Excerpts of Ms. Beauty Turner are from Dislocation (Sundhir Venkatesh, 2005) and Interrupt the Pipeline (Flavian Prince and Daniel Rudin, 2009). 

Larry and Troy’s interviews are also curated in episode 22 and episode 16 respectively. 

 

Episode 23 Details

Narrators Janetta Pegues and Allen Schwartz, in conversation with oral historian Liú Chen, share stories of living in the Jane Addams Homes, intimately known as “The Village”, during the 1940s–1980s. Janetta and Allen share insights about the neighborhood’s different periods of redevelopment and change, including the construction and development of University of Illinois Chicago in the 1960s and the ongoing gentrification of Little Italy. 

Listen to Allen and Janetta’s FULL joint conversation here.

A teaser installation was also curated from this joint conversation for our Taylor Street Window Installations.

Episode transcript here.

Narrators: Janetta Pegues and Allen Schwartz


Sponsors

The Oral History Programs are generously supported by the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Contact Us

Please email NPHM Oral History Programs Manager, Liú Chen, with any questions, concerns, or if you’re interested in getting involved.

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The logos of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.