Covering every hamlet and precinct in America, big and small, the stories span arts and sports, business and history, innovation and adventure, generosity and courage, resilience and redemption, faith and love, past and present. In short, Our American Stories tells the story of America to Americans.
About Lee Habeeb
Lee Habeeb co-founded Laura Ingraham’s national radio show in 2001, moved to Salem Media Group in 2008 as Vice President of Content overseeing their nationally syndicated lineup, and launched Our American Stories in 2016. He is a University of Virginia School of Law graduate, and writes a weekly column for Newsweek.
For more information, please visit ouramericanstories.com.
Brownie Wise: The Woman Who Made Tupperware a Household Name
One of the First Vietnam POWs: Larry Spencer’s Hanoi Hilton Story
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Navy pilot Larry Spencer was captured in North Vietnam, he entered a world that few Americans would ever see. He spent years as a prisoner of war, first in a camp called “The Zoo” and later in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Survival meant finding strength in small moments and holding on to hope that freedom would come again.
Spencer tells his story in his own words, offering a rare and personal account of what it meant to live and survive inside North Vietnam’s most notorious prison.
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Dan Sickles: The Civil War General Who Donated His Own Leg to a Museum
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dan Sickles lived the kind of life that sounds almost invented. The New York politician murdered his wife’s lover, Philip Barton Key, just blocks from the White House and then became the first defendant in American history to successfully use a temporary-insanity defense. A few years later, the Civil War gave the disgraced congressman an unlikely second act.
Gettysburg National Military Park Ranger Matt Atkinson tells how Sickles raised a brigade for the Union, rose to major general, lost his right leg at Gettysburg, and donated the amputated limb to the Army Medical Museum.
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An Iowa Waitress, a Pilot, and a Family at War
On this episode of Our American Stories, Doris Wilson was working as a waitress in Perry, Iowa, when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor interrupted the music playing in the restaurant. Before long, all five of her brothers were serving in the military, and the young Iowa woman found herself headed to Texas after marrying Warren Neal, a farmer turned Army Air Forces pilot and flight instructor.
Their new life at the Marfa Army Air Base brought crowded wartime housing, officers’ luncheons, long hours, and one aqua formal gown that made Doris feel like Cinderella at the opening of the Officers Club. But behind the dances and letters home was a family paying an enormous price for the war. Our regular contributor Joy Neal Kidney shares her mother’s story. Joy is the author of Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II.
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The First Man to Die in a Plane Crash
On this episode of Our American Stories, before air travel became routine, flight was a dangerous experiment. In 1908, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge climbed into a fragile biplane beside Orville Wright, ready to test the limits of a new invention that had barely left the ground. When a propeller snapped midair, the airplane crashed near Fort Myer, Virginia. Wright survived with severe injuries; Selfridge did not, becoming the first man to die in a plane crash and marking the beginning of a new chapter in the history of aviation. His sacrifice helped shape the safety standards that would guide every flight thereafter.
Craig Du Mez of the Grateful Nation Project shares the story that defined the earliest days of the sky.
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The German Immigrant Who Became New York’s Queen of Thieves
On this episode of Our American Stories, Frederica Mandelbaum arrived in New York from Germany in 1850 with her husband, infant daughter, and very little money. She began by selling lace door-to-door on the Lower East Side, but poverty and limited opportunities soon pushed the ambitious immigrant toward a very different kind of business: buying stolen goods and reselling them for a profit.
Marguerite Fox, former New York Times obituary writer and author of The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum, shares how Frederica built one of the most powerful criminal networks of Gilded Age New York before one tiny strip of stolen silk finally brought her empire crashing down.
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I Picked Up “Tex” Watson Hitchhiking AFTER the Manson Murders
On this episode of Our American Stories, after the Tate–LaBianca murders, Charles “Tex” Watson vanished—just not right away. For nearly two months, he remained in Los Angeles as the city searched for those responsible. That’s where this story begins.
Our American Stories listener Patty Kingsbaker recounts the day she unknowingly gave a ride to Manson’s most loyal killer, unaware she was sitting just feet from one of the most wanted men in the country.
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The 14-Year-Old Farm Boy Who Invented Television
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1921, 14-year-old Philo Farnsworth was working a field on his family’s farm in Idaho when the neat rows stretching out behind him gave him an idea. What if a picture could be broken into lines, transmitted electronically, and reassembled somewhere else? The farm boy had begun imagining the technology that would become electronic television.
Daniel Stashower, author of The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television, shares the story of how Farnsworth pursued that idea from rural Idaho to laboratories in California, eventually finding himself in a patent battle with David Sarnoff and the enormous Radio Corporation of America.
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Annie Oakley: Sharpshooter, Showwoman, American Legend
On this episode of Our American Stories, Annie Oakley was still a child when she began hunting to help feed her struggling family in Ohio. Before long, her extraordinary skill with a gun was helping pay off the family mortgage, winning her shooting contests, and eventually leading her to defeat professional marksman Frank Butler, the man she would later marry.
Our American Stories contributor Faith Buchanan and others tell the story of how Oakley rose from poverty to top billing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, performing before packed crowds in New York, London, and Paris and becoming one of the most famous women of her time. Along the way, she built a career in a world dominated by men, maintained a remarkable partnership with Butler, and taught thousands of women that they could handle a firearm just as confidently as any man.
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When One Man’s Faith Helped Free 33 Trapped Chilean Miners
On this episode of Our American Stories, Greg Hall wasn’t looking for fame when Chile’s government asked for help rescuing 33 trapped miners. A businessman and Catholic deacon from Texas, he simply believed he could make a difference. Over 69 tense days, Hall and his team drilled through solid rock to reach the men the world feared were lost. He later said it was God who guided every turn of the drill.
While the film The 33 told the story, Hall’s name was left out, which suited him just fine. For him, the miracle wasn’t the credit. It was that all 33 men saw daylight again.
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