1- The Rise And Fall And Rise And Fall And Rise Of Thomas Alva Edison

In recent years, the effort to bring the Mafia under control in Sicily has spilled over into the world of food. Today a movement of small organic agricultural cooperatives has sprung up across the island to farm land once confiscated by the Mafia and bring these goods to a global market.

Hidden Kitchens Sicily: The Pizza Connection

Hidden Kitchens  Sicily - The Pizza Connection

Hidden Kitchens England - Turnspit Dogs: The Rise & Fall of the Vernepator Cur

Hidden Kitchens Russia - Dissident Kitchens

Hidden Kitchens - Atomic Wine

Hidden Kitchens Australia - Aunty Beryl

The Queen's Beekeeper

Willie Nelson and Dallas-born actress Robin Wright, along with some wild and extraordinary tellers, take us across Texas and share some of their hidden kitchen stories. Gas station tacos, ice houses, the birth of the Frito, the birth of 7-Eleven, the birth of the frozen margarita, and more.

Hidden Kitchens Texas with host Willie Nelson

Groundbreaking writer, actress and comedian, Tina Fey hosts The Hidden World of Girls, two new hour-long specials inspired by the NPR series heard on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. From the dunes of the Sahara to a slumber party in Manhattan, from the dancehalls of Jamaica to a racetrack in Ramallah, Tina Fey takes us around the world into the secret life of girls and the women they become. Sound-rich, evocative, funny, and powerful--stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities. Of women who crossed a line, blazed a trail, changed the tide. These specials are produced by Peabody Award-winning producers, The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), in collaboration with NPR reporters and foreign correspondents, independent producers and listeners around the world.

The Hidden World of Girls with Tina Fey-Hour 1

Every culture has its idealized woman, its standard of beauty that is valorized. And everywhere around the world women are altering themselves in small and major ways to achieve the celebrated look. History is full of body altering cosmetic methods, both medical and homegrown, that help women attain this ideal — foot binding, corseting, liposuction, face lifts… In this story we travel to Jamaica, to the streets of Kingston, where women have come up with their own unique beauty enhancement techniques.

Chicken Pills: The Hidden World of Jamaican Girls

Travellers. The people of walking. Sometimes called the gypsies of Ireland. They speak of non-Travellers as “the settled people.” Mistrusted for the most part and not well-understood. Nomads, moving in caravans, living in encampments on the side of the road. We listen to the stories of young Traveller women and explore some of the ancient and modern rituals clinging on the edge of the Celtic Boom.

The Hidden World of Traveller Girls

Science fiction writer Pat Cadigan sent us an email that inspired this story about her secret life with her best friend Rosemarie. It also includes selections from The Hidden World of Girls phone line. 

The Day The Earth Stood Still

After the violent murder of her mother, photographer Deborah Luster takes thousands of haunting formal portraits of men and women incarcerated in Louisiana’s prisons. Working with poet CD Wright, she creates a project called One Big Self.

Deborah Luster: One Big Self

Young brides in Northern Sudan have been performing the Bride Dance on, or near, their wedding nights for thousands of years. Today, plenty of Sudanese women reject it, saying they don’t want to debase themselves. Produced by NPR's Gwen Thompkins for The Hidden World of Girls

The Hidden Wedding Dance of Sudan

Brook Spotted Eagle called us from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She told us about the Brave Heart Women’s Society and invited The Kitchen Sisters to their Isnati Coming of Age Ceremony for Girls.

The Brave Heart Women's Society

Although gays and lesbians can be imprisoned for life in Pakistan, rarely are such charges brought to court. Pakistani lesbians say it is often easier for them to engage in a sexual relationship because society simply doesn’t perceive women to have sexual desires. Produced by Habiba Nosheen.

Lesbian Lives in Pakistan

In 1983 Prince hired LA sound technician, Susan Rogers, one of the few women in the industry, to move to Minneapolis and help upgrade his home recording studio as he began work on the album and the movie Purple Rain. Susan, a trained recording technician with no sound engineering experience became the engineer of Purple Rain, Parade, Sign o' the Times, and all that Prince recorded for the next four years. For those four years, and almost every year after, Prince recorded at least a song a day and they worked together for 24 hours, 36 hours, 96 hours at a stretch, layering and perfecting his music and his hot funky sound. Yesterday we interviewed Susan, who is now a Professor at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, for our upcoming NPR series, The Keepers — about activist archivists, rogue librarians, collectors, curators and historians. It was Susan who started Prince’s massive archive during her time with the legendary artist who died a year today. Here is small smattering of the stories she told that will be heard on The Keepers and our podcast. We thank you Susan. We thank you Prince.

Prince and the Technician: Keep the Electrons Flowing

"We met through our boyfriends, Peter Barnowsky and Robert Mapplethorpe.... In the Summer of '68, we became friends. At first Patti and I spent our afternoons drawing. When I started to photograph her, it seemed as easy as sharing colored pencils. It was simple. Patti liked being photographed.... Patti and I were friends the way children are friends. With Chirpy little voices, we daydreamed a future. I found a cassette Patti and I made in '69. We were making a long-since lost 8mm movie in my tenement apartment in Brooklyn." -Judy Linn from her book of photographs, "Patti Smith 1969-1976"

Just Girls: The Hidden World of Patti Smith & Judy Linn

Route 66: The Hard Road & The Ghost Road

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters

Route 66

The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, take us to Eel Pie Island, a tiny slice of land in the middle of the River Thames. Now a small bohemian community of artists, inventors, river gypsies and boat builders, Eel Pie Island has a flamboyant history that stretches from Henry VIII to the Rolling Stones. 

Eel Pie Island

"FDR I’m convinced was a closet archivist himself. He called the Archives his baby. He designed a box to house his papers which is the prototype of the boxes we use now at the National Archives. From the very beginning the intent was that the American people needed to be able to access the records in order to hold the government accountable for its actions. And that’s what 'keeping' means.”

Listen to David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, talk about FDR and the beginnings of the US National Archives.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions. https://www.sessions.blue/

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Birth of the National Archives

#KeeperoftheDay for Valentine's Day - The Kay Johnson Public Library in Valentine, Texas.

Listen to this story produced by Andrea Gutierrez for the Transom Traveling Workshop in Marfa, Texas about Valentine librarian Lety Navarrete.

"I’m a writer and former educator turned radio producer in Los Angeles. In summer 2018, I headed to Marfa, TX for the weeklong Transom Traveling Workshop, where radio maestro Rob Rosenthal showed a pack of us audio newbies how to tell a story with sound. After my original interview fell apart the last minute (the guest ghosted me), I drove 30 miles west to the town of Valentine, where I remembered seeing a tiny library when I passed through on the way to Marfa. It was my luck that librarian Lety Navarrete was there and, after some hesitation, willing to chat with me." -Andrea Gutierrez

Valentine, Texas Public Library

#KeeperoftheDay - Le Musée de f.p.c.

"We just started collecting slowly, not intentionally and we wake up 30 years later and we have this beautiful collection…”

Listen to Beverly McKenna, who co-founded McKenna Museums with her husband Dr. Dwight McKenna, talk about Le Musée de f.p.c., the historic house museum honoring the legacy of New Orleans' free people of color. https://www.lemuseedefpc.com/

Le Musée de f.p.c. / Free People of Color Museum

WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts. The first all-girl radio station in the nation. From our Peabody Award winning NPR series, Lost & Found Sound. 

WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts

Listener RJ Ramey called The Keepers Hotline to tell us about Monroe Work (1866-1945), who was hired by Book Washington as Director of Research and Records at Tuskegee Institute and worked to document every known lynching in the United States. Ramey created a website, monroeworktoday.org, to share Work's story.

Monroe Work - Keeper of the Day

A call from The Keepers Hotline.

"Hi guys, my name is Steve Gainer. I am a cinematographer and curator of the American Society of Cinematographers Camera Museum in Los Angeles. Our collection is probably the most complete camera collection in the United States having to do with cinematographers. We don't just collect cameras because they're old and rare. We collect them because they have something to do with our previous members or current members..."

Do you have a keeper you want to nominate? Call The Keeper Hotline and leave a message: 415-496-9049.

American Society of Cinematographers Camera Museum

Earlier this week, the San Francisco Public Works’s Bureau of Urban Forestry honored poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti with their annual signature tree. Lawrence, who turns 100 on March 24, is being feted all over town. We were delighted to be there for the tree-planting ceremony and to sprinkle some fresh soil (with a gold-plated shovel) onto the luscious olive tree’s root. The tree is just across the street from Via Ferlinghetti in North Beach. On the sunny side of the street, of course. Pay it a visit when you’re next in town.

Listen to the speech from Carla Short, Superintendent of the Bureau of Urban Forestry, at the ceremony.

SF Signature Tree Honors Lawrence Ferlinghetti at 100

Some of the most surprising contributions to the Sonic Memorial project were the many tales of romance and marriage that took place at the top of the World Trade Center. We share some of those tales in this story.

Stories Of Love And Marriage At The Towers

The World's Champion One-handed Pool Player. "It just got in your blood like a man on dope, or drinking whiskey, you gotta have it. I'd die if I didn't get to play every day a little bit. The football shot, I'll show you that in a minute..." Ernie Morgan traveled the pool halls of America shooting exhibition pool nightly, telling his life story. 

The Legend of Ernest Morgan

Josh Shepperd, Director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress called The Keeper Hotline to tell us about this incredible undertaking. 

"Radio history is pretty endangered and it turns out to be one of the largest and unexplored and unpreserved archives in the United States..."

Learn more: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/about-this-program/radio-preservation-task-force/

Josh Shepperd - Radio Preservation Task Force

#KeeperoftheDay – Pacifica Radio Archives an affiliate of the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force. “Chronicling the political, cultural and artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century.”

Here’s a gem from the archive. A 1956 interview with Rosa Parks.
https://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/bb0566

Episode Title: Commentary of a Black Southern busrider / Rosa Parks
Series Title: Commentary by Sidney Roger
PRA Archive #: BB0566
Description: Discussion of Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat to a white man and the resulting bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The interview was conducted by Sidney Rogers with Rosa Parks in 1956.
Station: KPFA
Date Recorded on: April 1956.
Date Broadcast on: KPFA, 20 Dec. 1962.
Item duration: 1 reel (16 min.) : 7 1/2 ips, mono.|16:30
Keywords: These terms will not bring up a complete list of all items in our catalog associated with this subject. Click here to search our entire catalog.
Roger, Sidney.
Blacks — Civil rights.
Protests, demonstrations, vigils, etc. — Montgomery (Ala.).
African Americans–Civil rights–History
Roger, Sydney
Parks, Rosa, 1913-2005
Contributor: Sidney Roger
Role: Host
Distributor: Los Angeles : Pacifica Radio Archive, 1962.

Pacifica Radio Archives

Pacifica Radio Archives - Rosa Parks 1956

#KeeperoftheDay – Latino Public Radio Consortium, an affiliate of the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force.

Here is a clip with astronaut Jose Hernandez from the Historias de Si Se Puede series: “sixty-second radio stories about immigrants and second generation Latinos, who through persistent struggle have found success in music, the professions, politics, community involvement, and are now an inspiration to countless others.”

https://latinopublicradioconsortium.org/

Latino Public Radio Consortium - Jose Hernandez

The Hidden World of Girls listens in to two teenage girls contemplating Freida Kahlo’s art and love life. The girls were practicing their miking techniques in one of our Kitchen Sisters workshops, when Monica Guerra pulled out her iPod touch to show Zoe Solnave some of her favorite paintings. A seldom heard girls-eye-view on art history and life.

Frida Kahlo Overheard

Host Willie Nelson, Dallas-born actress Robin Wright Penn, singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Los Lonely Boys, and some extraordinary tellers take us across Texas and share their own hidden kitchens. Stories of cowboy kitchens, ice houses, chili queens, the tamale lady at Fuel City in Dallas, the birth of the Frito, the birth of the 7-Eleven, the birth of the frozen Margarita, the first barbeque pit on the moon, cotton picker's kitchens, deep fried fuel from biodiesel kitchens, and so much more. It's radio that tastes real good.

Hidden Kitchens Texas with Host Willie Nelson

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted routines in every corner of the globe. Photographers have been quick to document how the world looks different: public squares, streets, and airport terminals devoid of people. But one composer wants to capture what that shift sounds like. Pete Stollery is an electro-acoustic composer living in Scotland and he sees this as a rare moment to listen to the noises the world makes in lockdown and to create a living archive of the moment we're in.

Produced by Nina Sparling.

Explore the map and submit your sounds here:
https://sound-scotland.co.uk/news/covid-19-sound-map

COVID-19 Sound Map #KeeperoftheDay

Meet Itumeleng “Itu” Banda — a young, South African activist, award-winning radio host, and undeniable role model. A boundary-breaker and a storyteller. We met Itu at the 2019 International Congress of Youth Voices in Puerto Rico and recorded her stories.  

Motivated by a deep sense of responsibility for her community, and by personal experience with gun violence, Itu is committed to forging a future that is safer for people like and unlike herself. 

In her radio work, Itu is blazing a trail as a voice for young people, and making a point to open up space for female speakers and listeners. Here’s Itu.

This story was produced by Teddy Alexander with The Kitchen Sisters. Hear more stories from the International Congress of Youth Voices on our podcast, The Kitchen Sisters Present...

Itumeleng Banda #YouthOnFire

The Kitchen Sisters, Peabody Award winning radio producers Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, chronicle the hidden parts of history, the traditions and rituals people carry with them from one country to another, across one generation to the next. Stories of sonic pioneers, local kitchen visionaries, neighborhood heros, groundbreaking girls and path-finding women—people with a mission, a purpose, a story to tell. 

Our productions include the duPont-Columbia Award winning NPR series Hidden Kitchens, the Peabody Award winning NPR series Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project, The Hidden World of Girls, and The Making Of... {What people make in the Bay Area and why}, along with hundreds of other stories for public media.

Building Community through Story Telling


The Kitchen Sisters

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