Imagine this: invisible robbers break into a bank and steal massive sacks of cash, but instead of running away with it they set their haul on the front stoop of the bank in a glass case. Everyone can see the money, but only the robbers can get to it. That’s how IRS Special Agent Chris Janczewski describes the 2016 Bitfinex heist – when mystery hackers made out with over $70 million in Bitcoin. By 2020, their loot had ballooned to over $4 billion. With only digital footprints to follow, federal agents tracked the criminals through the blockchain, across the dark web, and up the service elevator of a posh Manhattan apartment building in a sleuthing story that ends at the Smithsonian. 

The renovated The Value of Money exhibition will be opening at the National Museum of American History in November 2024. Check it out in person or online!

Guests:

Ellen Feingold, curator of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Zia Faruqui, United States Magistrate Judge at the District Court for the District of Columbia 

Ari Redbord, Ari Redbord is the Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs

Chris Janczewski, Head of Global Investigations at TRM Labs, previously a special agent with IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit

They carried torches and marched at night. Their goal: defend free speech in America. What started as a small group of young men demonstrating during the 1860 election, snowballed into a mass movement of working-class Americans marching to end slavery. They called themselves the Wide Awakes. And they’re widely seen as the political force that helped elect Abraham Lincoln and spur the Civil War. So why has their story gone untold? And why is now the time to tell it?  

Guests: 

Jon Grinspan, Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Author of Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War

Kevin Waite, Associate Professor of History at Durham University. Author of West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Imagine Jaws without the sneaking tuba. Or Psycho without the shrieking violins. Music can help a horror film strike fear in the heart of theatergoers. And you can trace some of these musical scare tactics back to the era of SILENT films — when organists made up film scores on-the-spot. 

To celebrate the spooky season this year, we're slashing apart a 1917 silent horror film with composer Andrew Earle Simpson to find out how music can be the beating heart of suspense. Grab your popcorn and get snuggly under the blanket. But be sure to check the closet for a pianist before turning out the lights. 

Want to see this movie for yourself? Don’t miss our live screening of The Devil’s Assistant at the National Museum of American History! Join Lizzie, Andrew, and Ryan on Wednesday, October 30th at 7:30pm to see this movie the way it was made to be watched – with live musical accompaniment. We’ll have objects from the Smithsonian collections and audience Q&A.  Reserve your FREE tickets here.

Guests:
Andrew Earle Simpson, composer and professor of music at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. 

Ryan Lintelman, curator of entertainment at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History 

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo becomes invisible when he puts the Ring on his finger. Well, at banks in the 1970s, this is basically what happened when a woman put a wedding ring on her finger. Her credit cards would no longer work, and the banks wouldn't count her income as part of the household income. 

This led to a fight for women's financial independence that gave rise to the landmark Equal Credit Opportunity Act (or ECOA) and the creation of the first women's banks. 

In honor of the 50th anniversary of ECOA becoming law, we’re looking back at a time when women had to have their husband or father cosign on a credit application. What did it take to pass this landmark legislation? And how did it improve women's lives in America? 

Guests: 

Rachel Seidman, curator at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum; curatorial consultant to the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum 

Emily Card, PhD, author of Staying Solvent: A Comprehensive Guide to Equal Credit for Women

Elizabeth Babcock, director of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

Jeanne Hubbard, former CEO of The Adams National Bank

During the mid-1800s, one third of all paper money in America was thought to be fake. It was the golden age of counterfeiting, and one exceptionally talented con artist stood out from all the rest. His fakes were nearly perfect…but for a trademark tell. Known to law enforcement only as “Jim the Penman,” this celebrity criminal led many Americans to wonder: can great art truly be criminal? 

Guests
Ellen Feingold, curator of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Sidedoor returns for its eleventh season on Wednesday, September 18th! 

Within just a few years, artificial intelligence systems that sometimes seem to display almost human characteristics have gone from science fiction to apps on your phone. But there’s another AI-influenced frontier that is developing rapidly and remains untamed: robotics. Can the technologies that have helped computers get smarter now bring similar improvements to the robots that will work alongside us? In this episode of The Joy of Why podcast, Daniela Rus, a pioneering roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks to host Steven Strogatz about the surprising inspirations from biology that may help robots rise to new levels.

Subscribe to The Joy of Why from Quanta Magazine wherever you listen to podcasts! 

There aren’t many portrait artists who get recognized on the street, but it happens to Devon Rodriguez all the time. After quietly honing his skill for a decade, Devon started posting videos of his live drawings of New York City subway commuters to social media. The videos took off, earning him some 50 million followers and placing portraiture in front of a huge new audience.

In this episode of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery’s podcast, Portraits, Director Kim Sajet speaks with Devon about the mentors who had his back, and this new model for showing art— not in museums, but on screens.

See the portraits we discussed:

Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez

John Ahearn, by Devon Rodriguez

“The Rodriguez Twins,” by John Ahearn

María Elena Estrada, by Devon Rodriguez

Devon Rodriguez draws Kim Sajet, Instagram

Next up in our summer playlist, we bring you an episode of The Kitchen Sisters Present, a podcast featuring sound-rich stories ‘from the b-side of history.’ This one is a musical treat! The Kitchen Sisters delve into the story of the founding of the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard by Dr. Marcyliena Morgan, Professor of African and African American Studies and Professor Henry Louis Gates to “facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture, scholarship and responsible leadership through Hiphop.” You’ll hear from Professor Morgan, Professor Gates, Nas, Nas Fellow Patrick Douthit aka 9th Wonder, The Hiphop Fellows working at the Archive, an array of Harvard archivists, and students studying at the Archive as well as the records, music and voices being preserved there.

Then they take a look at the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection, founded in 2007, through a sampling of stories from Assistant Curator Jeff Ortiz, Johan Kugelberg author of “Born in the Bronx,” and hip hop pioneers Grandmaster Caz, Pebblee Poo, Roxanne Shante and more.

This episode is part of The Kitchen Sisters’ series THE KEEPERS—stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians—keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep.

We end this guest-feature with a short interview with the Smithsonian’s Dwandalyn R. Reece, Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. She and Lizzie talk about the process behind the creation of The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap. 

Special Thanks: At The Hiphop Archive at Harvard: Dr. Marcyliena Morgan, Executive Director and Professor of African and African American Studies + Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research + 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit) + Harold Shawn + Harry Allen + Professor Tommie Shelby + Michael Davis + Brionna Atkins + Justin Porter + Robert Rush. At the Loeb Music Library: Josh Cantor + Sarah Adams. At the Hip Hop Collection, Cornell University Library: Ben Ortiz. At NPR: Rodney Carmichael. At large: Jeff Chang + Pedro Coen + Nas

The Keepers is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell.

The Keepers Sonic Signature music is by Moondog.

For more of The Kitchen Sisters Present, visit kitchensisters.org.

In the twentieth century, the jetpack became synonymous with the idea of a ‘futuristic society.’ Appearing in cartoons and magazines, it felt like a matter of time before people could ride a jetpack to work. But jetpacks never became a mainstream technology, leaving many to wonder…why? In this episode of 99 Percent Invisible, producer Chris Berube travels to the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum to find out for himself.

This episode was produced by Chris Berube. He spoke with Bill Suitor, Don Erwin, and the Smithsonian’s Colleen Anderson. David Taylor reported on the rocket belt for The Washington Post in 2022, and Steve Lehto wrote about the belt, and other jetpack technology, in his book The Great American Jetpack.

Transcript available here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/transcript/

It’s been called ‘the most noble and absurd undertaking ever attempted by any state.’ During the height of the Great Depression, the U.S government hired out-of-work writers and laid-off reporters and sent them out to record the stories of all kinds of Americans. Called the Federal Writers’ Project, historians have called the program a giant “listening project.”

While on our summer break, we’re sharing the first episode of a new podcast series called The People’s Recorder. Host Chris Haley sets the stage, laying out 1930s America, the New Deal, and the cultural forces that both supported and opposed the Writers’ Project. The project of holding up to America raises questions: What history gets told? And who gets to tell it? 

You can listen to rest of the series by searching for The People’s Recorder wherever you get your podcasts. Find out more at peoplesrecorder.info 

Guests:

Scott Borchert, author

David Bradley, novelist

Dr. Douglas Brinkley, historian

Dr. Tameka Hobbs, historian

David Kipen, author

Dena Epstein, daughter of Hilda Polacheck

Studs Terkel, oral historian

Links and Resources:

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project

Born to Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project

Author Scott Borchert on the Federal Writers' Project and the WPA guidebooks

Article on Library on Congress symposium on The Millions

Further Reading

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert

California in the 1930s by David Kipen

First Person America by Ann Banks

Henry Alsberg by Susan DeMasi

Long Past Slavery by Catherine A. Stewart

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

Hard Times by Studs Terkel