{"podcast":{"title":"Listening to America","slug":"listening-to-america-665403","podcast_index_feed_id":665403,"rss_url":"https://jeffersonhour.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://ltamerica.org/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/4/1/5/0/41508b7d84b1e15be55e3c100dce7605/LTA2024-20241112-39m0bubisu.jpg","author":"Listening to America","episode_count":550,"summary":"Listening to America aims to \"light out for the territories,\" traveling less visited byways and taking time to see this immense, extraordinary country with fresh eyes while listening to the many voices of America's past, present, and future. Led by noted historian and humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, Listening to America travels the country's less visited byways, from national parks and forests to historic sites to countless under-recognized rural and urban places. Through this exploration, Clay and team find and tell the overlooked historical and contemporary stories that shape America's people and places. Visit our website at ltamerica.org.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-11T04:21:24.097012+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/listening-to-america-665403"},"episode":{"title":"#1687 The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, 50 Years Later","slug":"1687-the-sinking-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald-50-years-later","published_at":"2026-01-19T22:05:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/listening-to-america-665403/1687-the-sinking-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald-50-years-later","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/listening-to-america-665403","url":"https://jeffersonhour.libsyn.com/1687-the-sinking-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald-50-years-later","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/jeffersonhour/01192026_JohnBacon_Podcatmixdown.mp3?dest-id=381384","summary":"Clay joins author John U. Bacon of Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose book, The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald , takes a new look at the sinking of the Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975. Four years in the making, Bacon's research unearthed new material on the catastrophe, in which all 29 crew members (all men) perished when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. Was there crew error or hubris in Captain Ernest McSorley? Was the great 729-foot ship structurally unsound? Or was it just a perfect storm? The winds rose to 100 miles per hour that day, and the waves were sometimes 60 feet or more high. The Fitzgerald settled on the bottom of Lake Superior more than 500 feet below the surface. It has been visited several times since, but the Canadian government, whose territorial waters the incident occurred in, severely restricts visitation because it regards it as a gravesite. This episode was recorded on November 24, 2025.","meta_description":"Clay joins author John U. Bacon of Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose book, The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald , takes a new look at…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3436,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/listening-to-america-665403/episodes/1687-the-sinking-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald-50-years-later/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/listening-to-america-665403/1687-the-sinking-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald-50-years-later.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}