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In 1821, two Rhode Island brothers went looking for buyers for their woolen fabric, and stumbled into a lucrative, captive market: Southern slave plantations. Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Negro cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by. Along the way, they uncover how enslaved people shaped the very cloth used to control them, and how New England manufacturers convinced themselves they were the good guys. A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios. Subscribe to...
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B2 · Upper-intermediate
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- 77% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 159 words a minute: a natural pace.
- 221 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
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You hunt around for little scraps of information,
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Is this episode right for you?
B2 · Upper-intermediate
Comfortable if you already follow TV news
- 77% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 159 words a minute: a natural pace.
- 221 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
Transcript
The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.
harder words (B2+)
Being a historian is sort of like being a detective. You hunt around for little scraps of information, clues you can use to try to piece together a more complete story of the past. You dig through old meeting minutes, receipts, and business transactions.
You read old diaries and leaf through old letters. And when you can, you try to get your hands on actual physical objects from history. This part can prove particularly difficult because the materials of everyday life are usually lost to the sands of time. Seth Rockman is a professor of history at Brown University, and recently he was looking for clothes that were worn by enslaved people in the American South, which was proving impossible because those items just didn't survive.
They didn't survive because, of course, in most cases they were used into oblivion. through hard labor, or through various forms of recycling. A garment that had worn out might be ripped into shreds and some of it stuffed into holes in a wall to insulate, or stuffed into the toe of a shoe, or made into a bandage. As a result, very little of the clothing that was worn
That was the opening. The rest of the episode (37 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.
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