Press Release

Contact: Sheryl Hayes
Sheryl@virginia.edu
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
145 Ednam Drive Charlottesville, VA
22903-4629
Phone:(434)924-3296
Fax: (434)296-4714
For Immediate Release
July 15, 2009

BackStory Arrives in Richmond

BackStory with the American History Guys, the new history-themed public radio show, is now on the air in Richmond, Virginia. As of June 29th, WRIR (Richmond Independent Radio) is broadcasting the program weekly, every Monday at 1 PM. Listeners in Richmond can find the show at 97.3 FM; everybody else can listen to the station’s live webstream at http://wrir.org/.

Launched in June of 2008, BackStory sets out to bring historical perspective to the world around us today. On each episode of the program, renowned U.S. historians Peter Onuf (UVa Dept. of History), Edward Ayers (Univ. of Richmond), and Brian Balogh (UVa Dept. of History) rip a topic from the headlines and spend the hour exploring its historical context. Together with fellow historians, people in the news, and listeners who join the discussion by phone, the History Guys drill down to colonial times and earlier, revealing the connections – and disconnections – between past and present. Past show topics have included everything from the history of punishment, the history of environmental crisis, and the history of July Fourth. Last year, the program was the recipient of the 2008 Helen and Martin Schwartz Prize, awarded each year by the Federation of State Humanities Councils to recognize excellence in public humanities programming. To date, BackStory has been broadcast by more than 50 public radio stations in 26 states.

BackStory is produced at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville, Virginia with support from UVa’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For further information, contact Sheryl Hayes at 434-924-3296 or Sheryl@virginia.edu.