The Alley Cast is now a scholarly-reviewed podcast! In the most recent edition of The Public Historian, available (but paywalled) online now and headed to National Council on Public History (NCPH) members soon is a lovely review of our podcast by Lydia Mattice Brandt.
Brandt writes of The Alley Cast: “The first season’s eleven episodes are true to the Elfreth’s Alley Museum’s mission to promote the preservation of the narrow street and to tell the stories of the everyday people who have lived there since 1706. Most of the roughly twenty-minute, scripted episodes focus on figures who are usually absent from the star-studded history of Philadelphia: female dressmakers struggling to support themselves, Black people laboring in kitchens and factories, preservationists, volunteer firefighters, and a nonbinary Quaker minister.”
The review is actually a tandem review, and the editorial team of TPH asked Brandt to also cover True Tales from Old Houses, a podcast for and by owners of old houses. As Brandt writes in her review, TTfOH “is an audio take on the classic television show This Old House. The affable [Stacy] Grinsfelder and [Devyn] Caldwell talk to each other about their ongoing house projects and interview DIYers, HGTV personalities, and craftspeople. Each episode focuses on a specific house project or restoration quandary. Preservation is an underlying current of these organized discussions—the hosts and their guests obviously care deeply about historic places—but the focus is squarely on techniques and problem-solving rather than theory or history.”
The two shows are pretty different, but Brandt finds the common ground they share: “Both podcasts are most successful when they lean into being terrifically specific. In a digital reality in which anyone can access these episodes for free, they delve deep into their respective subjects rather than try to offer general knowledge to interest a broad audience. As with all podcasts, the results will either grab listeners or not—but have the potential to really attract and satisfy someone. True Tales from Old Houses features conversations about historic windows, house moving, and light bulbs, while The Alley Cast describes the choices of eighteenth-century dressmakers and twentieth-century historic preservationists in vibrant detail.”
In an incredible coincidence, I reached out to Stacy Grinsfelder of TTfOH a few weeks ago to share my admiration for her show, and our conversation led to an episode, out today, featuring our museum as well as two of our neighbors on Elfreth’s Alley, Sue and Rob Kettell. The Kettells, who intended to stay in their home for just two years, have instead lived on the Alley for forty-six years. In the episode they talk about what it’s like to live on a street popular with tourists, and about why they love it!
Thanks so much to The Public Historian for selecting our show for review, to Lydia Mattice Brandt for her generous review, to Rob and Sue Kettell for being such wonderful ambassadors for the street, and to Stacy Grinsfelder for being game and an accommodating interviewer!
-TM