Sarah Vowell
speaker
165 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 28 Jun
Sarah Vowell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
When I started, I had only a few things to go on.
A couple of French explorers, a plaque on the bridge said pass by in 1673, an Indian massacre in 1812 right there in front of the Burger King, vague notions of Abe Lincoln's debt to the Chicago Tribune, whose quaint gothic tower looms over the bridge's north side.
I thought, that's enough American history, and I'd just make up the rest.
Turns out my theory was only too right.
The intersection of Michigan and Wacker, I found out, isn't just a corner, it's a vortex.
The deeper I dug into the history of Chicago and its relationship to the history of the country, the more crowded the ghost traffic jam clogging up the Michigan Avenue bridge got.
Okay, I'm standing here right now on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and the Chicago River is right underneath me.
There's some ducks floating under there, and a boat just went by.
And here's another one coming.
Out there is where the river meets Lake Michigan to the east.
And looking south, the place where the bridge hits land is the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, where you can get your vision checked or buy a nice fur coat, should you desire.
I'm swiveling around, and the view from the bridge is just picture postcard pretty, especially at night when the Wrigley Building is just lit up so soft it glows.
Supposedly, the building so delighted Joseph Stalin that he had the University of Moscow designed in its image.
And who can blame him?
The American national mythology revolves around the idea that the promise of America is best seen in the West, home, home, on the range, etc.
Existentially, that might be true, but economically, the real place to witness the promise of America is the Midwest, where, for most of this country's history, the products of the range were manipulated for fun and profit.
When the Cowboys sang, get along little doggie, they left out the part where the little doggie is railroaded to Chicago to be slaughtered by some underpaid, overworked immigrant en route to its manifest destiny as a New Yorker's supper.
The first person to grasp the significance of this place where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan was Louis Joliet, or as he's known around here, Joliet.
Back when his name was still said with a French accent, Joliet was a 27-year-old fur trader who accompanied a Jesuit missionary named Jacques Marquette on a canoe expedition from Quebec in 1673.
They were to map the Mississippi in the name of France, unaware that Spain had already claimed the river some 130 years before.
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