About Listening to America
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.
We invite you to join us on this journey.
Listening to America is an educational and journalistic initiative dedicated to helping Americans better understand one another through exploring our shared past and collective present. Our goal is to enable citizens find more inclusive ground and build a better future together. Listening to America is an evolution of the long-time and popular public radio program and podcast, The Thomas Jefferson Hour.
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. Stories about the future of family farms and agriculture, the water crisis in the West, the changing nature of work, the decline of rural America and more.
LTA is interested in how American history, the places, and the geography where it has played out can inform Americans as we struggle with shared challenges. We aim to tackle big, complex subjects by telling smaller stories. As Clay says, “this initiative is part Kerouac, part Charles Kuralt (without the schmaltz), part Steinbeck, all with a serious humanities perspective.”
You can follow Clay and our work through our weekly podcast/radio program, newsletter, and at LTAmerica.org.
The Listening to America Project, is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization.