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        <title>BackStory</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Ever think there’s more to history than meets the eye? Or wondered how your ancestors experienced their own current events? There’s the history you had to learn, and the history you want to learn. That’s where BackStory comes in.BackStory is a weekly podcast that uses current events in America to take a deep dive into our past. Hosted by noted U.S. historians, each episode provides listeners with different perspectives on a particular theme or subject – giving you all sides to the story and then some.BackStory started in 2008 with hosts Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh. In 2017, BackStory welcomed two new hosts, Joanne Freeman and Nathan Connolly who join Ed and Brian to take you behind the scenes of American history. Peter Onuf will continue as a guest host and contributor to the show.With guest historians, questions from audience callers, and the production team, BackStory makes learning about history like going to a lively cocktail party. BackStory is more than facts and headlines — it’s about how the past has shaped who we are today.BackStory is made possible through Virginia Humanities. BackStory has ranked in the Top 10 of the iTunes Society and Culture list and as high as #10 among all iTunes podcasts. Listen for free on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher other popular podcatchers or our website and get the history behind the headlines.]]></description>
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    <title>Backstory: A Brief History of Childhood</title>
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    <description><![CDATA[Children always represent the future, but what role have they played in the past? What has shaped the way we view and treat children today? In this episode, Peter, Brian, and Ed explore how children’s role in society has undergone profound changes over the past 300 years – from common laborers occupying the same working space as adults, to the apples of their parents’ eye, sentimentalized and protected in separate spaces. And they discover how, over the course of the long 19th century, childhood itself was redefined as an age of innocence, a life stage characterized by play, learning, and limited responsibility. Discussing everything from the disdain of foreign observers’ for the unruly children of early America, to the original “Toddlers and Tiaras” of the mid-19th Century, and the rise of summer camps in the early 20th Century, Ed, Peter, and Brian probe what each tells us about the nature of American childhood over time.]]></description>
    
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    <itunes:title>Backstory: A Brief History of Childhood</itunes:title>
<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Children always represent the future, but what role have they played in the past? What has shaped the way we view and treat children today? In this episode, Peter, Brian, and Ed explore how children’s role in society has undergone profound changes over the past 300 years – from common laborers occupying the same working space as adults, to the apples of their parents’ eye, sentimentalized and protected in separate spaces. And they discover how, over the course of the long 19th century, childhood itself was redefined as an age of innocence, a life stage characterized by play, learning, and limited responsibility. Discussing everything from the disdain of foreign observers’ for the unruly children of early America, to the original “Toddlers and Tiaras” of the mid-19th Century, and the rise of summer camps in the early 20th Century, Ed, Peter, and Brian probe what each tells us about the nature of American childhood over time.]]></itunes:summary>
<itunes:subtitle><![CDATA[Children always represent the future, but what role have they played in the…]]></itunes:subtitle>

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