Conversation For Peace Podcasts

Summary: We are dedicating this entire program to one story. During the 1970s, P. Thomas Carroll read and transcribed hundreds of Charles Darwin's personal correspondences for research purposes. Carroll shares his story of becoming intimately familiar with the great 19th century evolutionary biologist over the course of several years and 14,000 letters.Show Notes:P. Thomas Carroll is the executive director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway in Troy, N.Y. But between 1972 and 1975, to pay his way through graduate school, he produced a reference book on the contents of more than 700 letters by Charles Darwin that are now in the Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. That job led to his becoming the first paid employee of the Darwin Correspondence Project in 1975. In total there are more than 14,000 letters written by and to Charles Darwin. And most of those letters were written in Darwin's notoriously bad handwriting! Historians often develop an intimate kind of relationship with the people they are researching and Carroll is no exception. And since Darwin did not write his letters with the idea that they would be poured over by scholars one day, a particularly intimate portrait of the man appeared before Carroll's eyes. This is Carroll's story of peeking over Darwin's shoulder.Songs: Natalie Walker "Pink Neon" (mp3) from "Pink Neon" (Dorado Records) Buy at Rhapsody Stream from Rhapsody Buy at mTraks Download More On This Album "Sound Scientist" by Bill (via Podsafe Audio) "Charles Robert Darwin" by The Artichoke Band Links: P. Thomas Carroll's website Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway An Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society The Darwin Correspondence Project Call the HNN listener Comment line: (877) 659-1515. read less