Covering every hamlet and precinct in America, big and small, the stories span arts and sports, business and history, innovation and adventure, generosity and courage, resilience and redemption, faith and love, past and present. In short, Our American Stories tells the story of America to Americans.
About Lee Habeeb
Lee Habeeb co-founded Laura Ingraham’s national radio show in 2001, moved to Salem Media Group in 2008 as Vice President of Content overseeing their nationally syndicated lineup, and launched Our American Stories in 2016. He is a University of Virginia School of Law graduate, and writes a weekly column for Newsweek.
For more information, please visit ouramericanstories.com.
The Police Chaplain Who Showed Up on Oklahoma City’s Worst Day
The Great Chicago Fire Was Devastating. The Recovery Was Extraordinary.
On this episode of Our American Stories, most people know the story of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Fewer know what happened next. After flames destroyed the heart of the city and left more than 100,000 people homeless, Chicago didn’t collapse. It rebuilt faster and bigger than anyone thought possible. Businesses reopened while the rubble was still smoking. New buildings rose within months. And in just a few decades, the city transformed itself into a global center of commerce, architecture, and innovation.
Chicago historian Tim Samuelson, the city’s first official cultural historian, tells the largely forgotten story of how Chicago’s location, grit, and can-do spirit made one of the greatest urban recoveries in American history possible, and how that recovery gave birth to the modern skyscraper and the Chicago we know today.
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Why Men Grow Beards: A Cultural History of Masculinity and Facial Hair
On this episode of Our American Stories, beards may feel like a modern trend, but they’ve been shaping ideas about manhood for thousands of years. In some eras, a clean-shaven face signaled order, discipline, and respectability. In others, a beard stood for strength, rebellion, or independence.
Christopher Oldstone-Moore, the author of Of Beards and Men, and a history teacher at Wright State University, tells the surprisingly rich story of how facial hair has risen and fallen alongside changing ideals of masculinity — from ancient Egypt and Greece to royal courts, revolutions, Hollywood, and today’s bearded resurgence.
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A Sister’s Love Through the Tragic Loss of Her Three Brothers
On this episode of Our American Stories, growing up in rural Alabama, Edie Hand shared an idyllic childhood with her three younger brothers, known as the Blackburn boys. Days were filled with horses, imagination, and dreams of the futures they would one day live.
Those dreams were cut short by tragedy. One by one, Edie lost all three brothers, each death arriving in a different season of her life and leaving a deeper mark than the last. What remained was grief, memory, and a promise made to the last brother she held, to tell their story and live with kindness, courage, and purpose.
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Bob Funk and the Business of Giving People Work, Purpose, and Hope
On this episode of Our American Stories, before founding Express Employment Professionals, Bob Funk believed his life’s work would be in the ministry. Instead, he discovered that helping people find jobs could become a calling of its own.
Raised in poverty and shaped by hard work from an early age, Funk built a staffing company grounded in integrity, faith, and service. Over four decades, his mission to connect workers to work has helped millions find employment, dignity, and hope. His belief is simple: meaningful work gives people purpose, stability, and the confidence to build a better life.
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When a Daughter Becomes Her Father’s Caregiver
On this episode of Our American Stories, as a child, Deborah Freeburg learned what faith, perseverance, and family looked like by watching her parents care for their own. Years later, she entered a new and frightening season when her father’s health declined and the roles reversed.
In this listener's story, Deborah shares what it meant to become her father’s caregiver, tending to him through illness, loss of independence, and moments of deep vulnerability. It’s a story about aging, dignity, and the quiet, faithful love that binds families together when words are no longer enough.
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A DNA Test Turned One Man’s Family From 2 to 10
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Jamie Scott was born, he was placed for adoption and raised by loving parents in North Carolina. For decades, he lived a full life without searching for his biological family. Then a simple DNA test changed everything.
In this listener's story, Jamie explains how taking a test through AncestryDNA revealed siblings, cousins, and a family history hidden in plain sight, all in his own hometown. What began as curiosity quickly became connection, turning a family of two into ten and redefining what family can mean.
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The Chosen: How a Crowdfunded TV Series About Jesus Took Over the World
On this episode of Our American Stories, The Chosen is the first multi-season television series about the life of Jesus Christ, and it has become one of the most successful faith-based projects in entertainment history. What began as a small, crowdfunded Christmas special has grown into a global phenomenon with hundreds of millions of views worldwide.
Here to tell the story behind the series is Katherine Warnock, Vice President of Original Content, who explains how creator Dallas Jenkins and his team built a community-driven model that bypassed traditional Hollywood gatekeepers. This is the story of how The Chosen reshaped faith content, streaming television, and how studios now think about audience, community, and belief.
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Texas Boys Don’t Cry, Until a Son Reads His Mother’s Hidden Poem
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Roger Latham was handed a few handwritten pages years after his mother’s death, he did not expect them to change the way he understood her, or himself. Written in pencil and tucked away without intention of publication, the poem revealed a depth and inner life he never knew she possessed.
In this moving story, Roger reflects on discovering his mother’s hidden gift for poetry, and his daughter Candy reads “Hands” by Gladys Latham, a quiet meditation on work, sacrifice, faith, and love. It is a story about inheritance, masculinity, memory, and how a parent’s voice can reach us long after they are gone.
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Jesse James: The Most Notorious Outlaw in American History
On this episode of Our American Stories, more than 150 years after his death, Jesse James remains one of the most famous and misunderstood figures in American history. Was he a Robin Hood style folk hero, or a ruthless criminal shaped by war and revenge?
Historian Roger McGrath traces Jesse James’s life from his childhood in Civil War–era Missouri through his years as a Confederate guerrilla, bank and train robber, and national celebrity. Set against Bleeding Kansas, Reconstruction, and the lingering hatreds of the Civil War, this story explains how violence, propaganda, and politics helped turn an outlaw into a legend.
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