A new history of the US In 100 Objects

From a single gold coin's journey through the centuries, to an ingenious screw that changed engineering, the extraordinary stories behind 100 of the most significant and intriguing artefacts in US history will be explored in a new podcast launching today.

In 2010, A History of the World in 100 Objects premiered on BBC Radio 4 and podcast platforms worldwide. It was a landmark audio series examining huge swathes of the Anthropocene through 100 artefacts, and I loved it. 

I was just getting started with 99% Invisible, my own attempt to tell the invisible stories behind the material world, and here was this enormous BBC series doing something I recognised immediately: finding the whole of human experience inside a single object that could often be held in the palm of a hand.

And those objects from the first series were indeed handled! Host and curator of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor just couldn't help touching everything! He would brilliantly narrate thousands of years of history whilst turning over priceless objects in his fingers. What a pro! What a delight! The series was successful beyond measure and is still talked about today.

When the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence was approaching, there was a notion that it was a perfect time to do an update and reimagining of the 100 Objects concept, but this time focusing on the history of the United States. As the BBC Studios team were developing potential stories, they kept discovering that my podcast 99% Invisible had already produced an episode about it. 

As that happened again and again, the idea of a collaboration became undeniable. So they called me up. As a superfan of the BBC in general and the original series in particular, I jumped at the chance. 

From the beginning, we knew the new series was going to approach the episodes from a completely different angle. The new mandate is to select objects often not located in museums.

We will........

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