James J. Braddock was a washed-up boxer with a broken hand, working the docks and living on relief. Then in June 1935, as a 10-to-1 underdog, he took the heavyweight title from Max Baer. Six days later, he paid back the relief. This is the story told straight, including the parts Hollywood got wrong.
Sources: Official James J. Braddock website and FAQ; Smith & Singer auction record of Braddock's canceled relief check (June 19, 1935); New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame; contemporary fight records.

Voices other than the narrator's are dramatized re-creations. Cover photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1936, FSA/Library of Congress.
Breadline is a Narratique Studios production.

Thirty dollars a month, twenty-five of it sent home. From 1933 to 1942, about three million young men joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. They planted billions of trees, built more than 800 parks, and learned to read by lamplight. The story starts on a rainy mountainside in Virginia, on the first night of the first camp.
Sources: CCC Legacy, "Camp Roosevelt Beginnings" and "History"; National Park Service, Shenandoah National Park, "The Civilian Conservation Corps"; PBS American Experience, The Civilian Conservation Corps; DPLA, "Roosevelt's Tree Army"; Britannica.

Voices other than the narrator's are dramatized re-creations. Cover photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1936, FSA/Library of Congress.
Breadline is a Narratique Studios production.

Harlem, Saturday night. The landlord won't wait, so the tenants throw a party: a quarter at the door, fried fish in the kitchen, and a stride piano player who might be one of the greatest in the world. The episode covers Langston Hughes's rent-party cards, James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, and mutual aid with style.
Sources: Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940); Beinecke Library, Langston Hughes rent party card collection (via Hyperallergic and Open Culture); Riverwalk Jazz (Stanford), "The Harlem Big Three."
Music note: the stride piano in this episode is an original composition, not a period recording.

Voices other than the narrator's are dramatized re-creations. Cover photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1936, FSA/Library of Congress.
Breadline is a Narratique Studios production.