History Detectives

Superman Sketch

Superman Sketch - An Ohio woman has a drawing that she discovered in the attic of her home. It is an undated sketch of the cartoon hero Superman with a note that reads, "With Best Wishes to Randall, from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster." Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the creators of Superman, but the contributor has no idea how her late father, Randall, obtained this apparently original piece of artwork. A plausible connection is Randall's army service during World War II - a time when the man of steel, along with other popular American cartoon characters, was featured as a hero in action against German and Japanese forces. HISTORY DETECTIVES journeys to Ohio, New York and New Jersey to investigate the early days of Superman and how this comic icon was used to inspire American GIs during wartime. Lost Musical Treasure - A man in Port Washington, Wisconsin, who owns a pair of metal "masters" that were used to press shellac records in the 1920s and 30s, has a hunch they could represent surviving fragments of a lost moment in American musical history. The contributor's great uncle was the master sound engineer for one of the more peculiar recording enterprises in the United States, Paramount Records. He worked for the Wisconsin Chair Company, which, among other things, manufactured phonograph cabinets. The company's salesmen were savvy about the broad spectrum of musical talent at the time and established a tandem recording label, ultimately bringing some of the best blues artists from the Mississippi Delta to Wisconsin to record in the factory. HISTORY DETECTIVES travels to Wisconsin and New York to determine the significance of these metal masters and to explore how one company captured the regionally and culturally diverse music played around the nation in the 20s and 30s. Rebel Whiskey Flask - It's the fall of 1794 and trouble is brewing in western Pennsylvania. Thousands of protestors are daring to fight back against the newly established U.S. government, protesting a tax on whiskey. President George Washington responds, marching 13,000 soldiers into Pennsylvania to quash the rebellion - the first time the federal government has turned its troops on its own people. Fast-forward to the present day: a woman in New Jersey has uncovered a glass whiskey flask that she believes may be a relic from this historic uprising. HISTORY DETECTIVES ventures to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Corning, New York, to determine the flask's relevance and to dig deeper for clues surrounding the so-called "Whiskey Rebellion."