The Chaos of Uncertainty: Rhetorical Archival Construction and Truth in Jill Lepore’s The Last Archive

What common tropes do we rely on when describing the archive? How are medium-specific tools utilized to reinforce these descriptions? In this paper, I contend that the rhetorical charge of such descriptions becomes a means of establishing ethos for the narratives we tell through the archive. This paper opens with a brief theoretical overview of common stereotypes for describing the archive. By drawing on scholars including Juan Ilerbaig, Barbara Biesecker and others, this overview highlights themes of material accumulation and notions of fact that still influence rhetorics of the archive. Next, I utilize historian Jill Lepore’s podcast The Last Archive as a case study to examine how a narrator can establish credibility via their reliance on archival tropes. This analysis will focus on the first episodes of the first season: “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” “Detection of Deception,” “The Invisible Lady,” and “Unheard.” To start, I consider how Lepore rhetorically constructs a space she terms “the last archive” through verbal description and the auditory elements available via the podcasting. Finally, I argue that Lepore capitalizes on the credibility afforded to her through the last archive to craft her own version of evidence. Ultimately, I argue that The Last Archive presents a valuable case study for understanding how rhetorical constructions of the archive create a foundation from which a narrator can present their own version of particular events, one that is nonetheless couched in notions of fact and evidence.

This paper focuses on several common archival tropes that circulate in popular discourse: a natural process of material accumulation, the rhetoric of “buried treasure,” and a belief that archival objects can be treated as fact. In his article “Archives as sediments: metaphors of deposition and archival thinking,” Juan Ilerbaig explores the historical connection between archival science and geologic thinking. In particular, he points to the tendency of archival science to compare archives to sedimentary deposits.1 Ilerbaig argue that these metaphors paint the archive as a “natural, organic, spontaneously growing” product.2 In other words, Ilerbaig suggests that these metaphors frame the archive as a space where materials continuously accumulate through natural processes.3 These metaphors of accumulation create the foundation for another archival trope: the allure of “buried treasure.” Put another way, the concept of incessant material accumulation creates an implicit argument regarding the potential for discoveries buried within the archive. For instance, in her posthuman reading of subterranean archives, Shannon Mattern demonstrates how possibilities of discovery even inform contemporary digitization practices: “Might as well store everything for speculative data mining; you never know what treasure you might extract someday.”4

These tropes situate the archive as a naturally occurring space of material accumulation, with buried objects awaiting discovery. Ultimately, this rhetoric paints the archive as a space of evidence that exists beyond human influence. In Barbara Biesecker’s analysis of the archive, she argues that archival objects are too often considered stable entities that speak on their own behalf.5 Here, Biesecker speaks to similar themes raised by Ilerbaig in his study of archival rhetorics: by failing to address the human mediation in archival objects, these objects are granted the “evidentiary status of fact.” 6 Similarly, Brien Brothman points to the common dichotomy of truth/untruth used to describe archival materials, arguing that such a dichotomy encourages researchers to place implicit trust in objects due solely to their inclusion in an archive.7

Through the first four episodes of The Last Archive, Lepore relies heavily on these archival tropes. Each episode follows the same general structure: she visits a place she terms “the last archive” and utilizes the archival objects she “discovers” within to understand events in United States history. From the start, Lepore’s descriptions of the last archive echo Ilerbaig’s focus on natural accumulation. Lepore opens the first episode, titled “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” by stating, “There’s a place in our world where the known things go. A corridor of the mind. Along the walls, shelves stuffed with proof. And all around, the clutter of clues.”8 Lepore’s descriptions of the last archive paint it as a physical space that already exists; in other words, though Lepore rhetorically invents the last archive, she strives to characterize it as a naturally occurring space. Through the phrase “there’s a place in the world,” Lepore reinforces the sense of spontaneous occurrence by omitting human influence in creating the last archive.

Numerous other descriptions of the clutter in the last archive parallel the image of sedimentary deposition posited by Ilerbaig. When speaking of archival sedimentation, Ilerbaig notes, “The metaphorical link is meant to capture the spontaneity and quasi-automatic or mechanical character of archival accumulation, along with its constant and progressive nature.”9 In the first episode of the podcast, Lepore gestures to different items that have built up in the archive: “a photograph of a corpse, pasted onto the page of a moldering leather-bound album” and “a teetering stack of newspapers tied with twine.”10 References to moldering and teetering objects suggest a space in which items are continually buried under further accumulation. Lepore insists on this sense of accumulation throughout the first four episodes. For instance, in the third episode, “The Invisible Lady,” Lepore describes “poking” around the last archive, eventually coming across an essay about Emily Dickinson.11 Building on this theme, Lepore begins the fourth episode, “Unheard,” by commenting on the mess she finds in the last archive, lamenting that “half the time, I can’t find what I came for.”12 The recurrence of such descriptions throughout Lepore’s podcast accomplishes a specific purpose: by articulating the last archive as a naturally occurring space, Lepore establishes the evidentiary value of the materials buried within the archive.

As scholars note, the lure of geological metaphors in archival rhetoric rests in part on the resulting possibilities for discovery. The hope of buried treasure, and the thrill of its discovery, reappears throughout The Last Archive. In “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” Lepore travels to the Vermont State Archives to find trial transcripts that had been “buried deep” within its walls.13 In fact, the trial transcripts were lost for several years; the archivist who recovered them, Gregory Sandford, recalls the thrill that arises during the “moment of discovery” when a previously lost item is unearthed.14 The trial transcripts ultimately represent the kind of treasure proposed by Mattern: in Lepore’s case, the recovered transcripts may hold the key to the case she is researching on the murder of Lucina Broadwell. So much of Lepore’s podcast revolves around this metaphorical quest for buried treasure; in “The Invisible Lady,” Lepore describes “hunting” the invisible lady in the last archive by overturning boxes, unlocking ancient trunks, and otherwise searching for something hidden.15

Thus far, I have focused on the common tropes in archival rhetoric that Lepore uses to verbally describe the last archive. However, such spoken descriptions are not the only tool at her disposal; though spoken word generally maintains its position at the top of the sonic hierarchy, her use of sound effects deserves attention.16 Throughout the podcast, Lepore utilizes sound effects to reinforce the verbal descriptions she provides of the last archive. Scholars of radio drama such as Bonnie Miller trace the ways in which the ear was conceptualized as a mode of seeing in the early- to mid-twentieth century.17 Miller draws on Susan Douglas’s two cognitive modes of listening – dimensional listening and associational listening – to understand how sound effects create a mental image for the listener.18 Of particular interest for this paper is associational listening, wherein auditory stimuli invoke memories or images already familiar to most listeners.19 In other words, I suggest that Lepore uses sound effects to reinforce a mental image of a stereotypical archival space in the listener’s mind. In “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” the listener hears creaking footsteps and the squeak of an opening door as Lepore introduces the last archive.20 These sound effects reappear at the beginning of each of the four episodes analyzed in this paper. Beyond indicating a physical space to the listener, such sound effects suggest an old, dilapidated space; for example, creaking floorboards bring to mind a decaying floor. When coupled with descriptions of her searching in the “recesses” of the last archive, Lepore’s repeated use of these sound effects reinforces the stereotype of the dusty, neglected archive full of accumulating materials waiting to be unearthed.21

Why does Lepore return time and again to these verbal and auditory descriptions of the last archive? What rhetorical purpose do they serve? I argue that, by reinforcing the aspects of stereotypical archival spaces as creaky, antiquated, and unexplored, Lepore asserts the “truth” or evidentiary nature of the archival items she engages with. It is helpful here to recall Ilerbaig’s study of archival rhetorics discussed earlier in this section. Through her descriptions of the last archive, Lepore relies on historical tropes of the archive that paint it as a naturally occurring, organic entity. Furthermore, the “fact” of archival documents highlighted by scholars such as Biesecker remains an implicit part of Lepore’s ethos. When introducing the last archive at the beginning of “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” Lepore claims that this archive is all that stands between us and the “chaos of uncertainty.”22 I want to focus on Lepore’s assertion that these archival objects protect us from not knowing. The answers we need are here in the archive; we simply need to let the objects speak.

Throughout The Last Archive, Lepore derives her authority from these archival materials. In part, she must rely on the truthfulness of the archival objects she engages with due to the nature of podcasting as a medium for storytelling. In the sensory hierarchy, sight reigns supreme: it is prioritized as a way to understand truth and identify evidence. Yet in The Last Archive, Lepore works in an auditory medium in which she must compensate for the “lack” of sight. In particular, Lepore utilizes reenactments reminiscent of radio drama as a means of visualizing the evidence presented in her podcast; the reenactment provides a means for the listener to see this evidence. To put it another way: “Radio drama is not blind. It’s just a different way of seeing.”23 Many of the reenactments included in the four episodes discussed in this podcast rely directly on the archival objects Lepore finds in the last archive. As she notes in the first episode, “Most everything our actors say in this podcast is taken from historical documents – we know they said this stuff.”24 For instance, a significant portion of “The Clue of the Blue Bottle” focuses on reenacting the proceedings of George Long’s trial. Most of the trial transcripts were printed for the public; the portions of the transcript held from the public were accessed via the Vermont State Archives.25 Similarly, the second episode, titled “Detection of Deception,” explores the invention of the lie detector. Early in the episode, the listener is privy to a reenactment of the transcript recorded during a police interrogation of James Alphonso Frye for the murder of Dr. R. W. Brown.26 In both instances, Lepore reinforces the truth of her topics via these reenactments. Not only does she provide “facts” from a historical record, but the reenactments allow the audience to “see” the truth.

Let us pause here for a moment and consider these reenactments. We can acknowledge Lepore’s access to the historical documents “found” in the last archive and recognize the credibility of such documents.27 Yet, we must question Lepore’s quest to help her listeners “see” the “truth.” The Last Archive follows in a tradition of contemporary podcasts that borrow a style from early- to mid-twentieth century radio production referred to by scholars as the “storytelling” approach.28 While Lepore reenacts content from the archival objects she finds, she nonetheless relies on the hallmarks of radio production – including speech, music, and noise – to present a dramatized narrative.29 Take, for instance, a reenacted portion of Frye’s murder trial in the episode “Detection of Deception.” Frye’s lawyer asks if Judge McCoy will allow the results of the lie detector test to be admitted as evidence; the judge responds by lambasting the use of such pseudo-science in a court of law.30 While Lepore utilizes the trial transcript as the basis for the reenactment, we must acknowledge that other portions of the reenactment are fictional or dramatized for narrative effect. As the judge presents his opinion of the lie detector, faint ominous music plays in the background; the judge’s condescending tone is reinforced by his emphasis on the “p” as he snidely derides the “pamphlets” submitted to him on the subject of systolic blood pressure tests.31 How does Lepore know that the judge spoke with this tone? Surely there was no ominous music playing in the courtroom.

Lepore’s reenactments reveal larger concerns regarding the ability to demonstrate “truth” for the audience. As scholars like Leslie McMurtry have noted, these types of podcasts blur the line between creative nonfiction and factual reporting.32 In particular, McMurtry argues that, even though these types of podcasts depict the lives and activities of real people, they “nonetheless become characters” when represented in the framework of radio drama podcasting.33 These characters range from the obscure – such as Frye in “Detection of Deception” – to well-known figures including Emily Dickinson in “The Invisible Lady.” For instance, an actress voicing Emily Dickinson reads a portion of Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” out loud.34 Again, the tone and pacing of the actresses’ voice is dramatized– we do not know how Dickinson would have actually sounded when reading her poem out loud. Indeed, Dickinson becomes a character in Lepore’s podcast, with her reading of the poem serving Lepore’s larger argument regarding the Victorian desire to keep women away from public life.35

So far, this paper has analyzed Lepore’s semi-fictional reenactments; in other words, this paper has considered Lepore’s dramatization of “known” events recorded in the archival objects housed in the last archive. However, Lepore goes beyond these “known” events, occasionally creating reenactments that are not based on any evidence from the last archive. Here, Lepore comes up against a primary challenge in the structure of contemporary podcasts; as Rebecca Ora argues in her analysis of Serial, the form and content of these podcasts “point at absences – of image, of evidence, and of truth…”36 While Lepore visualizes evidence for her listener in order to create an engaging narrative, she must deal with the gaps in the evidence she finds in the last archive. Lepore compensates for these absences in the last archive by going a step beyond reenacting moments from the archival objects. She includes reenactments based not on the evidence, but on her imagining of what might have happened.

These reenactments of absences in the last archive range from the inconsequential to the significant. The fourth episode of the podcast, “Unheard,” covers how Ralph Ellison penned Invisible Man. Lepore opens the episode by recounting the day that Ellison left New York for Vermont: “Step through the door and into an apartment in Harlem where the writer Ralph Ellison is packing a suitcase while listening to the radio.”37 As listeners, we hear a radio flipping between various programs, as if someone is searching for a station. In addition, we hear the faint, barely distinguishable sounds of what may be footsteps or the noises of packing. However, Lepore quickly notes that, although she knows for sure that Ellison left New York that day, she does not know if he listened to the radio while he packed.38 Indeed, this brief reenactment is completely constructed by Lepore; while she can imagine how Ellison’s packing may have gone, there is no record of those moments. Lepore invents this moment from Ellison’s life, and we could argue that it is largely insignificant in the grand scheme of things – the question of whether Ellison listened to the radio or not while he packed does not create a serious impact on the larger questions Lepore asks in the episode.

However, other invented reenactments may raise more serious concerns about Lepore’s reliance on the evidence she finds in the last archive. In “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” Lepore explores the murder of Lucina Broadwell and the subsequent conviction of George Long for her murder. At one point, Lepore reenacts a moment from a letter Broadwell had written to her friend Grace Grimes, telling the listener: “This is what James Wood wrote down from what Grace Grimes told him that she remembered from a letter Lucina Broadwell had written to her that Grimes had destroyed.”39 Ultimately, it is impossible to have firsthand knowledge of what was written in the alleged letter that Broadwell wrote to Grimes. Despite this absence, Lepore refers to the letter as an “insight” into the events leading up to Broadwell’s murder.40 I argue that, in reenacting such moments that cannot be verified via the archival objects in the last archive, Lepore relies on the ethos she has already established via the last archive to create her own form of evidence.

For Lepore, this new form of evidence is something that she terms the “historical imagination.” After imagining how Ellison would have packed his bags in “Unheard,” Lepore states, “You can’t make things up, but you do have to try to picture things. You have to try to put yourself in the place of your subject, in the mind of your subject, as best you can. […] The evidence of anyone’s story though is patchy. That’s where your imagination comes in.”41 This approach of Lepore’s, which the listener is not privy to until the fourth episode, raises intriguing questions when compared to her rhetorical construction of the last archive. We should recall here Lepore’s insistence on the evidence found in the last archive; at the start of the first episode, she mentions a refrain that appears at the start of each episode regarding how the last archive stores “the facts that matter and matters of fact.”42 Given the intense focus on truth in Lepore’s podcast – built through the evidence and facts found in the last archive’s objects – it is only reasonable that her willingness to include fictional techniques and imagined reenactments should give us pause.

What are the larger implications of Lepore’s strategies? Why might her use of fictionalized reenactments raise concerns? While the analysis of Lepore’s podcast presented in this paper often considers her use of sound, we must also consider her silences. Though Lepore crafts an ethos surrounding her use of evidence from the last archive, we must acknowledge that the narrative presented is inseparable from her lived experience. In other words, Lepore becomes the primary “testimonial subject” of the podcast.43 As Lepore takes the listener on her journey through the last archive, it is important to note that she is not always transparent about her own stakes and perspective. This silence becomes particularly concerning when we consider that, out of the first four episodes of The Last Archive, two focus on issues of race in the United States. We will now turn to an examination of Lepore’s silences, considering when she reenacts, when she lets the archival object speak for itself, and when she is silent.

The first and third episodes, respectively titled “The Clue of the Blue Bottle” and “The Invisible Lady,” follow Lepore’s journey to uncover silenced and invisible women in history. In fact, many of the moments in which Lepore does provide insight into her own stakes come from these episodes. The first season of The Last Archive begins with “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” which centers on Lepore’s research into the murder of Lucina Broadwell and George Long’s ultimate conviction for the murder. Lepore describes her visceral reaction upon finding a photograph of Broadwell’s corpse.44 For Lepore, Broadwell is a “silenced woman”; she reinforces throughout the episode how much silenced women bother her.45 Though questions were raised earlier regarding Lepore’s choice to reenact the alleged letter Broadwell wrote to Grimes, we might argue that this arises directly from her desire to make Broadwell speak. Ultimately, Lepore utilizes this case to make a larger argument about the ability of women to “speak” in the United States. In particular, she points to the fact that, for a long time, only men could serve on juries and speak to matters of fact.46

The third episode, “The Invisible Lady,” relies on similar themes to “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” Lepore opens this episode by recalling an invisible lady that was put on display in the Shakespeare Gallery in New York City in 1804.47 Lepore once again shows her hand early in the episode, when her comparison between the 1804 invisible lady and Siri leads her to ask, “Why can women know things only when they’re disembodied?”48 Here, we get another fictional reenactment: Lepore attempts to reproduce what the 1804 invisible lady’s voice would have sounded like.49 Lepore’s exploration of the invisible lady leads to larger questions about the desire for privacy in the Victoria era – for Lepore, this desire was largely about keeping women unseen.50 In considering these two episodes, I argue that we can clearly see the stakes of Lepore’s work. Though she does not dwell at length on her own perspective and stakes, the moments that I have drawn out in this paper demonstrate a certain level of transparency on Lepore’s part. She remains deeply invested in revealing the ways in which women have been historically silenced and hidden away.

However, this level of transparency does not extend to the second and fourth episodes, respectively titled “Detection of Deception” and “Unheard.” In “Detection of Deception,” Lepore explores the history of the lie detector and its inventor, William Moulton Marston. Importantly, Marston’s first test subject for his lie detector was a black man, James Alphonso Frye, who was accused of murdering Dr. R. W. Brown, the richest black man in Washington at the time.51 Lepore does provide some context to Marston’s involvement in the case, going so far as to argue that it was “not an accident that his test subject was a penniless black man accused of murder.”52 Furthermore, Lepore invites her colleague, Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, to briefly discuss the statistics on black crime gathered by sociologists and government agencies in the post-Civil War era.53 Despite such moments, Lepore largely allows Frye to fall to the periphery of her story. As she recounts, Frye was ultimately convicted for the murder of Dr. Brown and did attempt to appeal his conviction; during this time, Marston was arrested for fraud, as he was revealed to be a notorious liar.54 Frye becomes a tragic character in this episode, appearing to be nothing more than a pawn in one of Marston’s schemes.

Lepore does not dwell on Frye’s fate. Instead, she continues tracing Marston’s career, painting him as a rather amusing character at times. In a somewhat comedic tone, Lepore recounts that Marston was fired from several teaching positions due to his frequent lying and his unconventional polyamorous lifestyle, eventually claiming that Marston “went where all disgraced academics hope to go – he went to Hollywood.”55 What follows is an account of Marston’s work as a consulting psychologist in Hollywood. Frye reappears once more in the episode, when Lepore informs us that he did not get a fair trial and continuously sought a pardon for his conviction even after being released from prison.56 Once again though, he is pushed aside in favor of a discussion regarding Marston’s role in creating Wonder Woman. Just as Frye became a pawn in one of Marston’s schemes, he seems to become a side note in Lepore’s episode; a deeper exploration of race is pushed aside in favor of exploring the often-bizarre life of Marston.

In the fourth episode, “Unheard,” Lepore recounts how Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man. As discussed earlier in this paper, Lepore does finally discuss her concept of the “historical imagination” in this episode. Yet, despite Lepore finally acknowledging of choice to include reenactments, this episode does not often distinguish between the use of recordings and reenactments. While Lepore makes sure to tell the listener that we are about to hear an actual recording of Marston in “Detection of Deception,” she remains less forthcoming about the recordings of Ellison included in “Unheard.”57 For instance, Lepore mentions a conversation that occurred between Ellison and his friend Robert Penn Warren in which Ellison recounts his theory of history. Though Lepore mentions that this conversation happens in relation to Warren’s oral history project, she does not indicate to the listener whether this is a direct recording, or a reenactment based on a transcript.58 Given Lepore’s assertion that this episode focuses on the unheard, it’s ironic that she refuses to be forthcoming about when she reenacts moments from the life of a well-known black figure such as Ellison.

Though Lepore occasionally acknowledges race in these episodes, her analysis pales in comparison to the ways in which she traces women’s issues. In fact, she makes the statement in “Unheard” that “in the historical record, words spoken by black people are rare.”59 This statement raises several issues, chief among them: how we define the “historical record.” We once again come up against an issue raised at the beginning of this paper regarding Lepore’s lack of attention to the human influence in creating the archive and its records. She does not define the historical record, nor does she provide more than a passing theory as to why the words of black people are rarely included. In many ways, Lepore’s glossing over of racial issues echoes concerns raised about the status of the white journalist. As Jay Caspian King notes in a blog post titled “White Reporter Privilege,” “Even the best works of journalism produced by white journalists about minority communities […] have the same problem: The writer can feel like an interloper, someone who will stay long enough to write a story and then leave.”60

This discussion is not meant to devalue the work Lepore does in this podcast; rather, my goal is to shed light on the process by which Lepore constructs a narrative and potential consequences of that narrative. By establishing the existence of the last archive and reinforcing the evidentiary value of the objects within, Lepore crafts an ethos for the listener. In other words, if Lepore has direct access to this evidentiary material, then the listener may feel inclined to trust her. Furthermore, I suggest that this ethos allows Lepore to reinforce the truth of her claims and reenactments despite the fact that all information provided to the listener is mediated through her perspective. Again, this is not to claim that Lepore is attempting to falsify evidence or lie; rather, the ethos Lepore establishes through her rhetorical construction of the last archive serves as a counter-effect to the fictional techniques she utilizes. Through this process, Lepore presents a particular version of the events included in these episodes, one which may appear factual to listeners.

Jill Lepore’s podcast The Last Archive provides just one example of the ways in which contemporary podcasting interacts with the concept of archival evidence. Throughout this paper, I have attempted to draw out the tensions that arise between fact and fiction in the podcasting medium. Though Lepore builds her ethos on the evidentiary nature of the archival materials found in the last archive, she consistently utilizes dramatized reenactments to help the listener visualize this evidence. On the one hand, we must acknowledge that these reenactments do help keep Lepore’s audience engaged in the podcast. Yet, I argue that the lasting effects of her strategy extend beyond pure entertainment. By not framing her entanglements with fiction throughout the episodes discussed in this paper, Lepore presents one particular version of an event as a factual account. What we as listeners are left with may be a credible account of an event, but one that is nevertheless mediated through Lepore’s lived experiences as a white woman. Ultimately, a careful consideration of the ways in which archival evidence and dramatic reenactment intermingle throughout podcasts such as Lepore’s help us uncover how and why these stories are told.


Works Cited

Biesecker, Barbara. “Of Historicity, Rhetoric: The Archive as Scene of Invention.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9, no. 1 (2006): 124-131.
Bottomley, Andrew. “Podcasting, Welcome to Nightvale, and the Revival of Radio Drama.” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 22, no. 2 (2015): 179-189. doi: 10.1080/19376529.2015.1083370.
Brothman, Brien. “Afterglow: Conceptions of Record and Evidence in Archival Discourse.” Archival Science 2, no. 3 (2002): 311-342.
Douglas, Susan. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Hand, Richard, and Mary Traynor. “Theories of Radio Drama.” In The Radio Drama Handbook: Audio Drama in Context and Practice, 33-68. New York: Continuum, 2011.
Ilerbaig, Juan. “Archives as Sediments: Metaphors of Deposition and Archival Thinking,” Archival Science 21, no. 1 (2020): 83-95.
Kang, Jay Caspian. “White Reporter Privilege.” The Awl (blog). November 13, 2014. https://www.theawl.com/2014/11/white-reporter-privilege/.
Ora, Rebecca. “Invisible Evidence: Serial and the New Unknowability of Documentary.” In Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, edited by Dario Llinares, Neil Fox, and Richard Barry, 107-122. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Lepore, Jill, host. “Detection of Deception.” The Last Archive (podcast). May 21, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2022. https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-2-detection-of-deception.
Lepore, Jill, host. “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” The Last Archive (podcast). May 14, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2022. https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-1-the-clue-of-the-blue-bottle.
Lepore, Jill, host. “The Invisible Lady.” The Last Archive (podcast). May 28, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2022. https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-3-the-invisible-lady.
Lepore, Jill, host. “Unheard.” The Last Archive (podcast). June 4, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2022. https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-4-unheard.
Mattern, Shannon. “Extract and Preserve: Underground Repositories for a Posthuman Future.” In New Geographies 09: Posthuman, edited by Mariano Gomez Luque and Ghazal Jafari, 52-59. New York: Actar, 2018.
McMurtry, Leslie. “‘I’m Not a Real Detective, I Only Play One on Radio’: Serial as the Future of Audio Drama.” The Journal of Popular Culture 49, no. 2 (2016): 306-324.
Miller, Bonnie. “‘The Pictures are Better on Radio’: A Visual Analysis of American Radio Drama from the 1920s to the 1950s.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, & Television 38, no. 2 (2018): 322-342. https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2017.1332189.


  1. Juan Ilerbaig, “Archives as sediments: metaphors of deposition and archival thinking,” Archival Science 21, no. 1 (2021): 84, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-020-09350-z. 

  2. Ibid., 85. 

  3. Ibid., 88-9. 

  4. Shannon Mattern, “Extract and Preserve: Underground Repositories for a Posthuman Future,” in New Geographies 09: Posthuman, ed. Mariano Gomez Luque and Ghazal Jafari (New York: Actar, 2018): 56. 

  5. Barbara Biesecker, “Of Historicity, Rhetoric: The Archive as Scene of Invention,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9, no. 1 (2006): 125. 

  6. Ibid. 

  7. Brien Brothman, “Afterglow: Conceptions of Record and Evidence in Archival Discourse,” Archival Science 2, no. 3 (2002): 316. 

  8. Jill Lepore, host, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle,” The Last Archive (podcast), May 14, 2020, accessed August 7, 2022, https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-1-the-clue-of-the-blue-bottle. 

  9. Ilerbaig, 88-9. 

  10. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  11. Jill Lepore, host, “The Invisible Lady,” The Last Archive (podcast), May 28, 2020, accessed August 7, 2022, https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-3-the-invisible-lady. 

  12. Jill Lepore, host, “Unheard,” The Last Archive (podcast), June 4, 2020, accessed August 7, 2022, https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-4-unheard. 

  13. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  14. Ibid. 

  15. Lepore, “The Invisible Lady.” 

  16. Richard Hand and Mary Traynor, “Theories of Radio Drama,” in The Radio Drama Handbook: Audio Drama in Context and Practice (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011): 41. 

  17. Bonnie Miller, “‘The Pictures are Better on Radio’: A Visual Analysis of American Radio Drama from the 1920s to the 1950s,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, & Television 38, no. 2 (2018): 323, https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2017.1332189. 

  18. For more on this topic, see Susan Douglas’s book Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination

  19. Miller, 323. 

  20. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  21. Lepore, “Unheard.” 

  22. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  23. Hand and Traynor, 36. 

  24. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  25. Ibid. 

  26. Jill Lepore, host, “Detection of Deception,” The Last Archive (podcast), May 21, 2020, accessed August 7, 2022, https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-2-detection-of-deception. 

  27. Refer back to Brothman’s distinction between credibility and truth; credibility acknowledges the human component in creating archival documents. In other words, a document can be credible without being a single truthful recounting of an event. 

  28. Andrew Bottomley, “Podcasting, Welcome to Nightvale, and the Revival of Radio Drama,” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 22, no. 2 (2015): 182, doi: 10.1080/19376529.2015.1083370. 

  29. Ibid., 185. 

  30. Lepore, “Detection of Deception.” 

  31. Ibid. 

  32. Leslie McMurtry, “‘I’m Not a Real Detective, I Only Play one on Radio’: Serial as the Future of Audio Drama,” The Journal of Popular Culture 49, no. 2 (2016): 308. 

  33. Ibid., 313. 

  34. Lepore, “The Invisible Lady.” 

  35. Ibid. 

  36. Rebecca Ora, “Invisible Evidence: Serial and the New Unknowability of Documentary,” in Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, ed. by Dario Llinares, Neil Fox, and Richard Barry (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018): 110. 

  37. Lepore, “Unheard.” 

  38. Ibid. 

  39. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  40. Ibid. 

  41. Lepore, “Unheard.” 

  42. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  43. Ora, 117. 

  44. Lepore, “The Clue of the Blue Bottle.” 

  45. Ibid. 

  46. Ibid. 

  47. Lepore, “The Invisible Lady.” 

  48. Ibid. 

  49. Ibid. 

  50. Ibid. 

  51. Lepore, “Detection of Deception.” 

  52. Ibid. 

  53. Ibid. 

  54. Ibid. 

  55. Ibid. 

  56. Ibid. 

  57. Lepore, “Unheard.” 

  58. Ibid. 

  59. Ibid. 

  60. Jay Caspian Kang, “White Reporter Privilege,” The Awl (blog), November 13, 2014, https://www.theawl.com/2014/11/white-reporter-privilege/.