Signal Awards: Roman, tell us a little bit about A History of the United States in 100 Objects and how the partnership with the BBC came to life.

Roman Mars:
This is a reimagining and update to the BBC’s landmark series, A History of the World in 100 Objects [hosted and curated by British Museum Director Neil MacGregor], which I listened to when it came out and loved.

When the BBC started thinking about doing this for the history of the United States, they kept discovering there was already a 99% Invisible episode on this, and a 99% Invisible episode on that. Eventually they called and said, what if we just work together on this?

To their credit, the BBC was also thinking, we do not necessarily need to be the arbiters of what is important to America. They needed someone who could speak to what is American about these objects. And it just felt perfect. There are some ideas that buzz immediately, where you know it is the right combination of people and things. This was one of those.

Signal Awards: How are you selecting the 100 objects?

Roman:
We are still figuring it out, and we wanted to leave it open because the nature of the curation is different. It is not a bunch of stuff sitting in the British Museum. It is really everything.

We are centering on things that are thrown away, overlooked or discarded. Not the things people usually put in a museum. The 99PI bailiwick is taking unimportant things and telling you why they are important.

It is not so much about the preciousness of the object. It is about what kind of history we can tell through it.

Part of the first episode is a call-out that’s just like, “What do you have in your attic? What do you have in your basement? What little thing that means something to you can tell a bigger history of the United States?” I would love a good 10 of them that really come from a person.

It’s going to be hard to cross that bar in terms of story. There’s all kinds of things that mean a lot to people, but what can you use to tell a broader story of America and the American experience?

We’re super excited about [submissions].

Signal Awards: Talk to me about your collaborators on these episodes.

Roman:
From the very beginning, I wanted a kind of metatextual goal of the project to be the greatest collection of current storytellers of things, like journalists and audio storytellers. I want it to be the perfect mixtape of all the best people that do this in this current moment. I knew I wanted Kitchen Sisters. Jad [Abumrad] is gonna do one, and Dan Taberski’s gonna do one.

I’m calling my whole Rolodex. I miss that feeling of community. We’ve been Balkanized into these little sections, and I want us all to be together again.

Signal Awards: We are in a moment where attention feels incredibly frayed. From a craft perspective, how do you keep someone committed to a long-form story?

Roman:
I learned this secondhand from Ira Glass: you can tell a story of any length as long as you tell it in cycles of anecdote and reflection.

In a way, we are in a weird moment. Attention is divided and videos are shorter, but podcasts are longer than ever. When we did The Power Broker breakdown, those were the longest episodes I had ever put out, and people loved being in our company.

For this, we are finding a middle ground.  [100 Objects] is a little chattier and a little looser than a tightly cut 99PI episode. But the work is the same as always: earn trust, make a storytelling promise, and pay it off.

Beginning May 19, new episodes of “A History of the United States in 100 Objects” will drop every Friday in the “99% Invisible” feed on the SiriusXM app and wherever podcasts are available.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.