Produced by 1895 Films, Artifactual is a historical podcast about archival material – who made it, who saved it, and why. It was inspired by the documentary work we do at 1895 Films, where we often come across amazing pieces of archival material (tapes, photographs, 8mm film footage, etc.). But we don't always have the space to tell the stories behind this archival material in the documentaries themselves. And so, Artifactual was born...
More than just the archival material, we talk about the stories of the individuals who created the material and the individuals who saved it. We’re interested in the people who keep history alive – the historians, curators, archivists, collectors, and enthusiasts. These are people who have devoted significant portions of their lives and attention to creating, maintaining, and making archival material — the “stuff” of history — accessible to the world.
1895 Films
1895 Films is a Peabody Award and Emmy Winning production company based in Los Angeles, California. Headed by journalist-turned-filmmaker Tom Jennings, 1895 Films specializes in creating and producing high quality documentary programming for most of the major television cable networks. 1895 Films is especially known for transporting audiences back into time through its innovative use of archival material.
1895 Films’ award-nominated and winning body of work includes Smithsonian Channel’s MLK: The Assassination Tapes (George Foster Peabody Award); National Geographic’s Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes (Emmy Award winner and Royal Television Society nominee) and National Geographic’s The Lost JFK Tapes (Emmy Award nominee). 1895 Films also produced Smithsonian Channel’s award-winning series The Lost Tapes, as well as the National Geographic series In Their Own Words – a spin-off from the company’s highly successful profile of Princess Diana, called Diana: In Her Own Words. In January 2020, 1895’s special for National Geographic titled Apollo: Missions to the Moon won the Producers Guild Award for Best Motion Picture for Television or Streaming, beating out four major fiction projects.
Tobiah Black
Tobiah Black is a writer, Emmy award-winning documentary producer, and host of Artifactual. His documentary work with 1895 Films includes The Lost Tapes (Smithsonian, 2016-2018), Bernie Madoff: In His Own Words (Nat Geo, 2019), and Being the Queen (Nat Geo, 2020). His writing has appeared in The Molotov Cocktail, Tilted House Review, and The Roanoke Review. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and cat.
Tom Jennings
Tom Jennings is the founder and executive producer of 1895 Films. He is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. He has written, produced and directed more than 400 hours of programming on topics including politics, religion, history, crime, sports, mystery and travel. He has produced films all around the globe, always looking for new ways to tell stories that are informative and entertaining.
Tom started his career as a print journalist, writing for publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press. In 1994, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for investigative reporting. In 2019, Tom was the recipient of the William Taylor Award from his alma mater, Kent State University. The prestigious award is given each year to an outstanding alumni of KSU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
