We bring you the first in our week-long series looking at political party conventions throughout history with a new documentary “A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance: Historic Conventions Coverage” produced by the Pacifica Radio Archives in collaboration with Democracy Now!

Only days before the opening of the 2004 major political party convention season we bring you the new documentary “A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance: Historic Conventions Coverage” from the Pacifica Radio Archives.

The radio/TV documentary spans the formal speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 to the radical sounds of Rage Against the Machine in the streets of Los Angeles, 2000. We will broadcast excerpts of the 2-hour documentary in a five-part series throughout this week.

• “A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance: Historic Conventions Coverage”–An excerpt from the documentary covering conventions in the years 1936 -1948.