WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.980 If you go and stand on the grounds right across 00:00:03.980 --> 00:00:06.379 the Mississippi River from present -day St. Louis, 00:00:06.459 --> 00:00:09.519 and you just look out at the landscape, you won't 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:12.859 actually see skyscrapers. You'll see a mound 00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:15.279 of dirt. Right, a massive mound of dirt. Exactly. 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:17.620 And it's roughly the same height from its base 00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:20.530 as the Great Pyramid of Giza. which is just wild 00:00:20.530 --> 00:00:23.010 to think about. It really is. And realizing that 00:00:23.010 --> 00:00:24.870 this structure has just been sitting there for 00:00:24.870 --> 00:00:28.070 a thousand years, it completely shatters the 00:00:28.070 --> 00:00:30.410 timeline most of us have in our heads about how 00:00:30.410 --> 00:00:32.429 urbanization actually happened in North America. 00:00:32.549 --> 00:00:35.840 Yeah, we tend to default to a very neat... linear 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.219 progression. We assume it started with just empty 00:00:38.219 --> 00:00:40.460 wilderness and then European pioneers arrived 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:42.240 and, you know, finally they built the industrial 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:45.420 cities. But that mound of earth, it proves the 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:48.140 story is far more complicated, far more cyclical 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:50.229 than we usually like to admit. Well, welcome 00:00:50.229 --> 00:00:52.450 to the deep dive. Today, we are taking a stack 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:54.509 of research. Specifically, we've got a highly 00:00:54.509 --> 00:00:56.810 detailed historical deep dive into the state 00:00:56.810 --> 00:00:59.490 of Illinois. And our mission today is to figure 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:03.750 out how a single geographic area became the ultimate 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:06.290 chaotic testing ground for the American dream. 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:09.280 It really is the ultimate microcosm. It is. We're 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:12.500 talking about vanished ancient megacities, utopian 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:15.000 religious settlements, literal shootouts in coal 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:18.959 country, and a modern political system so volatile 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:21.620 that sending governors to federal prison became, 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:25.620 well... practically became a recognized stage 00:01:25.620 --> 00:01:27.739 of their career path. Yeah, the overarching theme 00:01:27.739 --> 00:01:29.480 you find when you synthesize all these sources 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.680 is disruption. I mean, Illinois is a state entirely 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:34.959 defined by rapid transformations and these really 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:37.680 extreme contradictions. It's a place that constantly 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:40.239 reinvents itself through staggering demographic 00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:42.719 shifts and just fierce ideological battle. So 00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:44.640 before we can even talk about the towering steel 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:46.900 and glass of modern Chicago, we have to look 00:01:46.900 --> 00:01:48.819 at the immense earthworks that preceded them. 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:52.140 Let's start around the year 1050 AD, near present 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:54.879 -day Collinsville. This is the center of the 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:57.260 pre -Columbian -Mississippian culture, a place 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:00.040 called Cahokia. And they are the ones who built 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:02.000 that structure we mentioned, Monks Mound. And 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.829 the sheer... Um, marshaling of human labor required 00:02:05.829 --> 00:02:08.550 to build an earthen pyramid of that scale is 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.370 really hard to overstate. I bet. Cahokia wasn't 00:02:11.370 --> 00:02:13.949 just some temporary gathering place or a scattering 00:02:13.949 --> 00:02:18.069 of tents. This was a sprawling palisaded city 00:02:18.069 --> 00:02:21.370 featuring over a hundred smaller artificial mounds 00:02:21.370 --> 00:02:24.680 marking burial sites and ceremonial spaces. The 00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:26.379 population is estimated to have been between 00:02:26.379 --> 00:02:29.819 16 ,000 and 20 ,000 people. Which, and this blew 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:32.460 my mind, made it the most concentrated population 00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:35.639 north of the Rio Grande until the late 1700s. 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:38.439 Yes. But how did they actually sustain a population 00:02:38.439 --> 00:02:41.199 that dense without, you know, modern agriculture? 00:02:41.419 --> 00:02:43.340 Well, they had a highly organized agricultural 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:46.060 system. The city was surrounded by these radiating 00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:48.280 tilled fields supplying just enormous quantities 00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:51.199 of corn to feed those tens of thousands of urban 00:02:51.199 --> 00:02:54.060 dwellers. It was a very complex, hierarchical 00:02:54.060 --> 00:02:57.000 society. But then somewhere between fourteen 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.639 hundred and fifteen hundred. It simply vanished. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.479 Just gone. Yeah. The people dispersed. And the 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:05.740 theories as to why, well, they provide a perfect 00:03:05.740 --> 00:03:08.419 study in how fragile, complex societies really 00:03:08.419 --> 00:03:10.699 are. Yeah. The sources point to a cascade of 00:03:10.699 --> 00:03:12.879 failures. First, there's evidence of a severe 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:14.819 earthquake that likely damaged Monk's Mount. 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:17.560 Which is a critical detail, because the Cahokian 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:19.639 chiefs, they claim to derive their authority 00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:22.000 from supernatural powers. Oh, right. So if the 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.620 earth itself violently damages your most sacred 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:28.469 monument, the populace might start to... question 00:03:28.469 --> 00:03:30.949 your divine mandate. That makes a lot of sense. 00:03:31.289 --> 00:03:32.770 And on top of that, you have an environmental 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:35.469 crisis. To build the city and fuel their fires, 00:03:35.870 --> 00:03:38.129 they heavily deforested the surrounding area. 00:03:38.229 --> 00:03:40.909 And without trees to anchor the soil, you get 00:03:40.909 --> 00:03:43.289 severe runoff, which pollutes the local water 00:03:43.289 --> 00:03:46.030 supply. Combine that with a period of global 00:03:46.030 --> 00:03:48.770 cooling known as the mini ice age, which caused 00:03:48.770 --> 00:03:51.870 recurring famines, and the society just fractures. 00:03:52.110 --> 00:03:55.319 Think of Cahokia like an ancient Manhattan. a 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:58.860 massive, densely populated hub of agriculture 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:01.800 and religion that just collapsed under the weight 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:04.719 of its own environmental and political infrastructure. 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:07.099 And, you know, nature of horror is a vacuum. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.400 The collapse of Cahokia led to a deeply unstable 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.580 era. The Illiniwek Confederation, who actually 00:04:13.580 --> 00:04:16.500 gave Illinois its name, they attempted to hold 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:19.199 power in the region. But then you introduce a 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.720 global economic factor, the 17th century Beaver 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:24.600 Wars. Wait, I need to pause you here because 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:27.620 Beaver Wars sounds almost comical, but the underlying 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:29.800 mechanism is actually really brutal. What exactly 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:31.709 were they fighting over? They were fighting over 00:04:31.709 --> 00:04:33.930 global trade dominance. European markets had 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.550 this insatiable demand for beaver pelts to make 00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:39.509 hats and clothing. OK. So the Iroquois Confederacy, 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:41.870 located further east, they wanted to monopolize 00:04:41.870 --> 00:04:44.069 that incredibly lucrative trade with the French 00:04:44.069 --> 00:04:46.029 and Dutch. Makes sense. To do that, they needed 00:04:46.029 --> 00:04:48.329 more hunting territory, so they violently expanded 00:04:48.329 --> 00:04:50.910 westward. And this pushed tribes like the Miami 00:04:50.910 --> 00:04:53.370 and Mesquite entirely out of their ancestral 00:04:53.370 --> 00:04:55.870 lands in Ohio and Indiana. Yeah, forcing them 00:04:55.870 --> 00:04:57.769 to flee into the western Great Lakes region, 00:04:58.069 --> 00:05:00.860 including Illinois. So long before European settlers 00:05:00.860 --> 00:05:03.540 even built a single town in Illinois, the region 00:05:03.540 --> 00:05:06.540 was already this chaotic refugee zone driven 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:09.139 by the demands of a globalized European fashion 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:12.779 market. Exactly. It wasn't until French explorers 00:05:12.779 --> 00:05:15.220 like Jacques Marquet and Louis Joliet arrived 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:19.199 in 1673 that a new colonial order began to take 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:22.079 shape, establishing trading posts and missions. 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:24.500 And the illusion of an empty frontier is what 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:27.060 led to such brutal clashes when the territory 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:29.980 finally transitioned to American control. If 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.800 we jump forward to 1818, Illinois becomes the 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.680 21st U .S. state. The population expands from 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:37.899 the south to the north, pushing out the native 00:05:37.899 --> 00:05:39.920 residents who had been living there, culminating 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:43.560 in conflicts like the 1832 Blackhawk War. But 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:45.560 internally, the new state was tearing itself 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:48.079 apart over an entirely different issue. Slavery. 00:05:48.379 --> 00:05:50.420 Yeah, slavery. The history of the land of Lincoln 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:53.040 is deeply contested. The French had actually 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:56.180 utilized black slaves in the region from 1719 00:05:56.180 --> 00:05:58.759 well into the 1820s. Wow, I didn't realize it 00:05:58.759 --> 00:06:00.860 started that early. Yeah, and even though the 00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:03.160 Northwest Ordinance nominally banned slavery 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:06.100 in the territory, the enforcement was remarkably 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:08.920 lax. By the time Illinois achieved statehood, 00:06:09.079 --> 00:06:12.060 there were roughly 900 slaves living there. Because 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:14.439 the southern part of the state, an area colloquially 00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:17.300 known as Egypt, was heavily settled by southerners. 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:20.610 And these sellers were hostile to free black 00:06:20.610 --> 00:06:23.290 Americans and wanted the legal right to bring 00:06:23.290 --> 00:06:26.189 slave labor into the state. They went so far 00:06:26.189 --> 00:06:28.490 as to call for a constitutional convention in 00:06:28.490 --> 00:06:32.009 1823 to officially legalize slavery in Illinois. 00:06:32.509 --> 00:06:34.569 And that convention was blocked by Governor Edward 00:06:34.569 --> 00:06:37.730 Coles, who mobilized anti -slavery forces to 00:06:37.730 --> 00:06:40.389 win a statewide referendum. I am stuck on something 00:06:40.389 --> 00:06:42.560 here, though. If the state was heavily settled 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:45.519 by pro -slavery Southerners, how on earth did 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:48.060 a governor convince them to block slavery? That 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:50.399 makes no political sense. Was it just a sudden 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:53.220 awakening of moral righteousness? No, not exactly. 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:55.439 It was a brilliant piece of political framing 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.259 based entirely on economic self -interest. Oh 00:06:58.259 --> 00:07:01.379 really? Yeah. Coles didn't just argue the morality 00:07:01.379 --> 00:07:04.540 of abolition. He warned the everyday working 00:07:04.540 --> 00:07:07.439 class farmers that if slavery were legalized, 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.040 wealthy southern plantation owners would move 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:13.060 in, buy up all the premium farmland, and utilize 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:16.180 free slave labor. So the average farmer would 00:07:16.180 --> 00:07:18.420 be completely priced out of the market and unable 00:07:18.420 --> 00:07:21.180 to compete. That is fascinating. So when the 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:24.699 1823 referendum showed 60 % of voters opposing 00:07:24.699 --> 00:07:27.319 slavery, they were largely protecting their own 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:30.379 livelihoods. Exactly. And that economic motivation 00:07:30.379 --> 00:07:33.180 explains the ideological whiplash you see throughout 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:36.100 Illinois's early history. A perfect example is 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:38.279 State Senator John A. Logan. What did he do? 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.860 Well, in 1853, he helps pass a draconian law 00:07:41.860 --> 00:07:44.060 prohibiting all African Americans, including 00:07:44.060 --> 00:07:46.300 freedmen, from even settling in the state of 00:07:46.300 --> 00:07:48.819 Illinois. Wow. But then, after the Civil War 00:07:48.819 --> 00:07:52.699 ends in 1865, Logan completely reverses his position 00:07:52.699 --> 00:07:55.300 and becomes a leading national advocate for civil 00:07:55.300 --> 00:07:57.600 rights. The political currents were incredibly 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.759 volatile, but so were the religious ones. In 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:03.800 1839, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:06.579 Latter -day Saints. The Mormons flee persecution 00:08:06.579 --> 00:08:09.699 in Missouri and build a religious utopia in Illinois 00:08:09.699 --> 00:08:13.040 called Nauvoo. Yes. Guided by Joseph Smith, Nauvoo's 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:16.420 growth was just explosive. Through highly organized 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:18.879 collective labor, they drained swamps and built 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:22.079 a thriving city that rapidly reached 12 ,000 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:24.519 inhabitants. That's huge for that time. It was. 00:08:25.060 --> 00:08:27.680 For a brief moment, Nauvoo genuinely rivaled 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:30.480 Chicago as the largest city in the state. complete 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:33.379 with a colossal stone temple. How does a brand 00:08:33.379 --> 00:08:35.860 new religious sect manage to build a competing 00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:38.559 economic powerhouse on the frontier so quickly? 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:41.179 And I guess, why did the surrounding towns turn 00:08:41.179 --> 00:08:43.490 on them so violently? The Mormons operated with 00:08:43.490 --> 00:08:46.509 a really high degree of social and economic cohesion. 00:08:46.750 --> 00:08:48.570 They pooled their resources, supported their 00:08:48.570 --> 00:08:51.230 own businesses, and voted as a single unified 00:08:51.230 --> 00:08:53.309 political bloc. OK, I see where this is going. 00:08:53.590 --> 00:08:56.190 Right. In a frontier environment where everyone 00:08:56.190 --> 00:08:59.110 else is fiercely competing as individuals, a 00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:01.789 highly organized, heavily armed collective of 00:09:01.789 --> 00:09:05.210 12 ,000 people is viewed as an existential threat 00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:07.870 by the surrounding non -Mormon towns. Yeah, that 00:09:07.870 --> 00:09:11.299 makes sense. So the tension boiled over. In 1844, 00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:14.379 Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in nearby Carthage. 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:18.059 And by 1846, Brigham Young realized the friction 00:09:18.059 --> 00:09:20.639 was unsustainable and led the Mormons out of 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:23.340 Illinois entirely, beginning the long trek to 00:09:23.340 --> 00:09:25.679 Utah. Following the Civil War, where, by the 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.799 way, Illinois sent 250 ,000 Union soldiers, which 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:31.460 was the fourth most of any state, the region's 00:09:31.460 --> 00:09:33.779 identity shifted again. The era of surviving 00:09:33.779 --> 00:09:36.639 the frontier was over. The new era was about 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:39.330 conquering industry. and the economic engines 00:09:39.330 --> 00:09:41.750 they built were unprecedented. You had a booming 00:09:41.750 --> 00:09:44.190 steel industry along the Calumet River in northern 00:09:44.190 --> 00:09:47.110 Illinois, and these sprawling coal mining operations 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.409 down in central and southern Illinois. These 00:09:49.409 --> 00:09:51.549 industries generated staggering wealth, but they 00:09:51.549 --> 00:09:53.970 operated with virtually zero safety regulations. 00:09:54.330 --> 00:09:57.549 The human cost was horrific. The sources highlight 00:09:57.549 --> 00:10:01.269 the 1909 Cherry Mine disaster. An underground 00:10:01.269 --> 00:10:04.669 fire broke out in a coal mine, trapping and killing 00:10:04.669 --> 00:10:08.279 259 miners. It's awful. It remains one of the 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:10.360 worst disasters in American coal mining history. 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:12.580 And tragedies like the cherry mine are critical 00:10:12.580 --> 00:10:15.000 to understand because they shifted the psychological 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.320 overton window of the American middle class. 00:10:18.179 --> 00:10:20.639 Well, prior to this, government regulation of 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:22.980 private business was widely viewed as overreach. 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:27.500 But the sheer visual horror of 259 men suffocating 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.919 underground made the public realize that unregulated 00:10:30.919 --> 00:10:34.399 capitalism was a public safety crisis. This directly 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.600 fuels the progressive era. from 1900 to the 1920s. 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:39.860 Yeah, the Progressive Era saw activists essentially 00:10:39.860 --> 00:10:42.279 acting as the state's first modern urban planners. 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:44.480 You have Jane Addams founding Whole House in 00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:47.059 Chicago, providing vital services like education 00:10:47.059 --> 00:10:49.240 and healthcare to struggling immigrant communities, 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:52.549 and you have... Women reformers fighting for 00:10:52.549 --> 00:10:54.389 fundamental infrastructure like sewage systems 00:10:54.389 --> 00:10:56.850 and municipal garbage collection. And you have 00:10:56.850 --> 00:10:59.750 Upton Sinclair publishing The Jungle in 1905. 00:11:00.370 --> 00:11:03.950 He went undercover to expose the unsanitary revolting 00:11:03.950 --> 00:11:06.409 conditions in Chicago's meatpacking plants. That 00:11:06.409 --> 00:11:09.169 book changed everything. It really did. The public 00:11:09.169 --> 00:11:11.570 outcry from that single book was so intense it 00:11:11.570 --> 00:11:13.710 stint elated the passage of the Pure Food and 00:11:13.710 --> 00:11:16.950 Drug Act in Congress the very next year. Meanwhile. 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:20.820 Ida B. Wells -Barnett used Chicago as her base 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:23.299 to crusade against the lynching of black Americans 00:11:23.299 --> 00:11:26.340 in the South. She founded the Alpha Suffrage 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:28.500 Club. the first for black women in Illinois, 00:11:29.139 --> 00:11:31.700 and used her organizing power to help elect Oscar 00:11:31.700 --> 00:11:34.779 Stanton de Priest as Chicago's first black alderman. 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:37.879 She was a powerhouse. She was. To understand 00:11:37.879 --> 00:11:40.200 these progressive reformers, it's like the entire 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:42.840 state was a runaway train of unregulated capitalism. 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:44.940 And these women, Adams, Wells Barnett, are the 00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:46.519 ones throwing themselves onto the track to build 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.600 the brakes. They realize you can't just patch 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:51.000 the software, meaning the economy, if the motherboard 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:53.879 itself, like sewage, housing, and basic human 00:11:53.879 --> 00:11:56.320 rights, is rotting. That is the perfect way to 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:58.259 frame it. They understood that a functioning 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:01.960 society requires a strong foundation. And speaking 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:04.419 of foundations, the state's physical infrastructure 00:12:04.419 --> 00:12:09.539 was also failing. By 1905, Illinois had 90 ,000 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:13.600 miles of locally built dirt roads. Wow. dirt 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:16.299 roads. Yes. And during the rainy season, these 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.179 roads turned to impassable mud. Farmers were 00:12:19.179 --> 00:12:21.500 entirely trapped on their properties for weeks 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:23.399 at a time. You would think paving roads would 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:25.940 be universally popular, but downstate Republican 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:28.639 factions absolutely refused to pay the taxes 00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:30.960 required to upgrade them. Every county just wanted 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:33.220 someone else to foot the bill. Right. It required 00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:35.360 a strategic political maneuver by a Democratic 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:38.480 governor, Edward Dunn, elected in 1912 to break 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:41.059 the gridlock. Dunn realized he couldn't win by 00:12:41.059 --> 00:12:43.250 appealing to the farmer's desire for convenience. 00:12:43.649 --> 00:12:45.409 He had to make an economic argument centered 00:12:45.409 --> 00:12:48.450 on Chicago. So he pitched it as a statewide economic 00:12:48.450 --> 00:12:51.850 engine. If farmers had paved roads, they could 00:12:51.850 --> 00:12:54.370 ship their crops cheaply to the city all year 00:12:54.370 --> 00:12:56.769 round. They would make more money, which they 00:12:56.769 --> 00:12:59.070 would then spend buying mail order consumer goods 00:12:59.070 --> 00:13:01.409 for massive Chicago based companies like Sears 00:13:01.409 --> 00:13:04.610 Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. He totally bypassed 00:13:04.610 --> 00:13:07.230 the local factions and poured state dollars into 00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:10.409 a long term paving program. But connecting the 00:13:10.409 --> 00:13:12.929 state physically meant colliding cultures could 00:13:12.929 --> 00:13:15.389 now reach each other much faster. Right. Which 00:13:15.389 --> 00:13:18.990 brings us to the 1920s. Chicago experiences rapid 00:13:18.990 --> 00:13:22.049 economic growth fueled by jazz, consumerism, 00:13:22.309 --> 00:13:25.350 and changing social norms. But the decade is 00:13:25.350 --> 00:13:28.330 also defined by the 18th Amendment, prohibition. 00:13:28.509 --> 00:13:31.429 Oh, prohibition. It was sold as a way to reduce 00:13:31.429 --> 00:13:33.990 crime and clean up society, but it achieved the 00:13:33.990 --> 00:13:36.470 exact opposite. Completely. It fueled a dramatic 00:13:36.470 --> 00:13:39.649 rise in bootlegging, speakeasies, and unprecedented 00:13:39.649 --> 00:13:42.370 political corruption. The criminal underworld 00:13:42.370 --> 00:13:44.610 in Chicago became a highly organized corporate 00:13:44.610 --> 00:13:47.889 entity dominated by Al Capone, who operated with 00:13:47.889 --> 00:13:50.090 impunity under the exceptionally corrupt Republican 00:13:50.090 --> 00:13:53.259 mayor, Big Bill Thompson. And while Chicago was 00:13:53.259 --> 00:13:56.120 dealing with gangland warfare, the cultural whiplash 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:58.799 outside the city was just as extreme. This is 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:01.500 the era of the second Ku Klux Klan. Illinois 00:14:01.500 --> 00:14:03.720 actually had about 200 ,000 Klan members in the 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.320 1920s. The sources paint a picture of the Klan 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:09.200 in Illinois that defies the usual stereotypes. 00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:11.580 This wasn't just isolated in the deep south, 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:13.659 it was a cross -section of middle and working 00:14:13.659 --> 00:14:16.639 class white Protestants across the Midwest. And 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:19.340 they basically branded themselves as a pro - 00:14:19.309 --> 00:14:22.210 Prohibition Morality Police. Yes, they did. They 00:14:22.210 --> 00:14:25.049 possessed a strongly nativist, anti -Catholic, 00:14:25.230 --> 00:14:28.350 anti -immigrant agenda, pushing a doctrine of 00:14:28.350 --> 00:14:31.669 100 % Americanism. Because local law enforcement 00:14:31.669 --> 00:14:34.309 was often bribed by bootleggers, the Klan took 00:14:34.309 --> 00:14:36.950 it upon themselves to violently enforce prohibition 00:14:36.950 --> 00:14:38.610 laws in their communities. Wait, so you have 00:14:38.610 --> 00:14:41.590 the KKK acting as Prohibition Morality Police 00:14:41.590 --> 00:14:43.750 getting into literal shootouts with bootleggers 00:14:43.750 --> 00:14:45.730 in southern Illinois coal towns like Williamson 00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:48.409 County. Yes, at gun battles in the streets. That 00:14:48.409 --> 00:14:50.470 sounds like the plot of a bizarre historical 00:14:50.470 --> 00:14:53.350 action movie, but it really shows how fractured 00:14:53.350 --> 00:14:55.840 the American dream was at that moment. When you 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:58.919 trip away the historical romanticism Prohibition 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:03.240 essentially created two rival heavily armed populist 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:06.620 militias One claiming to protect morality and 00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:08.740 the other claiming to provide the alcohol that 00:15:08.740 --> 00:15:11.220 people wanted and the state was just caught in 00:15:11.220 --> 00:15:14.039 the crossfire It was a profoundly fractured society 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:16.600 and that cultural and economic excess slammed 00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:19.320 into a brick wall in 1929 with the onset of the 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:22.059 Great Depression The financial devastation forced 00:15:22.059 --> 00:15:24.100 a total restructuring of the state's economy 00:15:24.490 --> 00:15:27.710 Urban unemployment in Illinois soared to 25 percent. 00:15:28.049 --> 00:15:30.029 Can we walk through the mechanics of the bank 00:15:30.029 --> 00:15:33.129 collapse? Because the sources highlight the tragedy 00:15:33.129 --> 00:15:35.929 of Chicago's ethnic neighborhood banks. And it 00:15:35.929 --> 00:15:38.289 really illustrates how the wealth just evaporated. 00:15:38.470 --> 00:15:41.289 Let's break it down. In the booming 1920s, major 00:15:41.289 --> 00:15:43.570 downtown banks often wouldn't lend to recent 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:46.330 immigrants. So neighborhoods established their 00:15:46.330 --> 00:15:49.429 own small ethnic banks. Polish immigrants, Italian 00:15:49.429 --> 00:15:51.929 immigrants, they would pool their factory wages 00:15:51.929 --> 00:15:54.610 into these local banks, which would then lend 00:15:54.610 --> 00:15:57.009 that money back out as mortgages to build homes 00:15:57.009 --> 00:15:59.230 in that specific neighborhood. When the Depression 00:15:59.230 --> 00:16:01.929 hits, the factories close. Yeah. Incomes drop 00:16:01.929 --> 00:16:04.850 to zero. Precisely. people can't pay their mortgages 00:16:04.850 --> 00:16:08.070 or their rent. When rent stops, housing prices 00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:11.409 plunge, foreclosures skyrocket. The bank suddenly 00:16:11.409 --> 00:16:13.929 holds a portfolio of essentially worthless real 00:16:13.929 --> 00:16:16.330 estate, and when the depositors rush to withdraw 00:16:16.330 --> 00:16:19.289 their life savings, the vault is empty. Oh, man. 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:23.629 Yeah. In the 1920s, Chicago had 199 of these 00:16:23.629 --> 00:16:27.590 small neighborhood banks. By 1933, only 33 survived. 00:16:28.090 --> 00:16:30.210 The depositors who lost their savings eventually 00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:32.250 received about 80 cents on the dollar, but that 00:16:32.250 --> 00:16:34.970 was years later. Imagine pouring all your community's 00:16:34.970 --> 00:16:36.769 wealth into a local ethnic bank to build your 00:16:36.769 --> 00:16:39.610 neighborhood, only to watch it evaporate. An 00:16:39.610 --> 00:16:41.870 entire generation's collective wealth, meticulously 00:16:41.870 --> 00:16:45.289 saved, just gone. It's devastating. It perfectly 00:16:45.289 --> 00:16:48.690 explains why the WWII factory boom wasn't just 00:16:48.690 --> 00:16:51.669 an economic recovery. It was an absolute psychological 00:16:51.669 --> 00:16:54.649 lifeline that completely redrew the map of Chicago. 00:16:54.990 --> 00:16:58.240 Definitely. World War II federal contracts demanded 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:01.179 immense labor. With millions of young men drafted 00:17:01.179 --> 00:17:03.720 into the military, factories rapidly hired women, 00:17:03.899 --> 00:17:06.220 youths, and the elderly to build tanks and munitions. 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:08.900 Suddenly cash was flowing again. Yes. People 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:11.420 paid off decades of debt and started families, 00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:13.839 leading directly into the baby boom and the post 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:16.640 -war suburban explosion. And the state was also 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:18.980 producing historic scientific breakthroughs. 00:17:19.099 --> 00:17:22.160 In 1942, under the stadium stands at the University 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:25.490 of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi successfully 00:17:25.490 --> 00:17:28.470 activated Chicago Pile -1. A huge milestone. 00:17:28.549 --> 00:17:30.930 By carefully layering graphite and uranium, they 00:17:30.930 --> 00:17:33.049 achieved the world's first self -sustained nuclear 00:17:33.049 --> 00:17:35.990 chain reaction, officially ushering in the atomic 00:17:35.990 --> 00:17:38.750 age. And simultaneously, the demographics of 00:17:38.750 --> 00:17:40.750 the state were being permanently altered by the 00:17:40.750 --> 00:17:44.730 Great Migration. Between 1910 and 1960, hundreds 00:17:44.730 --> 00:17:47.150 of thousands of Black Americans fled the crushing 00:17:47.150 --> 00:17:49.730 rural poverty and systemic violence of the Jim 00:17:49.730 --> 00:17:52.410 Crow South, seeking factory jobs in industrial 00:17:52.410 --> 00:17:55.269 cities like Chicago and East St. Louis. The impact 00:17:55.269 --> 00:17:57.369 of that migration reshaped American culture. 00:17:57.559 --> 00:18:00.039 They faced heavy redlining, segregation, and 00:18:00.039 --> 00:18:02.640 horrific racial violence like the East St. Louis 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:05.259 massacre in 1917 and the Chicago race riot of 00:18:05.259 --> 00:18:07.759 1919. Awful chapters in the state's history. 00:18:07.900 --> 00:18:10.619 Truly. Yet despite being boxed into specific 00:18:10.619 --> 00:18:13.119 neighborhoods, black residents built incredibly 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:15.480 vibrant communities, thriving business districts, 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:17.940 and enduring cultural institutions on the south 00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:20.450 and west sides of Chicago. Today, Chicago has 00:18:20.450 --> 00:18:23.430 roughly 800 ,000 black residents, making up 29 00:18:23.430 --> 00:18:26.269 % of the city. That post -war prosperity, scientific 00:18:26.269 --> 00:18:29.329 innovation, and demographic shift forged a new 00:18:29.329 --> 00:18:32.250 modern identity for Illinois. As the state entered 00:18:32.250 --> 00:18:34.890 the late 20th and 21st centuries, its political 00:18:34.890 --> 00:18:37.809 landscape became a master class in duality. Duality 00:18:37.809 --> 00:18:40.509 is a good word for it. You see deeply progressive 00:18:40.509 --> 00:18:44.390 policymaking existing side by side with systemic 00:18:44.539 --> 00:18:47.420 jaw -dropping corruption. Let's examine this 00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:50.180 modern political era purely looking at the facts 00:18:50.180 --> 00:18:52.779 reported in the sources. On one hand, you have 00:18:52.779 --> 00:18:56.420 major bipartisan governance milestones. In 1969, 00:18:56.779 --> 00:18:59.079 Republican Governor Richard B. Ogilvie manages 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:01.940 to secure the state's first income tax to modernize 00:19:01.940 --> 00:19:05.079 government services. Right. Decades later, Republican 00:19:05.079 --> 00:19:08.079 Governor George H. Ryan pushes through a $6 .3 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.920 billion infrastructure package called Illinois 00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.480 First to repair crumbling roads and schools. 00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:15.900 Governor Ryan also gained international attention 00:19:15.900 --> 00:19:18.500 in 2003 regarding the death penalty. Oh, yes. 00:19:18.619 --> 00:19:20.920 After several high profile exonerations, he concluded 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:23.220 the system simply could not be administered fairly 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:25.920 or without error. In a sweeping executive action, 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:28.839 he commuted the sentences of all 167 convicts 00:19:28.839 --> 00:19:30.960 on Illinois's death row. That was a huge moment. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.759 It was. And later, Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:36.200 signed landmark progressive legislation, including 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:38.819 a 2005 bill prohibiting discrimination based 00:19:38.819 --> 00:19:41.640 on sexual orientation, while also significantly 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:44.210 expanding state health care. access. But we have 00:19:44.210 --> 00:19:45.950 to look at the mechanics of how some of this 00:19:45.950 --> 00:19:49.450 was funded. Blagojevich balanced his 2005 budget 00:19:49.450 --> 00:19:53.069 in part by shorting the state employees pension 00:19:53.069 --> 00:19:56.589 fund by one point two billion dollars. Can you 00:19:56.589 --> 00:19:58.829 explain how a governor actually does that? Think 00:19:58.829 --> 00:20:00.950 of it like a homeowner trying to appear wealthy 00:20:00.950 --> 00:20:03.390 by skipping their mortgage payments to buy groceries 00:20:03.390 --> 00:20:06.869 and new furniture. OK. The state is legally obligated 00:20:06.869 --> 00:20:08.990 to contribute a specific amount to the retirement 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:11.390 funds of teachers and state workers every year. 00:20:11.549 --> 00:20:14.130 By purposely contributing less than required, 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:16.990 the governor keeps cash on hand to fund popular 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:19.779 new programs without raising taxes today. But 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:22.140 there's a catch. A big one. That missing pension 00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:25.039 contribution accrues interest. The debt compounds 00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:27.099 invisibly until the system reaches a breaking 00:20:27.099 --> 00:20:29.539 point. And the breaking point arrived was a vengeance. 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:32.660 We have to acknowledge the astounding track record 00:20:32.660 --> 00:20:35.619 of the executive branch here. Four modern Illinois 00:20:35.619 --> 00:20:38.279 governors, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan 00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:41.200 and Rod Blagojevich, all eventually went to federal 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:43.660 prison on various charges involving bribery, 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:46.759 mail fraud or business crimes. The financial 00:20:46.759 --> 00:20:48.819 and administrative fallout of those combined 00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:51.460 administrations was severe. By the time Governor 00:20:51.460 --> 00:20:54.579 Pat Quinn took office in 2009, he inherited a 00:20:54.579 --> 00:20:57.980 state staring down a staggering unfunded retiree 00:20:57.980 --> 00:21:00.880 pension liability of nearly a hundred billion 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:03.519 dollars. Wow. Yeah. Placing the state on the 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:05.819 verge of total financial meltdown. When you look 00:21:05.819 --> 00:21:07.599 at the entirety of this timeline, we're talking 00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:09.819 about a state that produces global scientific 00:21:09.819 --> 00:21:12.299 breakthroughs and civil rights milestones. Yet 00:21:12.299 --> 00:21:15.539 its executive branch has a literal prison pipeline. 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:18.549 It's almost as if the fierce factional survival 00:21:18.549 --> 00:21:21.250 of the fittest mentality from the frontier days 00:21:21.250 --> 00:21:23.849 never actually left Illinois politics. It just 00:21:23.849 --> 00:21:26.069 moved into air conditioned offices. Exactly. 00:21:26.269 --> 00:21:29.650 The core human drives, the competition for resources, 00:21:29.869 --> 00:21:32.470 the desire to impose one's worldview on a changing 00:21:32.470 --> 00:21:35.150 landscape, they remained exactly the same, whether 00:21:35.150 --> 00:21:37.289 they were fighting over fur trade routes, railroad 00:21:37.289 --> 00:21:39.490 contracts, or modern infrastructure budgets. 00:21:40.130 --> 00:21:42.650 As we wrap up today, it becomes remarkably clear 00:21:42.650 --> 00:21:45.589 why the sources point to Illinois as the ultimate 00:21:45.589 --> 00:21:48.539 mirror for America. It is the American story, 00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:52.099 condensed and amplified. From the environmental 00:21:52.099 --> 00:21:54.400 collapse of Cahokia and the moral battles over 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:57.099 slavery, to the bloody labor and bootlegging 00:21:57.099 --> 00:22:00.680 wars, all the way down to modern pension crises 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:04.420 and imprisoned politicians. And I want to leave 00:22:04.420 --> 00:22:06.140 you with a final thought to ponder that builds 00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:07.980 on everything we've discussed. Sure. Think about 00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:10.519 the sheer scale of human ambition we've explored 00:22:10.519 --> 00:22:13.480 today. Right now, across the Mississippi River 00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:16.539 from modern St. Louis, the sprawling earthen 00:22:16.539 --> 00:22:18.980 terraces of Monk's Mound are still sitting there 00:22:18.980 --> 00:22:22.119 in silence. That dirt structure outlasted the 00:22:22.119 --> 00:22:24.880 Illiniwek. the French colonial empire, the British, 00:22:25.019 --> 00:22:27.339 and the early pioneers. Yeah, it outlasted them 00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:29.799 all. So when you look at the towering steel skyscrapers 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:32.039 of modern Chicago and the billions of dollars 00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:34.839 in invisible state debt, you have to ask yourself, 00:22:35.059 --> 00:22:37.539 centuries from now, Which monuments of our current 00:22:37.539 --> 00:22:39.880 civilization will be left standing in the prairie, 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:42.079 and what will future generations assume about 00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:44.200 the people who built them? That is a fascinating 00:22:44.200 --> 00:22:46.680 lens through which to view our own cities. Thank 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:49.440 you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep looking 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.660 closely at the world around you, and remember 00:22:51.660 --> 00:22:53.799 to always keep questioning the history beneath 00:22:53.799 --> 00:22:54.240 your feet.