WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 OK, let's unpack this. I want you to imagine, 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:06.120 just for a second, that you were born in the 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:09.119 year 1900. Oh, wow. OK. Right. So by the time 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:11.199 you're blowing out the candles on your 29th birthday, 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:14.320 you would have watched humans literally take 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:16.920 to the sky in power of flight. You would have 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:20.280 survived the first mechanized global war, lived 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:22.640 through a massively devastating global pandemic, 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:25.640 and then You know, watch the entire global economy 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.120 just completely vaporize overnight. Which is 00:00:28.120 --> 00:00:30.780 just, it's a lot for one lifetime. It's an unbelievable 00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:33.899 amount of web lash. And that is exactly why we're 00:00:33.899 --> 00:00:39.340 here. Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we are 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:41.840 immersing ourselves in this incredibly dense 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:45.060 timeline of United States history. Specifically, 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:47.759 we're looking at the sources from 1900 to 1929. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:49.979 Right, that crucial 30 -year window. Exactly. 00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:51.820 And our mission today is to connect the dots 00:00:51.820 --> 00:00:54.100 across those 30 years to really help you understand 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:56.420 how the U .S. transitioned from basically the 00:00:56.420 --> 00:00:58.960 dawn of powered flight to a global superpower 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.520 and then boom, straight into a catastrophic economic 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.849 collapse. It really is staggering when you frame 00:01:04.849 --> 00:01:07.450 it around a single human life like that because, 00:01:07.609 --> 00:01:09.769 you know, we usually study these events in these 00:01:09.769 --> 00:01:12.890 isolated silos, like a chapter on the Wright 00:01:12.890 --> 00:01:14.909 brothers over here and then maybe a separate 00:01:14.909 --> 00:01:17.010 chapter on World War I over there. Completely 00:01:17.010 --> 00:01:20.170 disconnected. Right. But. compressing it all 00:01:20.170 --> 00:01:23.109 into this 30 -year window, it really exposes 00:01:23.109 --> 00:01:26.109 the sheer velocity of the era. Because, I mean, 00:01:26.109 --> 00:01:28.590 this wasn't just a period of new inventions. 00:01:28.750 --> 00:01:32.709 It was a complete rewiring of how humanity interacted 00:01:32.709 --> 00:01:35.189 with the physical world and, honestly, how we 00:01:35.189 --> 00:01:37.549 interacted with each other. Velocity is, like, 00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:39.870 the perfect word to describe the start of the 00:01:39.870 --> 00:01:42.109 century. Right. Because we look at the physical 00:01:42.109 --> 00:01:43.790 transformation of America right out of the gate. 00:01:44.030 --> 00:01:46.209 It's just moving at breakneck speed. Oh, absolutely. 00:01:46.269 --> 00:01:49.340 Like, in 1901, you have JP Morgan. founding U 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.959 .S. Steel. And that's not just a new business 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:54.459 opening up. That was the very first billion dollar 00:01:54.459 --> 00:01:56.879 corporation in history. A billion dollars in 00:01:56.879 --> 00:02:00.439 1901, which is just unfathomable. And it represented 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:03.200 this heavy brute force infrastructure that was 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:06.400 literally about to pave the country. But then 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:11.479 you hit 1903. And it is just a blockbuster year 00:02:11.479 --> 00:02:14.840 for human mobility. Oh, 1903 is huge. Right. 00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:16.879 Ford Motor Company is formed. Harley -Davidson 00:02:16.879 --> 00:02:19.740 is created. And then over on this windy beach 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:22.080 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, you have the Wright 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:25.419 brothers pulling off the first powered, controlled 00:02:25.419 --> 00:02:27.520 airplane flight. What's fascinating here is that 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:30.319 these aren't just isolated historical milestones, 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:32.800 right? They really represent the compounding 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:35.030 nature of innovation. Compounding how? Well, 00:02:35.069 --> 00:02:36.930 you have industrial power consolidating rapidly, 00:02:37.129 --> 00:02:39.469 like with U .S. steel, right? Which suddenly 00:02:39.469 --> 00:02:41.590 makes the raw materials that you need for mass 00:02:41.590 --> 00:02:44.169 production way cheaper and way more abundant. 00:02:44.509 --> 00:02:47.669 And that mass production, it fundamentally changed 00:02:47.669 --> 00:02:49.469 the physical landscape of the country. Because 00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:51.389 it wasn't just making things. It was making things 00:02:51.389 --> 00:02:53.870 at scale. Exactly. It wasn't just that the Ford 00:02:53.870 --> 00:02:56.810 Model T appeared on the market in 1908. The real 00:02:56.810 --> 00:02:59.009 revolution was the mechanism of how it was actually 00:02:59.009 --> 00:03:03.229 made. Yes, the assembly line. Because by 1913, 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:05.729 Henry Ford develops the modern moving assembly 00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:08.669 line. And, you know, to put the sheer scale of 00:03:08.669 --> 00:03:10.729 that into perspective for you listening, Ford 00:03:10.729 --> 00:03:13.370 didn't just invent a new car. He essentially 00:03:13.370 --> 00:03:15.810 invented a totally new way of working. He completely 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:19.169 flipped the process. Right. Before this, a group 00:03:19.169 --> 00:03:21.310 of workers would basically build a car from the 00:03:21.310 --> 00:03:24.250 ground up standing in one spot, which took, I 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:26.870 think, over 12 hours per car. Yeah, it was incredibly 00:03:26.870 --> 00:03:29.389 slow. But before it breaks the process down into 00:03:29.389 --> 00:03:32.129 these tiny repetitive steps and actually brings 00:03:32.129 --> 00:03:34.930 the work to the worker on a conveyor belt, it 00:03:34.930 --> 00:03:37.580 dropped the assembly time to like. 90 minutes, 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:40.120 which is just a massive leap in efficiency. It's 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:42.219 crazy. I actually like to compare Henry Ford's 00:03:42.219 --> 00:03:45.919 1913 assembly line to the modern day introduction 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:47.479 of the smartphone. Oh, that's an interesting 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:49.159 way to look at it. Right. Because the smartphone 00:03:49.159 --> 00:03:52.259 wasn't just a new gadget. It was this absolute 00:03:52.259 --> 00:03:55.400 paradigm shift that completely changed how we 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.439 access the world, how we do everything. And the 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.500 assembly line changed how the physical world 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:03.219 was built. It drove down costs so dramatically 00:04:03.219 --> 00:04:06.000 that mobility suddenly became accessible to the 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.629 average person. The acceleration there is just 00:04:08.629 --> 00:04:11.229 incredible. And communication was speeding up 00:04:11.229 --> 00:04:13.349 right alongside transportation, too. Oh, yeah. 00:04:13.430 --> 00:04:16.189 Just two years after that modern assembly line, 00:04:16.310 --> 00:04:20.589 so 1915, the very first transcontinental telephone 00:04:20.589 --> 00:04:22.329 line is hooked up. New York to San Francisco, 00:04:22.449 --> 00:04:25.730 right? Exactly. So for the first time ever, a 00:04:25.730 --> 00:04:28.649 human voice could cross the entire North American 00:04:28.649 --> 00:04:32.350 landmass in real time. I mean, the sheer physical 00:04:32.350 --> 00:04:34.610 size of the country was effectively shrinking. 00:04:34.990 --> 00:04:36.930 But I mean, moving at that blistering speed without 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:39.230 any safety rails basically guarantees a crash, 00:04:39.449 --> 00:04:41.449 doesn't it? Oh, inevitably. Because the human 00:04:41.449 --> 00:04:43.490 cost of all this rapid industrialization was 00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:45.990 completely devastating. The history of this specific 00:04:45.990 --> 00:04:48.829 era is just punctuated by absolute tragedy. The 00:04:48.829 --> 00:04:52.670 growing pains were horrific. Yeah. In 1906, you 00:04:52.670 --> 00:04:54.569 have the San Francisco earthquake and the fires 00:04:54.569 --> 00:04:58.129 that follow, which literally level a major American 00:04:58.129 --> 00:05:01.529 city. Then in 1907, there's a massive explosion 00:05:01.529 --> 00:05:04.050 in a coal mine in Mononga, West Virginia. Right, 00:05:04.189 --> 00:05:07.209 the Mononga disaster. Kills at least 361 people. 00:05:07.569 --> 00:05:09.290 It's still the worst industrial accident in U 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:12.810 .S. history. And then the one that really haunts 00:05:12.810 --> 00:05:15.970 people, I think. The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist 00:05:15.970 --> 00:05:18.730 Factory Fire in New York City. Yeah, the Triangle 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:21.269 Shirtwaist Fire is just a perfect, albeit completely 00:05:21.269 --> 00:05:24.110 tragic example of the business mechanics of the 00:05:24.110 --> 00:05:26.350 time because, you know, the victims there were 00:05:26.350 --> 00:05:28.970 mostly young immigrant women, but they didn't 00:05:28.970 --> 00:05:31.449 just die because a fire started. They died because 00:05:31.449 --> 00:05:33.370 of how the factory was being run. Which is the 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:35.389 most infuriating part. It really is. They were 00:05:35.389 --> 00:05:38.209 paid on this piece rate system, meaning they 00:05:38.209 --> 00:05:40.089 were paid for exactly how many garments they 00:05:40.089 --> 00:05:42.370 produce rather than getting a steady hourly wage. 00:05:42.689 --> 00:05:45.410 So to maximize that minute by minute output and 00:05:45.410 --> 00:05:48.069 to keep workers from, you know, taking unauthorized 00:05:48.069 --> 00:05:50.470 breaks or stealing scraps of fabric. The managers 00:05:50.470 --> 00:05:53.149 literally locked the doors. They locked the exit 00:05:53.149 --> 00:05:55.050 doors from the outside. So when the fire broke 00:05:55.050 --> 00:05:58.290 out, the workers were completely trapped. It's 00:05:58.290 --> 00:06:00.829 sickening. It really is. And it just lays bare 00:06:00.829 --> 00:06:03.550 the deadly consequences of unchecked capitalism 00:06:03.550 --> 00:06:07.230 at that time. You had a system that prioritized 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:11.069 raw output and profit margins completely over 00:06:11.069 --> 00:06:13.889 human life. Absolutely. And the public outcry 00:06:13.889 --> 00:06:17.399 from these events is what fueled this massive 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:19.519 wave of government regulation that we now call 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:22.319 the progressive era. Like, the government passes 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:25.420 the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:27.959 Meat Inspection Act entirely because the public 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:31.620 suddenly realized just how dangerous and unregulated 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:33.540 their food supply had become. Right. The country 00:06:33.540 --> 00:06:35.819 was essentially waking up and realizing that 00:06:35.819 --> 00:06:38.959 a modern industrialized society required a fundamentally 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:40.920 different relationship between the government, 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:43.439 big businesses, and everyday citizens. Right. 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:45.879 But OK, let me push back on the historical momentum 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.579 here for a second. Go for it. Because in 1901, 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.339 President William McKinley is assassinated. And 00:06:51.339 --> 00:06:53.420 that puts his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:55.879 the bull moose, straight into the White House 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:58.259 as the 26th president. So here is my question. 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:01.639 If McKinley hadn't been assassinated in 1901, 00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:04.889 Would the massive regulatory shifts of the progressive 00:07:04.889 --> 00:07:07.230 era led by Roosevelt have happened the way they 00:07:07.230 --> 00:07:11.250 did? Or was the public just so outraged by things 00:07:11.250 --> 00:07:13.829 like the Monongah mine explosion and poisoned 00:07:13.829 --> 00:07:17.220 food that reform was inevitable? regardless of 00:07:17.220 --> 00:07:19.379 who is sitting in the Oval Office? That's a great 00:07:19.379 --> 00:07:22.300 question. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:25.079 it is really a synthesis of both. OK. Because 00:07:25.079 --> 00:07:27.500 the conditions for reform were absolutely bubbling 00:07:27.500 --> 00:07:29.839 over, right? The public was furious about the 00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:31.899 power of these monopolies and the horrific working 00:07:31.899 --> 00:07:34.319 conditions we just talked about. But Theodore 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:38.100 Roosevelt was this unique, really necessary catalyst. 00:07:38.139 --> 00:07:40.240 In front of his personality. Yeah, he capitalized 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:42.660 on that national mood with his big stick ideology. 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:45.519 He fundamentally believed that the federal government 00:07:45.579 --> 00:07:47.360 needed to be strong enough to counterbalance 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:50.300 the power of these massive billion dollar corporations. 00:07:50.920 --> 00:07:53.180 You really see the government completely restructuring 00:07:53.180 --> 00:07:55.259 its own authority during this decade. Right, 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:58.170 because they start physically breaking up. monopolies, 00:07:58.449 --> 00:08:01.410 like they dismantle standard oil in 1911. But 00:08:01.410 --> 00:08:04.110 how does a government even begin to dismantle 00:08:04.110 --> 00:08:07.569 something as massive as standard oil without 00:08:07.569 --> 00:08:10.350 just completely tanking the entire economy? Well, 00:08:10.529 --> 00:08:13.550 by legally forcing it to splinter into dozens 00:08:13.550 --> 00:08:16.290 of smaller, geographically separate companies, 00:08:16.509 --> 00:08:18.790 companies that ostensibly had to compete with 00:08:18.790 --> 00:08:21.790 one another. Oh, OK. And, you know, breaking 00:08:21.790 --> 00:08:24.069 up monopolies was really just one piece of the 00:08:24.069 --> 00:08:25.850 puzzle. The government was building entirely 00:08:25.850 --> 00:08:28.850 new institutions to manage this totally new, 00:08:29.170 --> 00:08:31.750 complex, modern society. Right. They had to invent 00:08:31.750 --> 00:08:34.389 the rule book as they went. Exactly. So they 00:08:34.389 --> 00:08:36.769 create the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the 00:08:36.769 --> 00:08:40.269 FBI, in 1908 to handle interstate crime. They 00:08:40.269 --> 00:08:42.769 established the federal income tax with the 16th 00:08:42.769 --> 00:08:45.370 Amendment in 1913. Which people loved, I'm sure. 00:08:45.549 --> 00:08:47.789 Huh, right. But it gives the government the capital 00:08:47.789 --> 00:08:50.049 it actually needs to enforce these new regulations. 00:08:50.490 --> 00:08:52.789 Then they passed the 17th Amendment that exact 00:08:52.789 --> 00:08:54.950 same year, which allows the direct election of 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:57.669 senators by the public rather than by state legislation. 00:08:57.789 --> 00:09:00.070 Cut down on all that corporate corruption. Precisely. 00:09:00.330 --> 00:09:02.809 They even create the Federal Reserve in 1913 00:09:02.809 --> 00:09:05.409 just to try and stabilize the wildly volatile 00:09:05.409 --> 00:09:07.629 banking system. It's like they were trying to 00:09:07.629 --> 00:09:10.129 retrofit an engine. while the car was already 00:09:10.129 --> 00:09:12.090 running at 100 miles an hour. That's a great 00:09:12.090 --> 00:09:14.090 way to put it. I mean, the Federal Reserve, the 00:09:14.090 --> 00:09:17.129 antitrust laws, the income tax, they were just 00:09:17.129 --> 00:09:19.870 punishments for corporations. They were the shock 00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:22.750 absorbers needed to keep this giant capitalist 00:09:22.750 --> 00:09:24.750 engine from rattling itself to pieces. Yeah, 00:09:24.750 --> 00:09:27.309 they were building the modern state. But just 00:09:27.309 --> 00:09:29.529 as the U .S. was finally getting its own domestic 00:09:29.529 --> 00:09:32.649 house in order, this massive external crisis 00:09:32.649 --> 00:09:35.669 drags the country onto the global stage. Yeah. 00:09:35.850 --> 00:09:38.289 And it forever alters the social fabric back 00:09:38.289 --> 00:09:40.450 home. Right. The outbreak of World War I in Europe 00:09:40.450 --> 00:09:43.330 in 1914. Exactly. And for the first few years, 00:09:43.710 --> 00:09:45.889 the U .S. really tries its best to stay out of 00:09:45.889 --> 00:09:48.529 it. They wanted no part of it. But then the sinking 00:09:48.529 --> 00:09:52.250 of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 kills over 100 Americans. 00:09:52.730 --> 00:09:55.450 which really ratchets up the tension. And then 00:09:55.450 --> 00:09:58.970 in 1917, the British intercept the Zimmerman 00:09:58.970 --> 00:10:02.070 Telegram. Oh, the Zimmerman Telegram. Yeah. And 00:10:02.070 --> 00:10:03.789 we shouldn't gloss over this, because the Zimmerman 00:10:03.789 --> 00:10:06.149 Telegram wasn't just some diplomatic faux pas. 00:10:06.509 --> 00:10:08.850 It was this secret communication where Germany 00:10:08.850 --> 00:10:11.769 basically proposed an alliance with Mexico. Yeah, 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:14.149 it's wild to think about now. Right. They promised 00:10:14.149 --> 00:10:17.250 to help Mexico recover Texas, Arizona, and New 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:20.409 Mexico if the US entered the war. which absolutely 00:10:20.409 --> 00:10:22.750 terrified the American public. Of course, because 00:10:22.750 --> 00:10:24.909 it meant a European conflict was suddenly threatening 00:10:24.909 --> 00:10:27.029 to cross the physical border into the United 00:10:27.029 --> 00:10:30.629 States. So spurred by that threat, the U .S. 00:10:30.750 --> 00:10:33.409 officially enters the war in 1917. And the sheer 00:10:33.409 --> 00:10:36.710 scale of mobilizing for a mechanized global war 00:10:36.710 --> 00:10:40.090 changes everything. I mean, by 1918, you have 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:42.389 an armistice agreement ending the fighting, but 00:10:42.389 --> 00:10:45.590 you also have the start of the devastating Spanish 00:10:45.590 --> 00:10:48.309 flu pandemic, which kills millions worldwide. 00:10:48.309 --> 00:10:50.570 Yeah, it's just tragedy on top of tragedy. And 00:10:50.570 --> 00:10:53.470 politically, you have the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:56.549 which the U .S. Senate actually rejects, signaling 00:10:56.549 --> 00:10:59.549 this very complicated desire to retreat back 00:10:59.549 --> 00:11:01.769 into isolationism. But the domestic landscape 00:11:01.769 --> 00:11:03.629 of the United States had already undergone these 00:11:03.629 --> 00:11:05.870 seismic shifts like you can't unring that bell. 00:11:06.169 --> 00:11:08.519 The war effort required immense resources and 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:11.539 labor, which unexpectedly opened doors and accelerated 00:11:11.539 --> 00:11:13.740 all these social movements back home. That is 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:16.259 deeply evident with the start of the Great Migration 00:11:16.259 --> 00:11:19.639 in 1916. Because European immigration essentially 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:22.580 stopped during the war and millions of American 00:11:22.580 --> 00:11:25.179 men were drafted. So northern industrial cities 00:11:25.179 --> 00:11:27.679 faced this massive labor shortage. They needed 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:30.379 workers desperately. Exactly. And this created 00:11:30.379 --> 00:11:32.700 an economic vacuum that pulled hundreds of thousands 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:35.580 of African Americans out of the rural Jim Crow 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:39.220 South and straight into urban centers like Chicago, 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:43.200 Detroit and New York. This migration fundamentally 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:45.820 permanently changed the demographic and cultural 00:11:45.820 --> 00:11:48.389 map of the country. And the war also served as 00:11:48.389 --> 00:11:50.509 an incredible catalyst for women's suffrage. 00:11:50.929 --> 00:11:53.129 I mean, the movement had been building for decades, 00:11:53.149 --> 00:11:55.610 obviously. You have the massive women's suffrage 00:11:55.610 --> 00:11:58.629 procession organized by Alice Paul in 1913. Right. 00:11:58.889 --> 00:12:01.470 Then in 1916, Jeanette Rankin becomes the first 00:12:01.470 --> 00:12:03.970 woman ever elected to the U .S. Congress. But 00:12:03.970 --> 00:12:07.690 between 1917 and 1919, the tactics really escalate. 00:12:07.769 --> 00:12:09.610 You have the silent sentinels holding a nearly 00:12:09.610 --> 00:12:12.110 two and a half year protest outside the White 00:12:12.110 --> 00:12:14.429 House gates. And protesting a wartime president 00:12:14.429 --> 00:12:16.370 like that was considered incredibly radical. 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:20.539 Oh, highly controversial. But all of this intense 00:12:20.539 --> 00:12:23.460 pressure finally culminates in 1920, with the 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:25.679 ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting 00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:29.460 women the right to vote. So what does this all 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:32.159 mean? I want you listening to really imagine 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:34.639 the sheer psychological overwhelm of the late 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:37.159 1910s. Yeah, put yourself in their shoes. You 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:39.559 are fighting the first truly mechanized world 00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:43.000 war. You are surviving a deadly global pandemic. 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:45.620 And you are watching the fundamental definition 00:12:45.620 --> 00:12:49.100 of a voter change overnight. It's totally dizzying. 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:51.379 It is. And this raises an important question 00:12:51.379 --> 00:12:54.220 about how societies evolve under pressure, doesn't 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:57.039 it? Like, does society only take massive leaps 00:12:57.039 --> 00:12:59.080 forward when it's forced to by an existential 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:01.179 crisis? Right. Because if we look at the source 00:13:01.179 --> 00:13:03.580 material impartially, there is a direct line 00:13:03.580 --> 00:13:06.159 between the immense societal pressure of the 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:08.139 war effort and the success of the women's suffrage 00:13:08.139 --> 00:13:10.700 movement. Women were entering the workforce in 00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:13.539 unprecedented numbers to build munitions and 00:13:13.539 --> 00:13:15.379 sustain the economy. Yeah, they were holding 00:13:15.379 --> 00:13:17.870 the country together. Right. So the argument 00:13:17.870 --> 00:13:20.269 that they shouldn't have a voice in the very 00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:22.730 democracy they were actively keeping afloat, 00:13:22.850 --> 00:13:25.649 it simply became completely untenable. But that 00:13:25.649 --> 00:13:28.970 same... wartime pressure cooker. Right. Also 00:13:28.970 --> 00:13:32.710 created intense paranoia. It did. The government's 00:13:32.710 --> 00:13:35.250 desire to maintain absolute unity during the 00:13:35.250 --> 00:13:37.850 war led to severe suppression of civil liberties. 00:13:38.370 --> 00:13:41.490 Like in 1917, they passed the Espionage and Sedition 00:13:41.490 --> 00:13:44.389 Acts to legally crack down on anyone dissenting 00:13:44.389 --> 00:13:46.870 against the war or against the draft. Wow. And 00:13:46.870 --> 00:13:49.450 that wartime paranoia bled directly into the 00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:52.649 first Red Scare from 1917 to 1920. Because the 00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:54.570 Russian Revolution had literally just happened. 00:13:54.750 --> 00:13:57.679 Precisely. widespread almost hysterical fear 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:00.200 of Bolshevism and anarchism infiltrating the 00:14:00.200 --> 00:14:02.580 American labor movement. And we see from the 00:14:02.580 --> 00:14:04.779 sources that this fear culminated in the Palmer 00:14:04.779 --> 00:14:07.080 raids in 1919. Right. That's where the Justice 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:09.740 Department actively targeted, arrested and deported 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:12.159 thousands of suspected radical leftists and immigrants, 00:14:12.379 --> 00:14:14.659 largely without due process. It was an era of 00:14:14.659 --> 00:14:17.080 profound domestic upheaval. Which makes the pivot 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:20.259 into the next decade so incredibly jarring. I 00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:22.919 mean, coming out of the trauma of a brutal world 00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:26.159 war, a deadly pandemic. and massive domestic 00:14:26.159 --> 00:14:28.779 paranoia, the American public responded with 00:14:28.779 --> 00:14:31.879 this huge, somewhat reckless cultural explosion. 00:14:32.139 --> 00:14:34.480 Welcome to the roaring 20s, a decade defined 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:37.240 by extraordinary cultural flourishing, massive 00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:41.299 economic speculation and deep structural contradictions. 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:43.759 Here's where it gets really interesting, because 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:46.419 when you look at the 1920s, the pop culture boom 00:14:46.419 --> 00:14:49.120 isn't just, you know, a list of fun trivia facts. 00:14:49.539 --> 00:14:51.639 It's the creation of a shared national identity. 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:54.480 Yes. Like in 1920, you get the first commercial 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.429 radio broadcast from KDKA in Pittsburgh. And 00:14:58.429 --> 00:15:00.669 the mechanism here is crucial because the electrification 00:15:00.669 --> 00:15:03.090 of American cities meant that suddenly families 00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:05.090 could just plug a radio into the wall. Which 00:15:05.090 --> 00:15:07.389 was magic at the time. Total magic. It wasn't 00:15:07.389 --> 00:15:09.610 just a new gadget, it created a synchronized 00:15:09.610 --> 00:15:12.429 national consciousness. For the very first time, 00:15:12.769 --> 00:15:14.970 a farmer in Nebraska and a banker in New York 00:15:14.970 --> 00:15:17.409 were listening to the exact same news, the exact 00:15:17.409 --> 00:15:20.120 same music at the exact same time. And that synchronized 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:23.019 culture is exactly what paved the way for national 00:15:23.019 --> 00:15:24.919 larger -than -life superstars. Right. You have 00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:27.879 Babe Ruth hitting a record 60 home runs in 1927. 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:30.480 You have Charles Lindbergh making the first solo 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:33.419 transatlantic flight in 1927. And then Amelia 00:15:33.419 --> 00:15:35.379 Earhart becoming the first woman to fly across 00:15:35.379 --> 00:15:38.240 the Atlantic in 1928. The world was getting smaller 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:40.460 and smaller. And Hollywood becomes the absolute 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:44.679 center of the movie industry. In 1927, the jazz 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.080 singers released the first motion picture with 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:51.570 synchronized sound. A year later, in 1928, Disney's 00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:53.950 Steamboat Willie introduces Mickey Mouse to the 00:15:53.950 --> 00:15:57.570 world. It is literally an era of heroes and global 00:15:57.570 --> 00:16:00.659 firsts. We also see the profound impact of the 00:16:00.659 --> 00:16:02.899 Great Migration blooming into the Harlem Renaissance 00:16:02.899 --> 00:16:04.820 during this time. Oh, yeah, the cultural impact 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:07.820 was massive. In 1923, the Cotton Club opens in 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:10.460 New York. You have extraordinary literary works 00:16:10.460 --> 00:16:12.480 being published by Langston Hughes and County 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:14.879 Cullen, which fundamentally reshaped American 00:16:14.879 --> 00:16:18.379 art, music, and literature. But as we analyze 00:16:18.379 --> 00:16:21.100 this impartially based on our sources, we have 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:23.360 to look at what this era actually was beneath 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:25.700 all that blittering surface. Right. It was a 00:16:25.700 --> 00:16:29.470 massive cultural tug of war. The 1920s was essentially 00:16:29.470 --> 00:16:32.870 a battle between rapid modernism, so science, 00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:37.490 jazz, urbanization, new media, and intense traditionalism 00:16:37.490 --> 00:16:40.230 and nativism. Because we talk about the Roaring 00:16:40.230 --> 00:16:42.429 Twenties as this nonstop party, but just look 00:16:42.429 --> 00:16:44.009 at the contradiction staring us in the face. 00:16:44.049 --> 00:16:47.590 You have the pure, unadulterated joy of Babe 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:50.309 Ruth and Mickey Mouse existing in the exact same 00:16:50.309 --> 00:16:53.720 moment as Prohibition. Yeah. wild to think about. 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.519 The 18th Amendment in 1919 and the Volstead Act 00:16:56.519 --> 00:16:59.720 in 1920 made the manufacture and sale of alcohol 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.860 completely illegal. And the mechanism of prohibition 00:17:02.860 --> 00:17:06.240 is fascinating because it was pushed by rural 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:08.380 traditionalist movements trying to clean up urban 00:17:08.380 --> 00:17:11.420 morals, but it ironically just fueled the massive 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:13.720 rise of organized crime in the cities. The pushback 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:15.900 against modernism went much deeper than just 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:18.480 banning alcohol, too. There was a fierce desire 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:20.859 among many to basically turn back the clock. 00:17:21.769 --> 00:17:23.529 In 1921, the government passed the Emergency 00:17:23.529 --> 00:17:25.690 Quota Act, strictly limiting immigration based 00:17:25.690 --> 00:17:28.470 on national origins, specifically targeting Southern 00:17:28.470 --> 00:17:31.789 and Eastern Europeans. And that same year, 1921, 00:17:32.210 --> 00:17:34.930 the country witnessed the horrific Tulsa Race 00:17:34.930 --> 00:17:37.910 Massacre, where a thriving black neighborhood 00:17:37.910 --> 00:17:40.890 in Oklahoma was burned to the ground by a white 00:17:40.890 --> 00:17:44.710 mob. It is a stark reminder of the deep racial 00:17:44.710 --> 00:17:46.990 divisions and violence that were omnipresent. 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:53.410 is massive government corruption at the highest 00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:55.809 levels of the Harding administration. And then, 00:17:55.809 --> 00:17:57.910 you know, you have the Scopes trial in 1925, 00:17:58.009 --> 00:18:00.829 which perfectly encapsulates this whole cultural 00:18:00.829 --> 00:18:03.750 anxiety. Oh, absolutely. With this highly publicized 00:18:03.750 --> 00:18:06.369 legal battle over whether a high school teacher 00:18:06.369 --> 00:18:08.849 could teach the science of evolution in a classroom 00:18:08.849 --> 00:18:11.569 directly clashing with state laws that demanded 00:18:11.569 --> 00:18:13.710 the teaching of traditional religion. Or consider 00:18:13.710 --> 00:18:16.430 the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927. 00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:19.069 They were two Italian immigrant anarchists convicted 00:18:19.069 --> 00:18:21.380 of murder during an armed riot. robbery. But 00:18:21.380 --> 00:18:23.920 their trial and execution sparked global protests 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:26.420 because the evidence was, well, the sources suggest 00:18:26.420 --> 00:18:28.579 it was flimsy. To many observers at the time, 00:18:28.819 --> 00:18:30.859 Sacco and Vanzetti were condemned more for their 00:18:30.859 --> 00:18:32.839 radical political beliefs and their immigrant 00:18:32.839 --> 00:18:36.119 background than for any actual proof of the crime. 00:18:36.539 --> 00:18:39.019 Again, we are impartially reporting the history 00:18:39.019 --> 00:18:41.500 from our sources here, but it clearly illustrates 00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:44.819 the intense societal friction of the time. It's 00:18:44.819 --> 00:18:47.059 just wild contradictions everywhere you look. 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:50.200 I mean, you have a society dancing to jazz on 00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:52.640 the radio while passing restrictive immigration 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:55.700 quotas and rating speakeasies, and all of this 00:18:55.700 --> 00:18:58.930 cultural tension. Combined with all of the speculative, 00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:01.569 completely unregulated economic booming in the 00:19:01.569 --> 00:19:03.769 stock market, it built up to the spectacular 00:19:03.769 --> 00:19:06.789 climax. The breaking point. Right. Early in 1929, 00:19:06.950 --> 00:19:09.089 you have the brutal St. Valentine's Day Massacre 00:19:09.089 --> 00:19:11.990 in Chicago, which was a direct, bloody result 00:19:11.990 --> 00:19:15.029 of Prohibition -era gang warfare. And then the 00:19:15.029 --> 00:19:18.019 music just stops. October 1929. The Wall Street 00:19:18.019 --> 00:19:21.599 crash, the rapid unregulated financial speculation 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:24.160 of the entire decade collapsed in on itself in 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:26.460 a matter of days, triggering the Great Depression. 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:29.119 The cultural tug of war between modernism and 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:31.859 traditionalism was suddenly violently overshadowed 00:19:31.859 --> 00:19:34.500 by the pure desperate need for economic survival. 00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:38.119 It is such a dizzying 30 year journey. To just 00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:40.380 recap where we've been today, we started with 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:43.599 the very first fragile wooden canvas airplane 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:46.299 bouncing off the ground at Kitty Hawk in 1903. 00:19:46.569 --> 00:19:50.049 By the end of our timeline in 1928, humans are 00:19:50.049 --> 00:19:52.369 flying across the Atlantic Ocean. It's unbelievable 00:19:52.369 --> 00:19:54.910 progress. We watch the country evolve from a 00:19:54.910 --> 00:19:57.190 landscape of completely unregulated corporate 00:19:57.190 --> 00:19:59.930 monopolies into a modern state equipped with 00:19:59.930 --> 00:20:03.029 federal income taxes, antitrust laws, and an 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:06.109 FBI. We trace the journey from the optimistic 00:20:06.109 --> 00:20:08.769 reforms of the progressive era through the brutal 00:20:08.769 --> 00:20:11.769 meat grinder of World War I straight into the 00:20:11.769 --> 00:20:14.670 cultural explosion of the Roaring Twenties. And 00:20:14.670 --> 00:20:17.049 it all ends in the absolute devastation of the 00:20:17.049 --> 00:20:20.150 1929 stock market crash. The transformation is 00:20:20.150 --> 00:20:22.750 absolute. I mean, the United States of 1929 was 00:20:22.750 --> 00:20:25.230 virtually unrecognizable from the United States 00:20:25.230 --> 00:20:28.009 of 1900 economically, socially, mechanically 00:20:28.009 --> 00:20:30.009 and politically. It really is. And our sources 00:20:30.009 --> 00:20:32.829 strictly end right there in 1929 with the Wall 00:20:32.829 --> 00:20:34.569 Street crash just pulling the rug out from into 00:20:34.569 --> 00:20:36.869 the world. So as we wrap up this deep dive, I 00:20:36.869 --> 00:20:38.410 want to leave you with a thought to mull over 00:20:38.410 --> 00:20:41.140 on your own. If the first 30 years of the 20th 00:20:41.140 --> 00:20:43.859 century were defined by rapid, almost unchecked 00:20:43.859 --> 00:20:46.900 physical and cultural expansion, how did the 00:20:46.900 --> 00:20:49.339 psychological trauma of losing it all overnight 00:20:49.339 --> 00:20:53.200 in 1929 permanently rewired the American dream 00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:55.180 for the generations that followed? That is the 00:20:55.180 --> 00:20:57.079 defining question of the century to come. Thank 00:20:57.079 --> 00:20:58.660 you so much for joining us on this deep dive. 00:20:58.839 --> 00:20:59.460 See you next time.