WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 You know, it's incredibly easy to look back at 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:07.160 history and just see it as this slow, dusty crawl 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:09.519 of black and white photos. Right, like it's completely 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:12.179 disconnected from us. Exactly. But I want you 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:13.800 to imagine, just for a second, that you were 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.859 born in the late 1800s. You grew up in a world 00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:21.079 where the speed limit of human existence is... 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:23.960 Well, it's basically tied to biology. Yeah, a 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:26.059 horse or a sailboat. Right. A message can only 00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:28.239 travel as fast as a horse can run or a ship can 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:32.020 sail. There's no income tax, there are no airplanes, 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:35.000 no such thing as national radio. And then in 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.259 the span of just three decades, bam, you are 00:00:38.259 --> 00:00:40.679 completely thrust into the modern world. It's 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:42.719 wild to think about the entire foundation of 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:45.140 human life essentially flips upside down before 00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:47.100 you even hit middle age. Yes, suddenly you're 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:50.130 living in a global superpower. You are grappling 00:00:50.130 --> 00:00:53.229 with a mechanized world war, modern factory assembly 00:00:53.229 --> 00:00:55.750 lines pumping out millions of cars, a devastating 00:00:55.750 --> 00:00:57.969 global pandemic, and then eventually the total 00:00:57.969 --> 00:01:00.770 collapse of the global economy. It's just massive, 00:01:01.109 --> 00:01:03.810 unprecedented whiplash. The sheer whiplash of 00:01:03.810 --> 00:01:07.269 going from a quiet, horse -drawn carrot society 00:01:07.269 --> 00:01:09.730 to watching the Wall Street crash. I mean, how 00:01:09.730 --> 00:01:12.430 does so much change happen so fast? And more 00:01:12.430 --> 00:01:14.469 importantly, how did everyday people like you 00:01:14.469 --> 00:01:18.719 and me survive that level of societal whiplash. 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:21.319 Okay, let's unpack this. Let's do it. Welcome 00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:24.140 to today's Deep Dive. Our mission today is to 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:26.780 tackle an incredibly dense period of history, 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:31.180 the United States, from 1900 to 1929. And, you 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:33.760 know, it is vital to approach this era not just 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:36.400 as a sequential list of dates. What we're really 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:39.420 looking at here is the chaotic foundational blueprint 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:41.459 of the modern American lifestyle. The blueprint, 00:01:41.739 --> 00:01:43.540 yeah. Everything we consider normal today, how 00:01:43.540 --> 00:01:45.599 we travel, how we communicate, how our workplace 00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:48.120 is regulated, and, you know, who actually gets 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:50.079 a voice in government. It all gets forged in 00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:53.299 this exact 30 -year pressure cooker. So let's 00:01:53.299 --> 00:01:55.459 start with the literal acceleration of human 00:01:55.459 --> 00:01:58.260 life, because the century kicks off by blasting 00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:00.019 us straight into the sky and onto the factory 00:02:00.019 --> 00:02:03.030 line. Yeah. In 1903, you have the Wright brothers 00:02:03.030 --> 00:02:04.950 making their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk. 00:02:05.890 --> 00:02:08.409 That exact same year, the Ford Motor Company 00:02:08.409 --> 00:02:11.750 is formed. By 1908, the Ford Model T hits the 00:02:11.750 --> 00:02:14.789 market. And by 1913, Henry Ford develops the 00:02:14.789 --> 00:02:17.370 modern assembly line. Right. Fast forward to 00:02:17.370 --> 00:02:21.409 1927, and the 15 millionth Model T rolls off 00:02:21.409 --> 00:02:23.750 that line. Oh, and right in the middle of all 00:02:23.750 --> 00:02:27.189 this, in 1905, Albert Einstein publishes his 00:02:27.189 --> 00:02:29.819 theory of relativity. Which is just... I mean, 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:32.479 mind -blowing timing. Totally. And then in 1915, 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:34.400 the first transcontinental telephone is hooked 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.659 up. What's fascinating here is that these inventions 00:02:36.659 --> 00:02:39.159 didn't just introduce fun new gadgets to the 00:02:39.159 --> 00:02:41.379 public. They fundamentally compressed time and 00:02:41.379 --> 00:02:44.300 space. How do you mean? Well, think about the 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:46.919 assembly line, for instance. Before this, a team 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:48.919 of mechanics would build a car from the ground 00:02:48.919 --> 00:02:52.199 up, one by one. It was slow and incredibly expensive. 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:54.759 Ford's breakthrough was dividing the labor into 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:57.340 tiny repetitive tasks and using a moving belt 00:02:57.340 --> 00:02:59.360 to bring the work to the person. Right. That 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:01.340 didn't just speed up production. It slashed the 00:03:01.340 --> 00:03:03.860 cost of goods so drastically that everyday people 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:06.800 could suddenly afford a car. And the transcontinental 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:08.699 telephone line does the exact same thing for 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:11.840 communication. Before sending a message from 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:16.020 New York to San Francisco took days or weeks 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:19.650 by train. Suddenly you pick up a receiver. and 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:22.930 you are hearing a human voice 3 ,000 miles away 00:03:22.930 --> 00:03:26.289 in real time. It completely altered human expectations 00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:28.370 of what was possible. It reminds me a bit of 00:03:28.370 --> 00:03:30.229 the early days of the internet and smartphones, 00:03:30.550 --> 00:03:33.930 this sudden radical shift that entirely restructured 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.479 daily life. But wait, I really want to push back 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:38.860 on this idea of a seamless happy march of progress. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:40.979 Oh, it was definitely not seamless. Right. Did 00:03:40.979 --> 00:03:43.139 people at the time actually feel good about this 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:46.000 or were they completely overwhelmed by this sudden 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:48.240 technological speed similar to how a lot of us 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.280 feel trying to keep up with AI today? Oh, they 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:52.000 were absolutely overwhelmed. There was immense 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.520 friction. You have to remember you have an entire 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:58.500 society structured around Local agrarian rhythms, 00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:01.419 waking up with the sun, farming, knowing only 00:04:01.419 --> 00:04:04.479 the people in your small town. Suddenly, millions 00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:07.520 of people are thrust into mechanized, industrialized 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:10.099 urban centers where they are ruled by the factory 00:04:10.099 --> 00:04:13.900 clock. The sheer velocity of change was incredibly 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:16.339 disorienting. I can't even imagine. And that 00:04:16.339 --> 00:04:19.160 disorientation, that friction, leads directly 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:21.680 to the darker side of this industrial boom. Right, 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.879 because all of that unprecedented speed came 00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:27.250 with a massive human cost. The machine of progress 00:04:27.250 --> 00:04:29.629 was literally breaking the people who were running 00:04:29.629 --> 00:04:32.509 it. It really was. We see the rise of these massive 00:04:32.509 --> 00:04:36.079 unprecedented corporate powers. U .S. Steel is 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:38.939 founded by J .P. Morgan in 1901, becoming the 00:04:38.939 --> 00:04:41.800 world's first billion -dollar corporation. A 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:44.259 billion dollars in 1901. Just think about that. 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:47.399 Insane. And Standard Oil becomes such a massive 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:49.180 behemoth that the Supreme Court eventually has 00:04:49.180 --> 00:04:51.920 to step in and break it up in 1911. But can you 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.079 explain that for me? What exactly made these 00:04:54.079 --> 00:04:56.500 monopolies so dangerous to the average person? 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.279 Well, the danger was absolute control. Companies 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:01.620 like Standard Oil utilize what we call vertical 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:03.339 and horizontal integration. They didn't just 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:05.500 drill for oil. They owned the whole process. 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:07.939 Exactly. They bought the refineries, they bought 00:05:07.939 --> 00:05:09.980 the barrel manufacturers, they bought the train 00:05:09.980 --> 00:05:13.420 cars that transported the oil. By owning every 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:16.279 single step of the supply chain, they could undercut 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:18.980 any competitor until that competitor went bankrupt 00:05:18.980 --> 00:05:22.259 and then buy them up for pennies. Wow. Once they 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:23.879 were the only game in town, they could charge 00:05:23.879 --> 00:05:25.699 consumers whatever they wanted and pay their 00:05:25.699 --> 00:05:28.740 workers as little as possible. It was unchecked 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:31.100 laissez -faire capitalism, meaning the government 00:05:31.100 --> 00:05:34.160 essentially had a hands -off policy. the market 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:36.500 do whatever it wanted. And the human toll of 00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:38.920 that hands -off approach was just devastating. 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:42.439 The record from this era highlights some horrific 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:44.759 workplace catastrophes. Truly horrific. Yeah. 00:05:44.860 --> 00:05:47.839 In 1907, a coal mine explodes in Monongah, West 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.519 Virginia, killing at least 361 people. It remains 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:54.259 the worst industrial accident in American history. 00:05:54.759 --> 00:05:57.579 And then just a few years later, in 1911, you 00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:00.160 have the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:03.139 New York. That event in particular really shocked 00:06:03.139 --> 00:06:05.980 the nation's conscience. It is so grim. From 00:06:05.980 --> 00:06:07.939 what I understand, the managers had literally 00:06:07.939 --> 00:06:10.199 locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. 00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:13.240 They did. They locked the doors to prevent workers 00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:15.939 from taking unauthorized breaks or stealing scraps 00:06:15.939 --> 00:06:18.699 of fabric. So when a fire broke out on the eighth 00:06:18.699 --> 00:06:21.459 floor, the workers, mostly young immigrant women, 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:25.579 were trapped. Oh my god. 146 people died, many 00:06:25.579 --> 00:06:27.980 by jumping from the windows to the street below, 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:30.379 simply to escape the flames. It's just horrific. 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:33.290 And it brings to mind the way we struggle with 00:06:33.290 --> 00:06:35.550 technology and safety today. It's like the early 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:38.569 days of social media or gig economy apps where 00:06:38.569 --> 00:06:41.089 the innovation moves so incredibly fast that 00:06:41.089 --> 00:06:43.290 lawmakers take a decade just to figure out how 00:06:43.290 --> 00:06:45.170 to write the rules. That's a great point. Except 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:47.779 back then. The gap between innovation and regulation 00:06:47.779 --> 00:06:49.980 wasn't just resulting in data privacy issues. 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:53.079 It was resulting in mass casualties. But these 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:55.139 tragedies finally forced the government's hand. 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:58.240 We see this massive regulatory wave crash down. 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:01.220 In 1906, you get the Pure Food and Drug Act and 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:03.639 the Federal Meat Inspection Act. And those acts 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:07.029 fundamentally changed daily life. Before 1906, 00:07:07.189 --> 00:07:09.930 a company could legally bottle a mixture of alcohol, 00:07:10.189 --> 00:07:12.769 morphine, and literal poison, slap a label on 00:07:12.769 --> 00:07:15.050 it calling it children's cough syrup, and sell 00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:18.050 it to you. That is terrifying. Right. The Pure 00:07:18.050 --> 00:07:20.069 Food and Drug Act finally created a mechanism 00:07:20.069 --> 00:07:22.970 for the government to inspect factories, mandate 00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:25.810 accurate ingredient labels, and ban the sale 00:07:25.810 --> 00:07:28.589 of contaminated or dangerous goods. They also 00:07:28.589 --> 00:07:30.569 start building a framework to check corporate 00:07:30.569 --> 00:07:32.819 power. The Department of Commerce and Labor is 00:07:32.819 --> 00:07:36.699 created in 1903, and by 1914 the Federal Trade 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:38.939 Commission is established. But let me ask you, 00:07:39.019 --> 00:07:41.339 did these regulatory acts actually slow down 00:07:41.339 --> 00:07:43.360 the monopolies, or did they just force these 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.230 billionaires to find new loopholes? That is the 00:07:46.230 --> 00:07:48.850 enduring tension of the era. The regulations 00:07:48.850 --> 00:07:51.470 like the Hepburn Act in 1906, which gave the 00:07:51.470 --> 00:07:53.569 government power to set maximum railroad rates, 00:07:53.870 --> 00:07:56.509 or the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 certainly 00:07:56.509 --> 00:07:59.449 introduced new rules of the game. They dismantled 00:07:59.449 --> 00:08:01.850 some of the most egregious monopolies and established 00:08:01.850 --> 00:08:04.250 baseline safety standards, but they didn't stop 00:08:04.250 --> 00:08:06.290 the engine of industrialization. They merely 00:08:06.290 --> 00:08:09.009 harnessed it. They tried to put basic guardrails 00:08:09.009 --> 00:08:11.290 on a machine that was already moving at breakneck 00:08:11.290 --> 00:08:13.709 speed. Here's where it gets really interesting 00:08:13.709 --> 00:08:16.670 because The everyday workers weren't just sitting 00:08:16.670 --> 00:08:18.889 around waiting for the government to save them. 00:08:19.410 --> 00:08:21.610 All of those massive monopolistic corporations 00:08:21.610 --> 00:08:23.589 we just talked about, they were pulling the strings 00:08:23.589 --> 00:08:26.470 in Washington. Oh, absolutely. And that realization 00:08:26.470 --> 00:08:30.410 made everyday Americans furious. You see the 00:08:30.410 --> 00:08:32.929 labor movement really taking shape with the founding 00:08:32.929 --> 00:08:35.409 of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. 00:08:36.129 --> 00:08:38.230 The citizens are realizing that to change the 00:08:38.230 --> 00:08:39.809 workplace, they have to change the government. 00:08:40.149 --> 00:08:43.899 Yes. And that meant radically redrawing the lines 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:45.919 of who actually had a voice in this country. 00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:48.500 Let's look at women's rights, for example. It's 00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:50.899 a pivotal moment. The fight for women's suffrage 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:53.799 had been going on for decades, but it accelerates 00:08:53.799 --> 00:08:57.000 dramatically here. It really does. Susan B. Anthony 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.159 dies in 1906, passing the porch to a new generation. 00:09:00.539 --> 00:09:02.840 Then you have Alice Paul organizing a massive 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:05.220 woman's suffrage procession down Pennsylvania 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:09.240 Avenue in 1913, right on the eve of Woodrow Wilson's 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:11.320 presidential inauguration. And they didn't stop 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.960 there. When marching wasn't enough, the protests 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.440 escalated into grueling endurance campaigns. 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:19.620 Right. The silent sentinels. Exactly. From 1917 00:09:19.620 --> 00:09:22.860 to 1919, the silent sentinels held a nearly two 00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:24.759 and a half year vigil outside the White House 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.360 gates. They stood there six days a week in the 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:30.000 freezing rain and snow, often facing physical 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:32.340 attacks from angry crowds and being arrested 00:09:32.340 --> 00:09:35.019 on trumped up charges. Two and a half years. 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:37.720 Think about that lovely dedication. You were 00:09:37.720 --> 00:09:40.240 standing outside the White House gates, silently 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:43.230 holding a sign. while the country enters a world 00:09:43.230 --> 00:09:46.090 war demanding that the president recognize your 00:09:46.090 --> 00:09:49.029 right to exist as a voting citizen. It's incredible. 00:09:49.389 --> 00:09:52.909 And it culminates in real systemic change. Jeanette 00:09:52.909 --> 00:09:55.190 Rankin becomes the first woman elected to the 00:09:55.190 --> 00:09:58.250 U .S. Congress in 1916, which is amazing because 00:09:58.250 --> 00:09:59.830 she was elected before women could even vote 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:02.250 nationally. Yeah, that's a wild fact. And finally, 00:10:02.350 --> 00:10:04.009 the 19th Amendment grants women the right to 00:10:04.009 --> 00:10:06.809 vote in 1920. Simultaneously, you have major 00:10:06.809 --> 00:10:08.610 civil rights movements gaining formal structure. 00:10:08.860 --> 00:10:12.120 The NAACP is founded by W .E .B. Dubois and others 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:15.700 in 1909. And then in 1916, we see the start of 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:18.929 the Great Migration. Yes. The Great Migration 00:10:18.929 --> 00:10:22.029 was a monumental demographic shift. Hundreds 00:10:22.029 --> 00:10:24.509 of thousands of African Americans began moving 00:10:24.509 --> 00:10:27.629 out of the rural South and into urban centers 00:10:27.629 --> 00:10:29.830 in the North and West. And what was the exact 00:10:29.830 --> 00:10:32.149 mechanism driving that? Was it purely seeking 00:10:32.149 --> 00:10:34.190 those new factory jobs we talked about earlier? 00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:37.250 It was a combination of an economic pull and 00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:40.700 a horrific social push. The pull was indeed the 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:42.840 booming industrial centers, cities like Chicago, 00:10:43.059 --> 00:10:45.240 Detroit, and New York desperately needed factory 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:47.820 workers, especially once World War I cut off 00:10:47.820 --> 00:10:50.460 the flow of European immigrants. But the push 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:53.480 was the systemic violence, disenfranchisement, 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:56.340 and brutal Jim Crow laws in the South. People 00:10:56.340 --> 00:10:58.620 were literally fleeing for their lives and their 00:10:58.620 --> 00:11:00.940 livelihoods. If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:00.940 --> 00:11:03.519 picture, all of these domestic struggles for 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:05.820 equality, representation, and physical safety 00:11:05.820 --> 00:11:08.200 were happening at the exact same time America 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:10.600 was hesitantly emerging as a global superpower. 00:11:10.909 --> 00:11:14.509 And it is a very messy emergence. In 1917, the 00:11:14.509 --> 00:11:17.750 U .S. enters World War One. By 1918, President 00:11:17.750 --> 00:11:20.610 Wilson issues his 14 points, which was essentially 00:11:20.610 --> 00:11:23.429 his blueprint for world peace, calling for open 00:11:23.429 --> 00:11:26.370 treaties, free trade and the creation of an international 00:11:26.370 --> 00:11:29.190 organization to mediate disputes. Yeah, the League 00:11:29.190 --> 00:11:31.820 of Nations. But then almost immediately. The 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:35.320 1918 Spanish flu pandemic begins, which just 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:37.879 completely ravages the globe. The psychological 00:11:37.879 --> 00:11:40.500 toll of those two events back to back cannot 00:11:40.500 --> 00:11:44.039 be overstated. You have millions dead from mechanized 00:11:44.039 --> 00:11:46.679 trench warfare and then millions more dying from 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.000 an invisible airborne virus. And the political 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.620 drama back home during this recovery is wild. 00:11:52.220 --> 00:11:55.220 In 1919, the United States Senate outright rejects 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:57.500 the Treaty of Versailles and refuses to join 00:11:57.500 --> 00:11:59.259 the League of Nations, which was Wilson's own 00:11:59.259 --> 00:12:01.240 idea. It was a massive defeat for him. Right. 00:12:01.500 --> 00:12:03.120 And following this exhausting defeat, President 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.299 Wilson suffers a massive stroke. And this leads 00:12:05.299 --> 00:12:07.419 to what history sometimes calls a silent coup. 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:10.120 First Lady Edith Wilson essentially takes over 00:12:10.120 --> 00:12:12.299 his duties behind closed doors. She really did. 00:12:12.519 --> 00:12:14.519 She decides who gets to see him, what documents 00:12:14.519 --> 00:12:17.240 he reads, and essentially acts as the gatekeeper 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:20.159 of the executive branch. It is an incredible 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:22.779 what -if moment in history. But wait, I want 00:12:22.779 --> 00:12:25.259 to push back on America's supposed global dominance 00:12:25.259 --> 00:12:28.039 here. Doesn't the Senate's rejection of the League 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:31.700 of Nations show a massive whiplash? like going 00:12:31.700 --> 00:12:34.659 from being the world's democratic savior right 00:12:34.659 --> 00:12:37.840 back to being a frightened isolationist. It absolutely 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:40.200 illustrates a profound national ambivalence. 00:12:40.779 --> 00:12:43.039 The U .S. Senate actually went so far as to sign 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:45.379 entirely separate peace treaties with Germany, 00:12:45.740 --> 00:12:48.940 Austria, and Hungary in 1921 just to avoid being 00:12:48.940 --> 00:12:50.820 entangled in the broader European agreements. 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:53.200 Wow, so they really just backed out. It was a 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:55.750 clear retraction. The trauma of the Great War, 00:12:55.950 --> 00:12:58.149 compounded by the sheer devastation of the Spanish 00:12:58.149 --> 00:13:00.610 Flu pandemic, left the American public deeply 00:13:00.610 --> 00:13:03.070 exhausted. There was a very strong, visceral 00:13:03.070 --> 00:13:05.570 desire to pull back from the global stage, lock 00:13:05.570 --> 00:13:08.850 the doors, and focus entirely inward. And focusing 00:13:08.850 --> 00:13:10.809 inward apparently meant throwing a decade -long 00:13:10.809 --> 00:13:13.090 cultural party. Which brings us to the Roaring 00:13:13.090 --> 00:13:15.690 Twenties. America tried to cope with all of that 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:18.389 trauma by just turning up the volume on life. 00:13:18.590 --> 00:13:21.470 The cultural explosion in the 1920s is undeniable. 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:24.230 And again, it is driven by technology. It's everywhere. 00:13:24.870 --> 00:13:28.129 In 1920, we get the first commercial radio broadcasts 00:13:28.129 --> 00:13:32.750 by stations like KDKA and WWJ. By 1926, NBC is 00:13:32.750 --> 00:13:35.909 founded, followed by CBS in 1927. And think about 00:13:35.909 --> 00:13:38.000 how that shifts the culture. Oh, completely. 00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:40.120 Before radio, if you lived in a small farming 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:42.360 town in Kansas, you only knew what was happening 00:13:42.360 --> 00:13:44.860 in Kansas. Suddenly, the whole country is listening 00:13:44.860 --> 00:13:47.899 to the same music, the same news, the same boxing 00:13:47.899 --> 00:13:50.600 matches at the exact same time. It creates a 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:52.639 shared national consciousness. Exactly. It breaks 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.840 down regional isolation. And Hollywood becomes 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:56.759 the undisputed center of the movie industry. 00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:00.159 We get the jazz singer in 1927, the first feature 00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:02.600 length motion picture. with synchronized sound. 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:05.740 Disney releases Steamboat Willie in 1928, introducing 00:14:05.740 --> 00:14:08.440 the world to Mickey Mouse. Huge milestone. The 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:11.220 Cotton Club opens in Harlem in 1923, putting 00:14:11.220 --> 00:14:13.539 black cultural brilliance and jazz music on a 00:14:13.539 --> 00:14:16.980 massive stage. WSM broadcasts The Grand Ole Opry 00:14:16.980 --> 00:14:20.039 in 1925. Babe Ruth is out there hitting a record 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:23.559 60 home runs in a single season in 1927. It's 00:14:23.559 --> 00:14:26.019 an absolute boom of arts, entertainment, and 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.639 celebrity culture. Yet running directly beneath 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:31.220 this glittering surface of jazz and baseball, 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:35.539 you had boiling social tensions. The society 00:14:35.539 --> 00:14:38.220 was progressing technologically, but culturally 00:14:38.220 --> 00:14:41.080 the contradictions of the 1920s are incredibly 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:45.059 stark. deep clashes. You have the 18th Amendment 00:14:45.059 --> 00:14:48.139 establishing prohibition in 1919. It made the 00:14:48.139 --> 00:14:50.700 manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal, but 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:52.940 it didn't ban the consumption of alcohol. Right, 00:14:53.019 --> 00:14:55.460 that huge loophole. This loophole, combined with 00:14:55.460 --> 00:14:58.019 widespread public defiance, essentially handed 00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:01.059 a multimillion dollar industry directly to organized 00:15:01.059 --> 00:15:04.139 crime, funding massive mob syndicates. Then you 00:15:04.139 --> 00:15:06.159 have the first Red Scare and the Palmer Raids 00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:09.279 between 1917 and 1920. Let's pause there for 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:12.000 a second. What exactly was the Red Scare? It 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:14.639 was a widespread, intense fear of Bolshevism 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:17.059 and anarchism. Following the Russian Revolution 00:15:17.059 --> 00:15:19.779 in 1917, where communists violently overthrew 00:15:19.779 --> 00:15:22.179 the Russian government, many Americans were suddenly 00:15:22.179 --> 00:15:24.620 terrified that communist sleeper agents and radical 00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:26.840 labor leaders were trying to incite a similar 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:29.019 violent revolution inside the United States. 00:15:29.019 --> 00:15:31.299 Oh, I see. This led to the government conducting 00:15:31.299 --> 00:15:35.240 massive, often unconstitutional raids to arrest 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:38.159 and deport suspected radicals. And underneath 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:40.879 all of this fear, you have horrific racial violence 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:44.460 erupting, like the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921, 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:47.259 where a thriving, prosperous black neighborhood 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.120 known as Black Wall Street was entirely destroyed 00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:52.960 by a white mob. Yes. The friction of the era 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:55.799 was palpable. You also have the highly controversial 00:15:55.799 --> 00:15:59.279 case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant 00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:02.759 anarchists who were arrested in 1920 and executed 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:05.879 in 1927 for murder, despite widespread international 00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:07.960 belief that they were convicted primarily because 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:09.980 of their radical political beliefs and immigrant 00:16:09.980 --> 00:16:11.980 status rather than hard evidence. Yeah, it was 00:16:11.980 --> 00:16:14.750 a very tense time. And then in 1925, you have 00:16:14.750 --> 00:16:17.289 the famous Scopes trial in Tennessee. Right, 00:16:17.350 --> 00:16:19.830 the trial over teaching evolution. Exactly. A 00:16:19.830 --> 00:16:21.929 high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was put 00:16:21.929 --> 00:16:24.409 on trial for teaching human evolution, violating 00:16:24.409 --> 00:16:27.490 a state law. The trial became a national spectacle, 00:16:27.769 --> 00:16:29.629 broadcast on the radio. So everyone's listening? 00:16:30.169 --> 00:16:33.049 Everyone. Legally, the outcome found that the 00:16:33.049 --> 00:16:35.129 state law didn't violate the separation of church 00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:38.250 and state, but merely prohibited teaching evolution 00:16:38.250 --> 00:16:40.409 on the grounds of intellectual disagreement. 00:16:41.500 --> 00:16:43.940 Culturally though, it was a massive battleground 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:48.419 between modern secular urban values and traditional 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:51.480 religious rural values. So what does this all 00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:54.720 mean? You look at the 1920s and you have jazz 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.039 and baseball on the radio, but you also have 00:16:57.039 --> 00:16:59.639 Prohibition, the Red Scare, the Scopes Trial, 00:16:59.980 --> 00:17:02.840 and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929. 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:06.599 It is sheer chaos. This raises an important question. 00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.400 Does rapid cultural and technological progress 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:12.400 inevitably create extreme cultural backlash and 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:15.160 fear? What we see here is a society desperately 00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:17.500 trying to thrust itself into modernity while 00:17:17.500 --> 00:17:20.019 simultaneously terrified of losing its traditional 00:17:20.019 --> 00:17:22.240 identity. Wow, yeah. And of course, all of this 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:24.400 economic and cultural borrowing eventually comes 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:26.900 due. Right. It feels exactly like a teenager 00:17:26.900 --> 00:17:29.440 who just got their very first credit card. Imagine 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.619 your own 401k doubling in a single year and everyone 00:17:32.619 --> 00:17:34.170 around you is telling you the good times will 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:36.329 never end. They're flashy, they're rebellious, 00:17:36.430 --> 00:17:39.589 drinking at underground speakeasies despite prohibition. 00:17:39.869 --> 00:17:43.329 Living large. Exactly. But they are completely 00:17:43.329 --> 00:17:45.849 ignoring the massive debt piling up in the background. 00:17:46.420 --> 00:17:48.819 people were buying consumer goods on credit, 00:17:49.140 --> 00:17:51.559 and they were buying stocks on margin, meaning 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:53.960 they would put down just 10 % of the cash and 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.039 borrow the rest from the broker, assuming the 00:17:56.039 --> 00:17:58.279 stock would only ever go up. A recipe for disaster. 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.119 And that massive, invisible debt comes crashing 00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:03.940 down with the Wall Street crash of 1929, kicking 00:18:03.940 --> 00:18:06.859 off the Great Depression. Let me ask you, were 00:18:06.859 --> 00:18:09.680 the warning signs of the 1929 crash obvious to 00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:11.720 everyone living through the decade or were they 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:13.880 just too distracted by the radio and the movies 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:16.599 to notice? The vulnerability was absolutely there 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:18.779 on the record. The economy was built on rapid 00:18:18.779 --> 00:18:21.819 expansion and very fragile foundations. In fact, 00:18:21.859 --> 00:18:24.400 there was a brief but incredibly sharp economic 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:27.160 collapse in 1920, known as the Depression of 00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:29.619 1920 to 1921. Oh, really? I didn't know that. 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:31.599 Yeah. So they had seen the system buckle before. 00:18:31.849 --> 00:18:34.950 But the sheer momentum of the 1920s, the invention 00:18:34.950 --> 00:18:37.529 of new industries, the relentless stock market 00:18:37.529 --> 00:18:40.130 boom, the dazzling consumer culture, it created 00:18:40.130 --> 00:18:43.730 a powerful sense of invincibility. That optimism 00:18:43.730 --> 00:18:45.930 simply overshadowed the structural warnings. 00:18:46.309 --> 00:18:49.390 It always seems so obvious in hindsight, doesn't 00:18:49.390 --> 00:18:51.670 it? Which brings it all back to you listening 00:18:51.670 --> 00:18:54.769 to this deep dive right now. Why does a list 00:18:54.769 --> 00:18:56.809 of historical events from a century ago matter 00:18:56.809 --> 00:18:59.660 to you today? Because it proves that our current 00:18:59.660 --> 00:19:02.940 feelings of unprecedented change are not entirely 00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:05.920 new. Whether you are stressing out over current 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:09.680 tech booms and AI, recovering from global pandemics, 00:19:10.019 --> 00:19:12.339 or feeling exhausted by extreme political and 00:19:12.339 --> 00:19:14.940 cultural division, we have actually navigated 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:17.500 a 30 -year whirlwind like this before. We really 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:19.880 have. Looking at how that society adapted to 00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:22.599 new technologies, how it fought for basic safety 00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.599 and new rights, and how it struggled to cope 00:19:24.599 --> 00:19:27.359 with the mental toll of it all gives us a really 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:29.880 solid roadmap for understanding our own era of 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:32.279 rapid, uncomfortable change. History rhymes. 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:35.079 I would offer this final thought to consider, 00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:37.779 think about Edith Wilson's quiet governance during 00:19:37.779 --> 00:19:40.599 her husband's stroke, effectively gatekeeping 00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:43.319 the executive branch in secret. Or think about 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:45.900 the local citizens deeply entrenched in the Scopes 00:19:45.900 --> 00:19:49.099 trial, fighting a localized battle over education 00:19:49.099 --> 00:19:51.740 that ended up defining a national cultural divide. 00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:54.359 It makes you wonder how much of our current history 00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:56.500 is being permanently shaped right now by quiet 00:19:56.500 --> 00:19:59.099 moments behind closed doors or by everyday cultural 00:19:59.099 --> 00:20:01.539 arguments in our hometowns that will look entirely 00:20:01.539 --> 00:20:03.740 different to whoever is studying us 100 years 00:20:03.740 --> 00:20:06.240 from today. That is a fascinating thought to 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:09.460 leave on. The whiplash of the early 1900s isn't 00:20:09.460 --> 00:20:12.460 just history. It is the very foundation of the 00:20:12.460 --> 00:20:14.420 modern world we are still trying to figure out 00:20:14.420 --> 00:20:16.670 how to live in. Thank you so much for joining 00:20:16.670 --> 00:20:19.289 us on this deep dive into the blueprint of the 00:20:19.289 --> 00:20:21.609 American century. We warmly invite you back for 00:20:21.609 --> 00:20:22.509 our next exploration.