WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.960 So imagine you're just standing in a quiet field 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.219 in the middle of the Midwest, right? You're digging 00:00:07.219 --> 00:00:09.800 into the earth and you suddenly unearth this 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:12.519 massive, beautiful ceremonial blade. Oh, wow. 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:14.480 OK. Yeah. And you brush away the dirt and you 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:18.620 realize it's made of pure obsidian. But here's 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:21.039 the catch. You are standing in the middle of 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:24.309 Ohio. And that specific type of volcanic glass, 00:00:24.429 --> 00:00:26.910 it came all the way from Yellowstone National 00:00:26.910 --> 00:00:28.890 Park. Which is what, thousands of miles away? 00:00:29.149 --> 00:00:32.149 Exactly. Moved entirely on foot. Thousands of 00:00:32.149 --> 00:00:33.869 years before the invention of the wheel in North 00:00:33.869 --> 00:00:38.170 America. That is the real Ohio. It really completely 00:00:38.170 --> 00:00:40.030 shatters that modern assumption we all have, 00:00:40.149 --> 00:00:43.030 doesn't it? I mean, we tend to use Ohio as this 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:45.609 demographic shorthand today. Oh, totally. A flyover 00:00:45.609 --> 00:00:47.409 state. Right. Just a flat piece of geography 00:00:47.409 --> 00:00:49.469 that we only really check in on during election 00:00:49.469 --> 00:00:51.890 years to take the temperature of the country. 00:00:51.950 --> 00:00:54.369 Which is exactly why we are doing this custom 00:00:54.369 --> 00:00:57.469 tailored deep dive just for you today. We are 00:00:57.469 --> 00:00:59.890 pulling from a massive comprehensive source text. 00:00:59.909 --> 00:01:03.229 It's simply titled The History of Ohio. And our 00:01:03.229 --> 00:01:05.930 mission here is to just peel back that predictable 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.549 modern veneer. Because when you actually dig 00:01:08.549 --> 00:01:12.090 into this material, you realize Ohio isn't just 00:01:12.090 --> 00:01:16.310 a piece of America. It is. It's really the ultimate 00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:18.950 microcosm of the entire continent. Right. We 00:01:18.950 --> 00:01:22.329 are going to explore this ancient bustling trade 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:26.189 empire, a deeply contested frontier, the industrial 00:01:26.189 --> 00:01:28.659 engine that I mean. quite literally built the 00:01:28.659 --> 00:01:31.959 modern world, and also a perfect and sometimes 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:35.260 really uncomfortable mirror of the nation's deepest 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:37.680 ideological divides. It provides the perfect 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:39.739 blueprint, honestly. If you want to understand 00:01:39.739 --> 00:01:41.560 how the United States was built, how it fought 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:44.019 with itself, and how it grew into a global superpower, 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:46.939 you just have to look at the soil of Ohio. The 00:01:46.939 --> 00:01:48.980 patterns established there, they echo across 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:51.280 the entire trajectory of the nation. And to see 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:53.599 those patterns, we have to go way, way back. 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:55.670 Because the story here doesn't start with You 00:01:55.670 --> 00:01:57.870 know, European settlers in powdered wigs. No, 00:01:57.870 --> 00:02:00.409 not at all. It starts by proving that this specific 00:02:00.409 --> 00:02:02.430 region has always been a massively connected 00:02:02.430 --> 00:02:05.290 center of commerce. Our source notes human presence 00:02:05.290 --> 00:02:09.330 going back to, get this, 14 ,500 BCE. That is 00:02:09.330 --> 00:02:12.810 incredibly early. Right. Where prehistoric humans 00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:15.569 were hunting massive Jefferson's ground sloths 00:02:15.569 --> 00:02:19.169 with stone tools. But the real societal complexity. 00:02:19.370 --> 00:02:22.229 The stuff that just leaves you speechless that 00:02:22.229 --> 00:02:25.689 begins with the mound builders Yes, the the successive 00:02:25.689 --> 00:02:28.509 cultures known as the adina the hope well and 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:30.650 the four ancient peoples I mean, they were not 00:02:30.650 --> 00:02:32.430 just nomadic hunter -gatherers passing through 00:02:32.430 --> 00:02:35.789 the region They were highly sophisticated engineers 00:02:35.789 --> 00:02:37.849 who were fundamentally altering the landscape, 00:02:37.969 --> 00:02:40.370 right? They built these massive earthworks like 00:02:40.370 --> 00:02:42.810 if you've ever seen aerial photos of the great 00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:45.330 serpent mound in Adams County It's well, that's 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:47.669 exactly what it sounds like. It's a giant undulating 00:02:47.669 --> 00:02:50.020 effigy of a serpent just carved right into the 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:52.580 earth. It's stunning. It is. But they weren't 00:02:52.580 --> 00:02:55.419 just building localized monuments or like small 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:58.240 burial plots. They were excavating these earth 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:00.319 walled enclosures that spanned up to a hundred 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:02.900 acres. A hundred acres? Think about the labor 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:06.240 involved in that. Exactly. At their peak, the 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:08.080 Hopewell settlements were essentially dense. 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:11.030 Ancient cities housing thousands of residents. 00:03:11.629 --> 00:03:14.050 And what truly illustrates the sophistication 00:03:14.050 --> 00:03:17.169 of these cities is, well, it's the archaeological 00:03:17.169 --> 00:03:19.870 evidence of their trade networks. When we look 00:03:19.870 --> 00:03:22.610 inside these mounds, we don't just find local 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:24.870 timber and stone. Right, like the obsidian from 00:03:24.870 --> 00:03:26.889 Yellowstone I mentioned earlier. Exactly. The 00:03:26.889 --> 00:03:29.270 reach is staggering. I mean, there is copper 00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:32.289 sourced from the Great Lakes. There is decorative 00:03:32.289 --> 00:03:34.789 mica that was mined from the Appalachian Mountains. 00:03:34.870 --> 00:03:37.650 Wow. And there are ornaments crafted from shark 00:03:37.650 --> 00:03:39.900 teeth. and conch shells brought all the way up 00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:42.199 from the Gulf of Mexico. Okay, wait, I have to 00:03:42.199 --> 00:03:43.979 stop you there because the logistics of this 00:03:43.979 --> 00:03:46.379 are literally hurting my brain. It's a lot to 00:03:46.379 --> 00:03:49.439 process. How are they moving thousands of pounds 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:51.819 of copper and obsidian across the North American 00:03:51.819 --> 00:03:55.919 continent without horses, without beasts of burden, 00:03:56.199 --> 00:03:59.110 and like... without wheeled carts. It comes down 00:03:59.110 --> 00:04:02.409 to geography, specifically the rivers. The Ohio 00:04:02.409 --> 00:04:04.849 River and its massive network of tributaries, 00:04:04.849 --> 00:04:07.250 they functioned essentially as a prehistoric 00:04:07.250 --> 00:04:10.569 superhighway. Of course, the rivers. Right. You 00:04:10.569 --> 00:04:12.729 didn't need a wheel when you had this deeply 00:04:12.729 --> 00:04:15.409 interconnected water system that allowed you 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:18.149 to navigate canoes from the Great Lakes down 00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:19.829 to the Mississippi River and then eventually 00:04:19.829 --> 00:04:23.040 all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The geography 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:27.519 basically made Ohio a natural unavoidable bottleneck 00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:30.720 for continental trade. OK, let's unpack this. 00:04:30.939 --> 00:04:33.720 So it's less like an ancient Amazon distribution 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:35.519 network where things are just magically shipped 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:38.779 around and more of a like a highly strategic 00:04:38.779 --> 00:04:42.120 port authority controlling the major waterways 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:44.129 of the continent. That's a great way to put it, 00:04:44.129 --> 00:04:46.269 actually. But looking at the text, it seems like 00:04:46.269 --> 00:04:48.790 the very river networks that allowed the Hopewell 00:04:48.790 --> 00:04:51.949 to build this continent wide trade empire, those 00:04:51.949 --> 00:04:54.709 became the exact highways that European powers 00:04:54.709 --> 00:04:57.050 later used to just carry down. Yeah, that is 00:04:57.050 --> 00:04:59.370 the tragic irony of the region's geography. What 00:04:59.370 --> 00:05:01.629 makes a place fantastic for trade also makes 00:05:01.629 --> 00:05:04.790 it highly, highly vulnerable to invasion. So 00:05:04.790 --> 00:05:07.110 if we fast forward to the 1650s, we arrive at 00:05:07.110 --> 00:05:10.529 the Beaver Wars. This is where European global 00:05:10.529 --> 00:05:14.089 politics, specifically the intense economic rivalries 00:05:14.089 --> 00:05:15.990 between the French, the British, and the Dutch 00:05:15.990 --> 00:05:19.129 essentially turned the Ohio region into the site 00:05:19.129 --> 00:05:22.050 of a brutal proxy war. And this is long before 00:05:22.050 --> 00:05:24.970 America was even a concept. Let's walk through 00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:26.730 the mechanics of how that actually happened because 00:05:26.730 --> 00:05:29.370 the source text gets incredibly dark here. You 00:05:29.370 --> 00:05:31.930 have the Iroquois Confederacy who were based 00:05:31.930 --> 00:05:34.350 further east in what is now, you know, New York. 00:05:34.370 --> 00:05:37.300 Correct. And they had essentially hunted their 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:39.899 local beaver populations to extinction for the 00:05:39.899 --> 00:05:42.920 European fur trade. But crucially, they were 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:45.480 being armed with sophisticated modern firearms 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.040 by Dutch and English traders. And this creates 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.319 a devastating ripple effect. I mean, the Iroquois 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:52.600 have modern weapons, but they desperately need 00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:54.899 new hunting grounds to maintain their economic 00:05:54.899 --> 00:05:57.079 power with the Europeans. Because the furs were 00:05:57.079 --> 00:06:00.199 their leverage. Exactly. So they use those very 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:02.360 same river networks we just talked about to launch 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:06.180 a brutal mechanized campaign westward. into the 00:06:06.180 --> 00:06:09.259 Ohio region to control the fur trade. And they 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:11.740 nearly exterminated the Huron and the Erie peoples 00:06:11.740 --> 00:06:13.879 who had lived in the Ohio region for generations. 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.100 It was one of the bloodiest, most destabilizing 00:06:17.100 --> 00:06:20.230 conflicts in North American history. The introduction 00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:23.189 of firearms into an existing indigenous trade 00:06:23.189 --> 00:06:26.009 network, it just completely reshaped the tribal 00:06:26.009 --> 00:06:28.129 map of the continent. That's why Picklin. Entire 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:31.610 confederacies were destroyed or assimilated or 00:06:31.610 --> 00:06:34.290 forced to flee as far west as Minnesota or even 00:06:34.290 --> 00:06:37.290 as far south as the Carolinas. So you have this 00:06:37.290 --> 00:06:41.069 land that was an ancient thriving hub of interconnected 00:06:41.069 --> 00:06:44.410 cities. And because of European economic demands, 00:06:44.910 --> 00:06:48.060 it becomes this. violently contested, deeply 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:51.180 destabilized territory. Yes. And reading further 00:06:51.180 --> 00:06:53.819 into the source, it seems like that brutal reshaping 00:06:53.819 --> 00:06:56.160 during the Beaver Wars and subsequently the French 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.139 and Indian War is exactly what created a vacuum. 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:02.420 It made Ohio the prime deeply contested target 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:04.839 for a brand new nation looking to expand westward. 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:07.240 Precisely. After the American Revolution, the 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:09.279 newly formed United States had a massive problem. 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:11.019 They had absolutely no money. Right, they were 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:13.680 broke. But they had thousands of heavily armed 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.019 veterans who needed to be paid for their service 00:07:16.019 --> 00:07:18.519 in the war. So the government's solution was 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.920 to pay them in land. Specifically, land in the 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.879 Ohio country organized under the Northwest Ordinance. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:27.329 Which brings us to Rufus Putnam. a guy known 00:07:27.329 --> 00:07:30.689 as the Father of Ohio. He was George Washington's 00:07:30.689 --> 00:07:33.290 chief military engineer during the Revolutionary 00:07:33.290 --> 00:07:35.750 War. A brilliant engineer. Yeah, the text points 00:07:35.750 --> 00:07:38.689 out he was a genius at building portable, modular 00:07:38.689 --> 00:07:41.889 fortifications to outsmart the British. So after 00:07:41.889 --> 00:07:44.589 the war... He takes that exact same engineering 00:07:44.589 --> 00:07:47.009 mindset and leads the first group of veterans 00:07:47.009 --> 00:07:50.990 to settle Marietta, Ohio in 1788. And he knew 00:07:50.990 --> 00:07:53.449 what he was walking into. Right. Because he knows 00:07:53.449 --> 00:07:56.089 they're moving into highly contested, dangerous 00:07:56.089 --> 00:07:58.610 territory. He doesn't just pitch a few tents, 00:07:58.970 --> 00:08:02.009 he immediately builds a massive, heavily fortified 00:08:02.009 --> 00:08:04.930 structure called Campus Martius. But the true 00:08:04.930 --> 00:08:08.069 genius of Putnam and his associate, Manasa Cutler, 00:08:08.430 --> 00:08:10.389 wasn't just in how they engineered the physical 00:08:10.389 --> 00:08:12.910 settlements, it was how they engineered the legal 00:08:12.910 --> 00:08:15.209 framework of the territory. This is the part 00:08:15.209 --> 00:08:17.980 that really blew my mind. Yeah, they were Puritans 00:08:17.980 --> 00:08:20.800 from New England. And before they agreed to move, 00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:23.540 they insisted on a crucial clause in the Northwest 00:08:23.540 --> 00:08:27.160 Ordinance. The entire territory had to be fundamentally 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:29.860 legally free of slavery. Here's where it gets 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:32.179 really interesting for you listening. You're 00:08:32.179 --> 00:08:34.480 probably thinking the Civil War was decided at 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:37.580 Gettysburg or Fort Sumter. But looking at this 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:39.960 source text, you could argue it was actually 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:43.740 decided in 1788 in a wooden fort in Marietta. 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:47.129 You really could. I mean, didn't this one single 00:08:47.129 --> 00:08:49.649 legal decision basically predetermine the winner 00:08:49.649 --> 00:08:51.909 of a war that wouldn't happen for another 70 00:08:51.909 --> 00:08:55.090 years? It absolutely did. If we connect this 00:08:55.090 --> 00:08:57.330 to the bigger picture, think about the mechanical 00:08:57.330 --> 00:09:00.929 impact of that clause. By mandating that Ohio 00:09:00.929 --> 00:09:03.710 and the subsequent states carved out of that 00:09:03.710 --> 00:09:06.659 Northwest Territory, you know, states like Indiana, 00:09:06.980 --> 00:09:09.639 Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, by mandating 00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:12.600 they be free states, Putnam and Cutler fundamentally 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:14.879 tilted the future balance of power in the United 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:16.820 States. Because of the electoral college and 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:19.740 congressional representation. Exactly. If those 00:09:19.740 --> 00:09:22.419 states had permitted slavery, their agricultural 00:09:22.419 --> 00:09:24.460 and political systems would have aligned with 00:09:24.460 --> 00:09:26.740 the South. Their electoral votes would have gone 00:09:26.740 --> 00:09:29.980 to pro -slavery candidates. Wow. So Lincoln might 00:09:29.980 --> 00:09:32.080 not have even been a factor. Abraham Lincoln 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.519 never would have had the electoral math required 00:09:34.519 --> 00:09:36.980 to win the presidency. And more importantly, 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:40.100 the North never would have developed the immense 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:43.419 specialized industrial capacity and the massive 00:09:43.419 --> 00:09:46.399 free labor population base it needed to physically 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:50.200 defeat the Confederacy. That is wild. That single 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:53.039 legal condition in Ohio's foundational blueprint 00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:55.700 arguably saved the union decades before a shot 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:59.330 was ever fired. But, um... We have to be incredibly 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:01.429 clear with you here. Establishing that blueprint 00:10:01.429 --> 00:10:03.870 was not a peaceful democratic transition. No, 00:10:03.870 --> 00:10:06.429 not at all. The American push into Ohio was driven 00:10:06.429 --> 00:10:09.330 by economic desperation and it resulted in horrific 00:10:09.330 --> 00:10:11.909 violence. The U .S. government needed that land 00:10:11.909 --> 00:10:14.370 to pay its debts and they cleared it forcefully. 00:10:14.929 --> 00:10:17.350 The source specifically details atrocities like 00:10:17.350 --> 00:10:20.009 the Nadin Hutton Massacre of 1782. Right, where 00:10:20.009 --> 00:10:23.610 U .S. militiamen systematically murdered 96 peaceful 00:10:23.610 --> 00:10:26.269 Christian Native Americans. It's just devastating 00:10:26.269 --> 00:10:29.519 to read. And the indigenous resistance to this 00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:32.320 expansion was incredibly organized. You have 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:35.000 to comes as war, where the visionary Sean E. 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:38.179 Leader built a massive Confederacy to halt American 00:10:38.179 --> 00:10:41.039 expansion. Because he realized that no single 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:43.980 tribe could fight the U .S. alone. Exactly. He 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:45.960 eventually allied with the British during the 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:49.559 War of 1812, which led to massive regional conflicts 00:10:49.559 --> 00:10:52.379 like the Battle of Lake Erie. But the ultimate 00:10:52.379 --> 00:10:54.659 result of that push and pull was the tragedy 00:10:54.659 --> 00:10:57.580 of the Indian Removal Act. The U .S. government 00:10:57.580 --> 00:11:00.019 forcefully pushed the remaining tribes out of 00:11:00.019 --> 00:11:02.879 Ohio entirely, culminating with the Wyandotte 00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:05.120 being forced to leave their ancestral lands in 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:08.220 1843. So the territory was violently secured. 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:10.980 But once it was secured, the transformation of 00:11:10.980 --> 00:11:13.519 the landscape is almost hard to comprehend. We 00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:16.039 move from pioneer survivalism and frontier forts 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:19.639 to an industrial titanhood that literally built 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:21.639 the physical infrastructure of the 20th century. 00:11:21.899 --> 00:11:23.860 And again, it comes back to the mechanism of 00:11:23.860 --> 00:11:26.139 geography. Ohio possessed a perfect storm of 00:11:26.139 --> 00:11:28.279 natural resources and strategic positioning. 00:11:28.539 --> 00:11:31.320 In the early 19th century, the state aggressively 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:33.659 built out its infrastructure to exploit that 00:11:33.659 --> 00:11:36.240 geography. They built the National Road connecting 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:39.179 them directly to the East Coast. They dug the 00:11:39.179 --> 00:11:41.820 Ohio and Erie Canal. Which changed everything. 00:11:41.929 --> 00:11:45.610 Suddenly, Ohio's massive deposits of coal, iron 00:11:45.610 --> 00:11:48.210 ore and timber could be moved efficiently to 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:50.710 global markets via the Great Lakes to the north 00:11:50.710 --> 00:11:53.850 and the Ohio River to the south. And then, of 00:11:53.850 --> 00:11:55.929 course, the railroads arrived. The infrastructure 00:11:55.929 --> 00:11:58.149 boom is just staggering. You look at the mid 00:11:58.149 --> 00:12:00.629 to late 19th century and the state essentially 00:12:00.629 --> 00:12:03.389 compartmentalizes into these massive industrial 00:12:03.389 --> 00:12:05.830 monopolies. Oh, yeah, completely specialized 00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:08.529 cities like Cincinnati. because of its access 00:12:08.529 --> 00:12:10.889 to the rivers and surrounding corn fields used 00:12:10.889 --> 00:12:13.690 for feed, becomes such a massive meatpacking 00:12:13.690 --> 00:12:17.110 hub, it is literally known as Porkopolis. Porkopolis? 00:12:17.169 --> 00:12:19.509 I always loved that detail. Right. And up north, 00:12:20.009 --> 00:12:21.950 Cleveland leverages its access to the Great Lakes 00:12:21.950 --> 00:12:24.769 and the rail lines to birth standard oil, making 00:12:24.769 --> 00:12:27.230 John D. Rockefeller the world's first billionaire. 00:12:27.389 --> 00:12:30.370 And then you have Akron. Yes. Akron leverages 00:12:30.370 --> 00:12:32.889 its access to water. and the transition from 00:12:32.889 --> 00:12:35.950 horse -drawn carriages to early automobiles to 00:12:35.950 --> 00:12:38.610 give birth to the global rubber industry with 00:12:38.610 --> 00:12:41.950 companies like Goodyear and Firestone. And because 00:12:41.950 --> 00:12:44.210 of all this concentrated wealth and the sheer 00:12:44.210 --> 00:12:46.450 volume of raw materials flowing through the state, 00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:49.830 Ohio became an unparalleled center for innovation. 00:12:50.450 --> 00:12:52.710 It wasn't just producing heavy materials. It 00:12:52.710 --> 00:12:55.830 was breeding world -changing ideas. Right. But 00:12:55.830 --> 00:12:57.529 I want to make sure we don't just rely on the 00:12:57.529 --> 00:13:00.940 cliché Silicon Valley. metaphor here because 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:02.600 it's actually much more interesting than that. 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:05.179 It wasn't just a bunch of isolated geniuses having 00:13:05.179 --> 00:13:07.399 light bulb moments. Right. It wasn't a vacuum. 00:13:07.539 --> 00:13:10.200 It was an ecosystem. When you have an environment 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:13.419 overflowing with steel, rubber, oil, and the 00:13:13.419 --> 00:13:15.820 engineers required to process them, you naturally 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:18.799 breed a secondary market of inventors who are 00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:21.080 trying to solve logistical problems for those 00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:23.679 massive industries. That is the crucial distinction. 00:13:24.019 --> 00:13:26.519 The innovation was a direct byproduct of the 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:28.460 industrial density. Take the Wright brothers, 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:30.539 for example. Oh, this is a great example. Right. 00:13:30.889 --> 00:13:33.830 Why did the first airplane get invented in a 00:13:33.830 --> 00:13:36.870 Dayton bicycle shop and not by a heavily funded 00:13:36.870 --> 00:13:39.230 government laboratory in Europe? Because making 00:13:39.230 --> 00:13:41.750 bicycles required an intimate understanding of 00:13:41.750 --> 00:13:44.230 lightweight metal tubular frames, sprockets, 00:13:44.549 --> 00:13:47.809 chains, and aerodynamic balance, which are the 00:13:47.809 --> 00:13:50.289 exact mechanical components required to build 00:13:50.289 --> 00:13:52.590 a flying machine. Precisely. They had access 00:13:52.590 --> 00:13:55.289 to those materials and that specific manufacturing 00:13:55.289 --> 00:13:57.809 knowledge precisely because they were sitting 00:13:57.809 --> 00:14:00.889 right in the middle of Ohio's industrial... boom. 00:14:01.629 --> 00:14:03.470 Exactly. And you see that same mechanical cross 00:14:03.470 --> 00:14:05.690 -pollination everywhere. You have Garrett Morgan 00:14:05.690 --> 00:14:08.250 in Cleveland inventing the traffic light. Which 00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:09.970 makes perfect sense when you think about it. 00:14:09.990 --> 00:14:12.549 Why? Because the streets of Cleveland were suddenly 00:14:12.549 --> 00:14:15.669 chaotic, dangerous intersections of street cars, 00:14:16.149 --> 00:14:19.330 horse -drawn wagons, pedestrians, and early automobiles. 00:14:19.590 --> 00:14:22.769 It was a direct result of the city's rapid industrialization. 00:14:22.909 --> 00:14:24.990 And then there's Albert Sabin developing the 00:14:24.990 --> 00:14:27.690 oral polio vaccine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. 00:14:28.049 --> 00:14:30.110 Even the invention of Play -Doh. Oh, the Plato 00:14:30.110 --> 00:14:33.149 story is fascinating. It started out as a compound 00:14:33.149 --> 00:14:35.750 used to clean coal soot off of wallpaper, right? 00:14:36.330 --> 00:14:39.049 Because literally everyone was burning Ohio coal 00:14:39.049 --> 00:14:40.970 to heat their home. That's exactly right. It's 00:14:40.970 --> 00:14:43.730 all connected. But all of this industry required 00:14:43.730 --> 00:14:46.450 immense amounts of human labor, which triggered 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:49.570 a massive demographic collision. The factories 00:14:49.570 --> 00:14:52.850 needed workers, and that pull created a demographic 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:56.610 crash course. You had massive waves of European 00:14:56.610 --> 00:14:59.169 immigrants, Irish, German, and Eastern European 00:14:59.169 --> 00:15:01.470 pouring into the cities to work in the factories. 00:15:02.090 --> 00:15:04.590 You had rural workers from the Appalachian Mountains 00:15:04.590 --> 00:15:06.909 relocating north to work in the rubber and steel 00:15:06.909 --> 00:15:09.509 plants. And you had thousands of African -Americans 00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:11.629 arriving during the Great Migration, moving up 00:15:11.629 --> 00:15:14.250 from the Deep South to escape Jim Crow laws and 00:15:14.250 --> 00:15:17.190 find industrial work. So Ohio effectively crammed 00:15:17.190 --> 00:15:19.960 all of America. cultural, racial and economic 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:22.639 dynamics into one state's borders. It created 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:25.860 a uniquely diverse, rapidly urbanizing middle 00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:28.240 class. Which brings us to the inevitable result 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:30.659 of cramming all those different people, all that 00:15:30.659 --> 00:15:33.340 unprecedented economic power and all those differing 00:15:33.340 --> 00:15:36.240 ideologies into one place. It turned Ohio into 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.100 the ultimate political battleground. It became 00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:41.379 the political microcosm of the United States. 00:15:41.379 --> 00:15:43.860 Yeah. And the most glaring example of this is 00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:47.580 Ohio's historical nickname, the Mother of Presidents. 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:50.559 The state has sent seven men to the White House. 00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:53.799 Seven? That is a huge concentration of power. 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:55.879 And what's fascinating isn't just the number, 00:15:56.139 --> 00:15:58.539 it's the specific political logic behind why 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:01.460 they were chosen. The source text explains that 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:03.580 during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:06.720 at these deadlocked, highly fractured political 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:09.320 conventions, party leaders would desperately 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:13.200 look for what they called an available Ah, right. 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:15.779 The available man. Basically, a moderate compromise. 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:19.860 Because Ohio was this perfect demographic microcosm, 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:21.940 perfectly balanced between the north, south, 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:24.700 east, and west, both industrially and agriculturally. 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:27.559 The logic was simple. If a candidate is moderate 00:16:27.559 --> 00:16:29.860 enough to navigate the complex, diverse politics 00:16:29.860 --> 00:16:32.649 of Ohio, they can win the entire country. But 00:16:32.649 --> 00:16:35.110 being a microcosm of America doesn't mean being 00:16:35.110 --> 00:16:38.250 entirely harmonious. In fact, reflecting America 00:16:38.250 --> 00:16:40.970 means accurately reflecting its deepest frictions, 00:16:41.250 --> 00:16:43.769 contradictions and, you know, rebellions. Oh, 00:16:43.769 --> 00:16:46.149 definitely. For instance, the fierce independence 00:16:46.149 --> 00:16:49.129 of the state was tested very early on. Let's 00:16:49.129 --> 00:16:52.190 look at the rebellion of 1820. Yes. OK, I need 00:16:52.190 --> 00:16:53.909 you to explain the mechanics of this to me because 00:16:53.909 --> 00:16:58.049 it sounds wild. The text says the Ohio legislature 00:16:58.049 --> 00:17:01.250 legally nullified federal court orders against 00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:04.589 the Bank of of the United States. How does a 00:17:04.589 --> 00:17:08.069 single state just... openly defy the federal 00:17:08.069 --> 00:17:10.349 government like that. It was a direct aggressive 00:17:10.349 --> 00:17:12.910 challenge to federal authority. Following a major 00:17:12.910 --> 00:17:16.049 financial panic, Ohio felt the Federal Bank of 00:17:16.049 --> 00:17:19.069 the United States was predatory. OK. So the state 00:17:19.069 --> 00:17:22.349 legislature passed a law levying a massive crippling 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:24.990 tax on the federal bank branches located in Ohio. 00:17:25.569 --> 00:17:27.549 When the federal courts ordered them not to collect 00:17:27.549 --> 00:17:30.930 it, Ohio simply ignored the courts. They literally 00:17:30.930 --> 00:17:33.450 sent a state auditor into the federal bank vaults 00:17:33.450 --> 00:17:35.759 to seize the money by force. Wait, wait. They 00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:38.000 just walked in and took the cash to pay the state 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.380 tax? Literally walked in and took it. That is 00:17:40.380 --> 00:17:42.900 insane. And while the Supreme Court eventually 00:17:42.900 --> 00:17:46.680 ruled against Ohio in the landmark case, Osborne 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:49.180 v. Bank of the U .S., ordering the state to return 00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:52.480 the money, that event birthed a very strong lingering 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:56.000 tradition of state sovereignty in Ohio. It proved 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.400 the state was willing to enforce its own will, 00:17:58.660 --> 00:18:00.839 even against the highest federal authorities. 00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:03.539 And you see those incredibly sharp ideological 00:18:03.539 --> 00:18:07.119 contrasts playing out in almost every era. Just 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:10.019 to be clear with you listening, we are strictly 00:18:10.019 --> 00:18:11.839 reporting the historical facts from our source 00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:14.319 text here to show these contrasts. We aren't 00:18:14.319 --> 00:18:16.640 taking sides on these historical movements showing 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:18.900 how wild the swings were. Right. We're just looking 00:18:18.900 --> 00:18:21.319 at the historical record. Exactly. So we noted 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.059 earlier that Ohio was a fierce anti -slavery 00:18:24.059 --> 00:18:26.640 state. It was a massive, highly organized hub 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:29.180 for the Underground Railroad. Later, it became 00:18:29.180 --> 00:18:31.460 the birthplace of major progressive -era labor 00:18:31.460 --> 00:18:34.440 reforms. Yes. Our source notes, it was a cradle 00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:37.240 for the social gospel movement. That was a movement 00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:39.339 that applied Christian ethics directly to social 00:18:39.339 --> 00:18:41.279 problems, fighting aggressively for workers' 00:18:41.779 --> 00:18:43.880 compensation and strict child labor laws to protect 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:45.799 people from the very industrial machine Ohio 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:48.339 had built. Yet, simultaneously, we must look 00:18:48.339 --> 00:18:50.700 at the full historical record, as presented in 00:18:50.700 --> 00:18:52.940 our source, which requires us to look at the 00:18:52.940 --> 00:18:55.180 pendulum swinging in the exact opposite direction. 00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:58.000 Right. Despite its progressive labor history 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:01.579 in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan held immense political 00:19:01.579 --> 00:19:04.099 power and huge membership numbers within the 00:19:04.099 --> 00:19:07.339 state. They capitalized heavily on anti -immigrant 00:19:07.339 --> 00:19:09.680 and anti -Catholic sentiment in those rapidly 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:12.019 changing industrial cities. And then the pendulum 00:19:12.019 --> 00:19:15.559 swings again during the Cold War era of the 1950s. 00:19:16.059 --> 00:19:18.519 The political climate in the state swung heavily 00:19:18.519 --> 00:19:22.029 into a right -wing anti -communist fervor. The 00:19:22.029 --> 00:19:24.490 state formed the Ohio Un -American Activities 00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:27.190 Committee specifically to root out suspected 00:19:27.190 --> 00:19:29.650 communists from public life. The mechanism of 00:19:29.650 --> 00:19:32.250 that committee was incredibly invasive. The state 00:19:32.250 --> 00:19:34.529 government forced its employees to sign strict 00:19:34.529 --> 00:19:36.809 loyalty oaths just to receive a paycheck, swearing 00:19:36.809 --> 00:19:38.990 they were not part of any subversive organization. 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:42.559 Exactly. And they didn't just target government 00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:45.880 bureaucrats. They forced these oaths on university 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:48.880 professors, researchers, and even Holocaust survivors 00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:51.700 who had settled in Ohio after World War II. It 00:19:51.700 --> 00:19:54.079 illustrates the intense paranoia of the era. 00:19:54.380 --> 00:19:56.500 So you have the birthplace of the social gospel 00:19:56.500 --> 00:19:59.019 movement fighting for the poor on one hand and 00:19:59.019 --> 00:20:01.480 a government hunting for communist sympathizers 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:04.079 and forcing loyalty oaths on the other. It's 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:06.579 dizzying. It really is. So what does this all 00:20:06.579 --> 00:20:09.700 mean for you, the listener? If Ohio is the mirror 00:20:09.700 --> 00:20:12.480 for America. It seems like it's reflecting a 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:14.259 country that is constantly pulling itself in 00:20:14.259 --> 00:20:16.859 two completely different directions. This raises 00:20:16.859 --> 00:20:18.980 an important question really about identity. 00:20:19.230 --> 00:20:21.529 both for Ohio and for the United States as a 00:20:21.529 --> 00:20:24.630 whole. Ohio's legacy isn't just one monolithic, 00:20:24.650 --> 00:20:27.809 easily defined thing. Its legacy is the friction 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:30.369 itself. It's the tension between the progressive 00:20:30.369 --> 00:20:33.569 movement and the KKK, between radical abolitionists 00:20:33.569 --> 00:20:36.390 and Cold War paranoia. It's the whiplash between 00:20:36.390 --> 00:20:39.410 being the absolute pinnacle of industrial Titanhood 00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:42.509 and suffering the devastating rust belt job losses 00:20:42.509 --> 00:20:46.150 of the modern era. That constant Grinding internal 00:20:46.150 --> 00:20:49.970 friction is exactly why Ohio remains a bellwether 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.890 for the American political soul today. It embodies 00:20:52.890 --> 00:20:55.349 all the competing contradictions of the entire 00:20:55.349 --> 00:20:57.809 nation, all trapped within one state's borders. 00:20:58.130 --> 00:21:00.210 And that is why the next time you hear someone 00:21:00.210 --> 00:21:03.930 mention Ohio, or you see that familiar, seemingly 00:21:03.930 --> 00:21:06.289 predictable shape on a map, you shouldn't just 00:21:06.289 --> 00:21:08.450 think of a flyover state. Definitely not. You 00:21:08.450 --> 00:21:10.369 are looking at the ancient trade routes that 00:21:10.369 --> 00:21:12.069 connected a continent without a single wheel. 00:21:12.329 --> 00:21:14.849 You were looking at the legal blueprint of free 00:21:14.849 --> 00:21:17.390 states that saved the Union decades before the 00:21:17.390 --> 00:21:20.049 Civil War began. You were looking at the invention 00:21:20.049 --> 00:21:22.589 factories that literally forged the physical 00:21:22.589 --> 00:21:25.069 and mechanical infrastructure of the 20th century, 00:21:25.589 --> 00:21:27.930 and the intense, deeply complicated political 00:21:27.930 --> 00:21:29.970 battles that continue to define the nation today. 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:34.740 It really is a profound layered legacy. And to 00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:37.400 leave you with one final fascinating historical 00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:39.599 mystery, to ponder something that reminds us 00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:41.660 of how much history is still buried beneath that 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:44.519 Ohio soil waiting to be understood. Oh, I love 00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:47.160 a good mystery. We talked earlier about the ancient 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:49.759 mound builders and their complex cities. According 00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:52.519 to the source text, long before European crops 00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:55.660 ever arrived, prehistoric Ohioans developed what 00:21:55.660 --> 00:21:58.339 archaeologists call the Eastern Agricultural 00:21:58.339 --> 00:22:01.039 Complex. Right. They weren't just foraging. They 00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:03.720 were selectively domesticating their own local 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:07.000 plants for a reliable food supply. Exactly. They 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:09.240 successfully engineered and domesticated local 00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:12.539 crops like quinoa, little barley grass, and the 00:22:12.539 --> 00:22:16.079 specific rare type of wild squash. They built 00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:19.259 a thriving complex civilization largely on the 00:22:19.259 --> 00:22:21.779 back of this stable food supply. OK. But for 00:22:21.779 --> 00:22:24.720 totally unknown reasons, once a specific new 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:26.900 crop corn was introduced to the region from the 00:22:26.900 --> 00:22:29.619 south, these ancient people let all of those 00:22:29.619 --> 00:22:32.140 carefully domesticated foundational crops go 00:22:32.140 --> 00:22:35.559 entirely extinct. Wait, they didn't just transition 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:38.140 to corn. They let the crops they spent generations 00:22:38.140 --> 00:22:40.900 domesticating completely die out. They dropped 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:43.240 their entire foundational food supply. From an 00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:45.559 archaeological standpoint, why would a highly 00:22:45.559 --> 00:22:48.279 sophisticated society completely abandon generations 00:22:48.279 --> 00:22:50.799 of agricultural engineering just because a single 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:52.920 new crop arrived? That makes no sense. Right! 00:22:53.220 --> 00:22:56.279 It's a massive unsolved puzzle of human behavior. 00:22:56.460 --> 00:22:58.940 It just goes to show you, underneath the predictable 00:22:58.940 --> 00:23:01.460 surface of the map, the landscape is still murky, 00:23:01.700 --> 00:23:04.200 deeply complex, and full of secrets waiting for 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:04.920 you to dig deeper.