History That Doesn't Suck - 125: Epilogue: The Progressive Era

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

So much to say–it’s been a while! Kelsi and Greg share stories that they wish made it into some episodes, but alas, just couldn’t (looking at you, Ellis Island). Greg expresses his deep sympathy for K-12 teachers that are expected to teach “all” US history in a single year because that’s just an impossible task. And there’s a bit of discussion about newsletters and HTDS LIVE in New York City! ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Red One. We're coming at you. Is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped? You're gonna help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list.

Is that Naughty Lister? Naughty Lister? Dwayne Johnson. We got snowmen! Chris Evans. I might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not gonna say that.

Say it. Alright. Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Today, however, I'm pleased to share an interview with a special guest versus my normal storytelling.

Regular listeners of HTDS know that we do this occasionally to recap and give some broader context of an era explored over a series of preceding narrative episodes. If you're new to HTDS, welcome, and you may want to jump back a couple of episodes to hear the stories leading up to this epilogue. Now, on with the show. Welcome to History Doesn't Suck. I am your professor, Greg Jackson, and we are so very done with the progressive era. We're done with this volume, Kelsey. Yes, we are. And so it is time for an epilogue. Time to discuss a little bit, bring out a few stories we didn't get to. We're excited to do that tonight. Yeah, there's a lot of good ones. There are. It's the volume of, as we were just saying, as we're trying the mics, right? Like the history that's so very frequently.

Overlooked. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Or just skimmed over. Anyhow, we'll save that for a second. Of course, Kelsey Dines, the official welcome and salutation. Always a pleasure to have you in my dungeon little recording space.

Always happy to be here. Yes. You don't have to lie about that. This is a very small room. This is a very small room. It's a very small room. But it gives us great sound and that's what we're here for. That's all that matters. We'll note that we miss Zach.

We do. We were saying that. It's not the same without Zach. It isn't. He left us for Harvard Law. Yeah, what a jerk. I know. Some people just make poor choices. I agree. That was not Zach.

He did not do that. Really, really proud of him. And of course, in his honor, let me just say, go Sox. Because he will love hearing that. I'm sure he will. He will. I'm sure he has a lot of time for baseball. All right.

Well, we'll leave it at that. We're going to make an asterisk note on pronunciation. Sure. Sure. Sure. We can do that. So, Body Island. Yes.

Because it's super sad. It is. It is. I looked it up. We did have somebody. This is the Wright Brothers episode. Yeah. For the Wright Brothers.

Message in saying that it was pronounced Bodie. And so then we decided to look it up to make sure. As we do. Yes. Double check and triple check. All those things. And I. Lessons learned.

Did find out that according to the Outer Banks, which is where it is, it is pronounced Bodie. But there is some original pronunciations. But I'm sure that there are other people there that will pronounce it both ways. Because they had a note on that, right? Specifically. Yeah, yeah. Like some people pronounce it either way. So it's not necessarily that it's wrong.

They just, most people pronounce it body. Tomato, tomato. Yeah. I'm sure that if you say it out there, somebody, they'll know what you're talking about. Oh, I'm sure there are strong feelings and we are not getting in. No, no, no, no. To this. But they'll still be like, yeah, it's over there. Yeah. That'll know what you're talking about. Oh, I'm sure there are strong feelings and we are not getting in. No, no, no, no. To this. But they'll still be like, yeah, it's over there.

Yeah. That's the way to get to it. So after you've listened to the episode and now you feel compelled to go visit. Which you probably should. 100%. I think everybody probably should at some point in their life. I would love to do that. I can't say I have.

Yeah, I haven't either. Doing this podcast has filled me with, my poor children at some point are going to have a very Griswold, you know, RV vacation. I don't know which summer it is, but it's coming. I definitely don't plan road trips around random historical markers ever. Much to the dismay of my poor husband and probably as my children get older to their dismay as well. Absolutely. Yes.

Oh, yeah. At any rate, they'll be able to point you in the right direction. Don't be blown away if you hear either pronunciation. Yeah. It'll be fine. You can handle it.

Okay. So that's the only note on that one. I haven't heard anything else. Yep. Yet. So let's go ahead and we want to know before we get into some of the material here, some of the stories, we do have another live show coming up. We did one back in January out in Tennessee.

It's actually the same show. So to give some greater insight, this is not a recording episode and put it on the RSS feed. I've written a stage show. It is basically the episode that will never be on the RSS feed. The title is The Unlikely Union. The protagonist of the story is the union itself, the idea of the union between the states.

So in just over an hour and a half, I take you from the original idea through all that history and all the fun stories that go with it, scary stories that go with it. The not so fun stories. Yep. Yep. And we get through well over a century of history, go from the revolution up to the civil war. So if that sounds interesting to you, well, we are going to, we are going to do this for a local high school here in Utah. We're very excited about that. But if you're not enrolled in a high school, in this high school here in Utah, that's not going to fly. So we'll do that in December. But if you'd like to join us in New York City, the show will be running January 14th, 15th, and 16th at the Triad Theater Midtown.

I think so. I'm not entirely familiar with the exact location of the theater. No worries Midtown. I think so. I'm not entirely familiar with the exact location of the theater. No worries. We're out in Utah. I don't think anyone expects us to have New York down backwards and forwards. I've only become familiar with it

thanks to History Channel in the last year or so. I think we're actually just above Midtown. It's about 72nd Street. So anyhow, please do come out and join us if you feel so inclined. And if the physical distance is an issue, it'll be live streamed. Oh, yeah. Live streamed.

There's the word. I'm tired. Yeah, we're going to be live streaming on the, I believe it's the last evening. Anyhow, we will, you can get all the details on the website. So hdspodcast.com. And there you go. Whether you want to watch the, the live stream or if you want to join us in person and we will be giving a discount to patrons.

Uh, so Patreon, there you go. I think we've covered all the things. Oh, wait, you were, you were going to talk about the newsletters, right? Right. We have newsletters. Yes. I'll do it really quick. We do have newsletters now. I think those are fairly new. They are new. Yes. Newsletters. Ha. New newsletters.

So funny. Stop me. Don't. So we have three. There's one that comes out every week that is, it's kind of just a fun little lighthearted thing that has stories and memes as those who follow us on social media know how great our memes are. Not to pat myself on the back there at all. Not in the least bit. No, no, no.

And then there's one that comes out monthly that's kind of Greg's take on things. Things. Things related to today. Yeah. Kind of some current event stuff, I think. And then there's one that is a patron exclusive newsletter as well that I believe comes out on our off weeks. Yes. It's a primary source is what it's called.

And it kind of just goes into the sources that we used for that most recent episode, why that was a good source. So, you know, if you are interested in that, it's available to patrons. So, again, I'd say just go to the website. Yeah, and I think that you can sign up on the website for any of those. So there we go. All three of them. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

I mean, it doesn't matter which one or how many. You should sign up for at least one of them. They're great. I like reading them. Well, I'm sold. I'm going to go sign up. Good. You should.

All right. Let's go ahead and jump into these episodes, shall we? Yes. Just kind of explore some things that there's so much in here that you can get into the episodes. It probably, each episode probably could have been probably two or three at least the case isn't it um yeah i as i was working on the election of 1912 in recent weeks mentioned it while i was messaging with with a patron and she said oh well you could divide that into two there's so much going on. I'm like, yes, but. I could. But I do actually want to get us

through U.S. history at some point. That was the original goal. This is meant to be digestible. You know, that's a good goal, but we could have split each of these up into two or three episodes. Well, of course, right? I mean, you've got entire podcasts,

books, you name it. That's true. Dedicated to just one slice of history. But that's not what I want to do. This is intended to be a survey. All that said, books, you name it. That's true. Dedicated to just one slice of history. But that's not what I want to do. This is intended to be a survey. All that said, though, Ellis Island. That one was a really interesting one. That one was kind of a blast.

Yeah. Honestly. I say it every time. It's a broken record. I didn't know most of this stuff, right? Like, you have to go through stuff so quickly when you're learning in school that kind of a lot of that in-depth stuff, you just don't get to it. And so that one was a lot of fun to like research and learn about. Yeah. I, I can't recall if I've given this spiel on an epilogue at any

point, but I guess I'll give it now if I haven't previously. I mean, it's where I really feel for history teachers. Oh, yeah. The things that are asked of them. And it's even the case on some level at the university. I mean, that said, you got to draw lines somewhere, right? I mean, so it's a rock and a hard place. It is. But, you know, let's say you're a K-12 teacher

and you're told, well, teach us history. And you now have one academic year to do it. Well, you can't do what's happening here. It's taken us, what, five years, five and a half years almost? Yes. To get to this point? I mean, sure. This is every other week, but all the same.

Yeah. It's intense research. There's no way that you can cover everything in just one year. So naturally it turns into, well, how did the country start? The existential crisis, the Civil War. Yeah. And yeah, Kitty Hawk doesn't make it in. It just gets kind of like, oh, the Wright brothers flew for the first time.

And that's kind of it. Moving on. Yeah. So anyhow, to Ellis Island, though i first of all we did imagine that being a much bigger thing we did like i mean i remember back in the like two volumes ago when we talked about the brooklyn bridge was just going to be brooklyn bridge the statue of liberty and ellis island yeah all in one episode and then we realized that there was no way to do that yep and still do it justice and so and it all kept getting broken apart yep and now here we are saying i wish that

i could have done more about ellis island or immigration in general right well yeah we initially thought ellis island will of course get the lion's share but we're going to talk about all these other immigration points yes because they existed all around uh the nation uh particularly we wanted and since we couldn't get to it in the episode we'll call it now yeah uh angel island yeah on uh california's coast up in the san francisco area yeah it did come in a little later than the ellis island i think it was about 20 years later because it opened in 1910 right um but in this progressive era and that's where we were going to put them if i'm recalling correctly we were going to start with ellis island and then we're going to roll in to kind of keep the chronology yeah some of these other points and i think we were planning on talking more so about angel island than some of these other ones

because a lot of the other ones were really small. Yeah. Didn't have a ton of immigrants come through. Yeah. Ellis Island is the behemoth. Yeah. Right. And that's why it ended up being the episode. But Angel Island was definitely an honorable mention for lack of a better way to frame it. And I think it's really interesting that that's where you have Chinese immigration coming through, even with the ban that's still in place on Chinese nationals being able to naturalize as U.S. citizens. So there's just a lot of. There were a lot of moving parts to that story. Yeah. I think made it hard to feel like we could fit it in just in like a little section of an episode.

It wasn't going to be, yeah, a three minute nod. Yeah. But we want to mention it now in case that's really grabbing you. By all means, go look into this. Go get a book. Check this out. I learned a lot about it as we were researching for it. And I mean, I've been to San Francisco several times and still, right?

Went out to Alcatraz Island a lot. And yeah, there's no end of things to do there. Exactly. But Angel Island, it was never something on my radar at all because I had never really heard about it. And so as I was researching for that episode and looking at all of that, I'm like, I wish that I had gone and seen that when I was out there last. But next time. Next time. I know.

I have a list. Yes. It's really long. Okay. Well, we'll get the RV. We talked about this and it will be terrible it will be so um yeah and you know there are a few stories that i'm able to identify and i you know i'm looking forward to telling it and it works into the podcast really well and then there

are other pieces where keeping it in the the narration. They don't quite make the, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. And of course, then coming back to that whole bigger, it's a survey. How long can I stall out essentially, in the same space, kind of telling similar stories. Anyhow, so yeah, we'll see if maybe there's an angle for a little Angel Island later.

There probably is. I mean, it did last until 1940. Right. So you may see it surface yet, but if it doesn't, there you go. Or if you really want to look into it now. Yeah. Definitely recommend that. Absolutely.

It was just a lot of really cool stories. So another thing that goes along with Ellis Island, it's kind of textbook material. And I super meant to get it in. It didn't fit with Ellis Island because Ellis Island was such a huge store. I'm very happy with how that episode turned out. Oh, I think it was great. Absolutely. I enjoyed it.

So yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world. But kind of textbook. Looking out in Chicago, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, they founded what's known as Whole House. They basically bought a dilapidated-ish mansion in the Chicago area. We're in the 1880s. And they turned it into a settlement home for newly arriving immigrants from Europe. So, of course, if you remember the Ellis Island episode and you've got those

stairways at the end, right? There's the one that you go to if you're going to go take a train and head elsewhere in the country, as opposed to those who are going to take the ferry and head to New York itself. Right. And then of course, those who are not going anywhere, but those who were getting on the train and heading out to Chicago, well, there's a chance that they could have ended up at Hull House. So that's where, you know, initially I thought, ah, we'll connect that. Cool. This whole episode has taken 50 minutes.

This is yet another story. It doesn't fit. So I did want to kind of mention it because, at least in my experience with U.S. history, it feels very, like, checkmark. You've got to mention it when you're doing progressive era. So check. But to tease it out just a little bit more, Jane Addams, I mean, she's famous around 1910. She is, you think about Ida Tarbell,

if you remember back to the episode in which she took John D. Rockefeller on. And she became basically the most famous woman in America for a little bit. Well, Jane Addams, she was right up there with Ida in terms of people know her. And over the years to come, there were 400 settlement houses modeled after Hull House across the nation. Oh, well, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new today, but I did.

Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint Kelsey. And we sigh in unison. I don't know what to make of that. Okay. Anything else on Ellis Island? I think those were kind of like the two big things, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

There's one other thing. Oh, right. NPS is amazing, right? Can we, we'll just plug the National Park Service. I, I am. Yeah, that's right. So I was trying to find, I think we had had some conflicting sources that were saying, oh, well, the medical exams happened before you went up the stairs or after you went up the stairs. And they used that as part of it. And we were trying to figure out what actually happened because that's what we do. So I have read through multiple, multiple sources, secondary, primary to the extent I can get my hands on those. Yeah, there's not a lot of those, but. They were harder.

Yeah. Especially at the pay suite. If only I could take off to, you know, archives in New York for just one episode. But I mean, I've got the best and brightest books in front of me and I'm seeing these contradictions. And I remember, I don't remember if I text or called you, but I was like, Kelsey, please. Probably both. Yeah, probably. Like within five minutes of each other. Yeah. remember, I don't remember if I texted or called you, but I was like, Kelsey, please. Probably both. Probably.

Like within five minutes of each other. Kelsey, I need help. You didn't answer. I'm not going to call you now. I know it's 3 a.m. I don't care. I've never called you at 3.

Not at 3. No. Just 1159. It's fine. It's fine. You're up. I don't see the problem. I wish I could say I wasn't,

but that's not true. But. Well, I need to keep writing the freaking episode. And just like, I can't get down this rabbit hole. Can you go down this rabbit hole for me? And down the rabbit hole I went. And I think I called because I've gotten used to calling all sorts of random places and saying, hey, I work for this podcast. I'm trying to find this really obscure random information that I can't find anywhere else. Please help me.

And it was like a Friday afternoon and I left a message at the Ellis Island. Yeah, end of day. Yeah. And we're two hours off. Yeah. So I was like, well, they're not going to answer me. And I get a call Saturday morning. It woke me up because they're two hours ahead of day. Yeah. And we're two hours off. Yeah. So I was like, well, they're not going to answer me. And I get a call Saturday morning. It woke me up because they're two hours ahead of us.

And the most awesome park ranger answered our question and said, it really just depends on what day it was, what doctors it was, what time of year it was, like how many boats were coming in. So all of those sources were technically right. There were just so many variables that it was impossible to say, well, it always happened here. Well, and that is where the episode ultimately took the shape it did, in which I gave, trying to speak to that large experience, I didn't say, here's this one specific immigrant, we're going to follow this experience, and kind of did this composite angle.

Yeah, and I think that that worked out really well. I did too. I liked it. Yeah. Well, okay. Definitely enough on Ellis Island. So let's go ahead and take a breather, get a little ad break in, and then we'll come back and carry on with some other fun stories. Perfect.

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Women's movement. I really enjoyed this one. Not simply because it's women's history, which I find very interesting. But because, once again, it's one of those things that's kind of just really glossed over. Right? It super is. I knew the names. Susan B. Anthony, right? That was the main one.

Yep. Thanks to her appearance on The Silver Dollar, right? Right. So I have one of those still, which I'm really proud of. And then less familiar, but had heard the name Elizabeth Cady Stanton, right? Yeah. But that was it. So like Alice Paul. Never heard of her? Yeah. But that was it. So like Alice Paul.

Never heard of her. Yeah. Before this. I did hear my first introduction to hunger strikes and forced feedings was from BBC's called Midwife show because they have an episode where there's like a British suffragist who they're working with. And she kind of talks about that. Suffragist or suffragette?

Suffragist. Okayragette? Suffragist. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. You were paying attention. I was paying attention. Even if this is new information. Yeah.

I do always pay attention. Oh, I know Kelsey. I know. But hearing more about it, it gives me shudders every time to think about it. I don't know. As I listen to all of that, I don't know, as I listen to all of that, I don't know if I could have been that kind of a person.

I like to think that I could, but really, knowing myself, I've been like, that's a really awesome idea, but I can't do that. Right. So it gave me a greater respect for the people that were able to kind of put up with that kind of treatment because it's kind of insane. Force feedings twice a day, weeks of that. Yeah, I couldn't.

That is so many thoughts at once. First of all, it's part of where the officials that did this thought,, right. This, this will work. This will, they will give way. We will get back to normal life. Yeah. And, uh,

you know, they themselves felt like they're in a rock between a rock and a hard place. Um, obviously we look back and say, well, you freaking let them vote like humans. Yeah. Um,

yeah, you have these, uh, police there let them vote like humans. Yeah. Yet you have these police there. They have women in their charge. And with all the gender norms being what they are, last thing they want. You know, I got into this in the episode. I'll try to not be so repetitive. But yeah, they're terrified of these women dying on their watch. And yet what do they do?

They end up torturing them. Yeah. And then, of course, that's the, like, best case scenario. That's not even to get into the actual abuse situations. Oh, yeah. Right? That we also covered in. Talked about.

Which that, I'll tell you, that was new for me. I was not aware of the, like, the degree. Yeah. Yeah. And, well. Well, it's not pretty. And I think a lot of times we just want to hear the pretty history, right? We don't want to talk about the stuff that's uncomfortable.

We don't want to talk about the stuff that... And the triumph feels good. Yeah. So we can talk about the amendment. It comes full circle. Yeah. We could talk about how they fought for it, but we don't want to go into the details of how they suffered for it that all happened yeah so that was all very eye-opening also the uh the triangle shirt waist factory fire never heard of that before yeah see and this is where as a historian i always have

to like hit pause and remember things that their words you know yes that it's it's that everyone does this in their profession right yeah i always try to remember this when i'm dealing with students or the same way that i can talk to my computer programmer brother and i'm pretty sure it's still english at some point he starts getting into i wouldn't i wouldn't make that assumption about computer programming it may not be english i'll hear from my brother later numbers and and it's just you know it's what you know right and so the assumptions that we bring as to what the general knowledge is sometimes uh we tend to exaggerate it right it's it's difficult to to remember okay when someone doesn't spend eight plus hours a day on this one thing.

No, they have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah. So the shirtwaist fire, the greatest massive loss of life tragedy up until 9-11 in New York City. There's some qualifier on that. And now I can't remember if I mentioned that in the episode or not, actually. You might have. Yeah. But if I didn't, anyhow, it definitely ranked up there. Obviously, 9-11 dwarfed it. But up to that point, it was very noteworthy in terms of just violent, tragic ends in a mass incident in New York City.

As I was listening. So, right. I review the episodes. And as I was listening to that, I had to turn it off after that because I was like, nope, I need to take a breather for a minute. Like that was just, it was a lot. Yeah. Especially, right.

The first time ever hearing about it or really knowing anything. I think I'd heard the, maybe the name. Well, I'll, I'll match your confession. I paused that story at least twice. It might have been three times recording it. Oh, I'm sure. You know, I don't mean this like I'm a hardened person. But as a historian, you know, history sounds nice and light and fun on one level when when like you're a kid

and whatnot and then you get into it and you realize that like you do have those feel-good stories the wright brothers that was a feel-good episode that was great i loved that i can't wait to talk about that me too but it's there's a there's a lot of dark and difficult kinds of stories yeah um and and um you know i've gotten used to that on some level it's not it's not that i've not that you enjoy them but like you know that those kinds of things happened yeah like you know i we get to wars i i know yeah there's gonna be a lot of ugly and it's not just the ugly of like people dying yeah and people dying in the way that you expect them to in war, right? A soldier honorably fighting for his nation, other soldier fighting honorably for his nation and they shoot and you know, it's gory, it's horrific, it is painful. There's PTSD. That's not even to talk about the diseases that are happening. And then let's get into the atrocities that end up happening as well like all those things they're a given when i when i go into it um but yeah reading about man i'm gonna get choked up right now reading

the way i wrote it even but um reading about women girls who they had warned about their conditions. They had protested. They went on strike just a year earlier. The strike was broken. Yeah, they knew that this was a crap situation. It was still the best situation they had. I don't mean best as in it was good, but they didn't have a better option.

So they stuck it out. And then they end up, so many of them literally leaping to their deaths because. It was either that or burn. Yeah. And that was the saner, you know, better option in that horrific moment. Well, I'm glad we could go back down this road. That was so fun.

Thank you for that. Hey, yeah. I'm not going to say my pleasure, but yeah. All that said, it was a very popular episode. We've had a lot of, I think a lot of people who feel similarly. I do. I think so too. Had not heard these stories before.

I mean, did not know that Inez Milholland was the basis for Wonder Woman. So that's pretty cool. I mean, come on. She's fantastic. Right? It's a big takeaway. Now. Both Inez and Wonder Woman.

That story. Yes. I feel like I had to make that caveat there. Sure, sure. So the research team right now, all wonderful people whom I adore, Will King, Josh Topham, Diana Averill. So Diana was on this one. Wow, did she deep dive on inez she came back like with the inez episode and so that was a fun one to i have to yeah okay so a little bit this is yep that was a fun little moment to kind of say okay and this is how this is all extreme

extremely interesting stuff yep but but this is where we got to keep the focus. Yeah. But 120 from Atlanta to the NAACP, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois. Which I realized I'd been saying his name wrong every time I'd seen it because I wanted to say Du Bois. Yeah. Hello. The curse of being the French speaker. I'm sure that was extremely difficult for you.

That whole episode. I know how to say his name, right? But, oh yeah. As I'm recording it, I knew it would just kick in. And I think I did Dubois, you know, a few times. No, no, no.

Read that sentence again. Fix it. Note to Molly. Don't use the first reading. I am so sorry. Yeah. But I will say that was an episode that I had been looking forward to for a while. Yeah.

They're just so, they're fascinating figures. And still, I learned so much researching and writing that. And I think I heard from- We heard from several people. I think I might've heard from every HDS listener who is an alum of Tuskegee. Probably. There were a lot of comments. It was fun. Yeah, we always love hearing those.

We do. We do. And- And it's fun when it's something that you can relate to or like that is a part of your life. You're like, hey. Well, and it's not like this was lost on me in the moment, but as those sorts of emails come in, it kind of dawns on, it dawned on me more and more. Yes, I was telling the story of Booker T. Washington at that point in the episode before we got into W.E.B. Du Bois, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. I thought that was fun, right? Booker, he is Booker to his friends, right? Like that is how he's referred to.

Dr. Du Bois, like people who know intimately well, that's Dr. Du Bois. Dr. Du Bois to you. So even down to their personalities, right? It's so different. Anyhow, it was fun hearing from people and from a number of teachers who said, I super knew nothing on this topic.

Yeah. And now I'm incorporating this into the classroom. So. I always love, I love those ones where they're just like, this is something that I'd never heard of before. And now I'm really excited to share it. Yeah.

With other people. I think that's, especially stories like this, because this is another one I feel like kind of just gets glossed over. It's this whole volume though, isn't it?

It is. It's the progressive era that gets this like really quick, like, ah, the Gilded Age. It was the worst, which is often said because people don't really know much about the Gilded Age.

That's true. Right? Which we also talked about. Yep, yep. And then like the progressive era and there's kind of this, yeah, TR, he's like on Mount Rushmore or something. So World War I. Yeah.

Right? It's just this little kind of asterisk. Nine months. Got to get through it. The revolution took a long time. Civil War took a long time. Oh, shoot. We got held up for a week.

Okay. There's like the Cold War or something. If we can get to 1950, we'll call the class good. Progressive era. We'll spend a day. These are the highlights of the progressive era. These are the, yeah. And it's just the constrictions of trying to get through all that curriculum.

It's difficult. Anyhow, apparently that's going to be my theme for the evening is my sympathy for teachers. Especially with stuff like this. Yes. Because I'm sure these are stories we want to tell, especially I'm sure as a teacher, like this is something you'd want to talk about. But like you're just so bound by everything else that needs to be covered. Yeah. Well, and the another struggle that my perspective here, I think it

has some value. Probably a little bit. Right. A little bit. The whole PhD in history thing and being a professor and all that jazz. But by the time you get a bachelor's degree in history, I think back to when I had achieved that. And of course, I was proud and pleased. My bachelor's degree was done. I'd written the senior paper. So long, it is shorter than these episodes I now crank out. But, you know, at the time, this felt like this is the madness opus. Yes. No one has written so many words. Of course, it's, you know, it's a fraction. It's nothing. But yeah, I mean, I'm growing, right? But, you know, I look back on what I knew about any period of history then compared to what I do now. And I go, oh my gosh, that degree represented more learning how to read, learning how to write, learning how to think about, you know yeah basically be a critical thinker and yeah i've got some information just enough to not be able to answer questions at family reunions when someone has some stupid history trivia yeah and your piece of trivia that you're just like nope and then i

can get the derisive i thought you were a history major. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And gray was wasted. Yeah. And hey, every, every, everyone's got the equivalent right in their field. Conan O'Brien, I think it was, he, he's talked about detractor of being a Harvard grad. He, he's got, he got that his whole life. Really? Didn't know that. Thought you went to Harvard, like somehow made him God. Or, you know, that you suddenly know everything that there is to know in the world. Exactly. Yes. So all that said, I mean, I stuck through with graduate school, obviously,

and ended up teaching at the university level. I did teach as a substitute. And one of those substitute gigs was long-term. The teacher supposedly was sick and then it turned out quit. And then they asked if I stick around. Anyhow, so I stuck around for a long time and I got a small taste of what it's like to,

yeah, I've got some working knowledge of this material. Holy crap, I've got to teach a unit on what? Okay, I'm reading the textbook, right? Like I'm trying to teach you you know what okay i'm reading the textbook right like i'm trying to bring you what i can and so all that to to say it's it's just yeah it's a tall order it's difficult so all right um my my further sympathies to those teachers um so let's go ahead and jump to a little halloween episode oh boy let's just get and jump to the Halloween episode. Oh, boy. Let's just get a little candy here, a little trick or treat. Because I know you have thoughts, Kelsey.

I have so many thoughts. What do you have to say? Just that I learned I really don't like horror. Like, at all. I'm sorry. I love gothic so much. I know you do and then i'm kind of regretting saying let's not do poe again which i never thought i'd say oh man did you find lovecraft more uh i so not the ones that we we read okay well so dial well

let's dial it right so in the weeks building up i'm i'm working on other stuff yeah right so i'm increasingly i've been throwing to you on stuff it's like hey find some thing for the halloween episode find the stories because last year was fun it was fun i want to stick with that model right yeah do some stories and so we had tried to decide if we should do more poe because which would mean i i said you can never go wrong with more edgar allen poe you know i'm i'm regretting my choice now but by the way zach was texting me apparently harvard is busy as it keeps him it wasn't too busy to ask hey is there gonna be another poe episode and you said no yeah and you know he just

he just stopped talking he's like He ghosted me at that point. That's when the friendship was over. But, so I read a lot of Lovecraft's stuff, trying to find ones that fit the length

of the episode because a lot of what he wrote was really long. Yep. I have a friend. Well, his most famous stuff. Oh,

yeah, his big stuff. Yeah. Like Cthulhu, that kind of stuff. Exactly. Huge. Which we hope is his most famous stuff. Oh, yeah. His big stuff. Yeah. Like Cthulhu, that kind of stuff. Exactly. Which we hope is how it's said. Oh my gosh. It is.

There's so much controversy on the pronunciation, but I think you nailed it. I did. I have a friend who's very much in love with Lovecraft. Super Lovecraft. Yes. He loves it. Let's see where you're going with that. I was actually asking him for advice on stories too.

Because obviously this is not something I'm familiar with. And he's sending me all these ones to look at. So I was reading a bunch and I'm just like, oh my goodness. I miss Poe. But I think the ones that we ended up choosing not so nightmare inducing for me, which was great. Still not my favorite but i know that you like this kind of stuff and a lot of other people do that's right i think you're all a little bit crazy and that's okay and you know no one's saying you're wrong so the person that when i watched the village i had nightmares for like a month the village so peak m night shaman long

oh my opinion every i only watched it because all of our friends were like, let's watch this because it's Halloween time. And then I was like, this is a terrible idea and I'm never doing this again. Fun story on that. I watched The Village in a history course in my college education. I'm really glad I didn't have to do that.

Yeah. And this was the framing. The professor was pointing out that I'd never seen it. In fact, it must have been a new movie. I don't remember my classmates being familiar with it. I don't remember when it came out either. But I don't remember anyone else in the class

being like, oh, that old movie. At any rate. So we watched the film. And of course, I won't give it away for- For anybody that hasn't seen it. For anybody that hasn't seen this rather old at this point. No spoilers here. But, right, when we get to the end and suddenly, oh, the perspective is shifted, right?

And there's that whoa moment. The point where that came back into class discussion was, and so let's talk about history. Here's your perspective. Here's what you understand. These are the sources you have access to. What happens when you get the source that suddenly flips it all? Right. And pointing out how this is how we get to introduce a funky word.

I think I've used it before in an epilogue, but historiography, the history of a history. So, you know, like new sources are found or new angles come forward or understanding how people in a certain era even viewed their world and why it seems ridiculous and insane to us. But that's because we are looking at it. Yeah, we have all this additional information. And they are like the villagers. Anyhow. Okay. I'll stop myself there

back to back to lovecraft just yeah i mean i feel really bad for the guy though like with his sleep paralysis his like everybody in his life dies or goes insane and like he dies really young and that's where like half of his stories it you know it's no surprise that the storyline is basically crap was so scary you will never even understand the crazy yeah you cannot grasp the intellectual existential horror that was this moment right i mean that was one of the stories we we basically did right opening with i'm ending myself the morphine's gone i don't know i can't go on i saw things you will never believe yeah yeah like i i i get yeah anyhow i get where those stories came out of that head yeah which i kind of to the preface that I put on those, right? As we engaged with his very.

His background a little bit. Yeah, his. Because I think if you're not somebody who's really into that type of writing, the like really dark, for lack of a better word, the really dark stuff, you don't know anything about his life. Right. And or why he wrote the kinds of things he did and so that was yeah that made me feel really bad that he like had experienced all of those nightmares that kind of fed this writing and he goes to his deathbed no idea the impact his writing is going to gonna have yeah like a lot of a conviction that he's about to be

to disappear to oblivion forever very much he was very clear on his the cosmic void yes

so that was that he's like well this is it for me and my writing sucks and my writing sucks yeah oh man

I'm just okay well hey let's go ahead and take one last break. And then it's time to talk about some serious inventors' inventions. And kind of save that to put it together. Yeah. All right.

Okay. We'll be right back. When Johann Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was, was a warning, delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls,

the letter was found, unopened, in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Kreisler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at ConstantPodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the

turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so, putting a pin in Lovecraft. Yeah.

I could talk about that all night. We could. I'm really glad we're not going to though. Okay. The one last thing I am going to say, just, no, just, I remember, I remember you texting me as you, you'd gotten some great candidates for me again. Thank you so much, Kelsey. You're very welcome. Save my bacon on research. So glad that i had to dive into all that for you well thank you again but i remember your text okay here are your stories i've i've found some good ones for you

to pick from you had me down to like four i think yeah all right and you're and i'm gonna go watch something happy now it's like i just read so many really awful things i need to go like watch a comedy and forget all of this i'm out i'm picturing you sitting there sitting in a corner hugging the window the window that joke makes no sense unless you listen to the special or read it um and you're one of those people that wants to read it. It's true. It's true. P.S.

We're going to super have to think about the approach next year because we're going to hit copyright in terms of the time. Yeah. So we'll figure that out. But okay. Enough Lovecraft. Kelsey, why do you have to keep going on about the Gothic stuff? I'm the one that's keeping this going. Okay.

So we experienced, though, some serious invention and forward movement. Yeah. I would like to just kind of connect some dots from Gilded Age. That was a little bit of a call out. Forward movement. You might say it was progressive. Okay. We should not record these this late at night.

The dad jokes are strong. But, you know, the Gilded Age, it's on the heels of the progressive era. These are. You mean the progressive era is on the heels of the Gilded Age. That is what I mean. We'll go with that. So point being, they're right next to each other and when you think about all these inventions this is all the second industrial

revolution yeah you've got thomas edison and the light bulb exactly you've got alexander grimbell on the telephone he went by alva sorry let's not forget that alva out anyway alva edison right that guy with his light bulb the telephone know, just all this stuff that kind of just starts popping up really quickly. Incredibly so. I mean, the world we inhabit in so many ways is all coming out of this turn of the century that, again, gets freaking glossed over. They're like, and there were some inventors that did some stuff. Just the creation of our modern economy uh inventions like massive banking totally fine to just kind of skim over it yeah no

big deal um all right point being the the dots i want to connect is just what it was like to be someone living through these sorts of changes i I mean, I imagine it's pretty similar to, right, how we've kind of experienced that ourselves a little bit with, like, the internet and... Yeah, it's true. All of that tech. We're living through a technological revolution. That kind of exploded, right? And I imagine that it was fairly similar, probably a little bit more so intense, though, for them,

because it was such a... Like, we were familiar with electricity and computers kind of. Right. But I think you've got a fair comparison point. I mean, you know, you you go from, you know, you go from your your kerosene lamps, you get gas coming into the house. That's cool and exciting. Yeah. And and then you've got Edison and and the boys right the boys at menlo

park they're tapping into that infrastructure right they're running wire basically through the that that same the same yeah pipe same pipes uh displacing gas so you can't see these like building on kind of components yeah um and of course you know that to get direct electricity and then you get to alternating current and then it gets to where it flows pretty well but the early years were rough right if you remember that the i think it was the end of the first episode before we got to the war of the currents i can't remember the number off the top of my head but yeah it's it's fine it's been a little bit it has it has been but the the end of the first edison episode where he has to send one of his guys to jp morgan's house because the banker right his

office has been burnt to a crisp by bad a bad setup yeah but this generator in his basement and you know it does kind of make me think like, we talk about the internet and that's almost the equivalent, this generator in the basement. You look at freaking internet on our phones, right? We have some, in fact, we even call them phones. That's an antiquated term that just carried through. We've got the internet almost anywhere and everywhere. Yeah. I'm sure you as well remember being a kid

right like yep oh we all know that you pick up the phone you need to make a phone call ah get off the computer come on yep um make a phone call yeah so i all that said i do i do take your point um it it was a more physical shift i guess is the is the one thing that i might know for us i feel like it's it's crept a little bit more and depending on what generation you're in um i mean yeah that's true gen z probably doesn't feel the same way oh no you know um when you're used to the internet working. Yeah. Or even being there, right? Yeah, just kind of take that for granted a little bit.

So similarly, someone born in 1900, kind of like someone born in 2000, they're kind of at those. Right in the middle of all of this stuff. Already happening. Coming out. But imagine being someone born, say, more mid-1800s to watch this evolution. These are people who remember when the transcontinental railroad didn't exist. You've got people who grew up knowing that to cross the United States was a months-long journey. And by the time they're toward the end of their lives, there are telephones. Trains are everywhere. People are flying in the sky. Light bulbs in the house. Indoor plumbing, which we didn't even. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that.

But yeah, it's a little crazy to think about how much stuff can change in just such a short amount of time. So not to belabor these points, a fun little anecdote from the Henry Ford episode that we truncated. Yeah. And so much again was- Because there's, again- Oh, Henry Ford, again, I actually thought initially,

okay, we're going to get through this material. I meant to get to World War I like two years ago. So Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, one episode. Yep. Once again, that was a nope. Two separate episodes. And it was the right move. It was.

Yeah, I think that. I think it also sets up a little bit, right? We talk about the labor stuff that he kind of helps change the way that labor works. Henry Ford. Yeah, Henry Ford does. change the way that labor works henry ford yeah henry ford does because you're not you're focused on just this now this one little aspect of the big machine which makes things more efficient which seems a little bit like for me i know thinking about it i was like that seems a little counterintuitive but like as i think about it more, right, it makes more sense. Yeah. Mass production. Yeah.

Mass production and all of that, making it so that, you know, he changes things to a 40 hour work week for his employees instead of six days a week, 10 hours a day kind of stuff. Yeah. And that also kind of takes us back into progressive era as well. Right. In terms of the reforms that are being looked for. And yeah, again, and we will end up coming back. That episode laid some serious groundwork for changes that we're going to see. Yeah. And, you know, less enjoyable, also laid the groundwork for the anti-Semitism and the rise of the KKK.

A lot of those very unpleasant yeah not so pretty toward the end of the episode and will of course come in far more robustly when we get to that point yeah podcast um but yeah you have careers that are just absolutely you know the example we gave in with the uh the magneto right in the factory these these guys gifted talented craftsmen uh you know mechanics making a magneto one at a time and now it's just yep a few screws and a few screws and that's it keep it moving keep it moving yeah um to the story and then we'll get to the wright brothers yeah so we had talked about in that episode the the race that he.

The transcontinental. The transcontinental race. There were a lot of races. And all of those were good stories. And so many. I was like, dang it. I can't put that one in. Nope.

Nope. Nope. We did one of them as a mini. Yeah, that's true. But like the transcontinental race, you've got, I think, were there two Model T teams? Two Model Ts, yes. And so one of these teams is going through, I don't remember exactly where, but like they're going through and it's really stormy and they fall off this cliff. They freaking drive like, it's like a 14 foot cliff.

And so luckily, right, they're unharmed because they just like fly out of the car. Which boggles the mind, right? Yeah. Yeah. The crazier thing is that the car is no the car is fine ish like it can't drive but there's an easy fix isn't like easy exactly all i'm saying is uh it's not totaled please do not try this at home no listener no but i don't picture the modern sedan being driven off a 14 foot cliff landing and a mechanic being able to come up to you and be like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Just replace a couple of parts. We're good. It's not big. I had this running by this afternoon. Hardly a cost. Not a problem. Great.

Sounds good. And, look, and I get it. The modern car does a lot of things the Model T didn't do, like, you know, getting up to 80 miles an hour. And heat and air conditioning yes and frankly you're running your your uh the internet so um but it is just it's mind-blowing yeah well and then they're like they just wait there and the other team comes and finds them and takes them into the mechanic and he's like yep we can fix that but the thing I'd want to highlight in that story is this again shows how bad the roads were. And that's why Henry Ford saw this as such a great opportunity to really sell the Model T. I mean,

what sells it better than this, right? Yeah. Two dudes go off a cliff. By the way, everyone's cool. It's fine. They're all fine. No worries, guys. They're okay. Also the car. Not a big deal. Easy to fix. I mean, you know, so you turn around and sell that to still very much shifting, very much changing. This is not Tommy Jefferson's America, but still rather rural. Yeah, I'm sure there were a lot of people that were kind of like, I don't know how I feel about this new contraption. Absolutely. lot of people that were kind of like, I don't know how I feel about this new contraption. Absolutely. I mean, you could make plenty of parallels to any era, right? New technology is always kind of scary. And sometimes rightfully so, and sometimes not so much. We saw that as

well in the Tesla episode. I Suddenly feel the need to clarify. I'm talking about Nikola Tesla. Not the car. Yes. You know what that does actually remind me of one thing, the Nikola Tesla, that episode when alternating current is starting to really get out there. Remember how the newspapers all covered in great interest, the kid that got shocked and killed right by the low hanging wire, right? It's new, it's scary.

It's gonna kill your kids. Because it isn't direct right now, it's everywhere. Anyhow, that's all. New technology. It's always a little scary. And it makes sense. It's human nature, right? This is a new thing.

I don't know it. Oh yeah. I feel like I'm that person. My husband will be like, there's this cool new thing that we could try. And I like I don't know about that uh maybe later oh well so at any rate the model t changes the game and in a lot of different ways so right from mass production to uh connecting the nation in in a way that trains um couldn't because they're not going to every single person

precisely let's go ahead and put a pin in that because we do need to wrap up oh my goodness Wright Brothers we left ourselves like no time but that one was really fun it was just it was fun I listened to that one with my kids

I mean I listen to most of them the kids are kind of around but that one i specifically would like wait and play when they were in the car so they couldn't escape from me and they're like whoa it wasn't like the airplanes that we fly in i'm like no it really was not like the airplanes we fly in right how did they do that so we got to it's go back through it it's just incredible these freaking bicycle shop owners like yeah you know we can fly yeah we got this and then how like the measurements they were going off of were wrong or like honestly it's this is talk about a fine example of how the scientific method is supposed to work, right? Their second flyer was built, quote unquote, closer, better to specs.

It doesn't work as well. Okay, test it. Set this idea aside. It's time to go back closer to what the first thing was and improve upon that model. Yeah. The engineer in me was very happy with that. Yes. Getting to see that. I loved it.

Well, and I will say thanks to Scott, a dear friend of mine. He's also an aviator. He flies a small plane, a Cessna. I've been up with him when we did the Transcontinental Railroad. He took me up and, you know, cause we're in Utah. Right by that golden spike. Right by that Golden Spike. Right by that Golden Spike. And we flew over it.

I'll tell you what, that is the way to check out Golden Spike. But I did, you know, I ran some of the sections by him that were into the more of the technical stuff, right? Scott, tell me I'm, tell me if I'm off. Tell me if anything. I want to make sure that I'm saying this right.

Exactly. And, you know, so he, he did give me some feedback. But, of course, that's not the same as listening to the episodes. Once he heard it, he gave me a call. He's like, you even got adverse yawn there. I'm so happy. Thank you, sir.

Glad I was able to work that in. And, you know, I will also say it was fun to get into the different claimants. I'm sure that there are a lot of people in the United States who don't realize, like, you go to Brazil and say that the Wright brothers were the first in flight, you will get some mean stares. So, personally, I see a lot of credibility to the Wright brothers' claim, but I'm absolutely happy to acknowledge these other accounts. Yeah, there were a lot of people kind of working

on the same thing around that time. Yep. Which I think is also another thing that i love because it's like oh all of these people had kind of that same thought and are going about it in different ways yeah and so seeing the different approaches someone's just gonna pop first yeah that's all there is to it but if and so frankly if it hadn't been the right it's not like flight wouldn't have yeah you know um we'd have gotten there as a species. Yeah.

I also loved the little, I didn't know that Neil Armstrong took a little. That's cool. That was really awesome. It is. I mean, I've been to the Johnson Space Center a few times. Yeah. Because my husband's from Houston. So we've been down there.

But like, that's not, I don't know if they mentioned that there, but I hadn't never heard that before. And so that was a really fun little tidbit. I was glad worked in. Well, two last thoughts I'll give on, on the Wright brothers. One, I did not know about in the detail, but very much enjoyed getting into the beef between them and the freaking Smithsonian. Oh yeah. They're like, no, it's going to go to England now.

That was hilarious to me. And, you know, just that the director like, no, no, no, we're totally going to credit our last, you know, our last guy. The other director. That super crashed. No! It's fine. It's fine.

It flew. I saw it in the air. That counts. He didn't, to be clear. It was flu. I saw it in the air. That counts. He didn't to be clear. It was in the air. Oh, but yeah, that one was, and it didn't.

Yeah. I like once Orville was dead. That's when it came back. Yeah. Both brothers were dead. And then it came back and there was that the Smithsonian. Oh yeah. They're like,

like such if you do not acknowledge the rights the right brothers first it doesn't come it doesn't come okay fine uh so the other thing is um the close relationship this kind of came out in the episode i was actually trying to highlight it as much as it was appropriate to do. Right. Like I, again, the constraints of trying to put so much in an episode, read David McCall's book. If you want more detail,

it's the winner. I mean, yes. Looked at so many other sources. He just does a really good job with, yes. We've used a lot of his books. Sources.

I, I, I felt his passing when he, when, when he moved on this year, I will say. That man is an intellectual hero of mine. Such an excellent book, though. And all that to say, in the book, he does a great job of bringing out Kate, her sister. She is an integral part of the story.

And she's not a Kitty Hawk, and so and so yeah you're not going to see her so much well she's not a right brother right she's the sister right she's the sister but um you know the letters that orville they're they're sending back and forth yeah so much of the records that that we have are actually their correspondence as they're writing. And then, you know, she's doing the background work. And I mean, their relationship, as I could see, it was certainly not a like, we'll just dump on Kate sort of thing. No, no, she was really supportive of that.

Super supportive. That was one thing I really liked about seeing that family dynamic was just like, they're all just really happy and supportive of each other. And like, just this great, like tight family. So here, happy and supportive of each other. And like, just this great, like tight family. So here, here, Will and Orv don't go to college, right? Yeah. Now maybe it's there and I'm not aware of it, but in all of my research, I didn't see any sort of like dumping on them. Like, you know, you didn't go to college. So yeah, like that wasn't

there. They just, it felt very, you do you. That's great. We we support each other we have each other's backs yeah kate goes to college like trailblazer in the era oh yeah and she had a reputation as a teacher just breaking uh smart ass boys like they gave her all the hard ones she just worked them over um she just seemed like such a fascinating, fun person. Yeah. And she, I don't want to say like enjoyed it. Like she enjoyed, you know, she wasn't like a mean person. Just.

Oh, but she's. She grew up with four. She had four brothers. Yeah. She's like, oh yeah, no problem. I got this. Yeah. Little teenage boy.

Yeah. No, no sweat. But the last thing I'll say, I don't remember if it was Will or Orf, but one of them made a comment at some point about needing to write as many letters as he did because he never wanted Kate to feel left out. Yeah. In his mind, she, it was the right siblings. Yeah. She was as much a part of all of that as the two of them were. Yes.

And Mike. Yeah. Well, and later, you know know and they take their dad up in the air like again just and that one is that was one thing that didn't get to make it and i think but like that story of flying with their dad but what's that gotta be like i mean oh yeah you know well done son good job what do you even say oh well kelsey uh we we went a few minutes longer than than we intended to and i didn't even talk about the election of 1912 holy cow okay very very briefly educate me because i know nothing about this you haven't seen i haven't seen this one or heard this one yet

um yeah it is recorded we'll we'll get but, um, one of my absolute favorite elections. I know that's like the nerdiest thing that someone could say. I wasn't going to say it. So, so fascinating. I mean, you know, it, oh man, the things to, to, uh, to say, I won't be repetitive to what's in there and the obvious or tried not to be, but, um, on one level it shows the power of the party machine. Teddy Roosevelt, TR, the Colonel, the Rough Rider.

This man is way more popular than, with all due respect, William Howard Taft. Poor dude. He's kind of just... Yeah, he's in... He has to feel like he's up against this impossible thing. Well, he's in Roosevelt's shadow and they were good friends, you know? So there's that whole personal dynamic.

But all that to say, the party wants Will. Yeah, they do not. And TR's come back from Africa more progressive. So that's part of the interesting dynamic here is that will is convinced that he is carrying forward the the policies of teddy roosevelt as they were handed off to him and here comes uh tr back from africa like what fresh hell is this what have you done my mind you well no you you're messing it up you went all sorts of conservative here he's like what no i'm that i'm i'm doing what we did look at Look at all the trusts I've been busting.

I'm busting trusts all day, every day. What's the deal? And not that they're actually talking to each other because heaven forbid, they just talk to each other. Oh yeah. That could have resolved a lot of things. But he's probably gone into a more conservative place. TR has gone into a more progressive place.

And this friendship is just, you know, torn apart. But you also see the party machine that says, no, we are not interested in TR, even though it's clear that the people are. Oh, yeah. The Republican base, when you look at the primaries, which this is the emergence of the primary system as opposed to the caucus system and um it really looks like the republican party the average members they want teddy roosevelt yeah they don't want william howard taft no disrespect but the machine is like no no no taft it is incumbent he stays yes we we like ourselves some will so will does i'm there's so much messiness in the convention. And Will certainly wasn't the dishonest one to what extent there was dishonesty. But Will gets the nomination

to see a third party emerge. I mean, this Bull Moose campaign. This is where the Bull Moose comes in. Yes. It bests one of the two national parties. I mean, it's not just a significant third party, which those elections happen. Yeah. But actually bumps the Republican Party down to, you know, slot number three in terms of the headcount. Possibly hands the election to the Democrats. If Teddy had been the nominee for the Republican Party,

chances, as I look at it, as a lot of other historians look at it, I'm sure there've got to be, I didn't read any that were like, Oh no, no, no. Woodrow.

What a super one. I haven't seen that analysis out there, but I'll make it. Maybe someone thinks that, but it's impossible to say just how different things, things could have gone. And then you have TR as a wartime president, 1912,

1914. Cause my guess, even if he was one term, i doubt one term you know after that oh geez now i've gotten into counterfactual stuff but i he was gun ho for world war one he super critiques woodrow wilson for not doing for not doing anything sooner not doing sooner and when he gets in he doesn't do it well enough i mean tr's just always like no one no one presidents the way I presided. I did the best presidenting. So yeah, that was maybe a little, I love TR. I'm sure that's, Oh, it's very clear. Yeah. But yeah, it's just hard to even begin to say how different it would have been. And just the fact that it is the election where the socialist party, not someone who's being described as a socialist i mean someone who's running on the socialist party platform right yeah gets six

percent of the of the popular vote that is an insane number for the united states so this is the the peak of of socialism up to the day we're recording this in terms of showing in a presidential election. So there, I mean, that's just a lot of fascinating moving parts. Yes. All right. I'm super going to stop now with one last story. And that is just because I couldn't fit this in and I want, I want listeners to know this. I might work it into a later episode if I can. But years down the road, last few months of Roosevelt's life, he and William Taft, they've started writing letters a little bit. Kind of like how John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were. Exactly, right?

So they kind of start to build bridges again. I guess we can be friends again. They bump into each other in a hotel. Everyone who witnesses this, literally the room stops and people applaud because they shake hands, right? And they had this great chat and this great visit. And a few months later, he's dead.

Teddy's dead. And William Taft just balls his eyes out over his grave at the funeral because it was his friend it was his friend and despite that even though they had like that yeah falling out yep i think there are some people in your life that you're like even though we don't talk anymore like i still i still care about you yes even if i'm hating like i hate some of the things that you're doing right now but like you that that relationship we went through at this point in life yeah yeah um okay for real stop talking so sorry that was that was a long episode but it was a long volume it was a long there was a lot of stuff that got covered in there.

We will go ahead and hang it up at this point. Just so people know what they can look forward to. We've got, of course, the Christmas special. Start of the year. I think it'll kind of be something of a tradition that that's when I do a few of my second edition because I care so much about those early episodes and I can do better with them. Yeah. And I just, I need to do it.

So we'll do two or three of those. Of course, I'll give you a date as to when we're going to officially start the next volume. It will at the latest be February. And it is time. So many of you have been asking for so long. It is time, my friends. World War I.

It's coming. So with that, thank you. and join me in two weeks. I'd like to tell you a story. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. My gratitude to you kind souls providing additional funding to help us keep going. And a special thanks to our members, whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Andy Thompson, Anthony Pizzulo, Art Lane, Beth Chris Jansen, Bob Drazovich, Brian Goodson, Bronwyn Cohen, Carrie Begel, Charles and Shirley Clendenin, Charlie Magis, Chloe Tripp, Christopher

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