In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at a crucial war in American history that's often overlooked, the War of 1812. I'll speak with historian Willard Sterne Randall about his book, Unshackling America: How the War of 1812 Truly Ended the American Revolution. As you'll hear, he argues that the American Revolution didn't really end in 1783. Rather, it wasn't until the US won the War of 1812 that the nation truly gained its independence. That's because after the US gained its independence in the American Revolution, Great Britain was committed to dominating its former colony economically, seeking to control it like a semi-independent satellite state.

That really became a problem when war between Great Britain and France broke out in 1792 and continued nearly unabated until 1815. The US declared itself neutral in the conflict and claimed the right to trade with both sides. But the British rejected this claim. It blockaded French ports and then began seizing US ships it suspected were trading with the French. And, to make matters worse, the British also seized thousands of American sailors and forced them to serve in the British navy, a policy known as impressment. President Thomas Jefferson wanted to avoid war at all costs, so in 1807 he imposed an economic embargo that closed all US ports and maritime commerce. The embargo proved to be a disaster for the United States economy, and it failed to strengthen US neutrality. The British kept seizing US ships and forcing thousands of American sailors into the British Navy. Finally, in 1812, under a more hawkish President James Madison, the US declared war on Great Britain.

It was the ultimate David Goliath matchup, featuring the tiny and weak United States versus the world's foremost military power. Fortunately for the US, Great Britain was locked in a global military struggle with Napoleonic France. The US managed to build a navy and create an army out of scratch. Then it scored enough victories on land and water to convince the British to agree to a peace treaty in 1815. This US victory, says Willard Sterne Randall, finally achieved national independence.

Among the many things discussed in this episode:

Why the American Revolution Didn't End Until the US Won the War of 1812.

Why US Victory in the War of 1812 Spelled Disaster for Native Americans.

Why the British burned Washington, DC in the War of 1812.

Why the American victory on Lake Champlain is far more significant than Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans.

How Dolley Madison managed to save the Declaration of Independence when the British burned Washington, DC

How Francis Scott Key came to write the Star Spangled Banner during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. More about Willard Sterne Randall - website

Recommended reading:

Willard Sterne Randall, Unshackling America: How the War of 1812 Truly Ended the American Revolution (2017)

George C. Daughan, 1812: The Navy's War (2011)

Allan W. Eckert, A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh (1993)

Donald R. Hickey, Glorious Victory: Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans (2015).

Douglas R. Pratt and Donald R Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1989)

Robert V. Remini, The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory (2001)

Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (2010).

Related ITPL Podcast Episodes:

Carol Berkin talks about her book, A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism http://inthepastlane.com/episode-028/

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, "Impact Moderato" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, "Discovery" (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman, "Winter Trek" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, "I Am History" (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions

Photographer: John Buckingham

Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci

Website by: ERI Design

Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Social Media management: The Pony Express

Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates

Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight

© In The Past Lane, 2017

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at a crucial war in American history that’s often overlooked, the War of 1812. I’ll speak with historian Willard Sterne Randall about his book, Unshackling America: How the War of 1812 Truly Ended the American Revolution. As you’ll hear, he argues that the American Revolution didn’t really end in 1783. Rather, it wasn’t until the US won the War of 1812 that the nation truly gained its independence.

Last week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we focused in the Pilgrims in the early 1600s. This week, we jump ahead 4 centuries to the mid 20th century to look at the history behind the unending problem of racial segregation in American society.

I'll speak with scholar Richard Rothstein about his book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. As you'll hear, he lays out in meticulously researched detail, some uncomfortable truths about the history of racial segregation: First, that it was everywhere in 20th century America not just in the Jim Crow South. Second, and here's the key, most of it was due not to poverty nor the personal preferences of individuals to live with people of their own race. Rather, the single-most important factor driving racial segregation in 20th century America was the federal government. That's right. It's largely driven by explicit government policy that mandated the separation of people by race. And third, these pro-segregation policies – perhaps more than anything else – have perpetuated African American poverty and increased the wealth gap between white and black Americans.

It's not a pretty story, people. But it's one we need to know if we truly believe in the idea of forming a more perfect union.

Among the many things discussed in this episode:

How government-mandated residential segregation worsened and perpetuated African American poverty and the wealth gap between white and black households.

How the rules of FHA loans promoted residential segregation and excluded African Americans from the American Dream

Why white Americans embrace the myth that residential segregation is the product of personal choices (de facto) and not explicit government policy (de jure).

How federal public housing projects promoted racial segregation in 20th century America.

The role of restrictive covenants barring African Americans from home ownership and the rise of suburban developments like Levittown.

How large non-profit organizations like universities, hospitals, and churches enjoyed tax-exempt status from the IRS while promoting racial segregation. More about Richard Rothstein - website

Recommended reading:

Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright, 2017).

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul (2016)

Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (1984).

Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (2005)

Beryl Satter, Family Properties: How the Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America (2009).

Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996).

Documentary:

Race: The Power of An Illusion (PBS) - in particular, Episode 3, "The House We Live In"

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, "Impact Moderato" (Free Music Archive) PCIII, "Cavalcades" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, "Winter Trek" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, "I Am History" (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions

Photographer: John Buckingham

Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci

Website by: ERI Design

Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Social Media management: The Pony Express

Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates

Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight

© Snoring Beagle International, 2017

This week at In The Past Lane, the American history podcast, we look at the history behind the unending problem of racial segregation in US society. I’ll speak with scholar Richard Rothstein about his book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Racial segregation, he argues, was not caused by poverty or because some prefer to live with people of their own race. Rather, it was driven by federal laws and policies that promoted segregation and perpetuate black povert

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, we examine the history behind the first Thanksgiving in 1621. In particular, we look at a little-known event that preceded the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. It was an epidemic that raged across southern New England for four years, beginning in 1616. The disease came from European traders and it devastated the Native American population of southern New England. And as a result, this epidemic helped pave the way for the success of the European migrants who would soon begin arriving in the region, starting with the Pilgrims in 1620. We'll explore the origins of the epidemic and how it reshaped the political and military landscape of southern New England – and in so doing, set the stage for an event that brought English settlers and local Wampanoag Indians together for a feast -- the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621. Then I'll close out this episode with a fun piece on trivia related to the history of Thanksgiving.

Among the many things discussed in this episode:

The origins of the Great Epidemic of 1616.

Why Native peoples in the Americas were so vulnerable to European diseases like small pox and plague.

How early English explorers and settlers found evidence of the impact of the Great Epidemic in abandoned Indian settlements and farms.

How the devastating impact of the Great Epidemic on the Wampanoag tribe led them to seek an alliance and peace treaty with the Pilgrims, a move that explains why some of them attended the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Why the turkey is called a turkey.

How President Franklin D Roosevelt triggered a Thanksgiving controversy by moving the holiday to the third Thursday in November.

How 19th century artists created the popular – and largely false – image of the Pilgrims as people who wore black clothes and funny hats, and who hated fun.

Further Reading

F. Cook, "The Significance of Disease in the Extinction of the New England Indians," Human Biology (1973) 45: 485–508.

John S. Marr and John T. Cathey, "New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England, 1616–1619" Emerging Infectious Disease (Feb 2000) http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/2/09-0276.htm

William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill & Wang; 1983).

Donald R. Hopkins, The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History (University of Chicago Press, 2002).

Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Knopf, 2005)

Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Knopf, 2011)

George Rosen, "Epidemics in Colonial America," American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health 44.2 (February 1954)

Michael Willrich, Pox: An American History (Penguin, 2011)

My piece on Black Friday

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, "Impact Moderato" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, "A Storm at Eilean Mor" (Free Music Archive)

Scott Holmes, "Happy Ukulele" (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman, "Winter Trek" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, "I Am History" (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions

Photographer: John Buckingham

Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci

Website by: ERI Design

Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Social Media management: The Pony Express

Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates

Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight

© Snoring Beagle International, 2017

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, we examine the history behind the first Thanksgiving in 1621. In particular, we look at a little-known event that preceded the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1620. It was an epidemic that raged across southern New England for four years and devastated the Native American population. As a result, this epidemic helped pave the way for the success of the European migrants who would soon begin arriving in the region.

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, we take on the last third of the 19th century, a period known as both Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. As many of you know, the Gilded Age is the period of US history that I specialize in. I know I'm biased, but to me, this is the most fascinating and compelling period in US history. It's when the United States leaves behind the agrarian republic envisioned by founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and plunges headlong into an industrial age that even Alexander Hamilton could not have imagined. It's a time of incredible wealth production (hence, the Gilded label), as the United States surges to become the world's foremost industrial economy.And along with that comes the rise of great cities like New York and Chicago, and unprecedented immigration from Europe and Asia. It's also an exciting age of revolutionary new technology. The railroad spreads across the continent, along with the Internet of the day, the telegraph. Electricity and electric lights begin to transform every day life.

And yet, despite all this exciting progress, the last third of the 19th century was a deeply unsettling time. The rise of big business alarmed many Americans, because industrialists like John D Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie acquired stupendous wealth – and with that wealth came extraordinary power. They could use that power to compel Congress or state legislatures to do their will. And they could force their workers to accept long hours, low pay, and dangerous conditions.

And if those workers went on strike? Industrialists could count on the local police, state militia, or even federal troops, to crush it. And there were a lot of strikes in this area – 37,000 between 1880 and 1900. And some of them – like the Great Uprising railroad strike of 1877 – were huge and resulted in scores of people killed. And in between strikes, the evidence of rising levels of poverty and unrest was everywhere.

The situation out in the heartland was just as fraught. American farmers struggled against the usual things like drought and locusts, but also predatory banks and railroads. So as urban workers join unions like the Knights of Labor, farmers joined Farmers Alliances that demanded the government regulate banks and railroads. Both movements represented popular resistance to an economy and political system that they believed had become rigged in favor of the rich and powerful. It would eventually lead to the rise of the Populists and the People's Party insurgency of the 1890s.

And there was great turmoil and violence elsewhere, in the American south and west. In the south, the first decade after the Civil War saw African-Americans gain full citizenship and civil rights. And they used these rights to build new lives as free people and to exert political power. But by the mid-1870s white southerners rose up to overthrow Reconstruction and impose white supremacy, establishing a racist and oppressive social order known as Jim Crow.

And in the west, the US Army launched the final, bloody campaign to defeat Native Americans and forcibly remove them to reservations.

I think you'll agree, there's a LOT happening in the Gilded Age and Reconstruction, that last third of the 19th century. In many ways, it's the period when modern America takes form. And because this transformation marked a new era in US history, it raised compelling and troubling questions about democracy, equality, and citizenship.

To explore these questions and the answers and how Americans in the late 19th century struggled to answer them, I speak with historian Richard White, author of a new book on the period, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896.

Among the many things we discuss in this conversation:

How Reconstruction and the Gilded Age are inextricably linked.

The Republican Party's post-Civil War vision of eliminating regional differences and creating a unified, homogeneous republic.

How and why the Republican Party initially fought during Reconstruction to create a multiracial republic based on equal citizenship but then allowed white supremacists to overthrow it.

How Buffalo Bill created the popular (and convenient) narrative of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny.

How John Gast's famous painting, "American Progress" (1872), became the iconic image of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, despite "getting it all wrong."

Why resistance to the onset of wage labor explains so much of the civil unrest in the Gilded Age.

Why most Americans in the Gilded Age feared the rich and worried that plutocracy and inequality would destroy the republic.

How "cooperation" (and socialism) emerged as a unifying ideal in the Gilded Age among those who feared the rise of inequality and corporate power.

Why all three major political parties (Republican, Democratic, and Populist) by 1896 agreed that the challenges posed by industrialization and big business required a stronger federal government.

What Americans living in the second Gilded Age can learn from the first Gilded Age.

About Richard White – website

Further Reading

Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford, 2017)

Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988)

Edward T. O'Donnell, Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age (2015)

Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era (1987)

Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 (2001)

Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (2007)

Elliott West, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (2009)

About the John Gast painting – Picturing History

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, "Impact Moderato" (Free Music Archive) The Bell, "I Hope It Hurts" (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, "I Will Be There" (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman "Winter Trek" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, "I Am History" (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions

Photographer: John Buckingham

Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci

Website by: ERI Design

Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Social Media management: The Pony Express

Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates

Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight

© Snoring Beagle International, 2017

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, I interview historian Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands: The US during Reconstruction & the Gilded Age, 1865-1896. In this extraordinary period, industrialization booms, mass migration surges into the West, and the South is reincorporated back into the Union. But it’s also a period of political turmoil, strikes, anti-immigrant sentiment, fear of big business and inequality, and a white supremacist uprising to impose the Jim Crow orde

This week I speak with historian Karen Cox, author of a new book titled: Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. It tells the incredible story of a murder that took place in Natchez, Mississippi in 1932. It's a captivating tale in its own right, but as you'll soon hear, the Goat Castle story reveals a great deal about the US in the early years of the Great Depression, everything from mass media and sensationalism, to Jim Crow racism and popular nostalgia for the Old South.

Among the many things discussed in this episode:

What was the 1932 Goat Castle murder in Natchez, MS?

How the 1932 Goat Castle murder reveals the injustice at the heart of Jim Crow.

How white privilege and ties to the old planter aristocracy allowed two citizens of Natchez to get away with murder – and even profit from it.

Why the 1932 Goat Castle murder in Natchez, MS captivated the nation.

How modern media turned the 1932 Goat Castle murder in Natchez, MS into a national sensation.

How nostalgia for the Old South remained strong in the 1930s.

About

Karen Cox – website

Further Reading

Karen Cox, Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South (UNC Press, 2017)

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, "Impact Moderato" (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman "Winter Trek" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, "I Am History" (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions

Photographer: John Buckingham

Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci

Website by: ERI Design

Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Social Media management: The Pony Express

Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates

Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight

© Snoring Beagle International, 2017

This week at ITPL, the American history podcast, I interview historian Karen Cox, about her new book: Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. It tells the incredible story of a murder that took place in Natchez, Mississippi in 1932. It’s a captivating tale in its own right, but as you’ll soon hear, the Goat Castle story reveals a great deal about the US in the 1930s, everything from mass media and sensationalism, to Jim Crow racism and popular nostalgia for the Old South.