In this episode of ITPL, we focus on Alexander Hamilton. You may have noticed that Hamilton has become the hottest Founder in recent years – and it’s all due to the smash Broadway hit, “Hamilton: The Musical.” So here’s the lineup: 1. First, I provide a brief backgrounder on the remarkable life of Alexander Hamilton. 2. Second, I sit down with historian Stephen F. Knott to discuss his book, Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (Sourcebooks, 2015). He and his co-author Tony Williams argue that the relationship between Washington and Hamilton had a major impact on the outcome of the American Revolution and the subsequent creation of the American republic. 3. Finally, I drop by the one permanent site in Manhattan that’s dedicated to the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. It’s the Hamilton Grange in Harlem. I speak with National Park Service ranger Liam Strain about the site’s history and how “Hamilton: The Musical” has dramatically increased visitor traffic at the site. You can find show notes for this episode and more information about the podcast at www.InThePastLane.com In The Past Lane is a production of Snoring Beagle International, Ltd.

About Stephen F. Knott – website

About the Hamilton Grange – website

Further Reading

Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams, Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (Sourcebooks, 2015)

Ronald Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (Penguin, 2004)

Joseph J. Ellis, The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 (2015)

Thomas Fleming, The Great Divide: The Conflict between Washington and Jefferson that Defined a Nation (2015)

Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic

Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (2005)

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution (2016)

John Sedgwick, War of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel that Stunned the Nation (2015)

Jim Beckerman, “Hamilton Tourist Sites in New Jersey Ride the Wave of the Hit Musical,” Associated Press, Jun 12, 2016

Linda Flanagan, “How Teachers Are Using ‘Hamilton’ the Musical in the Classroom,” KQED.org

Valerie Strauss, “The unusual way Broadway’s ‘Hamilton’ is teaching U.S. history to kids,” Washington Post, June 28, 2016

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive)

Doctor Turtle, “Often Outmumbled Never Outpunned” (Free Music Archive)

Lee Rosevere, “Going Home” (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, ”On The Street,” (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer

Associate Producer, Devyn McHugh

Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson

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 2020 

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a significant but often overlooked event during the Civil War, the Draft Riots of July 1863. Protests against drafting men into the Union Army broke out in many places, but the worst occurred in New York City. For four days rampaging crowds tore the city apart, destroying property and leading to the deaths of more than 100 people, including 11 African Americans who were lynched. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the largest civil uprising in US history. Feature Story: The Civil War Draft Riots

On July 13, 1863 - 157 years ago this week - the streets of New York exploded in a violent episode known as the Draft Riots. It lasted four days and claimed the lives of more than one hundred people and destroyed millions of dollars in property – all while the Union struggled to defeat the Confederacy on the battlefield. The event terrified northerners, many of whom were convinced that it was the result of a Confederate plot, and it prompted the Lincoln administration to rush thousands of troops from the battlefield at Gettysburg to NYC. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the greatest civil uprising in American history.      

At the outset of the Civil War in 1861, no one in the North or South could have imagined that there would ever be a shortage of volunteers that would necessitate a military draft.  Union and Confederate Army recruiting stations were overwhelmed by men eager to join the fight.  Few men on either side expected the war to last more than a few weeks.

But subsequent events made clear just how unrealistic these hopes were.  Beset by a series of incompetent generals and a host of other problems, the Union's Army of the Potomac in the east performed poorly in the field.  By mid-1862 it was clear that the war would be long and very, very bloody. Later that year, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which effectively announced the abolition of slavery.  Lincoln had deemed emancipation necessary to win the war, but it also produced intense opposition among certain groups of northerners.  War weariness, not to mention anti-war sentiment rose in the North and soon Union Army recruiting stations were empty.  If Lincoln was to make good on his promise to preserve the Union at all costs, a second drastic measure was needed. 

In March of 1863 Congress passed the Conscription Act (the first in U.S. history) which declared all male citizens (and immigrants who had applied for citizenship) aged 20-45 eligible to be drafted into the Union Army.  If drafted, a man had several options short of serving in the Union Army.  He could pay a “commutation fee” of $300 to the government; or he could hire a substitute to serve in his place; or he could disappear – something that more than twenty percent of draftees did.

The draft, like emancipation, proved intensely controversial. Some protesters denounced the draft as an affront to democratic liberty.  Others focused on what they termed its "aristocratic" provisions that allowed the wealthy to buy their way out of service (the $300 commutation fee exceeded the annual income of many poor laborers). More and more, they argued, it was becoming “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

The draft also incited anger among those northerners, principally Democrats, who initially had been willing to support a war to preserve the Union, but who now balked at fighting a war for emancipation.  Many politicians in the years before the war had used the issue of emancipation and the specter of cheap African American labor flooding northern cities to rally urban workers -- especially the Irish -- to the Democratic Party.  The message to the Irish was clear: if you think it's tough to earn a living now, just wait until you have to compete with hundreds of thousands of black workers willing to work for less money.  It was an opportunistic message of fear that ignored the fact that for the past thirty years it had been Irish immigrants who had taken jobs from free blacks living in northern cities.  Nonetheless, it stoked racist animosity among the Irish and other poor white workers. 

When the draft began in July 1863, opposition to it turned violent. Violence broke out in Boston, Troy, New York, Wooster, Ohio, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and other cities. The worst incidents of anti-draft violence, of course, occurred in New York City.  The first day of the draft, Saturday July 11, resulted in 1,236 names drawn.  Despite grumblings and rumors of protest, it ended without incident.  The plan was to resume the draft on Monday morning.  Discontent among working-class New Yorkers was palpable Saturday night and on Sunday (when no draft was held) as people pored over the lists and found names of men they knew.  Conspicuously absent were the names of any wealthy or prominent New Yorker. The mood in the city’s working-class tenement districts grew ugly by Sunday night.

Signs that there would be trouble when the draft resumed emerged early Monday morning when crowds of workers – among them a large percentage of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans - formed and began moving north towards the draft office at East 46th Street and Third Ave.  And the weather was hot and humid -- prime conditions, sociologists assert, for a riot. 

By the time the draft office opened, an angry crowd of five thousand had gathered in the surrounding streets.  Moments after the first names were drawn, the crowd stormed the office, destroyed the lottery wheel used to draw names, and set the building on fire.  The riot was on.

The violence at the draft office at East 46th Street quickly spread throughout the city. To stymie efforts to restore order, crowds built barricades, tore up streetcar tracks, and cut telegraph lines.  

As in most riots, the crowds that coursed through the streets did not engage in purely random acts of violence.  Instead, they focused on very carefully chosen targets that symbolized their grievances.  Anything associated with the Union Army came under attack, including recruiting stations and draft offices.  Rioters also attacked anything associated with the Republican party – which they viewed as the party of war, emancipation, and the draft.  Both the New York Times and Tribune, staunchly pro-Republican and pro-war papers (not to mention pro-emancipation), were attacked several times.  In addition, rioters attacked the wealthy – people they derided as “three hundred dollar men” -- who were able to buy their way out of the draft. Mansions on Fifth Avenue were sacked and burned, as was the Brooks Brothers store. Rioters also took out their anger on local symbols of authority, most especially members of the New York Police Department.      

And rioters also assaulted and killed African-Americans.  One of the first institutions attacked was the Colored Orphans Asylum, located near the present-day New York Public Library on 42nd Street.  Rioters burned it to the ground, but amazingly none of the children or staff inside was killed. Other African Americans, however, were not so fortunate.  At least eleven blacks were lynched by rioters. Many of these lynchings included particularly savage acts, including burning and dismemberment.

One of the reasons the rioting escalated and spread so quickly was that New York City had only a minor military presence made up primarily of injured soldiers recovering from their wounds. When they turned out to quell the violence, they were quickly scattered by the much larger mob.  Squads of police were likewise attacked and driven away.  With the mob in control of the streets of the Union's largest city, officials sent frantic telegrams to Washington, DC pleading for troops. 

Late Monday night the heavens opened up and the city was deluged with a most welcomed downpour. The rain extinguished most of the fires and prevented a much larger conflagration from developing. It also drove the rioters indoors for the night. City officials hoped the relatively peaceful night meant the riot was over. 

But Tuesday morning brought more steamy weather and renewed rioting.  Again, African Americans, Republicans, soldiers, policemen and the wealthy came under attack. But increasingly the original focus of the rioting -- protest against a class-biased draft  and a war for emancipation – had expanded to include widespread looting and score settling by the city's poor and marginalized underclass who seized on the riot as an opportunity to vent their rage at a system they viewed as oppressive and unjust -- not unlike the rioting we’ve witnessed in 2020.

On Wednesday, day 3 of the riots, the tide began to turn as the first of several thousand troops arrived fresh from the smoldering fields of Gettysburg.  All day Wednesday and Thursday, they stormed the rioters' strongholds using howitzers loaded with grape shot to mow down the crowd. In some neighborhoods they engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat as they moved building to building.  By now the police had also regrouped and began to retake streets and make arrests. 

By Thursday night the violence ceased and it appeared the riot might be over. When the sun rose on Friday morning, July 17, New York City awoke wondering if the Draft Riots would resume.  But all was quiet, except for a steady procession of people to the midtown residence of Archbishop John Hughes, the leader of the city’s Irish Catholics.  In handbills distributed all across the city the day before, he announced that he would address the crowd from the balcony outside his residence. Hughes delivered a message that expressed sympathy with the rioter’s grievances, but urged them to cease the violence.  The reputation of the Irish in America, he said, was at stake. When he concluded, the crowd broke up and went home without incident.  The Draft Riots were over.

In the aftermath of the riot, city officials tallied up the damage and death toll.  One hundred buildings lay in ashes, part of more than five million dollars in property destroyed.  Of the hundreds arrested for their role in the riot, only sixty-seven were convicted at trial.  None were the primary instigators and rabble-rousers and they received sentences that averaged five years in jail.

As for the number killed, some early estimates ranged from several hundred to several thousand.  These exaggerated figures were clearly the result of the shock and horror produced by the riot.  As well as anti-Irish sentiment. But the most accurate assessment of the riot’s death toll, one based on a close reading of the press and death certificates, put the total at 119.

Among those killed were at least eleven African Americans.  The racial pogrom aspect of the riot led more than half the city's black residents to flee. It would be years before the city’s black population returned to its pre-war level. 

Not surprisingly, the city’s Irish population came in for harsh condemnation in the wake of the riot.  A seething voice of indignation emanated from pulpit, meeting hall, and editorial page denounced the Irish for engaging in a treasonous riot against the government as it struggled to win a civil war.  These critics ignored the fact that many of the rioters were German immigrants and German Americans, not to mention men of American birth. They also ignored the fact that many Irish soldiers, policemen, and priests helped stop the rioting.   

But there still was a war to win, so city and state officials came up with a plan that eliminated the draft as a source of social unrest. They appropriated two million dollars to pay the commutation fee of any man who was drafted who did not want to serve. When the draft resumed on August 19, there was no violence.

Because there was a war that had to be won, New Yorkers and Americans in general did their best to forget about the Draft Riots.  This became even easier once the war ended in Union victory. No one wanted to be reminded that the path to victory had been marred by disunity, protest, and violence. But the Draft Riots never quite disappeared from public consciousness, especially among America’s wealthy citizens, who viewed it as a nightmarish spectacle of social unrest that haunted their minds for several generations.  For Irish Americans, their widely publicized role in the riots remained a black mark on their collective reputation for decades to come.  For African Americans, the Draft Riots endured as a harrowing reminder of the depths of racial animosity in American life.  It was not the first incident of massive anti-black violence and it would not be the last.

Sources:

Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War (Oxford, 1990).

Barnet Schecter, The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Walker, 2005).

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive)

The Rosen Sisters, “Gravel Walk” (Free Music Archive)

Soularflair, “Emotive Beautiful Irish Feel Gala” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive)

Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the first great police scandal in US history. It occurred in the mid-1890s in New York City when an investigation into the NYPD exposed widespread corruption and brutality throughout the force, from its highest-ranking officers to the lowly beat cop. To walk us through this scandal, I speak with historian Daniel Czitrom about his book, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era (Oxford U Press, 2016). It’s a story that makes clear that policing in the US has always been controversial. Further reading about the history of scandals in American History

Daniel Czitrom, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era (Oxford U Press, 2016)

Andy Hughes, A History of Political Scandals: Sex, Sleaze and Spin (2014)

George C. Kohn, The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal(2001)

Laton McCartney, The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country (Random House, 2009)

Mitchell Zuckoff, Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend (Random House, 2006)

Music for This Episode:

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (courtesy, JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive)

Lee Rosevere, “Going Home” (Free Music Archive)

Andy Cohen, “Trophy Endorphins” (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, “On The Street” (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive)

The Womb, “I Hope That It Hurts” (Free Music Archive)

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a legendary labor uprising by a mysterious group known as the Molly Maguires. They were Irish and Irish American coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s who used vigilante violence to fight back against the powerful and exploitative mine owners. But in the end, the mine owners used their dominance over the political and legal establishment to see to it that 20 men, most of whom were likely innocent, were executed by hanging.   Feature Story: The Molly Maguires Hanged 

On Thursday June 21, 1877 – 143 years ago this week - ten men went to the gallows in Pennsylvania.  They were known as Molly Maguires – members of an ultra-secret society that used violence and intimidation in their bitter struggles with powerful mine owners. Arrested for their alleged role in several murders, they were convicted and sentenced to death on the basis of very thin evidence and questionable testimony.  “Black Thursday” would long be remembered by residents of the Pennsylvania coal fields as an extraordinary example of anti-labor and anti-Irish prejudice. 

The story of the Molly Maguires was one very much rooted in two specific places: rural Ireland and the anthracite region of PA. The latter was the main supplier of the nation’s coal, making it a vital component in American’s unfolding industrial revolution. By the 1870s, more than 50,000 miners – more than half of them Irish or Irish American – toiled in the region’s mines. It was hard, brutal work. They worked long hours for low pay in extremely dangerous conditions. Every year cave-ins, floods, and poison gas claimed the lives of hundreds of miners.  In one fire alone in 1869, 110 miners were killed. It was in the struggle of these workers to improve their pay, hours, and conditions that the Molly Maguire saga began. 

Irish immigrants and Irish Americans played key roles in virtually every aspect of the conflict, from the lowliest miner to the most powerful capitalist.  Foremost was Franklin B. Gowen, the wealthy Irish American president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. Tough and ambitious, he ruthlessly drove his competitors out of business in an effort to dominate the state’s two principle industries, coal and railroads.  The only thing he hated more than rival businessmen was organized labor, especially the main miners union, the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). Led by an Irish-born man named John Siney, the WBA had won several strikes in the late 1860s and early 1870s that resulted in wage gains and union recognition. Even though he shared an Irish heritage with most of his miners, Franklin Gowan had little sympathy for them. In industrializing America, class interests trumped everything, including ethnicity and culture, and Gowan treated his workers like they were the enemy. 

Gowan waited for the right moment to attack, and that came in 1873 when the nation plunged into a severe economic depression that lasted until 1877.  The hard times hurt his bottom line, but Gowen saw a silver lining: hard times also provided an opportunity to kill the miners’ union. In January 1875, Gowan announced a steep cut in wages, a move quickly followed by the region’s others coal operators. The wage cuts triggered a massive miners’ strike throughout the region that paralyzed coal production. But Gowen and other operators had prepared for the strike by stockpiling huge coal reserves that allowed them to continue to sell coal and wait out the desperate and half-starved striking miners. The “Long Strike,” as it came to be known, was doomed. It ended after five months in June with a total defeat for the workers and the destruction of the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). 

And here’s where rural Ireland figured into the story. Embittered by their loss, a group of Irish miners turned to an old custom – extra-legal justice, or vigilantism.  Irish tenant farmers had for centuries used tactics of intimidation, vandalism, and murder to protest landlord abuses, primarily rent hikes or evictions. These types of tactics of resistance by powerless peasants have been called by anthropologist James Scott, “the weapons of the weak.” According to tradition, the original “Molly Maguire” had been a woman who thwarted her landlord’s attempts to evict her during the Famine.  Many of the Irish miners in the Pennsylvania coal fields came from counties in Ireland where periodic agrarian vigilantism was a firmly rooted tradition. 

Molly Maguire activity first arose in the anthracite region in the labor disputes of the early 1860s. But it subsided with the WBA’s success in gaining better wages and conditions for the miners. Now in the wake of the defeat in the Long Strike, the Mollies returned with a vengeance.  Between June and September 1875, six people were murdered – all carefully targeted as agents of the mine owners and enemies of the miners.

Having destroyed the WBA, Franklin Gowen saw in the return of the Mollies an opportunity to permanently wipe out any miner opposition to his plans to consolidate power and wealth.  And so, he unleashed a sweeping campaign against the secret society in which he branded all labor activists “Molly Maguires.” He also accused an Irish fraternal organization known as the Ancient Order of Hibernians of operating as a front for the organization. Eventually over fifty men, women, and children were arrested and indicted for their alleged roles in the Molly Maguire violence and murders.

Incredibly, the state of Pennsylvania played almost no role in this process. None other than Franklin Gowan served as the county district attorney and oversaw the investigation and prosecutions. A private company – the Pinkertons – conducted the investigation. A private police force employed by the mining companies carried out the arrests. And Gowan and coal company attorneys conducted the trials. As one historian commented, “The state only provided the courtroom and the hangman.” 

The first trials began in January 1876.  They involved ten men accused of murder and were held in the towns of Mauch Chunk and Pottsville, PA.  A vast army of national media descended on the small towns where they wrote dispatches that were uniformly pro-prosecution. In an era of rising hysteria over labor radicalism, and the growing popularity of socialism and anarchism – much of it fueled by sensational stories in the mainstream press - the Molly Maguire story proved irresistible. And the coverage was universally negative. The NYT, for example, wrote about “the snake of Molly Maguire-ism,” while the Philadelphia Inquirer condemned the men as “enemies of social order.”

The key witness for the prosecution was yet another Irishman, James McParlan. He was an agent of the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency, an organization that would be more accurately described as a private army for hire that specialized in labor espionage and strikebreaking.

Franklin Gowan had hired the Pinkertons in the early 1870s as part of his masterplan of destroying the WBA. James McParlan had gone under cover to infiltrate the Mollies and gather evidence. And gather he did – or at least he claimed he did during the trials. On the stand he painted a vivid picture of Molly Maguire secrecy, conspiracy, and murder. With this testimony, combined with the fact that Irish Catholics and miners had been excluded from the juries, guilty verdicts were a foregone conclusion.

All ten defendants were convicted and sentenced to hang.  And in order to send the most powerful message to the region’s mining communities, authorities staged the executions on the same day -- June 21, 1877 – in two locations.  Alexander Campbell, Michael Doyle, Edward Kelly, and John Donahue were hanged in Mauch Chuck, while James Boyle, Hugh McGehan, James Carroll, James Roarity, Thomas Duffy, and Thomas Munley met a similar fate in Pottsville.  Although the hangings took place behind prison walls, they were nonetheless stages as major spectacles that drew huge crowds and generated international news coverage, nearly all of it condemning the Mollies as murderous monsters who got what they deserved. 

Still, the Molly Maguire episode was far from over.  Ten more miners would be tried, convicted, and executed over the next fifteen months, bringing the total to twenty. While evidence suggests that some of them men were guilty of murder, the great majority of those executed were likely victims of hysteria and a profoundly unjust legal process.

In the end, Franklin Gowen and his fellow mine operators succeeded in stamping out the Molly Maguires, but not the violent clashes between labor and capital they represented. For more than a generation following the executions, miners in Pennsylvania and many other states would continue to fight -- both legally and extra-legally -- against oppressive conditions in the mines. And the mine owners, as they did with the Mollies, did their best to dismiss the agitation as foreign radicalism brought to America by misguided immigrants who did not understand the inherent goodness and justice of industrial capitalism. The miners, of course, knew better. They understood that unregulated capitalism, backed by the full weight of the law, the government, and the media, was neither just, nor democratic. It was exploitation, pure and simple.

Sources:

Anthony Bimba. The Molly Maguires (International Publishers, 1932).

Wayne G. Broehl, Jr., The Molly Maguires (Harvard University Press, 1964).

Kevin Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford University Press, 1998).

IrishCentral.com, “Molly Maguires Executed, June 20, 2020 https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/molly-maguires-executed#.XvEIkuOULEA.twitter

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive)

The Rosen Sisters, “Gravel Walk” (Free Music Archive)

Soularflair, “Emotive Beautiful Irish Feel Gala” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive)

Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the podcast about American history and why it matters, we take a close look at Robert F. Kennedy. Here’s the lineup: 1) First up, it’s a short feature on the basics of the life of RFK. 2) Next, I speak with author Larry Tye about his biography, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of A Liberal Icon (2016, Random House). Tye is the author of many best-selling biographies and he’s at his best in this new look at RFK. One of the myths he’s eager to dispel is the notion that there were two, polar opposite Bobby Kennedys – the bad boy in the 1950s who worked for Sen. Joseph McCarthy and later waged war on organized labor and the saintly good guy in the mid-1960s who fought for social justice. 3. And we bring you two remarkable audio clips from the 1960s. First, an excerpt from RFK’s 1968 speech, “The Mindless Menace of Violence” and second, Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for RFK two months later.

About Larry Tye His website  http://larrytye.com/

Further Reading and Links

Thurston Clarke, The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America

Robert F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times

Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life

Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of A Liberal Icon (2016, Random House).

RFK’s 1968 speech, “The Mindless Menace of Violence”

Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for RFK, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, June 8, 1968

Music

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (courtesy, JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive)

The Womb, “I Hope It Hurts” (Free Music Archive)

Jon Luc Hefferman, “Epoch” (Free Music Archive)

Hyson, "Signals" (Free Music Archive)

The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the most deadly incidents of anti-black violence in US history: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. White mobs rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s African American neighborhood and burned it to the ground, killing between 100 and 300 black residents in the process. The incident was quickly covered up and driven from public memory. But in the 1990s activists and scholars began to unearth the shocking truth. Feature Story: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

On May 31, 1921 – 99 years ago this week – mobs of heavily armed white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma rampaged through the city’s African-American district named Greenwood. They stole property, set fire to buildings, and indiscriminately killed black men, women, and children. When it was over, this pogram known as the Tulsa Race Massacre left between 100 and 300 people dead and 35 blocks in smoldering ruins. It was one of the single most deadly incidents of racist violence in American history. And yet, it was quickly driven from public memory. The years between the end of World War I in 1918 and the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 were marked by many incidents of extreme anti-black violence. This surge in violence was due to many factors. The end of World War I brought a massive strike wave as millions of workers walked off the job. Fear of socialism, communism, and anarchism surged as the nation plunged into one of its periodic Red Scares. Also contributing to the social tension was the fact that millions of African-Americans had in the previous decade moved to northern cities, part of what historians referred to as the Great Migration. Chicago’s black population, for example, jumped from 44,000 in 1910 to 110,000 in 1920. And on top of this, the Ku Klux Klan had re-emerged in 1915 as a vibrant national organization that by the mid-1920s would have 5 million members. Each of these trends contributed to surging anti-black racism that led to many incidents of violence against African-American individuals and neighborhoods. In 1919 alone, there were 25 major anti-black riots in the US.  One of the worst took place in Chicago in July 1919 that left 38 dead.  There were also 76 African Americans lynched in the South in 1919, including ten black soldiers who had returned from active duty in World War I. Up until May of 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma had been relatively peaceful. But it was an oil-rich city of 72,000 that was strictly segregated. In fact, when Oklahoma was admitted to the union in 1907, the very first laws passed by the state legislature imposed segregation and disenfranchisement upon its black population. Despite these laws and a climate of racial hostility, Tulsa’s African-American population was one of the most prosperous In the United States. In fact, the Greenwood section of Tulsa where most African-Americans lived, was nicknamed the Negro Wall Street. It was filled with thriving black-owned businesses ranging from barbershops and retails stores to law firms and doctor’s offices. Many white citizens of Tulsa resented this black economic success. And it was this resentment that escalated the situation on May 31, 1921. Like so many incidents of anti-black racial violence in US history, this one began with an incident involving a black male and a white female. On May 30, a 17-year-old girl named Sarah Page, who operated an elevator in downtown Tulsa, accused 19-year-old Dick Rowland of assaulting her. Rowland was taken into custody and brought to the local courthouse. The next day, partly inspired by an inflammatory article about the incident in the local newspaper, a large crowd of angry white men gathered outside the courthouse. It was a scene that was a typical prelude to a lynching. Not surprisingly, rumors that Rowland was about to be lynched raced through the black community, prompting a large group of armed black men to arrive at the courthouse. A standoff ensued, and then shots rang out. Which side fired first remains an unanswered question. Both sides exchanged gunfire before dispersing. The clash left 12 killed, 10 white and two black. Immediately word of the incident spread throughout the city. Within an hour, large crowds of heavily armed white men gathered. It was clear what they were planning to do. And yet, the city’s police force did nothing to stop them. In fact, research would later show that police officials handed out weapons to members of the mob and that many also joined in as it descended upon the black community in Greenwood. As the attack began, many African-Americans managed to flee the district. But many were trapped and murdered by the mob. Some were shot and others stabbed, and still others were  consumed by the flames set by arsonists. Members of the mob also looted homes and businesses before setting them on fire. The violence lasted all night and into the morning hours of June 1. It ended only when a large contingent of the Oklahoma National Guard arrived to impose martial law. Some 35 blocks of Greenwood were completely destroyed. Damages were estimated at $2.25 million, the equivalent of $32 million in 2020. Adding insult to injury, local officials and national guardsmen rounded up nearly every African American in the city and placed them in hastily constructed detention camps. All were treated as perpetrators, rather than innocent victims. Some were held for weeks before being released. And then there was the death toll. The official death toll was 36 African Americans killed. But African-American leaders at the time claimed the number was significantly higher, well over 100 and perhaps as high as 300. They also claimed that white officials, in an effort to cover up the enormity of the massacre, had hastily buried hundreds of black victims in a mass grave. And the cover up worked. The staggering death toll, along with the city’s complicity in allowing the massacre to take place, were soon purged from public memory. At least white public memory. African-Americans certainly didn’t forget the trauma and loss, but in this era of Jim Crow, they were powerless, unable to obtain any justice or public recognition of the incident. And it stayed that way for 75 years. The city of Tulsa never put up a historic plaque or memorial. Its school children never learned about the incident in their history classes. And the nation remained ignorant of this monstrous event. But the silence about the Tulsa Race Massacre began to break in the 1990s as African-Americans gained more political power and begin to push for a full inquiry into the incident. In 1996, The 75th anniversary of the massacre, the state legislature created the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Note the title of the commission: it referred to the incident as the Tulsa Race Riot. This misnaming was significant and intentional. Nearly every massacre of African-Americans by white mobs in American history has been labeled a “race riot,” a name that suggests an equal culpability between violent whites and violent blacks attacking each other. But in every case, these so-called race riots Involved black communities being attacked by white mobs. Not surprisingly, as a more accurate and complete picture emerged of what occurred in Tulsa and other sites of anti-black violence, these incidents have been renamed to reflect what they really were: massacres. The commission worked for five years, taking testimony and funding research into the massacre. In 2001, it released its official report. Among its many findings, the commission declared that Tulsa’s political leaders had conspired with the leaders of the mob to allow the massacre to unfold without any resistance by law enforcement. It also recommended that reparations be paid to any survivors and their descendants. City and state officials balked at the call for reparations, but the state did establish scholarships for descendants of victims and survivors of the massacre. It also provided funding for historical markers and a memorial park that was completed in 2010. More recently, just a few months ago, the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre was made on official part of the state of Oklahoma’s public school curriculum. And the search for the truth about what actually happened and how many people were murdered that day continues. Just a few months ago, researchers announced that they had found several sites in Tulsa that appear to contain mass graves. Plans are in the works to excavate the sites to determine if they contain victims of the 1921 massacre. If they do, it will likely clarify the true death toll. Finally, the Tulsa Race Massacre drew renewed interest this year when it was featured as the starting point for HBO’s hit TV series, “Watchmen.”

So what else of note happened this week in US history?

May 25, 1787 - The Constitutional Convention officially opened in Philadelphia with 55 delegates in attendance, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. Over the next four months, they drafted a new Constitution for the United States to replace the initial Articles of Confederation which had been deemed weak and ineffective.

May 25, 1977 - the blockbuster film “Star Wars” opened in theaters.

May 26, 1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signed the National Origins Act that sharply restricted immigration for the next 40 years. It not only shrank the volume of immigration from as many as 1 million immigrants per year to about 200,000, the law also intentionally discriminated against undesirable immigrant groups like Jews and Italians. It was replaced by a more equitable immigration law in 1965.

May 30, 1922 - The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington DC.  

And what notable people were born this week in American history?  

May 26, 1895 - photographer Dorothea Lange. Her most famous photograph is Migrant Mother, which captured the desperate face of a struggling mother and her children during the Great Depression.  

May 26, 1926 - jazz trumpeter Miles Davis

May 27, 1794 - railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt.

May 27, 1819 - poet and author Julia Ward Howe who is best known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the Civil War.

May 27, 1907 - writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson who helped launch the modern environmental movement with her book, Silent Spring.

May 29, 1917 - 35th POTUS John F. Kennedy May 31, 1819 - poet Walt Whitman

The Last Word

Let’s give it to Walt Whitman, who was born 201 years ago this week.

In his preface to his masterful collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, Whitman urged his readers to free themselves of ideas, conventions, and traditions that suppressed their true selves.

“re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive)

Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the famous Pullman Strike of 1894. It began as a protest over wage cuts in the midst of a severe economic depression and quickly grew to virtually paralyze the nation’s railroad system. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in the military and smashed the strike. The workers lost the strike, but they did gain a new spokesperson – the socialist Eugene Debs – who would play an influential role in American society in the decades to come. Feature Story: The Pullman Strike of 1894

On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, located just outside Chicago, went on strike. They walkout was in response to severe wage cuts that came as the nation descended into the worst economic depression in its history. But what started out as a local strike soon blossomed into a nationwide work stoppage that paralyzed the railroad system and caused a national crisis. The Pullman Strike, one of the most famous in US history, marked a sharp turn in the fortunes and reputation of the Pullman Company’s owner. For well over a decade George Pullman had enjoyed a reputation as a benevolent industrialist. He established the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867 to manufacture luxury railroad cars. Pullman was an idealist who believed that workers and employers could work together in harmony for mutual benefit. Acting on this idea, he established the town of Pullman in 1880. It was a company town, built and owned by the Pullman corporation for its employees, who rented homes and patronized stores owned by the company. They also had to abide by many intrusive regulations imposed by the company on their personal activities. George Pullman earned widespread praise in the media for being a model capitalist who earned a vast fortune, but also provided decent wages and living conditions for his workers. So long as the Pullman Co. remained profitable, its employees considered themselves relatively fortunate. But then a devastating economic depression struck in 1893. Known as the Panic of 1893, it wiped out thousands of businesses and sent the unemployment rate to over 20 percent. The railroad industry was hit especially hard. So Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and announced to the rest a wage cut of 30 percent. On top of this devastating news, workers learned that Pullman had refused to reduce their rents, which were deducted automatically from their paychecks. Some workers soon began receiving paychecks for less than one dollar per week to cover the cost of food, heat, and clothing. And so it was that on May 11, 1894, the fed up and furious workers at Pullman voted to strike. George Pullman responded – as did most employers in that era – by refusing to negotiate with the workers. After six weeks, a man named Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union (ARU) announced that all of the union’s 125,000 members across the country, as an act of solidarity with the striking Pullman workers, would impose a boycott on the Pullman Company. They would refuse to handle any Pullman cars. Given the ubiquity of the Pullman cars, the ARU’s boycott soon slowed the nation’s railroad system to a crawl. The heads of more than two dozen railroads united to support Pullman and break the ARU by hiring thousands of strikebreakers and pressuring the governor of Illinois, John Altgeld, to send in the state militia. When the governor refused out of sympathy for the strikers and a desire to avoid violence, the railroad magnates turned to Washington, D.C. for help, asking President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops. Grover Cleveland was not the first president to face the choice of whether to send federal troops to quell a labor dispute. President Andrew Jackson dispatched troops in 1834 to end a strike by disgruntled workers working on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. More recently President Rutherford B. Hayes had sent troops to crush the great railroad strike of 1877. Despite these precedents, however, Cleveland worried about the ideological and political ramifications of military intervention. For one, the use of the army against American citizens seemed to run counter to key republican principles—had not the Founding Fathers established the United States to escape an oppressive British government? Had they not also adopted a Bill of Rights that sharply limited the use of federal power? Cleveland also had to consider the possibility that the public would condemn such use of federal power—especially if violence ensued as it did in 1877. The President spent several agonizing days in late June and early July of, 1894, consulting with advisors and mulling over his options. Despite harboring some misgivings about using federal troops to resolve a domestic dispute, President Grover Cleveland was a pro-business conservative, and his administration reflected his outlook. He authorized his Attorney General, Richard Olney, a man with extensive ties to the railroad industry, to obtain on July 2, 1894, a court injunction declaring the ARU boycott of Pullman cars a “conspiracy in restraint of trade” that unlawfully interfered with the movement of the U.S. mail. This last part about the mail was key – because delivery of the mail was a federal responsibility, the Cleveland administration claimed it had an obligation to the public to stop the boycott. When Debs and the ARU members defied the injunction, Cleveland ordered the U.S. Army to intervene on behalf of the railroads to end the boycott and get the trains moving again. The arrival of federal troops touched off extensive violence. Workers clashed with soldiers and destroyed railroad property and the soldiers responded with rifle fire that left at least 37 workers dead and scores wounded. Federal officials arrested Debs and several other ARU leaders and the boycott collapsed in mid-July. The Pullman strike lasted only a few more weeks before ending in early August in complete defeat for the workers. Public opinion had by then turned against Pullman for his obstinate refusal to negotiate with his workers. As was the case two years earlier in the Homestead Strike involving Andrew Carnegie and his steel workers, the Pullman strike exposed the notion of a benevolent capitalist as a myth. Both Pullman and Carnegie were arguably better employers than many of their capitalist counterparts, but their benevolence ran a distant second behind their primary concern: profit. When profits were threatened by unions or economic downturns, the benevolence was replaced by ruthlessness. In the aftermath, President Cleveland tried to restore his reputation with American workers by making Labor Day, a holiday established in the early 1880s, a federal holiday. He also established a federal commission to investigate the cause of the strike. Its report criticized Pullman for his handling of the strike and it argued that labor unions and government regulation were necessary as a way to curb the unrestrained power of corporations. But one year later, a very conservative and pro-business Supreme Court, ruled that the use of court injunctions to end strikes was constitutional. It would be another 40 years before legislation passed during the New Deal established legal protections for workers and labor unions. There was one positive outcome of the strike for American workers. It launched the storied career of Eugene Debs who became an iconic labor leader and advocate of socialism for the next 30 years. Debs would run for president five times as the nominee of the Socialist Party of America. And he left a lasting influence on American society. What else of note happened this week in US history?

May 11, 1934 - A massive dust storm begins to sweep across the Great Plains. Drought and high-level winds carried off from the so-called “Dust Bowl” some 350 million tons of topsoil, causing tens of thousands of poor farmers known as Okies to migrate to the west coast. May 13, 1846 - After a questionable border incident between US and Mexican military forces, the US declares war on Mexico. The subsequent US victory allowed it to seize the northern half of Mexico, land that became the future states of CA, AZ, NM, and parts of NV, UT, TX and CO. May 15, 1970 – 50 years ago this week – city and state police open fire on a crowd of African American students at Jackson State in Mississippi, killing 2 and injuring 12. This incident received a fraction of the attention given killing of 4 white students at Kent State 11 days prior. May 17, 1954 - The SCOTUS issued its Brown v Board decision that declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Want to know more? Check out ITPL Episode 40 featuring my interview with historian Erin Krutko about her book, Remembering Little Rock.

And what notable people were born this week in American history?   Two legends of the silver screen were born this week. May 12, 1907 Katharine Hepburn and May 16, 1905 Henry Fonda

May 13, 1914 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis May 17, 1903 baseball legend and Hall of Famer, James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell. Bell retired from Negro League baseball in 1946, the year before Jackie Robinson broke the so-called color line. Nonetheless, Cool Papa Bell was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1974

The Last Word Let’s give it to an anonymous Pullman employee who said the following about the problem of living in a town completely controlled by one company: “We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell. For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive)

Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, I speak with historian Nancy Bristow  about her book, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. In November 1918, even as millions of Americans and Europeans celebrated the end of World War I, their communities were being ravaged by a global influenza pandemic.  Over the course of almost three years, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people were killed in the pandemic, including nearly 700,000 Americans. Nancy Bristow takes us back in time to explain the origins of the pandemic and how public health officials struggled to contain it. And she explores the reasons why the pandemic quickly faded from public memory.

In the course of our discussion, Nancy Bristow:

The origins of the great influenza pandemic that raged across the globe in 1918-1920.

How the movement of millions of people during WW1 contributed to the spread of the pandemic.

What made this particular strain of influenza so deadly.

How public health officials struggled to contain the pandemic by imposing bans on large public gatherings, including church services.

How nurses played a pivotal role in caring for the sick and dying.

Why the pandemic – which killed nearly 700,000 Americans — was largely forgotten in public memory.

Why experts fear the onset of another global influenza pandemic.

Recommended reading:

Nancy Bristow, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (Oxford University Press).

Catharine Arnold, Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History

Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918

David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society

More info about Nancy K. Bristow – website 

Follow In The Past Lane on

Twitter  @InThePastLane

Instagram  @InThePastLane

Facebook: InThePastLanePodcast

YouTube: InThePastLane

Related ITPL podcast episodes:

024 Michael Neiberg on World War I and the Making of Modern America

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive)

Andy Cohen, “Trophy Endorphins” (Free Music Archive)

Philipp Weigl, “Even When We Fall” (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: Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting

Podcast Editing: Wildstyle Media

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, 2018

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast – the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the original March on Washington. “Coxey’s Army” was a group of 500 men who amidst a terrible economic depression in 1894, marched from Ohio to the nation’s capital to demand that Congress provide employment through public works projects. They were turned away, but many of the Populist ideas that inspired them were enacted into law in the coming decades.    Feature Story: “Coxey’s Army” Arrives in Washington, DC

On April 30, 1894 a man named Jacob Coxey arrived in Washington, DC at the head of a group of about 500 men. By then the whole nation knew them as “Coxey’s Army.” They had set out weeks earlier from Coxey’s hometown of Massillon, Ohio in what was the first ever March On Washington. So what was the fuss all about? The immediate answer was that in the spring of 1894 the United States was in the midst of the most severe economic depression in its history. It was triggered one year earlier by the financial Panic of 1893 which caused tens of thousands of businesses and farms to fail, and the unemployment rate to soar to 20% - and often. Double that in big cities like Chicago and New York. The US had seen its share of economic depressions in the 19th century – the panic of 1837, the panic of 1857, the panic of 1873, just to name a few. In each of these previous cases, political leaders agreed that the best policy was: do nothing. Depressions, the reasoning went, were like bad weather or an illness. Wait long enough, and the good times would return. The most dangerous thing the government could do was provide assistance to the people because, so the logic went, that would only foster dependence and lead the US down the path to socialism. Here’s how President Grover Cleveland put it in his second inaugural address, in March 1893. “The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned,” said Cleveland, “and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people.” But despite proclamations such as these, there was growing support among many Americans in this period known as the Gilded Age for the government to take a more active role in the economy to protect the vulnerable from exploitation and promote the greatest possible amount of opportunity for all. They argued that laissez-faire might have made sense back in the late-18th century when the US took form. But not anymore in an age of industry, wage work, mass immigration, huge cities, and giant corporations. That was the view that inspired Jacob Coxey. He was no radical, at least compared to the socialists, communists, and anarchists of the day. He was a successful farmer who also bred horses for sale and owned a sand quarry business. But as a farmer in the 1880s, he’d gotten involved in the burgeoning protest movement among farmers that came to be called Populism. Its leaders argued that the only way to effectively battle the power of the monopolies and trusts was to create a political movement that would elect farmers or pro-farmer politicians to office, so they could use political power to curb the power of banks, railroads, and brokers and save the honest American farmer from ruin. And in 1892 they established a new national party called the People’s Party that called for a wide range of new government policies, everything from taking over the railroads and telegraphs, to the adoption of a graduated income tax that would make the rich pay their fair share. Its candidate for president that year polled a million votes and won four states. It was no joke. So his embrace of Populism explains Jacob Coxey’s motivation behind his protest march. He advocated that, given the severity of the depression, the federal government must abandon its traditional commitment to laissez-faire and provide funding to states to create public works projects such as road building to alleviate mass unemployment and stimulate the economy. Now, if this sounds familiar, it’s because Coxey was advocating an approach to economic crisis that 40 years later would be embraced by Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. And succeeding administrations, of course, have turned to varying forms of “stimulus packages” to boost the economy and help workers in times of economic crisis. To draw attention to this idea, Coxey organized his march to Washington, D.C. He actually got the idea from a fellow activist named Carl Browne who was more of a true blue radical. He not only came up with the idea of a march, but also the group’s official name, the “Commonweal of Christ,” which was intended to evoke both the ideals of the common good and Christianity. About 120 men gathered in Massillon, OH and on Easter Sunday 1894 they set off for the nation’s capital. As the press picked up the story, the group acquired a new name, “Coxey’s Army.” It was meant on the one hand to evoke ridicule and on the other to stoke fears of radicalism and civil unrest. The press alternately dismissed them as a bunch of delusional cranks, or a dangerous group of losers who wanted handouts and a socialist revolution. But Coxey dismissed this talk and declared that his army’s campaign was one to save the republic and honest capitalism from the clutches of corporate trusts and the politicians they controlled. Despite the negative press, as they marched, more men joined the ranks, including some African American men. Coxey had hoped to assemble an "army" of 100,000 men. But he had to settle for a peak of 500. In some places they were met by hostile townspeople and policemen who threatened arrest if they set up camp. But in many places Coxey and his growing number of followers were greeted by enthusiastic supporters who offered money, food, clothing, and shoes, as well as words of support. Finally, after walking 400 miles in 35 days, Coxey’s Army arrived in Washington on April 30, 1894. As this was the first ever protest march on Washington, apprehension was in the air as the men set up a makeshift camp. Hundreds of police and 1,500 soldiers stood by, ready for a confrontation. The next day, May 1, Coxey tried to enter the US Capitol to deliver a speech before Congress, but security guards turned him away. So, Coxey tried the next best thing: delivering the speech in front of the Capitol. But before he started speaking, police arrested him and took him off to jail.  He was charged with “disturbing the peace,” but the charges were eventually reduced and he was convicted only for walking on the lawn of the Capitol grounds. Had he spoken, Jacob Coxey would have said, in part: “We stand here to-day in behalf of millions of toilers whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, whose prayers have been unresponded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from them by unjust legislation, which protects idlers, speculators, and gamblers.” While Jacob Coxey did not get what he came for in Washington DC, the larger Populist movement to which he belonged did influence a generation of reformers who, in what we now call the Progressive Era, achieved notable successes in enacting many of the Populist Party demands, and so much more, ranging from regulations on trusts to measures to improve working conditions, public health, and political reform. And then there’s this - 50 years later to the day after he was arrested for trying to give a speech on the steps of the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, a 90-year old Jacob Coxey was allowed to deliver that speech. On May 1, 1944, he stood on the Capitol steps and said what had been on his mind back in 1894. But by then, in the wake of the New Deal and its vast array of government programs to alleviate suffering during the Great Depression, Coxey’s speech seemed hardly radical at all. What a difference half a century makes. So what else of note happened this week in US history? April 28, 1967 heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali defies the draft and refuses to be inducted into the US military to fight in Vietnam. Ali argued that his religious beliefs prohibited him from participating in a war against the poor, nonwhite people of Vietnam. He was widely condemned for his stand, and subsequently stripped of his boxing title and sentenced to five years in prison. “I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs,” said Ali. “So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years.” The sentence was later overturned. April 30, 1789 The first presidential inauguration took place in New York City. George Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall on Wall St before a crowd of thousands. April 30, 1975 South Vietnam fell to the forces of North Vietnam, marking the unofficial end of the Vietnam War. For Americans, this moment is captured in the photograph of people boarding a helicopter on the roof of the American embassy in Saigon. If you want to learn more about the Vietnam War, check out ITPL episode 39 featuring my interview with Ken Burns about his documentary on the war.

And what notable people were born this week in American history?   April 27, 1822 – Union Army general and 18th POTUS, Ulysses S. Grant April 28, 1758 – 5th POTUS James Monroe April 29, 1899 - composer and jazz orchestra leader Duke Ellington May 2, 1903 - Dr Benjamin Spock, author of the best selling book on baby care May 3, 1919 – folk singer and social justice activist Pete Seeger

The Last Word Let’s give it to Jacob Coxey, who 126 years ago this week arrived at the head of the first march on Washington. Here’s a passage from the speech he hoped to deliver that day from the steps of the US Capitol. “We stand here to declare by our march of over 400 miles through difficulties and distress…that we are law-abiding citizens, and as men our actions speak louder than words. We are here to petition for legislation which will furnish employment for every man able and willing to work; for legislation which will bring universal prosperity and emancipate our beloved country from financial bondage to the descendants of King George. We have come to the only source which is competent to aid the people in their day of dire distress. We are here to tell our Representatives, who hold their seats by grace of our ballots, that the struggle for existence has become too fierce and relentless. We come and throw up our defenseless hands, and say, help, or we and our loved ones must perish. We are engaged in a bitter and cruel war with the enemies of all mankind—a war with hunger, wretchedness, and despair, and we ask Congress to heed our petitions and issue for the nation’s good a sufficient volume of the same kind of money which carried the country through one awful war and saved the life of the nation. … we appeal to every peace-loving citizen, every liberty-loving man or woman, every one in whose breast the fires of patriotism and love of country have not died out, to assist us in our efforts toward better laws and general benefits.”

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the origins of Earth Day 50 years ago this week, and the two high profile environmental disasters in 1969 that helped to inspire it, the Santa Barbara, CA oil spill and the an oil fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH. Environmental activists took advantage of the media coverage of the events to form organizations like Greenpeace and start an annual conscience raising event called Earth Day. In the years that followed, the US enacted landmark environmental legislation ranging from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act. But contemporary efforts to roll back these regulations imperil the environment and public health.   Feature Story: The Birth of Earth Day - 50th anniversary

On April 22, 1970 – 50 years ago this week – 20 million Americans gathered in places all across the nation to commemorate the first Earth Day. This event was inspired by two high profile environmental disasters that took place the year before in 1969. But before we dive into those stories, let’s first step back to do a quick, History of Environmentalism 101. While there were earlier environmentalist moments in US history, what we would recognize as environmentalism began to emerge in the late 19th century. And as it did, it represented the beginnings of a major shift in how Americans viewed private property rights. So, what do I mean by that? Well, from the colonial period through to the late 19th century, most Americans shared the belief that private property rights were almost sacred. A person could do anything they wanted with their property and no government should have any say in the matter. And that was fine so long as the nation remained rural and its economy based in agriculture. But it didn’t. A little thing called the Industrial Revolution happened and that raised all sorts of questions about property rights. Some Americans began to develop a critique of the absolute sanctity of private property rights. And they did so in response to mounting evidence that unfettered private property rights in a modern industrial capitalist setting had seriously negative consequences for society. They noted, for example, that complete and total freedom from regulation left property owners free to engage in strip mining of mountain ranges for coal, or clearcutting forests for lumber, or hunting various animals into extinction. Unrestrained private property rights also left them free to dump their toxic waste into the waterways that ran through their private property or into the air that hovered above their private property—even when this meant the waste would ultimately end up on someone else’s private property.  These critics were not anti-capitalist radicals. Rather, to make their case, they invoked a key republican ideal: the common good. They argued that societies and governments needed to protect other things besides individual private property rights. They noted the uncomfortable fact that one person’s freedom to use their private property any way they wanted could easily threaten another person’s freedom to live free of poisons.  Or, put another way, they noted that individualism and the common good often came into conflict. And so they developed a philosophy that emphasized what has become a key idea in environmentalism – the idea of connectivity, that people are connected to each other and to the larger ecosystem. That one person’s actions, therefore, have consequences for others, and this fact needs to be taken into account as societies develop their laws and public policy regarding the economy and environment. The first attempts to protect the environment mainly took the form of conservation—essentially saving the wilderness from economic development.  People like Theodore Roosevelt believed it was essential to preserve large tracts of wilderness to allow future generations of Americans to enjoy it by hiking, camping, and hunting. Few people in the late-19th and early 20th century raised concerns over water pollution, air pollution, or endangered species.  By the mid-20th century a few concerns over the environment emerged—things like smog and roadside trash—but these were rare. The first significant change in public attitudes concerning the environment, the shift from merely supporting the idea of conserving nature in wildlife reserves and national parks, came in 1962 when Rachel Carson published her book, Silent Spring that revealed the devastating environmental effects of the widely used pesticide DDT, especially on birds. Carson’s book became a bestseller and it led to the introduction of more than 40 bills to control pesticide use in state legislatures across the country. Another impact of Silent Spring was that it inspired many Americans to become environmentalists or to use the term more in vogue in the 1960s, ecologists.  But it’s important to point out that environmentalism in the mid 1960s was still a fringe movement, one associated with hippies and tree huggers. But Silent Spring had planted a seed that would later blossom with the events of 1969. Now let’s turn to the story of the two environmental disasters of 1969 that helped officially launch the modern environmental movement: the Santa Barbara oil spill and a fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH. Let’s start with the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA.  It began on Jan 28, 1969 when workers on an oil rig forcefully extracted a drilling tube that had become stuck in the ocean floor. In so doing, they inadvertently created five gashes in the ocean floor. Over the next few weeks, more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into Santa Barbara channel.  It took weeks to stop the gusher, and in that time, the incident drew significant television and newspaper coverage.  Americans began to see for the first time what are now familiar scenes to us: oil-soaked birds, dead fish, and miles of blackened beaches. What’s interesting is that this spill was not especially large, even for that time. And it’s absolutely tiny in comparison to the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But even though it wasn’t that big, the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 sparked widespread public outrage. Significantly, the anger focused on the lax government oversight of the oil rig, and on the callous attitude of the executives of the company involved, Union Oil. The President of Union Oil, for example, told a TV news reporter. “I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds” This statement not only reveals the mentality of oil executives at this time, but also the power of imagery in social reform movements. Think about how abolitionists used illustrations of auctions and whippings of enslaved people to draw supporters to their cause. Or how pioneering photographers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine used their cameras to draw attention to horrific slum housing and child labor. History is clear on this point: social reform movements need pictures. And in 1969 the fledgling environmental movement got their first compelling images. Out of this controversy arose a number of groups committed to environmental activism, including Greenpeace. It also prompted a group of citizens in Santa Barbara to write and issue “The Santa Barbara Declaration of Environmental Rights,” an environmental manifesto modeled on the Declaration of Independence. It began, “All men have the right to an environment capable of sustaining life and promoting happiness.” That same year Americans witnessed another environmental disaster.  This time it was a fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland was one of the main oil refining centers in America and its waterways showed it.  In fact, the Cuyahoga River had caught fire many times, but these fires were treated as little more than curious incidents. That finally changed when the river caught fire on June 22, 1969. It lasted only 30 minutes. But as with the Santa Barbara oil spill five months earlier, this fire came with photographs and video. It captured the attention of the national media. Time magazine ran a story in its August 1, 1969 issue - “Some River!  Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.” The coverage of the fire and the subsequent attention it drew to the dreadful condition of the river led to a famous photo of reporter Richard Ellers holding up his hand after having dunked it in the river.  It looked like he’d dipped it in black paint. The Santa Barbara oil spill and the Cuyahoga River fire helped launch the modern environmental movement, beginning a process that would move environmentalism from the fringes to the center of American society and political discourse. They inspired a small number of environmental activists to stage what they called conscience-raising events, which in turn inspired a major one they decided to call Earth Day. It had many “fathers,” but most people agree that Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin got the ball rolling when he proposed the first nationwide environmental protest to, in his words, “to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.” The idea caught on and on April 22, 1970 some 20 million people participated in the first Earth Day, which was marked by large rallies, cleanup efforts, and teach-ins. Earth Day became an annual event and one of its most important effects was that it brought together lots of disparate groups that shared concerns about the health of the environment. These included people concerned about air pollution in cities, wildlife and endangered species, protection of wetlands and forests, and cleaning up toxic landfills. Earth Day also raised public awareness of environmental concerns and slowly began to make them mainstream political issues. As with so many social reform movements, over time these environmental activists managed to transform their goal from a radical idea to mainstream one. And some of the most important results occurred relatively quickly. The period from the late 1960s to the early 1970s saw the most environmental legislation passed in the nation’s history. Everything from the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. These and other laws have had an extraordinary impact over the past 50 years, leading to a more healthy environment and the saving of many endangered species, including most famously, the Bald Eagle. But American businesses and property owners have never liked these laws. They claim they hurt business and infringe upon the liberties of property owners. And they’ve waged an unrelenting war on environmental regulations. They achieved some success in the 1980s with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and in the 20-oughts with George W. Bush. But the most serious and successful efforts to roll back 50 years of environmental protection have occurred under the presidency of Donald Trump. Nearly 100 environmental rules on everything from toxic chemical emissions to fracking have been revoked or seriously limited. These moves all but guarantee that we will have greater environmental damage and harm to human health in the coming years. And because this administration has been mired in controversy from Day 1, few people seem to have noticed. The story of environmentalism and Earth Day remind us that history does not move in a straight line of progress. One generation’s achievements can be undone by a later one.  That’s why it’s never enough to just win a victory for voting rights, or equality before the law, or a healthy environment. Those victories must be maintained and protected by constant vigilance. Otherwise they can be rolled back. So what else of note happened this week in US history? April 20, 1914 – The Ludlow Massacre takes place in Ludlow, CO. Hundreds of Colorado national guard soldiers and a private security force employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company - a company owned by the richest man in America, John D Rockefeller - attacked an encampment of 1,200 striking miners and their families. More than 20 people, including wives and children of the minders, were killed. This massacre set off a spiral or violence that left somewhere between 69 and 200 people dead in what came to be called the Colorado Coalfield War. April 21, 1980 – 40 years ago this week – an unknown runner named Rosie Ruiz stunned the world by winning the Boston Marathon and doing so in record time. That is until it was revealed that she ran only the last half mile of the 26.2 mile course. Ruiz was stripped of her medal 8 days after the race. April 22, 1864 - The U.S. Mint issued a 2-cent coin which was the first US currency featuring the slogan, “In God We Trust.” And what notable people were born this week in American history?   April 21, 1838 - Environmental activist and conservationist John Muir April 23, 1791 – President James Buchanan April 26, 1822 – landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead April 26, 1900 - seismologist and physicist Charles F. Richter The Last Word Let’s give it to the pioneering conservationist and environmental activist John Muir, who was born 182 years ago this week: Here’s a passage he wrote that seems remarkably in sync with the idea behind Earth Day: “Man must be made conscious of his origin as a child of Nature. Brought into right relationship with the wilderness he would see that he was not a separate entity endowed with a divine right to subdue his fellow creatures and destroy the common heritage, but rather an integral part of a harmonious whole. He would see that his appropriation of earth's resources beyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance and beget ultimate loss and poverty for all.”

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the biggest disasters in US history, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The tremors ripped apart the city’s water system, leaving it nearly defenseless against raging fires that soon broke out. The ensuing inferno destroyed a quarter of the city and killed 3,000 people. In the aftermath, city officials tried to take advantage of the disaster by getting rid of its Chinatown neighborhood that occupied 15 blocks of prime downtown real estate. But Chinatown residents organized and against all odds, forced the city to abandon the plan. Chinatown and the rest of the city were rebuilt.  

And we also take a look at some key events that occurred this week in US history, like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and Battle of Lexington and Concord.   Feature Story: The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

On April 18, 1906, at 5:13 am, the city of San Francisco was shaken by a tremendous earthquake.  Later estimated as measuring about 7.9 on the Richter scale, it lasted 72 seconds, heaving streets up and down, opening and closing huge chasms, and shaking buildings big and small into piles of rubble.  The city's 200,000 residents tumbled out of bed and into the streets in panicked confusion to survey the damage and find friends and family. The destruction was extensive and already dozens, perhaps hundreds had been killed.  Few knew it at the time, but this was only the beginning of a larger, rapidly unfolding disaster, for fires had broken out everywhere and the city's water mains had been ruptured. To make matters worse, the city lost its Chief Engineer of the Fire Department, Daniel T. Sullivan. He was crushed to death when a hotel collapsed onto the Fire Dept headquarters where he was sleeping. Sullivan was pulled from the wreckage, but he never recovered and died four days later. The significance of the loss of Fire Chief Sullivan was lost on no one.  With fire rapidly spreading throughout the city, the fire department desperately needed his experienced leadership.  Instead, they would have to rely upon his replacement, a man named John Dougherty. One inescapable irony regarding Sullivan's death was that he had spent much of his thirteen years as Fire Chief engaged in a futile crusade to get city officials to improve fire safety and preparedness.  Just six months earlier, the National Board of Fire Underwriters issued a scathing report on the state of affairs in San Francisco.  The refusal of City Hall to fund Chief Sullivan's requests for an improved water system and the establishment of an explosives team to blow up buildings in the path of a big fire had left the city flirting with disaster. “San Francisco has violated all underwriting traditions and precedents by not burning up,” asserted the report.  “That it has not already done so is largely due to the vigilance of the Fire Department, which cannot be relied upon to stave off the inevitable.”  Now the inevitable was upon them and the city's most knowledgeable fireman lay on his deathbed. The earthquake not only destroyed the city's water system, but also its telephone, telegraph, and fire alarm systems. Fires broke out everywhere, started by overturned lamps and coal stoves and fed by ruptured gas lines and winds off the Pacific Ocean.  That 90 percent of the city's housing was of wood frame construction only added to the disaster.

Fire crews raced through the rubble strewn streets to extinguish the fires, but everywhere found the same terrifying result: “Not a drop of water was to be had from the hydrants,” the fire department report recalled.  For a while, they pumped water from tanks, pools, and even sewers, but these sources eventually went dry. Unable to fight the flames, firemen concentrated on pulling victims from collapsed buildings before the flames reached them.  Thousands of terrified people looked on in horror as the inferno grew still larger and the city shook with aftershocks. Acting Fire Chief John Dougherty soon decided to use explosives to stop the fire, using munitions from local US Army forts. If they could demolish a line of buildings, he reasoned, they might be able to contain the fire and save much of the city. And here’s where a compelling story-within-the-story emerged, one driven by anti-Chinese racism. While diverting scarce water to wealthy white sections of the city, the mayor and acting Fire Chief chose to deploy the explosives in the city’s Chinatown. Scores of buildings were destroyed, but the explosions actually accelerated the fires. Within a day, all of Chinatown had been reduced to smoldering rubble and ash. This outcome was devastating to the 15,000 Chinese and Chinese American residents of the neighborhood, but it was seen as a godsend by the city’s powerful business and political elites. We’ll soon circle back to this point, but for now, let’s return to the larger story of the disaster. At 3:00 p.m., as reports of looting mounted, Mayor Eugene Schmitz issued a “shoot to kill” proclamation, warning the populace that policemen and soldiers would show no mercy to anyone even suspected of looting. And that proved true, as dozens of people were shot or bayonetted to death, many of them innocent people trying to retrieve their own property. One Chinese American man went to his apartment to retrieve his birth certificate – a document vital to Chinese Americans fearful of deportation – and was bayonetted by a soldier. Thankfully he survived the assault. It took three days and three nights to bring the inferno under control. By then one quarter of the city had burned (498 blocks), leaving 28,000 buildings destroyed. The human toll was originally put at about 700 deaths, but this was pure fiction. It reflected a desperate attempt by city officials to diminish the disaster in the public’s mind, as a way to preserve the commercial future of the city. More extensive research in recent years has raised the death toll to 3,000, making the earthquake one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history.  It was also one of the most expensive, costing at least $500,000,000 in 1906 dollars. Now would be a good time to pick up the story-within-the-story about the fate of Chinatown and its 15,000 residents. We know that the political and business leaders of San Francisco saw the destruction of Chinatown as a silver lining in the disaster, because they said as much. Chinatown occupied 15 blocks of prime downtown real estate and for years the city’s business and political leaders talked of evicting the residents and turning it into a business district. In 1904, two years before the earthquake, the city’s Mayor, James Phelan, had paid the famed architect Daniel Burnham – the guy who planned the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 - to draw up a master plan for a newly redesigned San Francisco. The plans’ most striking feature? Chinatown was gone. Burnham somehow made it disappear. The city’s business community loved the idea. Here’s the headline from city’s Merchant’s Association Review, from February 1905: “San Francisco May Be Freed From The Standing Menace of Chinatown: Plans Have Been arranged, and a Corporation Formed to Turn the Chinese Quarter into a Business Section, and Build a New Oriental City on Bay Shore.” That last part was important – Chinatown would be moved to a remote edge of the city. The justification for this plan was that Chinatown was a horrid cancer on the city, a place filled with opium dens, prostitution, and illegal gambling. White Americans had long come to see Chinatowns in US cities in this light. Stories in the popular press and dime novels, and even early versions of sensational walking tours led by white guides perpetuated Chinatowns as immoral spaces where vice and sin proliferated and an alien, unassimilable culture thrived. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Mayor Schmitz moved quickly to put into action the plan to get rid of Chinatown. He created a Committee of powerful businessmen and political figures to oversee relief efforts and to put into action the Chinatown removal plan. And he made former mayor James Phelan, the Committee’s chairman. Phelan, you will remember, is the guy who commissioned the plans for a revamped San Francisco that called for the removal of Chinatown. But then something extraordinary happened. The residents of Chinatown, despite the long odds they faced as a despised and disenfranchised minority group, got organized and took action to stop the plan. Those who owned their building lots in Chinatown started rebuilding immediately. Community leaders hired lawyers and protested before city officials. One of them, a minister named Rev. Gee Gam, said, “Why should the Chinese be isolated any more than the people of Tar Flat? Why should they be singled out? The mayor has no power to isolate the Chinese. Chinatown should go back where it was – that would be nothing but justice.... We are objecting to the removal of Chinatown on the grounds that it is the Chinese right to remain where they own land.” Residents of Chinatown also got in touch with the government of China and soon Chinese diplomatic officials were lodging formal complaints with the federal government in Washington, the governor of California, and city officials in San Francisco. And those officials listened, because even back then China was a significant trading partner of the US. And the final and most important card the Chinatown residents played was this: they told San Francisco officials that if the city went forward with the plan to move Chinatown to the outskirts of the city, they would relocate en masse to another city like Los Angeles or Seattle and take with them their businesses. This was a significant threat as Chinese and Chinese American businesses constituted a major part of the city’s economy. And all this resistance to anti-Chinese racism? It worked. Less than a month after the earthquake, the city dropped the plan to eliminate Chinatown from downtown San Francisco. Chinatown was rebuilt, along with the rest of the city. And this new Chinatown had a distinct architectural style, one that would be replicated in other Chinatowns across the US. The merchants hired white architects who designed the district to look like what white Americans imagined China looked like – buildings festooned with brightly colored pagoda style roofs and carvings of dragons. The idea was to attract tourists and to promote a new image of Chinatown as a clean and wholesome place.  It bore no resemblance to China, but the tourists loved it. And there was one more legacy of the earthquake that affected the city’s Chinese population. The fires destroyed City Hall and virtually all vital records like birth certificates. This allowed Chinese immigrants to claim US birth and there was no way city officials could prove they were not. This new status allowed them to avoid deportation and to bring relatives from China to join them. Over time, the city of San Francisco enjoyed a full recovery from the disaster. And as the city was rebuilt, many of Chief Sullivan's ideas for greater fire safety were implemented, as were tough building codes to make structures better able to withstand the next earthquake.  That day came on October 17, 1989 when an earthquake measuring 7.1 of the Richter scale shook the city.  Damage was extensive, but a relatively small number of people, 62, died.    

So what else of note happened this week in US history?

April 14, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC by Confederate loyalist John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln lingered on the edge of death through the night and died the following morning on April 15. April 15, 1912 - The ‘unsinkable’ luxury ocean liner, "Titanic," sank at 2:27 a.m. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. April 19, 1775 – American colonists clash with British troops in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The "the shot heard 'round the world" announced the start of the American war for independence.

And what notable people were born this week in American history?  

April 13, 1743 – 3rd POTUS Thomas Jefferson

April 13, 1899 – Alfred Butts, the inventor of Scrabble

April 13, 1919 – atheism promotor Madelyn Murray O’Hair

April 14, 1840 -  art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner

April 15, 1889 - labor and civil rights leader, A. Philip Randolph

April 18, 1857 - attorney Clarence Darrow

The Last Word

Let’s give it to Clarence Darrow, who was born 163 years ago this week. He made a career out of defending people in what appeared to be hopeless cases. Here’s how he explained his motivation: “You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.”

For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com 

Music for This Episode

Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)

The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)

Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)

Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)

Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)

Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)

Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive)

Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)

Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (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 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, 2020

Recommended History Podcasts

Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart

The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod

Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio

Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod

99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg

Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl

The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace

The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast

The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist

Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof

Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote

The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean

More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell

Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries

DIG history podcast @dig_history

The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show

Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow

Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory

The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod

American History Tellers ‏@ahtellers

The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1

The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys

Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW

The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris

The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now

Retropod with @mikerosenwald

© In The Past Lane 2020