1 00:00:04,737 --> 00:00:06,306 (off screen voice) I am the Edison Phonograph. 2 00:00:06,306 --> 00:00:09,303 (newscaster) the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor by air. 3 00:00:09,303 --> 00:00:10,977 [crowd chanting in German] 4 00:00:10,977 --> 00:00:14,116 (President Kennedy) Ask not what your country can do for you... 5 00:00:14,116 --> 00:00:15,715 (newscaster) President Kennedy has been shot. 6 00:00:15,715 --> 00:00:17,655 (Neil Armstrong) One small step for man... 7 00:00:17,655 --> 00:00:22,625 (Martin Luther King Jr.) These truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. 8 00:00:22,625 --> 00:00:25,523 [cheering] 9 00:00:25,523 --> 00:00:29,329 (off screen voice) Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! 10 00:00:43,495 --> 00:00:51,543 [drumming] 11 00:00:51,543 --> 00:00:55,647 (off screen voice) Left, left. Left, right, left. 12 00:01:00,954 --> 00:01:07,529 [band music] 13 00:01:07,529 --> 00:01:10,346 (narrator) The transforming events of the 20th century touched 14 00:01:10,346 --> 00:01:13,599 every city and small town in America. 15 00:01:22,260 --> 00:01:23,084 Annual celebrations, 16 00:01:23,084 --> 00:01:26,215 which children thrill to but can never fully understand, 17 00:01:26,215 --> 00:01:30,310 mark for another generation the historical reminders. 18 00:01:31,370 --> 00:01:33,393 How the town survived the depression. 19 00:01:36,746 --> 00:01:38,855 How older people who walk among us unnoticed every 20 00:01:38,855 --> 00:01:41,877 day saved democracy in the world. 21 00:01:41,877 --> 00:02:00,028 [soft music] 22 00:02:00,028 --> 00:02:02,353 In every town there are buildings which stand like 23 00:02:02,353 --> 00:02:05,144 silent witnesses to the enormous changes over 24 00:02:05,144 --> 00:02:06,781 these hundred years. 25 00:02:11,364 --> 00:02:14,450 A garage, which started the century as a stable. 26 00:02:16,137 --> 00:02:19,222 (William Goehner) When the Model Ts became available, 27 00:02:19,222 --> 00:02:22,509 we could scratch together a hundred bucks and 28 00:02:22,509 --> 00:02:25,379 get a second-hand Model T. 29 00:02:26,179 --> 00:02:27,180 (narrator) Schools, 30 00:02:27,180 --> 00:02:29,983 which today teach computer skills to every student, 31 00:02:29,983 --> 00:02:34,380 used to teach shop to the boys and typing to the girls. 32 00:02:36,164 --> 00:02:38,625 (Lillian Hall) Your schoolteacher said just learn all you can 33 00:02:38,625 --> 00:02:40,531 about secretarial work. 34 00:02:40,531 --> 00:02:43,796 We can't expect women to get ahead in business. 35 00:02:45,932 --> 00:02:49,569 (narrator) In some places, hometown coffee shops for more than half 36 00:02:49,569 --> 00:02:52,605 the century served whites only. 37 00:02:52,605 --> 00:02:56,303 (Don Newcombe) People's attitudes had to be changed. 38 00:02:56,303 --> 00:02:58,167 All it was was the color of your skin, 39 00:02:58,167 --> 00:02:58,683 for Christ's sakes. 40 00:02:58,683 --> 00:03:02,781 It was the color of your skin that made the difference. 41 00:03:05,888 --> 00:03:09,155 (narrator) Memorials along American main streets commemorate 42 00:03:09,155 --> 00:03:13,206 those who died on the European battlefields of World War I. 43 00:03:16,205 --> 00:03:19,361 (Henry Villard) Such terrible scenes. 44 00:03:19,361 --> 00:03:26,490 You grew up very quickly in surroundings like that. 45 00:03:26,490 --> 00:03:30,577 It is no longer freshman studies. 46 00:03:30,577 --> 00:03:33,415 It was the real world. 47 00:03:35,615 --> 00:03:38,117 (narrator) From almost every hometown train station, 48 00:03:38,117 --> 00:03:41,220 men left for World War II. 49 00:03:42,004 --> 00:03:44,490 (Julia Glut) When your husband becomes an officer, 50 00:03:44,490 --> 00:03:46,326 you're an officer's wife. 51 00:03:46,326 --> 00:03:49,495 You do not show any emotions when they go overseas. 52 00:03:49,495 --> 00:03:51,631 You hold it back, no matter what. 53 00:03:51,631 --> 00:03:53,566 No crying. 54 00:03:53,566 --> 00:03:55,203 And we did that. 55 00:03:56,235 --> 00:03:58,446 It was tough, but we did it. 56 00:03:59,939 --> 00:04:03,076 (narrator) Korea and Vietnam veterans returned to towns 57 00:04:03,076 --> 00:04:04,644 which looked the same, 58 00:04:04,644 --> 00:04:07,947 but they came back to a country which had changed. 59 00:04:07,947 --> 00:04:08,763 (Bob Jones) When I left, 60 00:04:08,763 --> 00:04:11,517 the only people that had long hair lived in San Francisco, 61 00:04:11,517 --> 00:04:13,553 you know, and when I came home, 62 00:04:13,553 --> 00:04:14,754 my banker had long hair. 63 00:04:18,788 --> 00:04:23,367 (narrator) When one New Jersey town held an old class reunion in 1997, 64 00:04:23,367 --> 00:04:26,933 you could see in the attendees the sweep of the entire century. 65 00:04:30,562 --> 00:04:32,585 There were those who remember when the electric light 66 00:04:32,585 --> 00:04:37,863 was new and those who were born after man walked on the moon. 67 00:04:48,876 --> 00:04:51,827 Old and young, they had been together on a journey through 68 00:04:51,827 --> 00:04:55,161 the most common and yet mysterious of passageways 69 00:04:58,053 --> 00:04:58,737 - time. 70 00:05:34,518 --> 00:05:36,969 Unlike previous centuries where leadership was defined 71 00:05:36,969 --> 00:05:39,372 by royalty and other rulers, 72 00:05:39,372 --> 00:05:41,050 the 20th century, more than any other, 73 00:05:41,050 --> 00:05:44,444 was shaped by the will and the actions of the common man. 74 00:05:44,444 --> 00:05:45,912 In the episodes of this series, 75 00:05:45,912 --> 00:05:49,182 we'll examine some of the defining events in 76 00:05:49,182 --> 00:05:51,951 each of 15 different periods. 77 00:05:51,951 --> 00:05:54,654 Our aim is to experience what it was like for the 78 00:05:54,654 --> 00:05:57,390 common man to be alive then. 79 00:05:57,390 --> 00:06:00,827 Politics and technology made this the killing century, 80 00:06:00,827 --> 00:06:04,630 but they also provided extended life and hope. 81 00:06:04,630 --> 00:06:07,867 In this first episode we'll see that as the century began, 82 00:06:07,867 --> 00:06:11,637 there was no place on earth where hope flourished more 83 00:06:11,637 --> 00:06:14,373 than in the United States of America. 84 00:06:22,315 --> 00:06:25,818 (narrator) In 1900 in the countries of central and southern Europe, 85 00:06:25,818 --> 00:06:30,351 tens of millions of people were trapped in miserable lives. 86 00:06:31,290 --> 00:06:34,845 (Andrew Jakomas) They were starving, and things were real tough, 87 00:06:34,845 --> 00:06:40,666 because when my father was a young boy of 12 or 13 years old, 88 00:06:42,486 --> 00:06:48,130 he was sent to a family in Cairo, Egypt 89 00:06:48,130 --> 00:06:49,500 to become a vassel. 90 00:06:49,500 --> 00:06:50,780 That's what they did with their sons. 91 00:06:54,228 --> 00:06:55,214 (Mary Gale) Peasants. 92 00:06:55,214 --> 00:06:57,283 They never got paid. 93 00:06:57,283 --> 00:06:58,684 They never made a living. 94 00:06:58,684 --> 00:07:00,846 They lived in huts. 95 00:07:02,355 --> 00:07:05,391 The Jewish people certainly were poverty stricken. 96 00:07:05,391 --> 00:07:06,908 They didn't have a job. 97 00:07:10,877 --> 00:07:13,677 (Martin Scorsese) My people came from peasants. 98 00:07:13,677 --> 00:07:17,119 My grandparents on both sides of the family came from Sicily. 99 00:07:17,804 --> 00:07:19,333 My mother's side of the family came from 100 00:07:19,333 --> 00:07:20,958 a town called Chianina. 101 00:07:24,296 --> 00:07:26,258 In the small villages, what was there? 102 00:07:27,858 --> 00:07:30,240 Oppression and no food. 103 00:07:31,117 --> 00:07:34,053 (narrator) One place held the promise of a better future. 104 00:07:36,452 --> 00:07:40,326 (Clara Hancox) My mother and father - they heard about America from others, 105 00:07:40,326 --> 00:07:43,652 and they knew that America was heaven. 106 00:07:44,730 --> 00:07:46,065 It was... 107 00:07:46,065 --> 00:07:48,968 Once in America, all problems would be solved. 108 00:07:50,059 --> 00:07:51,273 There would be food. 109 00:07:51,858 --> 00:07:53,506 There would be freedom. 110 00:07:53,506 --> 00:07:55,372 There would be no persecution. 111 00:07:55,741 --> 00:07:56,466 Freedom! 112 00:07:56,803 --> 00:07:57,682 Freedom! 113 00:07:58,067 --> 00:08:00,546 An incredible word for those people. 114 00:08:05,790 --> 00:08:09,761 (Pres. William McKinley) This country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. 115 00:08:10,961 --> 00:08:13,620 We are furnishing profitable employment 116 00:08:13,620 --> 00:08:18,038 to the millions of working men throughout the United States. 117 00:08:18,713 --> 00:08:23,369 (John Milton Cooper) By 1900, the United States leads in every 118 00:08:23,369 --> 00:08:25,371 major industrial product. 119 00:08:25,371 --> 00:08:27,373 I mean we're producing more steel. 120 00:08:27,373 --> 00:08:30,826 We're producing more machined goods, textiles. 121 00:08:30,826 --> 00:08:34,233 The United States has one third of all the 122 00:08:34,233 --> 00:08:36,215 railroad trackage in the world. 123 00:08:36,215 --> 00:08:38,131 For the first time in human history, 124 00:08:38,131 --> 00:08:41,836 people can move over land swiftly, easily, reliably. 125 00:08:43,481 --> 00:08:45,825 (narrator) The average American lived longer, 126 00:08:45,825 --> 00:08:49,128 was better fed and better paid and had greater access to 127 00:08:49,128 --> 00:08:52,865 education than the average citizen anywhere else on earth. 128 00:08:54,172 --> 00:08:56,335 (John Milton Cooper) This is the great land of opportunity. 129 00:08:57,842 --> 00:09:00,273 No matter how low you may be born, 130 00:09:00,273 --> 00:09:05,188 no matter how humble you may be, you can rise to the top. 131 00:09:05,188 --> 00:09:06,827 The sky is the limit. 132 00:09:10,811 --> 00:09:12,451 (narrator) On the eve of the new century, 133 00:09:12,451 --> 00:09:15,354 the sense of boundless possibilities also ignited 134 00:09:15,354 --> 00:09:18,691 an explosion of technological innovations that would 135 00:09:18,691 --> 00:09:21,360 have profound impact on 20th century life. 136 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:25,151 Thomas Edison's electric light bulb and phonograph, 137 00:09:25,151 --> 00:09:27,839 Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. 138 00:09:28,915 --> 00:09:32,071 Tens of thousands of tinkerers across America were trying 139 00:09:32,071 --> 00:09:33,906 to invent the future. 140 00:09:33,906 --> 00:09:38,044 Among them were two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio. 141 00:09:38,044 --> 00:09:39,445 (Mabel Griep) Orville and Wilbur, 142 00:09:39,445 --> 00:09:43,249 they as young boys were interested in flying. 143 00:09:43,249 --> 00:09:45,584 They would sit on a porch and watch the birds. 144 00:09:46,491 --> 00:09:49,608 And the neighbors all around us say, 145 00:09:49,608 --> 00:09:51,764 "Well, I don't know they think they're going to do. 146 00:09:51,764 --> 00:09:54,863 "Why they will never make an airplane." 147 00:09:55,939 --> 00:09:58,602 Mabel Griep and her sister Lorene lived next door 148 00:09:58,602 --> 00:10:00,833 to the Wright brothers. 149 00:10:00,833 --> 00:10:03,869 (Lorine Hyer) Well, my father found out some way that they were 150 00:10:03,869 --> 00:10:07,440 going to try to have a trial flight. 151 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:09,342 So we got in the surrey, 152 00:10:09,342 --> 00:10:12,111 and we drove out to Huffman Prairie. 153 00:10:13,587 --> 00:10:16,743 (Mabel Griep) I can hear dad turn more than once and say, 154 00:10:16,743 --> 00:10:19,385 "Look, are you all paying attention to this? 155 00:10:19,385 --> 00:10:20,455 "Now listen to me. 156 00:10:20,455 --> 00:10:24,056 "You're going to remember this 'til your last day." 157 00:10:29,208 --> 00:10:31,901 When that plane took off the ground, 158 00:10:33,377 --> 00:10:35,304 people were speechless. 159 00:10:40,026 --> 00:10:42,165 It was spectacular. 160 00:10:42,165 --> 00:10:43,589 It was unbelievable. 161 00:10:45,281 --> 00:10:49,248 (narrator) One of the oldest dreams in human imagination had come true. 162 00:10:49,248 --> 00:10:52,518 Sustained flight in a powered airplane. 163 00:10:53,964 --> 00:10:57,356 (Thomas P. Hughes) The United States was without any question the most 164 00:10:57,356 --> 00:11:01,365 inventive nation in the world in that period. 165 00:11:02,857 --> 00:11:05,777 It is comparable in its creativity to the 166 00:11:05,777 --> 00:11:08,801 Renaissance in Italy, for example, 167 00:11:08,801 --> 00:11:11,504 to the period of Elizabeth in English history, 168 00:11:11,504 --> 00:11:13,439 the Shakespearian period. 169 00:11:14,377 --> 00:11:17,436 Americans appreciated the new. 170 00:11:17,436 --> 00:11:23,529 They assumed that change was the natural course of history. 171 00:11:26,359 --> 00:11:29,368 (narrator) And on America's roads the European novelty was 172 00:11:29,368 --> 00:11:31,218 about to be reinvented. 173 00:11:34,248 --> 00:11:37,955 (Eileen Burns) The first time we saw a car when I was a kid - 174 00:11:38,164 --> 00:11:41,979 well, they have this for people out of this world. 175 00:11:46,087 --> 00:11:49,782 (narrator) In 1900 there was only 8,000 cars and less than ten miles 176 00:11:49,782 --> 00:11:52,063 of concrete road in the entire country. 177 00:11:54,339 --> 00:11:57,139 The car was fast seducing Americans. 178 00:11:59,892 --> 00:12:03,774 (Thomas P. Hughes) The automobile gave people a sense of 179 00:12:03,774 --> 00:12:06,738 the control of their own destiny. 180 00:12:07,568 --> 00:12:09,337 That is, the behind the wheel, 181 00:12:09,337 --> 00:12:10,634 out on the road, 182 00:12:10,634 --> 00:12:12,106 you decided where you were going, 183 00:12:12,106 --> 00:12:13,668 what you were doing. 184 00:12:13,668 --> 00:12:15,865 You had a machine at your control. 185 00:12:17,687 --> 00:12:20,506 But early cars were fantastically expensive. 186 00:12:22,213 --> 00:12:23,285 The Artzberger, 187 00:12:23,285 --> 00:12:26,115 made in Pittsburgh and the Pierce-Arrow were really toys 188 00:12:26,115 --> 00:12:30,561 for the rich people until one manufacturer 189 00:12:30,561 --> 00:12:32,986 in Detroit saw it differently - 190 00:12:34,386 --> 00:12:35,521 Henry Ford. 191 00:12:35,521 --> 00:12:42,328 He saw the automobile as a way to alieve one of the burden 192 00:12:42,328 --> 00:12:46,031 of working in nature at the sweat of one's brow. 193 00:12:46,031 --> 00:12:51,804 He was motivated by the desire to put the automobile into the hands, 194 00:12:51,804 --> 00:12:53,128 first farmers, 195 00:12:54,451 --> 00:12:56,342 and then generally into the hands of 196 00:12:56,342 --> 00:12:59,452 the ordinary people in the population. 197 00:12:59,452 --> 00:13:05,519 He wanted to produce many, many, many automobiles in a short, short time. 198 00:13:07,691 --> 00:13:13,592 Ford has this vision of smooth flow using an assembly line. 199 00:13:13,592 --> 00:13:16,081 These components were coming from up here. 200 00:13:16,774 --> 00:13:19,665 These components were on an endless lift. 201 00:13:19,665 --> 00:13:22,501 These components were coming on a belt, 202 00:13:22,501 --> 00:13:27,973 and everything is in motion, and I think the image of 203 00:13:27,973 --> 00:13:31,885 a number of streams flowing into a river captures 204 00:13:31,885 --> 00:13:34,313 the assembly line concept. 205 00:13:34,313 --> 00:13:37,850 (narrator) Henry Ford's model T was introduced in 1908 206 00:13:37,850 --> 00:13:41,137 at the price of $825. 207 00:13:41,921 --> 00:13:44,456 (Thomas P. Hughes) I think it would have been considered un-American in 208 00:13:44,456 --> 00:13:48,104 his eyes to produce an automobile for rich people. 209 00:13:48,104 --> 00:13:49,757 That's what foreigners do. 210 00:13:49,757 --> 00:13:52,088 Americans generally were committed to the 211 00:13:52,088 --> 00:13:56,017 proposition that every man and every woman should 212 00:13:56,017 --> 00:13:58,467 enjoy material abundance. 213 00:13:59,528 --> 00:14:00,940 That was the American spirit. 214 00:14:00,940 --> 00:14:02,222 That's America. 215 00:14:10,127 --> 00:14:12,585 (narrator) It was the promise of material abundance and 216 00:14:12,585 --> 00:14:14,887 freedom which drew more than 13 million 217 00:14:14,887 --> 00:14:20,013 impoverished Europeans to America between 1900 and 1914. 218 00:14:21,060 --> 00:14:23,162 They came from the Austro-Hungarian empire, 219 00:14:23,162 --> 00:14:25,397 from Russia, and from Italy. 220 00:14:25,397 --> 00:14:30,369 It was the greatest free migration in all of human history. 221 00:14:32,260 --> 00:14:33,880 My mother's mother Dominica, 222 00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:35,511 who's afraid to travel on boat, 223 00:14:35,511 --> 00:14:39,011 and the only way they got her on a boat was her brother tricked her. 224 00:14:39,011 --> 00:14:41,013 He went on the boat with her and said he was going with her, 225 00:14:41,013 --> 00:14:42,830 and at the last minute she turned away, 226 00:14:42,830 --> 00:14:44,165 and he left. 227 00:14:45,150 --> 00:14:47,820 (Clara Hancox) My mother came by herself through Siberia. 228 00:14:48,973 --> 00:14:51,968 She got to the coast and got on a boat. 229 00:14:59,011 --> 00:15:01,781 They were just sitting on the deck. 230 00:15:01,781 --> 00:15:05,366 Hoards of people huddled over their possessions, 231 00:15:05,366 --> 00:15:09,808 which consisted of old pillows with feathers and 232 00:15:09,808 --> 00:15:13,078 a few pieces of silverware tucked in there and stuff like that, 233 00:15:13,078 --> 00:15:14,280 like candlesticks, 234 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:18,341 and sleeping on the deck with one another, 235 00:15:18,341 --> 00:15:20,930 next to one another to keep oneself warm. 236 00:15:20,930 --> 00:15:22,724 It took weeks and weeks and weeks. 237 00:15:22,724 --> 00:15:24,150 It took ages. 238 00:15:26,673 --> 00:15:28,967 (Alfred Levitt) When I crossed the ocean, 239 00:15:28,967 --> 00:15:31,666 I never saw such waves in my life. 240 00:15:31,666 --> 00:15:34,428 I never knew an ocean existed. 241 00:15:41,257 --> 00:15:44,513 Approaching the New York harbor, 242 00:15:44,513 --> 00:15:49,100 the Statue of Liberty was there, and it gave me a free feeling, 243 00:15:51,861 --> 00:15:55,243 a feeling of liberty, a feeling of a new nation, 244 00:15:55,243 --> 00:15:59,427 a feeling of a new hope for a beautiful life. 245 00:16:17,656 --> 00:16:19,827 (Clara Hancox) There's something wonderful about being an immigrant. 246 00:16:19,827 --> 00:16:24,778 There's something so deliciously naïve and happy about 247 00:16:24,778 --> 00:16:27,631 being an immigrant who has escaped from something. 248 00:16:29,214 --> 00:16:30,927 My father would say from time to time, 249 00:16:30,927 --> 00:16:34,519 no matter how bad things were, at least we're free. 250 00:16:51,502 --> 00:16:53,746 (narrator) In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania it was said 251 00:16:53,746 --> 00:16:56,215 prosperity was measured by the thickness of 252 00:16:56,215 --> 00:16:58,174 the soot in the air. 253 00:17:03,095 --> 00:17:04,048 (Stanley Brozek) Oh, man. 254 00:17:04,048 --> 00:17:05,515 One of them furnaces let loose, 255 00:17:05,515 --> 00:17:09,882 the whole sky was full of red dust. 256 00:17:09,882 --> 00:17:11,183 Full of red dust. 257 00:17:11,183 --> 00:17:14,199 If you had your wash out, you had your laundry out, 258 00:17:14,199 --> 00:17:15,200 it was too bad. 259 00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:17,638 You had to run outside and pull that laundry in. 260 00:17:17,638 --> 00:17:20,010 It would be covered in red dust. 261 00:17:20,855 --> 00:17:23,075 You would see them coal mines lit up from Greensburg 262 00:17:23,075 --> 00:17:24,242 all the way to Uniontown. 263 00:17:24,242 --> 00:17:26,811 It was wonderful to see it. 264 00:17:27,595 --> 00:17:30,134 (narrator) Relentless production in Pittsburgh steel mills, 265 00:17:30,134 --> 00:17:33,474 foundries, and coal mines attracted an enormous 266 00:17:33,489 --> 00:17:36,988 number of immigrants and poor whites and blacks 267 00:17:36,988 --> 00:17:38,397 from the rural south. 268 00:17:38,397 --> 00:17:42,961 It was their labor which fed the furnace of industrial America. 269 00:17:42,961 --> 00:17:44,530 (Andy Jakomas) You had to pick everything up. 270 00:17:44,530 --> 00:17:46,698 You had to move everything by hand. 271 00:17:46,698 --> 00:17:48,901 No lunch breaks of any kind. 272 00:17:48,901 --> 00:17:50,903 You worked, and you had a sandwich in your hand. 273 00:17:50,903 --> 00:17:52,428 If you had to go to the restroom, 274 00:17:52,428 --> 00:17:53,906 boom, back right away. 275 00:17:53,906 --> 00:17:54,959 The timed you. 276 00:17:56,175 --> 00:17:58,243 When you get home at night, you couldn't lift your arms up. 277 00:17:58,243 --> 00:17:59,344 I remember this. 278 00:17:59,344 --> 00:18:00,512 Oh, I remember this distinctly. 279 00:18:00,512 --> 00:18:04,082 My father would come home, and he's say to my mother, 280 00:18:04,082 --> 00:18:07,953 "Rub my arms a little bit" because they were picking up... 281 00:18:07,953 --> 00:18:09,092 There was no... 282 00:18:09,675 --> 00:18:12,491 Huh, it was all mule work. 283 00:18:16,798 --> 00:18:18,998 (Frank Bolden) I had two uncles that worked in the mill. 284 00:18:20,332 --> 00:18:21,333 It was dangerous. 285 00:18:21,333 --> 00:18:23,642 No safety precautions were in the mills. 286 00:18:25,349 --> 00:18:28,210 You could walk in the mill and see people with one arm, 287 00:18:28,210 --> 00:18:30,008 one leg. 288 00:18:30,008 --> 00:18:33,645 You had an accident in the mills almost every two days, 289 00:18:33,645 --> 00:18:35,614 but nobody did anything about it. 290 00:18:37,398 --> 00:18:38,740 (narrator) There was no compensation 291 00:18:38,740 --> 00:18:40,554 for the injuries and death on the job, 292 00:18:40,554 --> 00:18:43,689 and it was almost impossible for workers in the early 293 00:18:43,689 --> 00:18:45,691 part of the century to organize. 294 00:18:46,798 --> 00:18:48,760 They'd try to start a union, and, of course, 295 00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:50,762 they had the coal and iron police they 296 00:18:50,762 --> 00:18:52,331 were called in those days. 297 00:18:52,331 --> 00:18:55,234 And they would bust a lot of heads and a lot of murders 298 00:18:55,234 --> 00:18:57,236 were committed, and a lot of, oh, 299 00:18:57,236 --> 00:19:00,706 a lot of things that you dare didn't say too much. 300 00:19:00,706 --> 00:19:02,107 If you worked in a mill, 301 00:19:02,107 --> 00:19:04,309 if your boss said something to you, 302 00:19:04,309 --> 00:19:05,862 that was it. That was the law. 303 00:19:07,647 --> 00:19:09,962 (narrator) Industrial work involves six days a week, 304 00:19:09,962 --> 00:19:12,150 12-16 hours a day. 305 00:19:12,150 --> 00:19:14,987 The daily wage - barely two dollars. 306 00:19:14,987 --> 00:19:17,422 Children, too, were made to work, 307 00:19:17,422 --> 00:19:19,858 two million of them across America, 308 00:19:19,858 --> 00:19:21,894 some as young as four. 309 00:19:22,801 --> 00:19:25,531 (E.L. Doctorow) "They did not complain as adults tended to do. 310 00:19:25,531 --> 00:19:29,201 "Employers liked to think of them as happy ills." 311 00:19:29,771 --> 00:19:33,605 (narrator) E. L. Doctorow wrote about child labor in his novel of life 312 00:19:33,605 --> 00:19:35,374 in the early century, Ragtime. 313 00:19:36,266 --> 00:19:37,776 "There were more agile than adults, 314 00:19:37,776 --> 00:19:40,232 "but they tended in the latter hours of the day 315 00:19:40,232 --> 00:19:42,160 "to lose a degree of efficiency. 316 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:44,878 "In the canneries and the mills - these were the hours they 317 00:19:44,878 --> 00:19:48,713 "were most likely to lose their fingers or have their 318 00:19:48,713 --> 00:19:51,119 "hands mangled or their legs crushed. 319 00:19:53,659 --> 00:19:56,061 "In the mines, they worked as sorters of coal and 320 00:19:56,061 --> 00:19:58,740 sometimes were smothered in the coal chutes." 321 00:20:01,233 --> 00:20:04,069 (narrator) As a child in the early part of the century, 322 00:20:04,069 --> 00:20:08,006 Polly Newman worked 13-hour days in a New York garment sweatshop, 323 00:20:08,006 --> 00:20:11,240 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. 324 00:20:11,810 --> 00:20:15,113 (off screen voice) We had a corner on the floor that resembled a kindergarten. 325 00:20:15,113 --> 00:20:16,882 You were not allowed to sing. 326 00:20:16,882 --> 00:20:19,618 We weren't allowed to talk to each other. 327 00:20:19,618 --> 00:20:21,929 The door was locked to keep us in. 328 00:20:23,422 --> 00:20:26,458 (narrator) The locked doors would prove to be fatal. 329 00:20:26,458 --> 00:20:29,728 On March 25, 1911, fire broke out in the factory. 330 00:20:29,728 --> 00:20:33,031 With an exit door locked on the ninth floor, 331 00:20:33,031 --> 00:20:35,033 many workers jumped to their death. 332 00:20:40,062 --> 00:20:40,944 (Mary Gale) I was 11, 333 00:20:42,143 --> 00:20:46,108 and I remember all of a sudden all of this New York 334 00:20:46,108 --> 00:20:49,481 went crazy because the kids were running around with 335 00:20:49,481 --> 00:20:52,551 the newspapers, hollering extra, 336 00:20:52,551 --> 00:20:55,253 that all these people had died in that fire. 337 00:21:00,681 --> 00:21:02,224 (narrator) 146 workers died. 338 00:21:06,131 --> 00:21:08,143 There were no sprinklers inside the factory then. 339 00:21:08,143 --> 00:21:11,269 There had never been a fire drill. 340 00:21:11,269 --> 00:21:14,873 The tragedy outraged a public that had become 341 00:21:14,873 --> 00:21:18,176 increasingly aware of both the underside of a 342 00:21:18,176 --> 00:21:21,613 prosperous nation and the need for reform. 343 00:21:22,643 --> 00:21:25,751 (John Milton Cooper) The great reform movement of this period was 344 00:21:25,751 --> 00:21:27,954 called progressivism. 345 00:21:28,584 --> 00:21:30,181 It's a belief in progress. 346 00:21:30,181 --> 00:21:34,868 It's a belief that we can make things better, 347 00:21:34,868 --> 00:21:39,131 that you can have a more just, more democratic society. 348 00:21:40,961 --> 00:21:43,769 (narrator) At the vanguard of social reform in this particular 349 00:21:43,769 --> 00:21:46,514 period were progressive women concerned about 350 00:21:46,514 --> 00:21:48,907 their own inferior status. 351 00:21:50,183 --> 00:21:51,810 (Lucy Haessler) When I was a girl, 352 00:21:51,810 --> 00:21:55,447 a woman didn't have rights to custody of their children. 353 00:21:55,447 --> 00:21:58,417 They didn't have the right to own property. 354 00:21:58,417 --> 00:22:01,920 A woman teacher didn't have the right to marry. 355 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:04,022 She didn't have the right to live alone. 356 00:22:04,022 --> 00:22:06,858 She had to board with a family. 357 00:22:06,858 --> 00:22:10,196 And if she started dating or she went out at night, 358 00:22:10,257 --> 00:22:12,197 she was fired. 359 00:22:12,197 --> 00:22:15,600 (narrator) For progressives such as Frances Garrison Villard, 360 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:17,936 suffrage, the vote for women, 361 00:22:17,936 --> 00:22:20,038 was the key to emancipation. 362 00:22:20,038 --> 00:22:24,109 (Henry Villard) Grandmother was a very strong militant suffragette. 363 00:22:26,411 --> 00:22:32,476 As a boy, I was more inclined to laugh at them and dismiss them. 364 00:22:33,485 --> 00:22:37,289 I didn't see any reason why they should have a vote. 365 00:22:37,289 --> 00:22:41,126 I would say I believe it's still a man's world. 366 00:22:41,126 --> 00:22:44,247 I would continue so for some time to come. 367 00:22:46,264 --> 00:22:49,067 (narrator) Some suffragettes were mounting a violent campaign. 368 00:22:49,067 --> 00:22:53,045 In Britain, one of them was willing to die for the cause. 369 00:22:54,429 --> 00:22:55,607 In June of 1913, 370 00:22:55,607 --> 00:22:59,410 Emily Davison threw herself in front of the king's horse 371 00:22:59,410 --> 00:23:00,917 at the popular Epsom Derby. 372 00:23:06,976 --> 00:23:08,386 She died with the inscription, 373 00:23:08,386 --> 00:23:11,280 "Votes for Women" sewn into her coat. 374 00:23:13,387 --> 00:23:16,428 That kind of sacrifice inspired American suffragettes 375 00:23:16,428 --> 00:23:18,430 to intensify their campaign. 376 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,002 The right to vote would also prove elusive for 377 00:23:24,002 --> 00:23:26,138 America's nine million blacks. 378 00:23:26,138 --> 00:23:29,074 Black men could vote in theory, 379 00:23:29,074 --> 00:23:31,943 but in fact most were barred by white intimidation, 380 00:23:31,943 --> 00:23:34,946 poll taxes, and literacy tests. 381 00:23:38,284 --> 00:23:41,067 85% of black Americans lived in poverty in 382 00:23:41,067 --> 00:23:42,988 the southern United States, 383 00:23:42,988 --> 00:23:46,758 segregated from whites by so-called Jim Crow laws, 384 00:23:46,758 --> 00:23:50,228 laws upheld by the Supreme Court that all but 385 00:23:50,228 --> 00:23:52,764 wiped out the freedom and equality 386 00:23:52,764 --> 00:23:55,000 once promised by emancipation. 387 00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:59,130 (John Milton Cooper) It is the complete denial of the American dream. 388 00:24:00,438 --> 00:24:03,175 They cannot go to the same schools with whites. 389 00:24:03,175 --> 00:24:05,811 They can't drink from the same drinking fountains. 390 00:24:05,811 --> 00:24:08,246 They cannot sit in the same part of a street car 391 00:24:08,246 --> 00:24:12,450 or in the same cars on a railroad. 392 00:24:12,450 --> 00:24:13,785 It's a horrible time. 393 00:24:13,785 --> 00:24:15,854 White politicians compete with each other in the 394 00:24:15,854 --> 00:24:18,824 south for being more, at least verbally, 395 00:24:18,824 --> 00:24:23,895 violent toward African-Americans and in many cases are 396 00:24:23,895 --> 00:24:26,743 encouraging or at least abetting actual violence. 397 00:24:34,506 --> 00:24:35,607 (George Kimbley) They were lynching blacks. 398 00:24:35,607 --> 00:24:38,776 There was hardly a week that two or three blacks didn't get lynched 399 00:24:40,750 --> 00:24:42,519 or burned at the stake. 400 00:24:43,381 --> 00:24:45,383 I don't know whether you heard that or not. 401 00:24:45,383 --> 00:24:48,384 You ever hear of any black people getting burned at the stake. 402 00:24:49,154 --> 00:24:50,290 Well, that's what happened. 403 00:24:50,290 --> 00:24:52,424 I lived in those days. 404 00:24:55,727 --> 00:24:58,196 (narrator) The most prominent black leader with the turn of the century, 405 00:24:58,196 --> 00:24:59,998 Booker T. Washington, 406 00:24:59,998 --> 00:25:02,868 accepted the notion of separateness. 407 00:25:02,868 --> 00:25:05,070 He asked blacks to better themselves through work 408 00:25:05,070 --> 00:25:07,038 and vocational training. 409 00:25:07,038 --> 00:25:11,233 From whites he asked for help, not equality. 410 00:25:11,233 --> 00:25:13,778 (John Milton Cooper) Booker T. Washington was born a slave. 411 00:25:13,778 --> 00:25:16,948 Called his autobiography, "Up from Slavery." 412 00:25:16,948 --> 00:25:19,980 This is a man who has pulled himself up 413 00:25:20,887 --> 00:25:22,754 by his own bootstraps. 414 00:25:22,754 --> 00:25:27,726 And he takes the perspective that it would be foolish 415 00:25:27,726 --> 00:25:34,361 to challenge what's being done to them too soon and too openly. 416 00:25:35,066 --> 00:25:37,602 (narrator) But there would be a challenge. 417 00:25:37,602 --> 00:25:39,871 In 1905, the black intellectual, 418 00:25:39,871 --> 00:25:43,675 W. E. B. Du Bois urged a new struggle for full political 419 00:25:43,675 --> 00:25:45,677 and social equality. 420 00:25:48,613 --> 00:25:52,550 Entrenched resistance to such change would make civil rights, 421 00:25:52,550 --> 00:25:53,985 as Du Bois predicted, 422 00:25:53,985 --> 00:25:57,522 the major social issue in American life for 423 00:25:57,522 --> 00:25:59,456 the rest of the century. 424 00:26:06,209 --> 00:26:07,280 At the turn of the century, 425 00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,101 there were 76 million people in America. 426 00:26:10,101 --> 00:26:14,205 The majority of them lived on farms or in small towns 427 00:26:14,205 --> 00:26:17,075 where they relied on gaslight and horsepower. 428 00:26:18,967 --> 00:26:21,400 (Lorine Hyer) Every morning, the milkman came, 429 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,459 and the cream at the top would rise, 430 00:26:23,459 --> 00:26:25,895 and if you got there early, 431 00:26:25,895 --> 00:26:28,954 you could take a lick of the cream before your mother 432 00:26:28,954 --> 00:26:31,289 found out what you were doing. 433 00:26:31,919 --> 00:26:37,028 (Frank Truxall) It was a great period of the front porch. 434 00:26:37,028 --> 00:26:39,698 In the evenings after dinner, 435 00:26:39,698 --> 00:26:46,263 the family would assemble on the front streets. 436 00:26:47,324 --> 00:26:51,843 Some of the times the neighbors would pass, 437 00:26:51,843 --> 00:26:54,596 and we exchanged bows. 438 00:26:56,333 --> 00:26:57,590 We played games: 439 00:26:57,590 --> 00:27:05,894 I Spy and Run Sheep Run and Lemonade What Was Your Trade. 440 00:27:08,693 --> 00:27:12,274 (E.L. Doctorow) "Tennis rackets were hefty and the racket face elliptical. 441 00:27:13,766 --> 00:27:15,934 "Women were stouter then. 442 00:27:17,318 --> 00:27:20,605 "They visited the fleet carrying white parasols. 443 00:27:20,605 --> 00:27:22,890 "Everyone wore white in summer. 444 00:27:22,890 --> 00:27:24,042 "That was the style. 445 00:27:24,042 --> 00:27:26,074 That was the way people lived." 446 00:27:28,413 --> 00:27:30,615 (narrator) But the rhythm of American life was quickening in the 447 00:27:30,615 --> 00:27:32,851 early years of the century as more and more people 448 00:27:32,851 --> 00:27:35,412 headed for the cities with the bright lights 449 00:27:35,412 --> 00:27:37,953 and the myriad of opportunities. 450 00:27:38,923 --> 00:27:43,175 (Albert Glotzer) I was four years old when I came to Chicago. 451 00:27:44,005 --> 00:27:49,808 It was a real magical thing to see the streetcars 452 00:27:49,808 --> 00:27:51,937 moving up and down 453 00:27:51,937 --> 00:27:55,608 and the street filled with people all the time, 454 00:27:55,608 --> 00:27:59,072 and great activities going on. 455 00:27:59,072 --> 00:28:02,184 I recall looking at it with wonder. 456 00:28:03,815 --> 00:28:06,284 (narrator) The cities, New York City more than most, 457 00:28:06,284 --> 00:28:08,286 were centers for the latest engineering 458 00:28:08,286 --> 00:28:10,158 and technological marvels. 459 00:28:13,082 --> 00:28:15,741 (David McCullough) The skyscraper is born in that time, 460 00:28:15,741 --> 00:28:21,066 completely new building form and completely new idea that 461 00:28:21,066 --> 00:28:23,068 a city could grow up instead of out. 462 00:28:24,668 --> 00:28:26,771 (Alfred Levitt) It's an amazing sight to me. 463 00:28:26,771 --> 00:28:29,002 I saw the Flat Iron Building. 464 00:28:29,740 --> 00:28:31,958 I saw the Woolworth Tower. 465 00:28:32,420 --> 00:28:39,900 It is a very stunning view how a building can pierce the sky. 466 00:28:41,886 --> 00:28:44,255 (narrator) And underground there was a new way to travel. 467 00:28:44,255 --> 00:28:45,256 In New York City, 468 00:28:45,256 --> 00:28:48,015 the subway was inaugurated in 1904. 469 00:28:51,963 --> 00:28:54,667 One could ride the subway to the outskirts of the city 470 00:28:54,667 --> 00:28:57,402 where the power of science and technology was 471 00:28:57,402 --> 00:29:00,134 harnessed for pursuit of a good time. 472 00:29:02,458 --> 00:29:06,186 Tens of thousands of New Yorkers went every day and night 473 00:29:06,698 --> 00:29:08,071 to Coney Island. 474 00:29:16,748 --> 00:29:17,524 When I came there, 475 00:29:17,524 --> 00:29:22,227 my brothers immediately treated me to a hot dog. 476 00:29:22,227 --> 00:29:23,228 Nathan's. 477 00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,532 I done run into the water. 478 00:29:29,499 --> 00:29:32,537 I tasted all over me the salt of the sea. 479 00:29:33,108 --> 00:29:35,713 I was baptized by nature. 480 00:29:37,696 --> 00:29:42,772 There was a kind of freedom that I never dreamt. 481 00:29:42,772 --> 00:29:45,356 That I could have. 482 00:29:47,156 --> 00:29:49,187 (narrator) That sense of freedom was also spread by the 483 00:29:49,187 --> 00:29:51,356 availability of ideas. 484 00:29:51,356 --> 00:29:53,358 In the early part of the century, 485 00:29:53,358 --> 00:29:56,427 some 9,000 public libraries in the country dispensed 486 00:29:56,427 --> 00:29:59,464 information freely and democratically. 487 00:29:59,464 --> 00:30:03,868 One man said to me, "Alfred, do you know that 488 00:30:03,868 --> 00:30:07,372 there's a library on 42nd Street?" 489 00:30:07,372 --> 00:30:10,576 I says, "I do, but I know was never there." 490 00:30:10,576 --> 00:30:13,745 He says, "That's where you belong. 491 00:30:13,745 --> 00:30:15,880 You'll get all the literature in the world," 492 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,139 and it doesn't cost you a dime." 493 00:30:19,031 --> 00:30:22,253 I read an immense number of books, 494 00:30:22,253 --> 00:30:27,258 because I wanted to understand the American people's minds. 495 00:30:27,258 --> 00:30:33,064 I wanted to be completely American and forget all of my past. 496 00:30:38,245 --> 00:30:40,846 Immigrants themselves bringing new languages and 497 00:30:40,846 --> 00:30:43,185 customs were making the culture of the city just 498 00:30:43,185 --> 00:30:45,038 that much more diverse. 499 00:30:45,038 --> 00:30:50,200 The immigrant nourishment this nation has always had, 500 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:54,845 the incoming people has been an extremely important 501 00:30:54,845 --> 00:30:58,483 part of our vitality, our ingenuity. 502 00:30:59,144 --> 00:31:04,329 It's like aerating the stream of life here. 503 00:31:04,329 --> 00:31:07,098 (narrator) Early in this century, one in three residents of 504 00:31:07,098 --> 00:31:10,401 major American cites had been born somewhere else. 505 00:31:10,401 --> 00:31:12,704 New York had twice as many Irish as Dublin, 506 00:31:12,704 --> 00:31:15,773 and Chicago had more Poles than Warsaw. 507 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:18,697 We had Polish people. 508 00:31:18,697 --> 00:31:20,850 We had Irish people. 509 00:31:20,850 --> 00:31:24,321 We had Jewish people, and we had Italian people. 510 00:31:24,321 --> 00:31:27,846 And they were all friendly, 511 00:31:27,846 --> 00:31:30,412 and we were all in the same boat. 512 00:31:30,412 --> 00:31:32,756 None of us had any money. 513 00:31:34,109 --> 00:31:36,665 (Martin Scorsese) My grandparents - the only place they could get rooms 514 00:31:37,003 --> 00:31:38,575 literally was on Elizabeth Street, 515 00:31:38,575 --> 00:31:40,846 which is where my mother was born. 516 00:31:40,846 --> 00:31:42,944 The apartment was two-and-a-half room, 517 00:31:42,944 --> 00:31:45,970 three rooms, and maybe 14 people were living in it. 518 00:31:45,970 --> 00:31:48,139 And at night it'd look like, you know, 519 00:31:48,139 --> 00:31:50,560 a hospital ward with all these beds and all these 520 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:52,323 people sleeping in these different beds. 521 00:31:55,030 --> 00:31:56,342 (Clara Hancox) There were no bathrooms. 522 00:31:56,342 --> 00:31:57,658 There were toilets. 523 00:31:57,674 --> 00:32:00,118 They were in the hallway. 524 00:32:00,118 --> 00:32:04,389 But my mother and father thought that this was wonderful 525 00:32:04,389 --> 00:32:08,593 because in the old country the toilets were in the backyard, 526 00:32:08,593 --> 00:32:13,631 and the fact that in the kitchen we had not only running water 527 00:32:13,631 --> 00:32:17,107 so that you didn't have to go to the well for water 528 00:32:17,107 --> 00:32:19,976 but we had hot water... 529 00:32:19,976 --> 00:32:22,578 My mother, every week that she did the wash, 530 00:32:22,578 --> 00:32:25,636 she said how wonderful, how wonderful, 531 00:32:25,636 --> 00:32:27,645 we have hot water. 532 00:32:29,060 --> 00:32:31,963 (narrator) Steadily rising income and declining work hours meant 533 00:32:31,963 --> 00:32:34,252 that for the first time, even working class people 534 00:32:34,252 --> 00:32:36,521 could go out in search of entertainment. 535 00:32:39,782 --> 00:32:41,526 Five cents bought a ticket to the 536 00:32:41,526 --> 00:32:45,096 newest entertainment phenomenon, moving pictures. 537 00:32:51,249 --> 00:32:54,294 (off screen voice) We were so taken with the nickel shows. 538 00:32:54,294 --> 00:33:00,309 Two of us would beg to be admitted by sitting on one seat. 539 00:33:00,309 --> 00:33:03,348 (narrator) The earliest movies introduced simultaneously in France 540 00:33:03,348 --> 00:33:06,584 and the United States in the 1890s were simple tableau 541 00:33:06,584 --> 00:33:08,252 of anything that moved, 542 00:33:08,252 --> 00:33:11,957 either make believe or what was called actuality. 543 00:33:14,157 --> 00:33:17,941 In 1903 came the first American film that actually told a story, 544 00:33:17,956 --> 00:33:22,367 "The Great Train Robbery", a western filmed in New Jersey. 545 00:33:22,367 --> 00:33:25,650 Its huge success made it clear that fiction was 546 00:33:25,650 --> 00:33:27,063 what the audience wanted most. 547 00:33:29,139 --> 00:33:31,275 There was comedy, 548 00:33:32,751 --> 00:33:35,480 and then there was the Perils of Pauline, 549 00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,883 which was a serial that went on 550 00:33:38,883 --> 00:33:42,304 every Saturday afternoon. 551 00:33:42,934 --> 00:33:46,661 Every week she was in a situation.. 552 00:33:46,661 --> 00:33:48,593 A lot of kids. 553 00:33:48,593 --> 00:33:53,064 It wasn't the movie to them. 554 00:33:53,064 --> 00:33:54,732 It was actuality. 555 00:33:58,792 --> 00:34:01,434 (narrator) Beginning in 1910, Americans were also seeing 556 00:34:01,434 --> 00:34:03,195 newsreels from around the world. 557 00:34:05,733 --> 00:34:09,562 It's coming as a great force for mass entertainment 558 00:34:09,562 --> 00:34:11,278 and for mass culture. 559 00:34:11,278 --> 00:34:13,533 There is this sense of possibility, 560 00:34:13,533 --> 00:34:14,472 the sense of openness, 561 00:34:14,472 --> 00:34:16,442 the sense of widening the horizons. 562 00:34:17,718 --> 00:34:20,860 What it does is it opens the world. 563 00:34:36,514 --> 00:34:39,930 (narrator) In Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, 564 00:34:39,930 --> 00:34:42,880 a mysterious explosion sank an American cruiser, 565 00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:44,948 the USS Maine. 566 00:34:44,948 --> 00:34:47,752 266 officers and sailors were killed. 567 00:34:50,054 --> 00:34:53,491 Cuba was a Spanish colony 90 miles from Florida. 568 00:34:53,491 --> 00:34:56,581 Although there was no evidence of Spanish involvement, 569 00:34:56,581 --> 00:35:01,313 cries of revenge against Spain swept across America. 570 00:35:02,667 --> 00:35:04,135 But President William McKinley, 571 00:35:04,135 --> 00:35:06,337 who would lead American into the 20th century, 572 00:35:06,337 --> 00:35:08,406 was reluctant to go to war. 573 00:35:09,283 --> 00:35:12,537 (Stanley Karnow) President McKinley is a silver-tongued orator, 574 00:35:13,537 --> 00:35:14,735 a very popular, 575 00:35:14,735 --> 00:35:18,349 sweet man but a very indecisive man. 576 00:35:18,349 --> 00:35:21,586 They used to say that McKinley's mind is like an unmade bed. 577 00:35:21,586 --> 00:35:24,388 You have to make it up for him before he can use it. 578 00:35:24,388 --> 00:35:27,592 (narrator) Much more eager for war and foreign adventure in 579 00:35:27,592 --> 00:35:31,329 general was McKinley's young Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 580 00:35:31,329 --> 00:35:32,930 Theodore Roosevelt. 581 00:35:32,930 --> 00:35:35,700 (Stanley Karnow) Theodore Roosevelt was a great believer in outdoorism, 582 00:35:35,700 --> 00:35:37,702 a great believer in activity. 583 00:35:37,702 --> 00:35:39,403 He was vigorous, you know. 584 00:35:39,403 --> 00:35:42,573 You could imagine him sort of taking cold showers all the time. 585 00:35:43,896 --> 00:35:48,079 He carried all of this in character into his politics. 586 00:35:49,524 --> 00:35:54,260 He was a great believer in American power, 587 00:35:54,260 --> 00:35:57,544 in American imperialism, a great believer in war. 588 00:35:58,435 --> 00:36:02,463 War is one of the highest forms of human endeavor, he wrote. 589 00:36:03,294 --> 00:36:06,297 (narrator) With Roosevelt and others lobbying intensely for it, 590 00:36:06,297 --> 00:36:10,988 Congress declared war on Spain in April of 1898. 591 00:36:11,541 --> 00:36:14,472 Roosevelt left his job in Washington to 592 00:36:14,472 --> 00:36:17,141 join the campaign in Cuba. 593 00:36:17,141 --> 00:36:20,311 Theodore Roosevelt organizes his own cowboy buddies from 594 00:36:20,311 --> 00:36:25,116 the west into the Rough Riders and goes to Brooks Brothers 595 00:36:25,116 --> 00:36:29,887 and gets a uniform made and gets out a big saber and 596 00:36:29,887 --> 00:36:33,090 goes down there and storms San Juan Hill. 597 00:36:34,459 --> 00:36:37,316 (narrator) It took the United States less than three months to defeat 598 00:36:37,316 --> 00:36:40,644 Spain in what one American official called 599 00:36:40,644 --> 00:36:42,521 a splendid little war. 600 00:36:44,736 --> 00:36:47,104 The spoils of war for the United States were the 601 00:36:47,104 --> 00:36:51,261 Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, 602 00:36:51,261 --> 00:36:53,227 and the Philippines. 603 00:36:53,227 --> 00:36:55,313 The United States was now an empire. 604 00:36:59,865 --> 00:37:02,360 At the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo, 605 00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:04,938 New York in September 1901, President McKinley was 606 00:37:04,938 --> 00:37:08,893 killed by an assassin with no particular cause beyond 607 00:37:08,893 --> 00:37:10,328 his own dissatisfaction. 608 00:37:13,804 --> 00:37:16,701 Theodore Roosevelt, by then Vice President, 609 00:37:16,701 --> 00:37:18,884 became America's leader. 610 00:37:20,606 --> 00:37:25,401 He's really the first President who sees the United States as a global power. 611 00:37:25,401 --> 00:37:30,147 America's century begins really with Roosevelt. 612 00:37:31,393 --> 00:37:34,956 Theodore Roosevelt was an imperialist. 613 00:37:34,956 --> 00:37:38,122 He actually gloried in the term, 614 00:37:38,122 --> 00:37:42,994 and he wanted the United States to be a real empire, 615 00:37:42,994 --> 00:37:46,468 exercising great power in the same ways that 616 00:37:46,468 --> 00:37:49,239 the great European empires did. 617 00:37:50,901 --> 00:37:53,604 (narrator) Roosevelt's design included linking the Pacific and 618 00:37:53,604 --> 00:37:56,674 Atlantic Oceans by building a canal through the Isthmus 619 00:37:56,674 --> 00:37:59,552 of Panama in northern Colombia. 620 00:37:59,552 --> 00:38:02,246 Such a canal would greatly facilitate shipping and 621 00:38:02,246 --> 00:38:05,616 ensure America's strategic hold on the region. 622 00:38:05,616 --> 00:38:08,386 But when the Colombians refused to cooperate, 623 00:38:08,386 --> 00:38:11,088 Roosevelt encouraged the Panamanians to revolt 624 00:38:11,088 --> 00:38:13,090 against their Colombian rulers. 625 00:38:14,305 --> 00:38:17,362 Within a couple of days, we recognized the new 626 00:38:17,362 --> 00:38:21,765 independent Republic of Panama, and within another few days, 627 00:38:21,765 --> 00:38:23,630 we had concluded a treaty with them. 628 00:38:23,630 --> 00:38:27,178 Roosevelt said when other people dithered and 629 00:38:27,178 --> 00:38:30,724 when other people debated, I acted. 630 00:38:30,724 --> 00:38:31,928 I took action. 631 00:38:35,173 --> 00:38:37,114 (narrator) Construction of the era's engineering 632 00:38:37,114 --> 00:38:39,417 wonder began in 1904. 633 00:38:39,417 --> 00:38:43,954 Alfred Bingham visited the canal site as a child. 634 00:38:43,954 --> 00:38:47,925 I can remember riding along in this car on 635 00:38:47,925 --> 00:38:50,428 the bottom of the canal. 636 00:38:50,428 --> 00:38:57,034 A lot of big machinery and a lot of trains going up and down, 637 00:38:57,034 --> 00:38:59,270 taking the diggings out. 638 00:38:59,270 --> 00:39:02,606 And there were marvelous bit structures 639 00:39:02,606 --> 00:39:07,044 such as that were to be the locks. 640 00:39:09,012 --> 00:39:11,248 The building of the canal itself was the greatest 641 00:39:11,248 --> 00:39:15,319 engineering feat that had ever been done up to that time, 642 00:39:15,319 --> 00:39:19,190 and it's all of the great power and technology and 643 00:39:19,190 --> 00:39:21,192 energy of this age harnessed there. 644 00:39:23,376 --> 00:39:26,163 There's a wonderful photo of Theodore Roosevelt at one 645 00:39:26,163 --> 00:39:28,966 of the controls of one of these gigantic steam shovels 646 00:39:28,966 --> 00:39:31,902 that they used to dig out the ditch. 647 00:39:31,902 --> 00:39:36,821 The Panama Canal is a wonderful expression not only of him 648 00:39:36,821 --> 00:39:39,157 but in many ways of America of that time. 649 00:39:44,954 --> 00:39:48,200 (narrator) In mid-August of 1914, Americans celebrated the 650 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,256 opening of the Panama Canal, 651 00:39:50,256 --> 00:39:55,000 a triumph of both technology and man's will over nature. 652 00:39:57,369 --> 00:39:59,830 An engineering feat as impressive as the pyramids, 653 00:39:59,830 --> 00:40:03,134 the canal would also become the symbol of America's entrance 654 00:40:03,134 --> 00:40:07,204 into the international arena at a time when 655 00:40:07,204 --> 00:40:10,355 the world was becoming more dangerous. 656 00:40:11,509 --> 00:40:12,510 That same week, 657 00:40:12,510 --> 00:40:15,613 the great powers of Europe were headed for a violent encounter 658 00:40:15,613 --> 00:40:18,582 that none of them could even imagine, 659 00:40:18,582 --> 00:40:21,285 promoted by German ambition. 660 00:40:21,285 --> 00:40:22,353 Early in the century, 661 00:40:22,353 --> 00:40:25,689 Germany had emerged as the industrial power in Europe, 662 00:40:25,689 --> 00:40:28,359 rivaling Britain and already mightier than France, 663 00:40:28,359 --> 00:40:31,562 the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia. 664 00:40:31,562 --> 00:40:33,564 But as Europe's youngest empire, 665 00:40:33,564 --> 00:40:36,000 Germany wielded little political 666 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:42,608 (Joachin Von Elbe) Germany is really a great power and a leader of nations and 667 00:40:42,608 --> 00:40:46,938 wanted at least to be equal to others, 668 00:40:46,938 --> 00:40:49,896 not to be considered less important than 669 00:40:49,896 --> 00:40:52,123 other powers like England. 670 00:40:53,615 --> 00:40:56,799 (narrator) Under Kaiser Wilhelm, Germany was training the 671 00:40:56,799 --> 00:40:59,658 best land army in the world, five million men, 672 00:40:59,658 --> 00:41:02,526 and had begun building a powerful navy. 673 00:41:06,309 --> 00:41:09,679 (Jay Winter) To build that navy required nerve because 674 00:41:09,679 --> 00:41:11,692 it was a direct challenge to Britain, 675 00:41:11,692 --> 00:41:14,985 and that conflict between Britain and Germany is 676 00:41:14,985 --> 00:41:18,709 at the heart of international affairs before 1914. 677 00:41:20,616 --> 00:41:22,513 (narrator) Britain responded by launching the most 678 00:41:22,513 --> 00:41:25,753 powerful warship on earth, the Dreadnought. 679 00:41:27,399 --> 00:41:31,021 It was a revolution in naval warfare. 680 00:41:31,021 --> 00:41:36,245 It was an all-big gunship, big 12-inch guns. 681 00:41:38,337 --> 00:41:41,626 Also, the Dreadnought had the latest 682 00:41:41,626 --> 00:41:43,900 technological equipment on it. 683 00:41:43,900 --> 00:41:45,703 It had electrical equipment, for example. 684 00:41:45,703 --> 00:41:48,272 Once the British had a Dreadnought, 685 00:41:48,272 --> 00:41:51,432 the Germans had to have a Dreadnought, etc., etc. 686 00:41:52,109 --> 00:41:55,179 (narrator) The tensions fed by an arms race and rivalry among 687 00:41:55,179 --> 00:41:57,689 the major European powers finally came to a head 688 00:41:57,689 --> 00:42:01,585 in June of 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 689 00:42:01,585 --> 00:42:04,421 the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, 690 00:42:04,421 --> 00:42:09,419 was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. 691 00:42:10,361 --> 00:42:13,392 There was no reason why the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, 692 00:42:13,392 --> 00:42:17,334 who signaled the collision of fundamental interests. 693 00:42:17,334 --> 00:42:20,437 It was a matter of choice. 694 00:42:20,437 --> 00:42:24,975 And that choice was made in Vienna and in Berlin to 695 00:42:24,975 --> 00:42:28,212 make it more than an assassination. 696 00:42:28,212 --> 00:42:30,347 (narrator) In late July with German's support, 697 00:42:30,347 --> 00:42:33,384 the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on Serbia, 698 00:42:33,384 --> 00:42:37,254 and within days all the great powers of Europe bound 699 00:42:37,254 --> 00:42:40,357 by their various alliances were at war with each other. 700 00:42:43,433 --> 00:42:44,644 (Henry Villard) I was at a camp, 701 00:42:44,644 --> 00:42:48,832 a boys camp in New Hampshire in 1914 when war was declared, 702 00:42:48,832 --> 00:42:53,804 and it was a shock to a very peaceful world. 703 00:42:53,804 --> 00:42:56,941 But nobody took it too seriously. 704 00:42:56,941 --> 00:42:59,209 War was bad, of course, 705 00:42:59,209 --> 00:43:03,681 but it was also something that would be temporary and 706 00:43:03,681 --> 00:43:05,683 would not have a far-reaching effect. 707 00:43:12,189 --> 00:43:14,925 (narrator) But this war would be more catastrophic than any 708 00:43:14,925 --> 00:43:17,695 which had gone before, one in which technology, 709 00:43:17,695 --> 00:43:19,029 engine of progress, 710 00:43:19,029 --> 00:43:22,633 would be used in the slaughter of millions, 711 00:43:22,633 --> 00:43:25,536 a war that would sow greater hatred and 712 00:43:25,536 --> 00:43:28,485 result in far greater consequences than anyone 713 00:43:28,485 --> 00:43:32,781 could imagine in that summer of 1914. 714 00:43:35,012 --> 00:43:38,916 What was optimistically called the war to end all wars 715 00:43:38,916 --> 00:43:41,885 would draw America into an increasingly complex 716 00:43:41,885 --> 00:43:43,654 and dangerous world. 717 00:43:43,654 --> 00:43:46,023 That's on the next episode of The Century, 718 00:43:46,023 --> 00:43:48,425 America's Time. 719 00:43:48,425 --> 00:43:49,994 I'm Peter Jennings. 720 00:43:49,994 --> 00:43:50,995 Thank you for joining us.