That the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. By the time Franklin Roosevelt gives his 199033 speech, a quarter of the nation is unemployed. 5000 banks have failed and drought is persisting in key agricultural areas of the country. You people must have faith. Coming up in the next hour, stories from the Great Depression as we take you around the country to places like around the country to places like toledo. The banking failure of the Great Depression. 26 for Infrastructure Projects of the times impacting us today. And to one ending in tragedy. We will take you to st. Paul where a depression era gangster and the corrupt police force strike a bargain. We will explore the impact of programs like the civilian conservation corps, as we go to kansas outside of amarillo, texas. We would not have a park here if it were not for the corp. And we will learn about the people who were hit hardest, and their tails. When the sun comes shining announcer we take a trip to toledo, ohio. In the 1920s, toledo was the Fastest Growing manufacturing city in america. In some ways, it was like the Silicon Valley of today. The Auto Industry cutting Edge Technologies were centered here at the time. And as a result, the Manufacturing Bank was going gangbusters. Toledo appeared to be one of the brightest economic spots on the whole american map, during a decade that was a decade of prosperity. And then in 1931, the entire house of cards collapsed all in one week. And five of the six largest banks in toledo all failed at the same time, which made it the largest banking failure of the Great Depression. The Banking Industry here was perhaps the 27th largest city in america. Its economy was rather diversified for a city of its size. It was an upandcoming major producer of automobiles. It had one of the largest automobile companies, producing cars here. Hadit was also a city that a Large Manufacturing base in the glass industry. Not only did it have her bubbly the most Glass Production of any city in the country, its companies owned all the important patents to glass technologies. Any bottle and any windowpane that was made in the world, some of those royalties came back to toledo. The Banking System in toledo is similar to the Banking System throughout ohio and maybe even the country, in that the banks were mostly chartered by the state government, not the federal government. And that is significant because that means the federal government did not regulate or inspect them. Instead, the inspections and regulations were done by the state of ohio. And that unfortunately allowed banks to pretty much pursue a wild west atmosphere of investing. They really didnt have many constraints on the type of loans that they would give out. They really didnt have many constraints on any Business Decisions that they made. What would eventually happen is that the banks pretty much escaped even state regulation. We know this because just on the eve of all these banks collapsing, the state inspectors certified them all as being healthy. And in fact, the bank that is right next door, the Security Home bank, was put on the honor roll of ohio banks even though it had not made a profit in over a year, and even though the inspectors discovered that they were at least 300,000 short on their accounting. And the Bank Directors had given themselves dividends illegally. In spite of all in spite of that, they put it on the honor roll of banking. Thats how weak banking regulations were here. We are in the former trust building, which was the only bank that survived that period. It survived because it was part of a Federal Reserve system and was federally inspected. Banks had to have good at accounting and it was not able to escape the regulations put upon it. When their bank crisis occurred, when the other banks began failing, this bank could call upon the Federal Reserve in cleveland and have an armored truck filled with 11 million in cash, driven out here so fast that it got into an accident and had to transfer its entire stock into a different armored car to make the trip. It was putting the depositors at ease that they had money. All of the banks in the city were owned by local investors, and controlled by local directors. The major problem that leads to the bank, is that the directors and owners were also involved in other companies. They were often times the owners of Big Manufacturing Companies in town. Often times Bank Directors would be directors on two or three banks at the same time. All the Bank Directors were heavily invested in Real Estate Companies because one of the primary contributors to the bank crisis here in toledo in the 1930s, just as it was in america in 2007, was the overinvestment in real estate. Real estate speculation reached a mindboggling rate in the 1920s. For example, by 1925 there was 435 Real Estate Companies in this small city. They developed 67 subdivisions, which could hold over one Million People for a city of a quarter Million People. Clearly overleveraged and over invested. Real Estate Companies could do this because they were owned by Real Estate Investors who were loaning money and giving themselves money. The interlocking directives of the Real Estate Companies and Manufacturing Companies meant there were all these incentives for bankers to give downloads when there was not collateral out loans when there was not collateral for a Good Business reason to do so. By 1931, that overhang of bad loans, finally the bill came do. On june 6, 1931, rumors were swirling around the city that the banks were about to fail. Crowds of depositors lined up outside the doors to demand their money. Little did they know that when they lined up outside the doors the people inside the banks, the directors, owners, and investors were already moving their money, leaving them very little. Toledo, after the bank crisis of 1931, went from being a city in recession to a city in catastrophe. By the winter of 1932, its estimated half of all the workers in toledo were laid off. Things got so bad that the city of toledo, which went bankrupt, cannot afford to buy bulbs for streetlights. The city got a little darker and darker. They cannot replace fire trucks. The number of fires that burned out of control increased every year. By 1934, one out of six people were on federal relief. Federal relief was so tight for toledo that dietitians begin calculating the minimum number of calories needed to maintain life. Thats what was allocated to individuals. It could not have been much worse, from that sense. The city was very much closed by 1932 as a result of the bank crisis. Toledo was in a state of economic catastrophe through most of the Great Depression. It was not until 1936 that the programs of the new deal had an affect. 1930s is a high proportion of the workforce. It was federal new deal relief that got the city back on its feet. Of course, its also true throughout the country and the Great Depression, the coming of the war in the 1940s invigorating the economy. Toledo began making the famous wartime released jeep. A converted many of its hardware factories into munitions factories. By the early 1940s, toledo was running on full employment. The economy would never rebound the way it was in the 1920s. The 1920s, toledo was one of the Fastest Growing cities in the country. After the war, and the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, their rate of growth fell behind the national average. They never recovered after the Great Depression. Its a significant event of the citys modern history. Fdr speaks to the nation on march for, 1933. You must have faith. Let me make it clear that the banks will take care of all means. Thehe Banking System is not only thing that president roosevelt has his eyes on. Wants, her roosevelt gets. Anything he needs to put out the fire. Every newic days, deal passes without question. The new secretary of the interior administers the pwa come the program of public works designed to create new jobs for the unemployed. That work on largescale public works and infrastructure. One of the most notable is the hoover dam. Tour featurecities on the Great Depression takes you to what was originally called the boulder dam until the name was changed to honor herbert hoover. Hoover dam was started in 1931, in april. The contractors were given seven years to complete it and got it done in five years. When the federal government decided to authorize hoover dam and fund it, it took six different Construction Companies to come together with their resources to have enough stuff, machines, manpower to put this together. You will see signs around hoover dam that was built i six by six companies, because that is actually how many it took. They joined forces to build this beautiful place. There were about 21,000 men that worked on the dan. About 1934 there were 5000 workers. The workers worked 24 7. They had two days off a year they could take. It was voluntary. You ask those people what the days were, everybody gets christmas, but the other day they could take off was the fourth of july. The primary purpose for building hoover dam was flood control. The Colorado River could flood and flood, trickle and trickle and flood. One person said it was too thick too thin to farm. Control theto colorado because it kept washing everything away. Other purpose was monitored delivery. Up. Water was divvied a way toed to have deliver the water. You have to do it when the farmers need it, so water delivery was different. Right now, i believe we have come down about 500 feet. We are in one of the tunnels that was built inside the rock walls. The arizona sign is part of hoover dam that contained nine generators. It is generating electricity. You can see that some of them are generating and some of them are not. We do not generate electricity all the time. We generate it when we get an order from the Electrical Company that we need more power. You will see some of these generators irs. Power,ot just generate we deliver water. Powerl not generate any because the water is designed to fill water orders and generate electricity. Hoover dam is 126 feet high. That is higher than the washington monument. We are about 50 feet above the bedrock. Feed theng to contractors who have water entitlements to the colorado. It is a gravity arch dam. It comes up to 45 feet at the top. Againstshing down and the walls of the canyon. About 4. 3 million cubic yards of concrete. That is enough to build a 16 foot wide highway from los angeles to new york. A lot of construction people know that concrete takes time to cool. To make that deadline, they built their own refrigeration plant and they ran types through the concrete with refrigerated water so they could keep pouring. As they poured, they cooled the concrete. It was an ingenious thing to build their own refrigeration plant at the bottom of the canyon. Many agreements called the law of the river. Water. Ied up the is basicallyin what hoover dam controls. Up,he time they divvied it they were counting on record taking keeping. They divvied up the water based on some pretty wet years. Snowpackave great years or you can go through what we are going through now. Maybers of drought with one goodyear. When the river is called over allocated, hydrology is not keeping up with water delivery needs. The needs meeting that are contracted. As of today, we have never failed to meet delivery. We do not anticipate that year, but if we continue to see the drop, we might be in a shortage in future years. Arizona and nevada would take less water. ,hen the contract was signed the census was 8000 people. Nobody envisioned a las vegas, reno or any industries that have risen in nevada since then. As water became more available, and it has become a huge community. They have managed their water. It was predictable how much they could take. They managed to recycle their water. They take care of every drop, they recycle it and they put a lot back into the lake. It was pretty clear, especially in the Great Depression that this would be an enormous undertaking. People would want to come and see this. To acknowledge that and make a place, they knew that they had to add them of the art echo where. Copperg statues made of that salute the american spirit, they knew that would come, and they did. Ticket. Ot have to buy a we have about one Million People a year that visit the dam. Ofis an incredible mixture engineering and creativity. I sometimes think, how did those straightline engineers, how did they find a place to make this so beautiful and functional . And so boulder dam stands steaming and controlling the flood. To perform. The hoover dam is one of 134,000 traction projects funded during the depression. Providing jobs to a nation with an unemployment rate, they spend over 6 million. Next, a construction project on wrong as our cspan cities tour takes you to the pacific west. Partially funded by the public works administration, the bridge is built over puget sound, towards the end of the era. The area of your standing in now is in the southern section of puget sound. When the Transcontinental Railroad came, there was talk about one day being able to ban puget sound, but it really was not an undertaking anybody was willing to do. , therethe depression were big jobs creating public works projects. Mid1930s, there would be talk about creating a bridge from tacoma to the peninsula. The bridge was opened the first after two years of construction. It is also little bit of a wind tunnel. People working on the deck again noticing meant. Wingt like an airplane lift. Movement, they began to feel a vertical lift, especially in the center span. There was no suspension bridge or anything like this in our part of the world. There was an unfamiliar rarity went how Something Like this was supposed to behave, so people excited about it, there is a , so peoplecefulness just wanted to thank that it was normal. Added,itional weight was that it would all go vaped. Fall, ourmer and into prevailing wind out of the southwest, which blows almost deck,ly across the bridge they began to notice that there was an undulation. Fall, soldiers were coming out from the military base for the novelty of writing the bridge. Riding the they would lead out as far as they could in the center deck of the bridge. It would be rising not just inches but feet, to a point where the undulation was so automobiles or a truck and an automobile coming from opposite directions had light and vehicle coming at you would disappear under the Rolling Hills of the deck. For conservative people, something was very wrong from the beginning. For a Community Proud of their bridge, for the many people who participated in building the bridge, it was unthinkable that this was wrong, but the engineers began to work on the idea of stiffening the bridge. They thought the railings on the side could be converted and that would add some rigidity to the bridge. For some of those minor structural additions, modifications were implemented or about to be implemented, as we got through october 1940. November, four point 4. 5 months, the weather began to shift into its with winter pattern. That was the bellwether of what was about to happen. On the morning of november 7, the winds kicked up and they were fiercely directed, right at the side of the bridge. The way wind comes over the wing of an airplane. Instead of the normal undulation, the deck began to twist, began to turn. Everybody noticed immediately that it was a behavior that people had not noticed before. Were in the morning, there hundreds, if not thousands of people who came out on both sides of the bridge to start to watch what was happening. Keepers, it was a toll bridge, so they had decided that they would close the bridge. It was not safe anymore. Just not an action that should happen with an inanimate object of this sides. One last car was coming across the bridge, even though access to the bridge had been shut off. A man coming from his summer tacoma hadd towards a cocker spaniel with him in the car. By the time he got to the most severely moving part of the bridge deck, the car screeched around and ended up diagonally across both lanes on the bridge. Ran, getting and off of the bridge. 30 or 40 minutes, violentge went into a movement that no one had seen before. All of the crowds on both sides closed in to watch. I think everyone started to suspect that the bridge was going to give it up, was going to fail. Up, was going to fail. Trying to solve the puzzle. There was enough time for people there. Ble to get out a professor actually ran out onto the bridge to get the dog out of the car and there is great footage of him. It looks like a Steven Spielberg movie. We watch that footage and you cannot even imagine that someone would run out onto the bridge with this carrying deck. Too terrified to get out of the car, so he gave up and was knocked down by the movement of the bridge. Finally got off the bridge and in the moments that followed, the deck tore away from the hangers. Likesses talk about it listening to gunshots. These bolts. Ed they go down through the deck and there is a bolt on the bottom. Pop and cables begin to snap. The standards on the bridge are rapidly,ling across, catching on the cables. The connection between today fail andtwo sections there is a violent twist and tear. In the moments that followed that, huge sections begin to fail. Most of the center span of the bridge, underneath the suspension cables drops away from the bridge. They plunge into puget sound. No one is killed in the incident. No one is even hurt, so they demolished as much as they can in 1940. As they begin to think about ,eengineering the whole thing the clouds of war close in. By that time, they realize there is no way they will be able to get the bridge rebuilt. Criticalards become a strategic thinking. The focus shifts away from the public works project. The towers and steel on the bridge is actually remove and brought into the war effort, recycled and turned into tanks. Sections of the bridge i actually used on the highway to build a highway up to alaska. Ecause of the program the remnants said in the channel, through the war, it is only after the war that they begin to reconstruct another bridge. 1950, the second bridge is complete. Is steel bridge that standing. That there is a textbook or a reference book written about bridge engineering that does not include tacoma in the index. It is impossible for me to imagine that engineering students all over the world have seen the film of the collapse. It is one of those absolutely spellbinding moments in ofineering history, one those utter failures of design that is so completely captured on film. It is amazing, jawdropping to this, age endeavor like physical object moved with this much movement, that are out of the parameters of the original design. One thing that is happening, men are going to move work for the government on buildings, roads, schools, bridges, anything to get the forgotten man off the grid lines and onto the job. Critics say it believe means, we poke along. Of publiche era enemy, as gangsters grow rich on Bank Robberies and bootlegging. This was the epicenter of crime in the era of John Dillinger. We take cutesy fitness outlaws, prohibition and the pursuit of americas most wanted criminals. Cities that were safe havens for gangsters, arkansas, illinois, but more than any other cities was st. Paul. Ofwas estimated that 50 minnesotans were involved in making bootleg liquor. The others were buying it from them. Was wellesota area situated to make bootleg liquor. We had a lot of germans and germans know how to make beer. More breweries per capita than almost any other city. You need water. You need fresh water. We are very close to the border becanada, so liquor could imported and exported over the canadian border. This area was a haven for liking and became a haven for public enemies and gangsters. In the 1930s, the public enemy era, it was called the old federal building. The history is incredible. On the fifth floor is the office of the Prohibition Bureau. The man who headed the Prohibition Bureau was the man who wrote the american prohibition law. It was andrew volstead, a congressman from minnesota who created prohibition in this building. When the prohibition was repealed and all of the bootleggers what were they going to do . They turned to bank robbery, kidnapping, labor racketeering, extortion and murder. That is what the building became then. Had this building as their headquarters. ,f these walls could talk notorious stories that they could tell. Virtually every major gangster, kidnapper and grabber lived and worked within a three block radius of where we are standing today. John dillinger, baby faced nelson, all of them were here. People do not know that. There are no statues, but this was the epicenter of 1930s crime. Basically, the police in st. Paul basically, the police in st. Paul, at the turn of the century, sent the word out to gangsters, bankers, bank robbers, kidnappers, come to st. Paul. You can be here, you have to promise not to kill or rob anyone within the city limits of st. Paul. And of course, pay a bribe. As long as you are on your good behavior, mr. John dillinger, baby faced nelson, you are welcome in our city. So the deal between the crooks and the gangsters was tolerated for almost three decades. And the people of st. Paul would see the most notorious gangsters in america, wanted men, like bank robber John Dillinger, walking along the street. And it was like seeing a celebrity. But you wouldnt fear for your life in st. Paul the 1930s because you knew the fix was in, the crooks were on their best behavior. Its march of 1934. The most wanted man in america, public enemy number one, bank robber John Dillinger is living right behind us in apartment 303 of st. Pauls Lincoln Court apartments. Basically regroup, to basically regroup, to get his bank Robbery Group ready for a crime spree. He was here enjoying time with his girlfriend. They went to the movies one block away from us. Meanwhile, his gang is getting weapons, getaway cars, and casing which banks they can rob from their home base here in st. Paul. The fbi did not know this was John Dillinger, but they got hints that a strange man was living in this apartment building. The shades were always drawn to the bottom. Dillinger never came out to get his mail. But the big tipoff was when John Dillingers girlfriend, a beautiful menominee indian woman from wisconsin, would come out on this grass and hang up John Dillingers laundry, dressed in a halter top and short shorts. Ive talked to men in their 80s who remember 70 years ago, when dillinger was here, and they said, oh my god, this girl was so beautiful. They still remember dillingers girlfriend. So the fbi sent a crew here to knock on dillingers door. But they didnt know, they thought it was carl hillman, which was John Dillingers alias when he lived above at 303. You are walking towards John Dillingers apartment. Its apartment 303. All you know is that there is something suspicious in apartment 303. You knock, this is dillingers door right here. And dillinger is in bed with his girlfriend. She opens the door, peeks out and the fbi goes, we are here to speak to carl hillman. The dear woman forgets her own alias. She goes, carl, carl, oh, my husband. The fbi are not fools. Maam, we are staying here. She says, john, john, the jig is up, its the fbi. Dillinger, cool as a cucumber, says dear, get your clothes on, he gets a machine gun, comes to this door, opened it slightly, leans out, grins at the fbi, and starts firing machine gun bullets out of this door. The police and the fbi start firing back. This door is chewed up by bullets. To give you a sense, John Dillinger, not a master criminal, not a single bullet from dillingers gun hits any in the actualnts corridor youre in right now. But one bullet from the fbi and the polices gun hits dillinger in the thigh. Incredibly, John Dillinger has escaped from the fbi shootout. He lays down fire, and comes out this door. Now, dillinger was wounded in the leg. So dillinger races over here, stands here holding a submachine gun in one hand and a gun and the other, and tells his girlfriend to get the getaway car. So literally, the most wanted man in america is standing here, bleeding like a stuck pig. A bully in this building nextdoor sees a man who he recognizes as John Dillinger, bank robber, reaches under his bed, takes out a shotgun, and aims it at dillinger. The kid is seconds from becoming the boy who killed John Dillinger, when his mother, hearing the shots that were from here, tackles her son, throws him to the ground, and dillinger is not killed in st. Paul. He gets in the getaway car with his girl, and he roars away to wisconsin for a little rest and relaxation at the Little Bohemia lodge. The deal between the crooks and the cops, which had stood for years, meaning the crooks live here they do not kill or kidnap anyone here, fell apart. Bank robber John Dillingers girlfriend, nicknamed billy, was tried, successfully, in this room. But before she was found guilty of harboring her boyfriend, John Dillinger, she tried to escape. She said she had to go to the ladies room. The federal marshals followed her through this door. The marshals,en, somewhat shy, stood back, allowing her to go to the bathroom, at which point she simply kept on going, down this hallway, and tried to escape. Fortunately, the federal marshals overcame their shyness about a female, soontobe convict, grabbed her, and made sure she did not escape. The fbi was concerned that the dillinger gang would try to come here, with their machine guns, and free dillingers girlfriend. So, in the porches that you see behind my head, there were federal marshals armed with sawedoff shotguns and submachine guns, waiting in case any members of the dillinger gang would show up to liberate their comrades. It never happened, but you could imagine what it was like in this room, in the sweltering heat of the summers of 1935 and 1936, when all the gangsters were here and everybody was waiting to see if other gangsters with machine guns would try to free them. In this building, is both the inception of prohibition that led to widespread organized crime all over america. Thats how al capone got his start as a bootlegger. And then in 1934, 1935, 1936, this was the building where the bootleggers and bank robbers tried and sent to alcatraz, leavenworth prison, and other prisons across america. It is where it began and where it ended. While the gangsters of the depression era turned to crime to make a living, others turned west. Across the great plains from the texas panhandle to the canadian border, the exhausted earth, broken by the plow, parched and eroded, begins to blow away in great black blizzards. By the thousands, they abandoned their homes, flee the dustbowl. Oklahoma gave a name to the new breed of dispossessed americans. Okies. During the 1930s, over one Million People, many of them farming families, leave their homes in oklahoma, arkansas, and texas, and head to california. Finding jobs mostly on large farms and with minimal pay, these Migrant Workers lived in squatter camps and shantytowns on the outskirts of the farms, unwelcome by many native californians. The derogatory term okie is used to describe them. One to make this trip is new to oklahoman and budding singersongwriter Woody Guthrie, whose music brings attention to the plight of the okies. Next, our story continues as we take you to the Woody Guthrie center in tulsa, oklahoma. I got started in oklahoma. Thats where i was born. The population down there is one third indians, one third negroes, and one third white people. So i hit the road when i was about 13 years old, doing all kinds of odd jobs all over the country and living amongst these kinds of people. This land is your land this land is my land from california, to the New York Island from the redwood forest, to the gulfstream waters this land was made for you and me Woody Guthrie is most famous for his writing of this land is your land, but he was very much more than that. He was born in 1912. So we are very proud to have his work back in oklahoma, where we think it belongs. He was an advocate for people who were disenfranchised, for those people who were Migrant Workers from oklahoma, kansas, and texas during the dustbowl era who had found themselves in california literally starving. And he saw this vast difference between those who have and the havenots and became their spokesperson through his music. The Woody Guthrie center was opened in april of 2013. It started with the purchase of the Woody Guthrie archive. From woodys daughter. And the plan was to have this Research Facility in tulsa. As the concept grew into the idea of opening up the archives to a new generation and teaching people about woodys important part of American History, this museum came to be. We really consider it a place to inspire people. We want them to investigate what woody did with his talents and then inspire people to go and use their talents to do something of their own. When when the sun comes shining, then i was strolling many of the people who were displaced during the dustbowl or were just looking for a better way of life. Some of them have lost their farms due to foreclosure, others had lost their farms due to the dustbowl itself, the drought, and all of the winds that blew their soil away. And they had nothing. So, they were promised this garden of eden and plenty of work. Come to california, and we will have plenty of work for you, it is a wonderful place to be. Then when they arrived, they found out that was not really what was going on. They had been the victims, often times of a marketing ploy by large land owners trying to get very cheap labor, because they knew if they had an overabundance of labor, they didnt have to pay them very much. The workers had no rights. And whenever woody arrived and saw that, it just didnt seem right. In our country of plenty, where so many have so much, to allow families to struggle horrifically and to degrade them in a way that makes them feel less than human was just not acceptable. This area of the center focuses on the dustbowl experience and the dustbowl era, since it was such an important part of who woody was and really started his work. It is a significant thing for us to mention. Also, it is such an important part of our history as oklahomans. We want to make sure that our young people understand the resilient people that they came from and the way that they persevered in the face of this natural disaster. That was actually manmade. Had the plains not been plowed like they were and overcultivated, then the dustbowl would not have occurred like it did. So, in this area, we have an exhibit that features some dorthea lane photos with woodys writing to complement items about the dustbowl migrants and what they were dealing with. A sketch of him going to california. Then one of his scrapbooks. It is one of my favorite pages. It is just a short little notation. An answer to some articles that were posted about him. Yeah, ijust says, oh will do everything i can to help the folks from oklahoma. Dont you worry. I just think that really speaks for who he was and what he was intending to do. Also we have lyrics that woody wrote. Lyrics to tom joad, a little nod to John Steinbeck and the joad family. Kissed goodbye to the mother that he loved everybody might be just one big soul thataway to me in the dayyou look or night thats where im gonna be whereever people arent gonna, thats where im be, ma thats where im gonna be then, if you aint got the do re mi, which talks about the way that the people would be greeted at the border and told if they didnt have money, they werent going to get into california. And then dust pneumonia. So many of the very young and very old died because of dust pneumonia. Woody recorded very few songs of his own. We have a listening station that features 46 of his songs in his own voice. Most of the time when people hear Woody Guthrie songs, they are not woody singing them, they are someone else. He spent his time traveling, he spent his time in the Migrant Worker camps, in Union Organization rallies. So he didnt spend a great deal of time in recording studios. Thats what makes the recordings that he did make so significant and so important to us. Woody definitely had themes to his writing. Woody wanted to make sure his people were wellrepresented in his artwork and his lyrics. There are some sketches here, city of los angeles, no children wanted. And you have the hoovervilles over here, and the shining city in the background. I do like that he said there is one consolation left, the children raised in the sun will always be the brightest. Woody was working with the migrant displaced workers. He felt that the one way that they could actually make a difference, that they could create workers rights, was to unionize. And at this time, that was a pretty dangerous concept. You know, today, it is like, ok, yes, i will join a union, but that that time it was not so much an option without facing some kind of violence. So, in these lyrics, 1913 massacre, he talks about a party where some Union Members were joining during christmas and the boss men created a panic by saying there was a fire, and then locked the doors. So that was in michigan. I think woody would go back into history and research other events that still were pertinent to the struggles that the workers were still facing. In the first line, he says take a trip with me back to 1913. So he makes it clear that he is going back, and hes telling the story of this massacre that happened in 1913. So, hes pointing out that this fight that they are facing for workers, for the displaced oklahomans, the problems that they are facing are still alive today. And these people who face this disaster should not be forgotten. Again, woody was an artist. And he used his artwork sometimes in a playful way, other times for social commentary, often times a combination of both. So he has almost a little story that he tells about the hand, the worker. The hand thinks it over, and the hand cusses the boss out, the boss yells cops, law and order comes, and hand is charged with trying to overthrow u. S. Government, and join the cio. So if you have these troubles, join the union. Were currently in the area of the center dedicated to this land is your land. Of course, since that is the song most people recognize as a Woody Guthrie song, and it is an important theme for our country, we wanted to make sure it was given its proper credit here. This land is your land actually celebrated its 75th birthday february 23 of this year. So we have the original handwritten lyrics on display. And while most people recognize the song as a singalong from our Elementary School days, usually that didnt involve singing the fourth and the sixth verses, which were much more a social commentary about how things really could be improved in our society. Yes, woody thought we had a beautiful land and he paints this gorgeous landscape of the things he saw as he traveled from coasttocoast. But he also wants to point out things about the people and how we are treating the people and how we should be taking care of each other better. Sign was painted, said private property on the backside it did not say nothing this land was made for you and me the idea of a landowner seeing people who were starving outside of this beautiful land that he had and saying no, you have to keep out, this is private property, didnt go along with what woody thought demonstrated our beautiful country and what we have to offer our citizens. This land was made for you and me i think its important to note that woody was a class warrior in a day that so many artists were not. He was the person who gave a voice to the voiceless. As the fog was lifting. This land was made for you and me home, im justo roaming around with Woody Guthrie thinking about the Migrant Workers and the dustbowl not having a home anymore, another new deal program has young men moving into camps together across the nation. Few object civilian consolation core, the ccc. It takes thousands of young men out of the towns and cities where there is nothing for them to do and puts them into government camps where there is plenty to do. They built this road by hand, basically for 30 a month, a dollar a day. Obviously you cant build the rest of the structures and facilities until you have access to it. It changed their lives. Without their work, we would not have everything we have today. The experience of driving into the canyon state park today is a lot like has been for thousands of years. All of a sudden you come across this huge drop. Even today, it was quite a shocking experience, maybe even more so because you are traveling so fast. The fact that i get to come and day, i have to stop and take it in and making sure, really appreciating how lucky i am to be here every day. The canyon has been forming for about one million years or so. The bulk of the formation has happened in the last 100,000 years. It runs from here down close to the town of silverton. You can make a really good case that the canyon is at least 80 miles itself. The river probably is more like 120 miles, that flows through it. It is the second largest canyon in the u. S. After the grand. There are many canyons that branch off to the side. We are standing in an area where we can see three canyons. It is a much bigger system than people realize, even from a brief visit to the state park. I actually grew up here in amarillo. So, as a young kid, i remember coming out in Elementary School. Then after that, as soon as i got my drivers license, i was driving out here every time i could, bringing friends. Explore some of the caves right down there. It is much bigger than what you think it is from just looking up here. When you actually get down into the canyon and you get your hiking stick and your boots on, you better make sure you have a lot of water because it is much farther than you think. Theres all kinds of treasures out there that we have been searching out for. One of the draws is just being around extreme nature. You can say this is extreme nature. There are so many places to go through and see these beautiful cliffs, these beautiful rock out croppings. Back when i was growing up, the only footage you had from the air out here were helicopter shots that local television stations would do. When the drones got popular several years ago, i had to be right there, im a gadget guy, it is another one of my shortcomings, i have to have the latest gadgets. And so of course i will have my drone out here. It was just amazing. And it helped so much having all of that experience and knowledge of where to go to look at these things from spending my life looking from the ground up. I knew where to go, i knew exactly all the places i wanted to go and get the view from the air down. So, i already had these shots set up in my mind and executed as many as i could. And there are so many places, you can stay on the trail and be suitably amazed with everything that you see. And there is plenty to look at and take photos of and experience. But there are so many other places that are just off of the trail. The canyon is sort of a story of edges, we are on the edge of a lot of different ranges for both plants and animals here. We are on the edge literally of a canyon right now. It has also been a place on the edge of these battles, these conflicts between different cultures, on the edge of these cultures. For the vast majority of the history of this area and other canyons, people that came here were nomadic. They didnt build permanent structures. We dont have Cliff Dwellings or anything permanent. They lived in temporary structures that they could move with them as they traveled. They were mostly following large game. In the earliest days, that was some very large, nowextinct species of bison, things like mammoths, giant ground sloths, the ice age megafauna that no longer exists. Even later than that, we get into a late prehistoric period when they were more like your typical image of what you think of when you think of native americans. This was the Southern Plains region, so the native american tribes that were here included the kiowa, the southern cheyenne, the comanche, the apache. And towards the end of the Southern Plains way of life in the 1860s and 1870s, this became almost like a stronghold for people trying to escape from the soldiers, the settlers, the bison hunters, the people taking their land. And because this was right in the center of comanche territory, it was very hard to get to. And of course the native americans had thousands of years of knowledge of this area. And the people coming into the area didnt, so they used this as a stronghold to try and escape. It was a series of battles in 1874 that became known as the red river war. The most decisive battle of the red river war was the battle of pallid arrow, which happened in september of 1874. The comanches, some cheyenne had set up a winter campground like they had done for years, and they were under the mistaken impression that they would be safe, they would be left alone in the canyon that winter. They didnt realize the government had five separate hauls of troops in the area to look for them, rooting them out to force them back onto the reservations in oklahoma. So the fourth calvary of the United States army discovered their encampment late in september, and Early Morning on september 28 in 1874, they dismounted their horses, they led them down into the canyon floor, then they charged into this massive village of mixed native americans. Its not a battle that had a high casualty count, it was more of a rout. Imagine waking up and you are laying there with your wife, your husband, your aunt, your grandmother, your children, all of these people are with you. And you wake up to armed soldiers attacking your town. What would you do . And they did the only thing they could do, which was to flee. So they ran, setting a pockets of resistance to hold off the soldiers long enough to escape. And most of the native americans were successful in getting away. But the problem was in their flight, they werent able to take very much with them. That gave the fourth calvary the opportunity to come back and destroy their winter encampment, destroy all of their supplies. They also destroyed the bulk of their horse herd, which for the comanches, was the way of life, that is how you traveled, how you fought, how you hunted, it was a big blow to their way of life, to lose their encampment and their horse herd. Over the next few weeks and months, the bands slowly trickled back into the reservation. And that ended the southern way of life. In just a couple of years, a new group came in and saw the opportunity of this empty place, empty of people at least, and those were ranchers. The first one here to set a permanent ranch up was a man named charles good night. He started a ranch that would later become the ja ranch grew all the way through the 1880s. It was about 1. 3 million acres at its largest size. It was one of the bigger ranches in texas, not the biggest, but definitely a big one. A lot of that encompassed part of the canyon that is behind us. This was great grazing land for bison and cattle that they brought in also. The ranching period in this spot where we are standing lasted until 1933. From 1876 to 1933, this was a working cattle ranch. In 1933, through a bond the state of texas purchased, about 15,000 acres that became the original state park. The people of this area have a park here. Prior to this being a park, if you knew someone who had land, he basically had to trespass to go see it. It was all privately owned. The landowner here had some events where they allowed people to come out onto their property and visit the canyon. And sometimes tens of thousands of people would show up in the 1920s and 1930s to see it. Just a huge drive for not only the people of the town of canyon, our closest one, but other surrounding cities that wanted a part, because it was to protect, and have people coming from all around to see it. So the ranching continues all around us. But we are this Little Pocket of public land that people can visit. Thats part of what makes it so special. We would not have a park here if it wasnt for the civilian conservation corps. They were a new deal relief effort, one of the many groups started by president roosevelt in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. They arrived here very shortly after the creation of the ccc. They arrived here at one of the oldest parks in texas and across the nation, one of the earliest ccc projects. They got here in the summer of 1933 and set up their camp. And one of the first projects they worked on was the road into the canyon. You cant build the rest of the structures and facilities until you have access to it. It is a reminder i give myself all the time when i come through the canyon, when im driving down in my work every day, that they built this road by hand, basically for 30 a month, one dollar a day. And it changed their lives in that they were able to feed themselves, provide for their families, and they learned a lot that served them well later in life. And today have so many amazing structures, the road into the canyon. Without their work, we would not have anything they have today. Being up here in the texas panhandle, there is not a lot of written history, theres not a lot of history that you can go back to and actually look at. This is one of those places that you can go back and look at some of the history. You have the mortar stones, there is a rock that has some indian art from probably 1000, 2000 years ago that you can still go to. And it looks sure, it is not as vivid as back in the day, but it is still pretty vivid. So, i like that connection of being able to look at history that is more than just your grandfathers history. Texas state parks, state parks all across the nation, National State parks, these are your public lands. We want people to visit them and knowing us in stewardship. We are here as stewards and caretakers for these lands. School ask who owns the canyon, they almost always say me, i do, you do. And it would be pretty cool if i did, but i dont. This belongs to the people of texas or the people of the nation, the people of the world. And so we want them to come here and see this, to understand how critical they are to the mission of stewardship of this place. With ccc camps in every state from 1933 to 1942, the program employs 3000 out of work men with the average worker making 30 a month. Another new deal program is the Farm Security administration created in 1937 with the intent of combating rural poverty. It becomes famous for its photograph collection documenting the depression. Made up of over 175,000 images, some of the most iconic are by fsa employee dorothy lang. Next, we take you to oakland, california for this famous photographers work. She made some of the most recognized photographs in the world. Of course, her migrant farmer took photographs from the Great Depression. The migrant mother is the one pretty much everyone has seen, and it has become a symbol of the Great Depression. Grapes of wrath, John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, it is really those three artists. Woodys music, steinbecks literature, and langes photographs have created the image and the mental picture we have in our minds for the Great Depression. One of her favorite sayings was a camera is an instrument that teaches us how to see without a camera. Thats what she was all about. She grew up in hoboken, new jersey and new york city, and had childhood polio, which left her with a withered leg that she always credited with helping to make her nonthreatening and one of the walking wounded, a subject matter she was always interested in. Being that she could approach people, and that combined with the fact that she was of small stature, she was nonthreatening and perceived as not someone who was invasive when she was photographing them. But lange started as a teenager, she decided she was going to become a photographer. Told her mother and took classes from clarence white. Then with her best friend at the age of 18, began what was to have been an around the world tour. They got as far as San Francisco when all of their money was stolen. And so they were forced to stay. Lange got a job at the local photofinishing counter. Fell in with sort of the Bohemian Community of San Francisco. Found a backer to open her own Portrait Studio. The Portrait Studio is kind of an interesting story. It is not at all what we think of her work. We have many thousands of negatives and prints from her Portrait Studio days. As i say, she was kind of high end. If you could afford her and you wanted a portrait that was more artistic, this is the 1920s and early 1930s, you would end up in her studio usually. Of course when the depression came along, she ended up with a lot of time on her hands, like a lot of people. Didnt have a lot of excess income to spend on things like photographs. So, she is sitting around her studio, and the way she told the story of how she got involved with social documentary photography was looking at her lingo one day, and seeing these unemployed men aimlessly wandering around San Francisco. One day she said if im going to do it, i have to do it now. She grabbed her camera instinctively, she used the phrase, i went out and a blind stagger. This is a photograph Dorothea Lange took in 1933. The reason it is called that is because there was a San Francisco society nicknamed the white angel. She paid to have this soup kitchen established out of the San Francisco waterfront. It is really one of langes masterpieces. And what i love about it is the fact that it was made on the very first trip she made out of the studio onto the streets of depression touring San Francisco. She went out with her brother, because she was a little frightened of all of these angry, potentially hungry men, but she found that she was welcomed. She came back with this photograph that almost didnt manage to make it. She had an assistant at the time, roger, who became a really wellknown architectural photographer, who was developing negatives for her. And she gave him the film holders and told him to develop not worrysaid do about that one, there is nothing in that holder. So he took them into the dark room and thought, i better check. Turned off the light to check that there was no film. Sure enough, there was a piece of film. It was this. If it hadnt been for his caution, we would not have that photograph. It is great, because having the negative collection that we do here, we can see the photographs that she took before and after this leading up to the photograph. You can see right from the beginning of her documentary work, she had this tendency to, take multiple images getting closer until she was just capturing what was essential of the image. That is usually what ended up being the best photograph. What is fascinating about this is you will notice there is only one face in the photograph. His eyes are not visible. It is shot from above, which makes him seem really isolated. A little bit atypical of a lot of the work she did during the depression photographing migrant farmworkers. She was actually famous for shooting workers from below, which gave them stature and dignity would not have had otherwise. Her photographs, generally speaking, tend to be enabling and not concentrating on despair, and really making the case that these were resilient people that were going to make it. All they needed was a little hand. We bring you the history and literary life of a different city on book tv and American History tv. To watch videos from any of the places we have been, go to cspan. Org cities tour and follow us on twitter at cspan cities tour. Announcer last summer, Purdue University and lafayette indiana hosted a conference called remaking american political history. Monday on American History tv, beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, i not a programs from the event with a panel of historians looking at u. S. Politics and government. From the earliest days of the republic. Watch American History tv, now and over the weekend, on cspan 3. Announcer in the first of two oral arguments, the supreme court
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.