And books. Com gives your email address will send you emails about everything that was on dislocation and or other locations. I dont often if youve been down to Coconut Grove recently given his store down there another wentworth dimensioning down at the adrian art center we have on january 26 at 630 isabella will be joining us thats available at the art center. Org any number of wonderful events you can visit us here we do farm to table dinners, podcast with a lot of authors that their owner and Founder Mitchell Kaplan you can only do that by accessing the webpage. So please visit us there. We are very happy to have this evening mr. Christopher knowlton. Bubble in the sun the florida boom and how it brought on the Great Depression. So its our fault. I thought there Something Else involved. Christopher knowlton is a former staff writer and london magazine he spent much time in the Investment Business as previous book was cattle kingdom the Hidden History of the cowboy west, please give him a nice warm welcome, christopher knowlton. [applause] thank you steves loss i appreciate that, good evening everybody. Really appreciate your coming. Its nice to be back in coral gables. Seems like just yesterday i was here researching the career of George Merrick who was the founder of coral gables. That was for this book, bubble in the sun. The book is about the florida in the roaring 20s. More specifically, about the florida land boom which, as you may know was the greatest land boom in American History. As it happens, one of the most impactful because of the role it played in the events that led up to the Great Depression. At the moment, as a writer, im specializing in writing about these unusual speculative frenzies. My previous book, cattle kingdom, published in 2017, was about the open range cattle era after the civil war. Thats the cowboy era. I discovered that there was really more than an investment bubble kind of like the. Com bubbles of the 90s. Save that young man going out to california to join tech companies, they went out to colorado in wyoming and montana to become cowboys. Join cattle ranches. One of these was Teddy Roosevelt which was one of the protagonist. When i began prospecting for a sequel to cattle kingdom, i quickly hit on the florida land boom of the 1920s which was something i was familiar with. I grew up with grandparents on both coasts of florida. Both of whom had lived through the roaring 20s. Also had a grandfather who is a Real Estate Developer a greatgrandfather who is a Real Estate Developer in westchester new york who lost everything in the Great Depression. So the subject matter spoke to me. Bubble in the sun looks like it will be the second of whats likely to be a trilogy the third i think will be about the uranium boom in the 1950s which was the last american gold rush so these frenzies make a very good subjects for works of narrative nonfiction of which this is. Because they have a natural builtin narrative arc. You have the emerging of the boom, which is in this case, the building of the roads and the railroads. On the arrival of the key leaders in florida and leading up to the boom in the giddiness the frenzied self. Which could be described as one gigantic party and that of course is followed by the pain and tragedy of the bus which is the hangover. I think these are very american stories. As every generation lives through one or two such booms and busts and virtually everyone learns a few painful lessons from them. I really part and parcel of living in a Free Enterprise system with free market capitalism. But i like to think there is a more serious aspect to what i am doing, ive come to believe we need to look under the proverbial hood of these frenzies that are understand why they arose, what went wrong, who or what might be to blame. Because as the economist once wrote, quote, regulation that outlaws financial incredulity or mass euphoria is not a practical possibility. In other words, you cant legislate away human gullibility. So i think its up to books like these to explain how these events happened and hopefully to teach people to be a little more careful with their investments. And not to be seduced by such speculative frenzies because they do keep on occurring. So these are cautionary tales. I soon discovered the really had not been a definitive history of the florida land boom ever written is a couple short volumes but nothing i would describe as definitive. Nothing thoroughly research with endnotes and a bibliography, in fact there had not been many histories of Real Estate Development for real estate speculation ever written. That is awed given how many Great American fortunes have been made in real estate. I think awed to given real estate speculation leads back to the earliest days of the republic you can argue that Christopher Columbus was shopping for real estate, the spanish crown for example you have john jacob asked her expanding deferred trade into manhattan Real Estate Source on obvious opportunity here in the more i looked into it, the more fertile the territory began to appear this is obviously rich subject matter because the 20s was not especially colorful decade it was replete with jazz, flappers, prohibition, rum running, al capone, babe ruth radios automobiles, all of which i touch on in the book. So here for instance is the books description of al capone. 6 feet tall and weighing 240 pounds that gangster dressed immaculately when he went out on the town favoring a dark blue doublebreasted suit adorned with aye linen pocket square and a matching polkadot necktie. He wore gold and diamond studded watch chain that he had a habit of fiddling with and on one pinky finger a4 care diamond ring and a platinum setting. Frank j wilson, the United States secret Service Agent finally brought him down by convicting him for tax evasion recalled if big had dark eyes, thick lips, perfect teeth, quotes a big flabby paw and dainty manicured nails 6inch scar from a knife fight in a bar ran down his left cheek. When the mobster pulled out a silk handkerchief, wilson got it with his cologne, lily of the valley. But back to the conceiving of the book, was yet another angle to this story. As with my first book, cattle kingdom, there is some environmental story to be told, what happen starting in the 1920s to the everglades, floridas primary aquifer i do not need to tell you specifically the building of the tamiami trail during the decade which cut off most or much of the water flows to the southern everglades with disastrous consequences for the wildlife and for the entire ecosystem it was shortsighted from Economic Development standpoint as well. That environmental story is an important component of this book. Because i firmly believe we can no longer separate economic wellbeing from environmental wellbeing. There tied at the hip. British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher an unlikely Spokes Person for the Environmental Movement may have put it best in an address to the Royal Society that 30 years ago, and she said and i quote the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other. The World Wildlife fund elaborated on the sediment when it noted all Economic Activity depends on Services Provided by nature. Now in the book, floridas aquifer is of this rated in the name of progress and development and yet later, the state would be heavily dependent on the availability of that water. You dont get much more shortsighted than that. Once i got started on the research, i realized how significant the decade of the 20s was to American History as a whole. I think it is no exaggeration to say that it was the decade the confined contemporary america, the popular culture, its norms and preoccupation. For example, this is the decade when we became primarily a middleclass society and a consumer driven society. Our lives configured around the automobile and mass media for the first time. Initially of course it was radio, television was soon followed. Predominately urban and suburban in our focus for the first time. But definitely deeply divided between urban and rural. Now this is the decade when we also became sports obsessed. You saw the rise of the nfl, for the first time as well as professional golf and tennis. And to a similar extent i would say we became obsessed for the first time at least overtly. With young new viral junk viral women half clad in advertisements as never before. As i tell the story in the book of karl fisher, the developer of miami beach using scantily clad women as cheesecake in the ads he ran on billboards in times square. To advertise miami beach. And also, we became debt driven for the first time. This is the decade when home mortgages and installment credit took hold. That would have profound implications for what happened during the Great Depression. And we have never been able to shake that addiction to debt ever since. Most people who have remained just as indebted coming out of the Great Depression as they were going in, that is if they hadnt been wiped out like my greatgrandfather. And finally i would say this is the age where business comes to the four is the chief occupation and preoccupation of most americans. Next thing i discovered, was that there were some wonderful characters to write about. In particular the four Great Developers of the era who are remarkably compelling people. I mentioned karl fisher, at miami beach. You know about George Merrick here in coral gables, Addison Meisner and palm beach at boca raton, dp davis he was in tampa and saint augustine. Now, to give you a flavor for these men. Let me just read a quick description of just one which is karl fisher. Again, this is from the book. Karl Graham Fisher was born into a middleclass family in greensboro indiana 1874. The oldest of three boys, he was born with astigmatism so severe he was barely able to read the blackboard at school. He dropped out at age 12. Despite impaired eyesight he was an avid reader, a gifted athlete, and a gleeful showoff. The best ice skater in indianapolis, he could also walk on stilts that stood a full story high stand on his head, tight rope walk, and outrun most of his classmates running backwards. In fact, one of his two wives would recall that he was nearly as nimble with his feet as with his hands. Squats and slope shouldered, fisher would grow into a dimple grinning boozer, avid poker player and unrepentant womanizer who peppered his talk with profanity. He chewed tobacco, sometimes smoking a cigar at the same time after fighting off and swallowing the cigars tip. When he married his first wife jane in 19 oh nine, she was 24 and he was 35. But she was smitten. He was all speed i found them so dazzling i can hardly look at him. Each of these developers who make a gigantic fortune in the 1920s equivalent to 600 million to 1. 3 billion today. And then, enthralled to their success, go on to lose every penny of it. So each of their stories is a real life morality tale about greed, hubris and power much like the greek tragedies. There is a fourth towering figure to emerge from this era and that is the environmentalist marjorie douglass. She would later go on to write the great book on the everglades which youve probably heard of that was in 1947 when after years of devastation and drought the ever clades were on fire and she serves in the book as a counterpoint to the developers in the shortsighted development activities. That ended of course in disaster she is really the conscience of this book she outlives the developers happily by 50 to 60 years living to be 108, winning a president ial man medal of honor as i got deeper into the Actual Research of this book, i began to suspect theres more to the story than met the eye. That economists and historians had overlooked the real significance of the boom or really should say the bust because the bursting of the land boom was very likely the event that triggered the Great Depression. Just as it was real estate and not the stock market that triggered the Great Recession in 2008 so real estate not the stock market was the villain leading up to the 1930s. I dont want to oversimplify this and i tried not to in the book because i am cognizant of how complex our economy is and even was back then. And there is likely not one single cause of the Great Depression but as i say in the book and i think this is true the collapse of the florida boom is what provided the dynamite and the detonator. Thats even though there was a lag time of a couple of years between when Florida Real Estate collapsed and when the National Economy collapsed the same was true in 2008 by the way. Real estate started to roll over, in late 2006. In florida and california stock market did not decline until mid 2008 it takes a while for real estate collapsed to play out. So for me, that was the final piece of the literary puzzle as far as i was concerned. I had what i needed to make an engaging book and inherently interesting. Of time a dramatic set of events, good characters and novel theme which i think a book like this should have really an argument if you will. So that is the story behind the conception of the book the story of how it came to be written and in the broadest terms i would say the book is the watershed decade were we as a nation went from momandpop ism to mass marketing, from fiscal responsibility to a reliance on consumer debt. And above all from rural naivete and innocence to urban maturity and sophistication as a nation. Although we had to go to the Great Depression to get there. So let me finish by giving you an overview of florida in 19206. And see if this doesnt echo with you as you look at the country today. Again, i am quoting from the book here. And many ways the lord of the 1920s was a precursor to america 100 years later. In florida then as in the United States at the moment, to affluent coast were separated by an impoverished and largely agricultural interior. An equitable wealth distribution, racial intolerance, zeno phobia and rising nationalism the kkk being the most blatant manifestation back then. These were combined with a dangerous over reliance laws a fair economics. Any governance structure or bankers and businesspeople wielded enormous and norton influence on policy. To complete the analysis engine analogy the Political Leadership of the day displayed profound indifference to the fate of the environment and to societys less fortunate. Now i find these parallels uncanny. And in the book i remind the reader that it did not end well back then. And that today, the risk of history repeating is real. So yes, the 20s was a glamorous, prosperous fun decade full of sports stars, celebrities, starlets but is also a reckless and disruptive money obsessed scandal ridden and polarized decade to. In short, an era remarkably similar to what were living through today. So i thank you for listening. I hope you read and enjoy the book. And i am happy to take any questions. [applause] smack i read something in a odd i like to ask the question youre the person to provide the answer. I read in the 1920s unscrupulous Land Developers attached oranges to mangrove trees and marketed them as orange groves. Is that true . [laughter] is that just a story . Guest i could not verify that. [laughter] s to back it seemed impossible to me too. Thats one of those things that could be possible lets put it that way. Smack im curious how would you tell the story of George Merrick today . Guest glad you asked that question i have a little, about George Merrick. At first i was very impressed with your founder to what he had accomplished here in coral gables. I have to admit it came as somewhat of a shock to me to it discover he was not all he was reported to be. I dont how many of you know this. While he might not of been a bona fide clerk when business started to collapse in 1920s, he out of desperation but he did was is the unloaded properties that he owned on to the new city of coral gables and at the same time he leveraged the city up lace it with debt in order to purchase those properties, get the owner to forfeit on or the city to forfeit on and that was 1961. He got away with it. He got away with it because it was a lot of money and the help of the statute of limitations because the collapse in florida theres a collapse everywhere. There is such a backlog of lawsuits they did not get there but he was investigated ultimately and i think they shamed him a little bit. But it was brushed under the covers. I think you can understand why who once there founder to be a failed Real Estate Developer guilty of criminal acts especially in this day and age. [laughter] i think the truth came out in the end the story was told in this book and for you here coral gables, you might find interesting. Anyone else . Well thats great, i will be here to sign copies happy to chat or answer questions as i do so. Thank you again. [applause] thanks everybody dont forget we do have copies for the book for sale out there can only get anothe