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Were going to talk about a very piece of california history which is not ignore ward, but certainly overlook it most of the time and so we have Jean Pfaelzer here with a new book, california a slave state. And were going to go through the history that im going to talk about the ideas behind it a little bit and also her work on the reparation committee. So jeanie, thanks so much for for joining us at the Commonwealth Club. Thank you. Im glad to be back here. Thank you so as i said, lets start with history. So lets go back as far you into this history as we go we wont go all the way back to the native american tribes, but thats a good place to stop it. Lets do terminology first. In your book, you use lots different terminologies. Native americans native indians. How you make that choice. First of all, you use a lot of different. But i know that this is sort of a an important ....
Were going to talk about a very piece of california history which is not ignore ward, but certainly overlook it most of the time and so we have Jean Pfaelzer here with a new book, california a slave state. And were going to go through the history that im going to talk about the ideas behind it a little bit and also her work on the reparation committee. So jeanie, thanks so much for for joining us at the Commonwealth Club. Thank you. Im glad to be back here. Thank you so as i said, lets start with history. So lets go back as far you into this history as we go we wont go all the way back to the native american tribes, but thats a good place to stop it. Lets do terminology first. In your book, you use lots different terminologies. Native americans native indians. How you make that choice. First of all, you use a lot of different. But i know that this is sort of a an important ....
In the latter part of the 1880s. And communities were being pressured to have better roads. Perhaps only going out into the suburbs. And we have places like cleveland and philadelphia that are installing brick roads. So there is a movement for a allweather road system, or at least in a limited sense, prior to the coming of the automobile, which really is about 1900, so 1905. Most american roads at the beginning of the 20th century, were mud holes during the wet season, and extremely dusty during the dry season. It was estimated that only about 5 of americas 2. 2 million miles of roads were actually allweather. In other words they were covered with broken stone, some type of gravel, even sand. Or in florida, with seashells. So to make a long story short, the road system was abysmal. And one good example comes from iowa. As of 1905, only 2 of the States Network of more than 100,000 miles of roads were improved. Or allweather, or sem ....
Years before and if we had the triumph of the good roads movement about the same time, we would not have had the inter urban era. We can make a case, too that the inter urban is the transition between steamed railroad less and express of becoming the motor truck. And, in the near future, in fact, on thursday, i want to talk about trolley or inter urb urban freight. To begin, lets keep in mind that the american inter city road system was awful. We did talk about that turnpike movement at the end of the 18th century that continued in the earliest 20th century. We had that National Road that was financed by the federal government in the 1840s and 50s. Also, there were local improvements, for example, the plain roads stand out as a good illustration. It would not be until the 1890s when there was this bicycle crazed, the safety of bicycle were introduced in the latter part of 1880s and communities were being pressured to have better ro ....