Latest / Ridiculous History / Flashback: Unforeseen Consequences Throughout History: Part 1

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Flashback: Unforeseen Consequences Throughout History: Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. I am Ben my rider Die.
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Speaker 1: Host Noel is off on an adventure, but returning very
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Speaker 1: soon and sends his regards. Super producer Casey Pegram is
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Speaker 1: here with us as well. Casey, this is an episode
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Speaker 1: that's been on our mind collectively for some for some time,
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Speaker 1: and I am excited to see what we find. But
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Speaker 1: it's it's something that I have been thinking about over
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Speaker 1: the course of this week and this weekend. Uh. Unintended consequences, man,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? History is full of them.
1:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know where we're going with that.
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Speaker 1: It's an exciting theme. There's so many possibilities for I mean,
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Speaker 1: history is is literally the story of unintended consequences at
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Speaker 1: some level. I think so, um, it's gonna be a
1:21
Speaker 1: great show today. I think I like the way you
1:23
Speaker 1: you put that we're waxing poetic today. Man. That was nice. Uh.
1:28
Speaker 1: We have decided to explore a cavalcade of unintended consequences, which,
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Speaker 1: as you said, Casey, is a really good way to
1:38
Speaker 1: define history in general. But we are not venturing forth
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Speaker 1: into this land alone. Today. We are incredibly fortunate to
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Speaker 1: be joined with our special guests, the host of the
1:51
Speaker 1: new podcast Flashback. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the
1:56
Speaker 1: audio stage Sean braswell. Sean, thanks for coming on, glad
2:01
Speaker 1: to be here, Ben, thanks for having me. Now, Sean,
2:03
Speaker 1: you have quite a vested interest in a number of pursuits.
2:09
Speaker 1: I believe you maybe the first Polly Math we've ever
2:13
Speaker 1: had on Ridiculous History. Oh that's that's quite an honor.
2:16
Speaker 1: It's true. I'm something of a renaissance man, someone who
2:19
Speaker 1: went to college for way too long and did far
2:22
Speaker 1: too many degrees, but it eventually pays off. I think
2:26
Speaker 1: so agree with you. By the way, I was still
2:31
Speaker 1: like I I think, like many of us, every so
2:34
Speaker 1: often I think I should get a PhD, you know,
2:37
Speaker 1: just just in something. So that's that's the dream. But
2:42
Speaker 1: we wanted to ask you on this show today to
2:46
Speaker 1: help us explore some of these unintended consequences throughout history,
2:51
Speaker 1: and we've asked you to do so because this pertains
2:55
Speaker 1: directly to your podcast, Flashback. Could you tell us a
2:59
Speaker 1: little bit of about what Flashback is that's right. Um,
3:02
Speaker 1: Flashback is a is a history podcast, and our first
3:05
Speaker 1: season is all about unintended consequences, like you said, and uh,
3:10
Speaker 1: you know, I like to think of history, and one
3:12
Speaker 1: of the things I love most about it, in addition
3:14
Speaker 1: to the great stories and and and the ridiculous stories
3:17
Speaker 1: like you guys cover, is just to think of it
3:19
Speaker 1: as one big giant laboratory experiment where you can sort
3:23
Speaker 1: of see cause and effect unfold over time, and you
3:27
Speaker 1: can figure out how things are connected. You know. Sometimes
3:31
Speaker 1: change happens on a dime, sometimes it happens over centuries.
3:34
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the beautiful thing about the about
3:37
Speaker 1: history is that it teaches us about how so much
3:39
Speaker 1: of the world around us is contingent. You know, that
3:43
Speaker 1: things don't have to be the way they are now
3:46
Speaker 1: and uh, and they almost weren't. Yeah. There's so many
3:49
Speaker 1: pivotal points in history, right, Decision points have been called
3:52
Speaker 1: or a crossroads. It's something we spend a lot of
3:55
Speaker 1: time thinking about on this show as well. You know,
3:59
Speaker 1: what if something happens just a few minutes later on
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Speaker 1: a particular afternoon, right, what leads us to investigate the
4:08
Speaker 1: largely invisible stories of some very common things. Throughout Season
4:15
Speaker 1: one of Flashback, you've been exploring topics that might ostensibly
4:20
Speaker 1: seem like something everyone is aware of, you know, like
4:24
Speaker 1: air conditioning. We we get it, we know what air
4:26
Speaker 1: conditioning is. But you explore the ripple effects caused by
4:31
Speaker 1: some of these events, some actions of notable individuals like
4:35
Speaker 1: Henry Ford, for instance, or the way in which a
4:40
Speaker 1: controversial product might affect the world around us. I was
4:44
Speaker 1: hoping that today we could we could explore a couple
4:48
Speaker 1: of these things, because there's a lot of stuff in Flashback.
4:52
Speaker 1: I I had no idea of I I had no
4:56
Speaker 1: idea the entire story of cigarettes, Like when we think
5:00
Speaker 1: of cigarettes today, this is a good starting point. When
5:03
Speaker 1: we think of cigarettes today, you know, we think of
5:05
Speaker 1: things like the massive health concerns right Uh, the tremendous
5:11
Speaker 1: damage it can do to your body. We also think
5:13
Speaker 1: of maybe the social aspect of cigarettes being cool in
5:20
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties film and uh film and you know television, Uh,
5:26
Speaker 1: ridiculous histories. You can't see it. But I got a
5:29
Speaker 1: little too in character, and now I'm waving an invisible
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Speaker 1: cigarette that I have to keep for the rest of
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Speaker 1: the show. Uh. But this is this is where I'd
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Speaker 1: like to start today, Sean, cigarettes, What what are some
5:39
Speaker 1: of the unintended consequences of cigarettes? Well, there are just
5:44
Speaker 1: so many and uh, and cigarettes have such a rich
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Speaker 1: history and and one of the things I think, like
5:49
Speaker 1: you mentioned that that we take for granted today is
5:53
Speaker 1: we cigarettes are is basically synonymous with smoking and tobacco.
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Speaker 1: But it wasn't always that case throughout American history. I mean,
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Speaker 1: we have a long history with tobacco in this country,
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Speaker 1: going back to the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. But for
6:06
Speaker 1: the most part, through the the early history of the
6:08
Speaker 1: United States, we were talking about cigars and pipes and
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Speaker 1: chewing tobacco, not not manufactured cigarettes. And for for much
6:16
Speaker 1: of our history, cigarettes were considered, you know, somewhat effeminate,
6:19
Speaker 1: that you would be made fun of if you're a
6:22
Speaker 1: man and you were smoking a little dainty cigarette, just
6:25
Speaker 1: like you gesture a minute ago. So this is odd
6:29
Speaker 1: because you know, for a lot of people, the idea
6:33
Speaker 1: of the Marlborough man is pretty familiar, and that's something
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Speaker 1: that's supposed to be equated directly with say a more
6:40
Speaker 1: masculine presentation. Right, How how did this switch occur? Yeah,
6:44
Speaker 1: it's it's funny. It's a very masculine thing to do,
6:47
Speaker 1: thanks in no small part to the Marlboro Man. But
6:49
Speaker 1: in part that is all rolled up into the relationship
6:52
Speaker 1: that smoking has with war in American history, going back
6:57
Speaker 1: to the First World War in fact, right right, So
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Speaker 1: I imagine then it's a situation where tobacco was perhaps
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Speaker 1: a ration that's given to soldiers, similar to the way
7:07
Speaker 1: you know, you would receive food rations. Is that correct? Yes,
7:10
Speaker 1: but not, but not at first. It wasn't actually included
7:13
Speaker 1: in the U. S. Army rations in World War One
7:16
Speaker 1: until the very end of the war. Um the very
7:18
Speaker 1: first group to hand out cigarettes, and they handed out
7:21
Speaker 1: more than two billion of them to US soldiers, was
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Speaker 1: in fact that the y m c A way the
7:26
Speaker 1: Young Men's Christian Association, that's right, one, one and the same,
7:31
Speaker 1: These sort of Christian progressive temperance groups like y m
7:35
Speaker 1: c A. They are the ones that helped get prohibition
7:38
Speaker 1: past in America. They were very involved in the moral
7:42
Speaker 1: health and reform of the country, and one of the
7:45
Speaker 1: places that they were most concerned about war as the
7:49
Speaker 1: environment that soldiers found themselves in. You know, we have
7:52
Speaker 1: a certain view today that being uh, in the military
7:55
Speaker 1: is a glorious, profound, and noble venture. But back you know,
8:02
Speaker 1: in the days of the Civil War, mothers would fear
8:04
Speaker 1: when their sons and it was mostly their sons who
8:06
Speaker 1: went off to battle and would come back with all
8:09
Speaker 1: manner of bad habits and vices, from pornography used to
8:14
Speaker 1: to drug use, to alcohol abuse, all sorts of things
8:17
Speaker 1: like that. So groups like the y m c A
8:19
Speaker 1: grew up to kind of help protect against that kind
8:22
Speaker 1: of concern with vice among the soldiering class. Yeah, yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: you know, this feels like it has the ring of truth.
8:30
Speaker 1: I'm imagining what those what those vices might be. You know,
8:34
Speaker 1: they're very serious things like someone becoming addicted to an
8:39
Speaker 1: opiate of some sort for the treatment of you know,
8:42
Speaker 1: chronic injuries or chronic pain. But then there's also stuff
8:46
Speaker 1: that seems kind of I don't know, at the risk
8:49
Speaker 1: of selling dismissive, seems kind of silly, Like little Johnny
8:53
Speaker 1: ran off the war and now he came back and
8:55
Speaker 1: he's got a hot hand in dice games, you know
8:57
Speaker 1: what I mean. The kid just can't stop gambling. And
9:00
Speaker 1: it's still it seems, though counterintuitive that a organization dedicated
9:06
Speaker 1: to perpetuating its idea of morality would be associated with like,
9:12
Speaker 1: you know, there's a Y M c A down the
9:15
Speaker 1: street from from Casey and I, and I'm pretty sure
9:19
Speaker 1: they're anti smoking. Now I haven't read all their literature.
9:22
Speaker 1: That might be my assumption. I would I would assume
9:24
Speaker 1: so as well. You just have to remember the context
9:27
Speaker 1: of a century ago. And it was almost like smoking
9:31
Speaker 1: was the lesser of many evils when it came to
9:33
Speaker 1: World War One soldiers. For example, the British Army gave
9:38
Speaker 1: their soldiers rum rations, state sanctioned rum rations UH, and
9:42
Speaker 1: the French soldiers actually had state run brothels that they
9:45
Speaker 1: could frequent during World War One. And UH. A lot
9:47
Speaker 1: of the American public and the U. S. Army weren't
9:50
Speaker 1: aboard but that sort of advice. But they felt like
9:53
Speaker 1: cigarettes was one vice they could effectively sanction, and it
9:57
Speaker 1: was because it had certain benefits or soldiers as well.
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Speaker 1: It was something that would calm and soothe their nerves.
10:04
Speaker 1: It was something to do when you were bored and UH.
10:07
Speaker 1: And one thing that often gets overlooked is just the
10:10
Speaker 1: fact that smoking condole your sense of smell. And there
10:13
Speaker 1: were some very bad smells on the on the World
10:15
Speaker 1: War One battlefield. Yeah, that's that's a good point. I
10:18
Speaker 1: I I had thought about maybe the recreational aspect of it, um,
10:23
Speaker 1: But I think you're making a pretty profound insight about
10:28
Speaker 1: the functionality of of smoking there. You know, I wouldn't
10:33
Speaker 1: be surprised if there were soldiers who had taken up
10:35
Speaker 1: the habit just so they wouldn't have to constantly smell
10:41
Speaker 1: the terrible stenches of war. Absolutely, you would find people
10:45
Speaker 1: who wouldn't normally take up habits like that, adopting them
10:49
Speaker 1: in context of extreme stress like battle and uh. And
10:53
Speaker 1: that is what basically hooks an entire generation of young
10:59
Speaker 1: America and young male Americans on cigarettes is the fact
11:03
Speaker 1: that they're put in a rather unusual circumstance. And those
11:07
Speaker 1: who might not necessarily have addictive personalities or pursue that
11:12
Speaker 1: sort of vice outside of such a circumstance would would
11:16
Speaker 1: would do that in in in the in the millions.
11:19
Speaker 1: And so when these soldiers return now veterans, right, they
11:24
Speaker 1: return with their with their cigarette habit. And this is okay,
11:30
Speaker 1: So this is like the close of World War One
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Speaker 1: and the interwar period. Correct, Yes, that's right. Okay. So
11:36
Speaker 1: after after they return, what happens. How does American culture
11:42
Speaker 1: sort of associate or you know, navigate the idea of
11:47
Speaker 1: the cigarette. Well, I think it just becomes much more sanctioned,
11:51
Speaker 1: much more accepted. And you have millions of new, now
11:55
Speaker 1: very manly nicotine addicts coming back from the war. And
11:58
Speaker 1: of course it's very pro fitable industry as as a
12:01
Speaker 1: result in the and the tobacco industry is making crazy
12:04
Speaker 1: profits in the nineteen twenties, and and it spreads to
12:07
Speaker 1: other segments of the American public. And of course the
12:10
Speaker 1: more profitable the industry, the more profitable it is to
12:13
Speaker 1: tax that industry, which is how uh, state and the
12:17
Speaker 1: federal government get first involved in cigarette taxas. Yes, okay,
12:22
Speaker 1: so I have I have several questions about this because
12:26
Speaker 1: when you said, you know, when you mentioned the potentially
12:32
Speaker 1: massive profits from from tobacco industry in general, right all
12:36
Speaker 1: the products, when you when you mentioned that, I was
12:39
Speaker 1: immediately thinking, for a second you were going to say,
12:41
Speaker 1: and of course, the more profit there is to be made,
12:45
Speaker 1: the more likely you'll see a criminal element involved. Uh.
12:49
Speaker 1: And I think that now I'm not saying that taxing
12:52
Speaker 1: is a criminal element I'm just saying that the government
12:56
Speaker 1: was not the only entity trying to make a little
12:59
Speaker 1: something off the topless cigarettes. But weren't cigarette taxes controversial
13:05
Speaker 1: at some point? I mean, people in general are not
13:07
Speaker 1: big fans of taxes. No, they they they're not big
13:11
Speaker 1: fans of the cigarette tax. But but initially, for the
13:14
Speaker 1: first twenty years or so, they're you know, their pennies
13:16
Speaker 1: on on a pack, they're they're relatively small, they're they're
13:19
Speaker 1: they're minor additions to the cost of a pack of cigarettes.
13:24
Speaker 1: And but it was a great revenue raiser for the government.
13:27
Speaker 1: And you have to remember and during the nineteen twenties,
13:29
Speaker 1: during Prohibition, the government was no longer taxing legal alcohol,
13:34
Speaker 1: which just blew an enormous hole in the U. S.
13:36
Speaker 1: Treasury not having alcohol taxes, and so the government was
13:39
Speaker 1: looking for ways to recoup that revenue, and tobacco taxes
13:44
Speaker 1: were one big way of doing that. And I think
13:46
Speaker 1: about fift of the federal government's tax collections in the
13:49
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties were tobacco taxes fifteen per cent. That's that's
13:56
Speaker 1: an insanely high number. Uh in higherly from cigarettes. I
14:02
Speaker 1: guess it's it's interesting because a lot of us in
14:05
Speaker 1: the modern day, you know, we like there's still a
14:10
Speaker 1: visible demographic of the population that smokes or maybe engages
14:15
Speaker 1: in some kind of relationship with nicotine, like vaping or something.
14:19
Speaker 1: But it's been on a steady decline for a number
14:23
Speaker 1: of years here in the States. From what I understand,
14:26
Speaker 1: it's it's just so it's startling to realize that not
14:30
Speaker 1: that long ago, you know, it would seem more abnormal
14:34
Speaker 1: for someone in a certain demographic to not smoke, right like,
14:38
Speaker 1: even even doctors are recommending the smooth field of the
14:42
Speaker 1: camel's cigarette or something like that, right absolutely. And uh
14:46
Speaker 1: And just to take a microcosm event, you know, the
14:48
Speaker 1: average military base today and you go down to Fort Bragg,
14:52
Speaker 1: which is about an hour from where I live in
14:54
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and you don't see people smoking anymore. You
14:58
Speaker 1: hardly ever see a cigarette soldier with a cigarette in
15:01
Speaker 1: his or her mouth. Um. But you know, back in
15:03
Speaker 1: the is a different story. And especially in World War Two,
15:07
Speaker 1: they were everywhere. They were the preferred coping mechanism for
15:11
Speaker 1: the for the enlisted man. And then of course, who
15:15
Speaker 1: are you to tell that veteran that they are somehow
15:19
Speaker 1: effeminate because they have a cigarette instead of a you know,
15:23
Speaker 1: a cigar or I don't know, I'm spitball in here
15:25
Speaker 1: a hookah. Who knows? That's right? So when when you
15:35
Speaker 1: look at this, do you think that the y m
15:38
Speaker 1: c A knew just how popular this uh distribution plan
15:44
Speaker 1: of theirs would be? Like there, it sounds like we
15:47
Speaker 1: can tie them almost directly to the popularity of cigarettes
15:52
Speaker 1: in America. Yes, I I don't think that the y
15:56
Speaker 1: m c A had really any clue as to the
16:00
Speaker 1: long term consequences of what was essentially an act of
16:03
Speaker 1: generosity during World War One, trying to provide a mechanism
16:07
Speaker 1: for soldiers to better cope with life on the battlefield. Yeah,
16:12
Speaker 1: but I mean that that's one of the things we
16:14
Speaker 1: we we talked about a lot in the podcast, is
16:16
Speaker 1: just how these unintended consequences can play out over time
16:20
Speaker 1: and often in directions you could not have fathomed at
16:23
Speaker 1: the time, and in ways that create much bigger and
16:26
Speaker 1: larger vices than the one that the y m c
16:29
Speaker 1: A was trying to deal with during World War One.
16:32
Speaker 1: And this, you know, this is sobering stuff. Uh, just
16:36
Speaker 1: just so everyone knows the way we're kind of laying
16:38
Speaker 1: out today's journey is to start with what I would
16:41
Speaker 1: say is one of the most dangerous topics. Clearly, you know,
16:45
Speaker 1: we can also we can also point out that the
16:49
Speaker 1: y m c A was not on some insidious conspiracy,
16:54
Speaker 1: you know, to to give people cancer or anything. It was,
16:57
Speaker 1: as you said, an act of generosity by it had
17:01
Speaker 1: significant and serious consequences on the American public, and those
17:05
Speaker 1: consequences still reverberate with us today. But maybe we switch
17:12
Speaker 1: topics here and and take a different path. Sean, why
17:16
Speaker 1: don't we cool down the tone of the podcast a
17:19
Speaker 1: little bit and talk about air conditioning. Just just to
17:23
Speaker 1: set this up here, air conditioning is amazing. A lot
17:27
Speaker 1: of people here in the US have lived their entire
17:30
Speaker 1: lives with easy access to air conditioning. It's ubiquitous in
17:34
Speaker 1: many parts of the world. But if you have ever
17:36
Speaker 1: spent an extended amount of time in an area where
17:40
Speaker 1: air conditioning is abnormal, you very quickly notice its absence. Casey,
17:46
Speaker 1: I want to throw to you, actually, how common is
17:49
Speaker 1: air conditioning in France? Yeah, and in Paris It's it's
17:53
Speaker 1: very hit and myths, and it's sometimes used as marketing
17:58
Speaker 1: for like a film. You know, movie theory there will
18:00
Speaker 1: say the silids climatise, and it means it's climatized, it's
18:04
Speaker 1: air conditioned, and so you you kind of have the
18:07
Speaker 1: idea that maybe some people are buying tickets to go
18:10
Speaker 1: in just a cool off for a couple of hours
18:11
Speaker 1: and the movie doesn't matter so much. So um, yeah,
18:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a whole way of life, right,
18:17
Speaker 1: like you always have the windows open, You're always kind
18:19
Speaker 1: of conscious of trying to keep some airflow going, stay fresh,
18:24
Speaker 1: um where you know, light materials that breathe and so on.
18:27
Speaker 1: It's it's a whole thing, casey on the case. Yeah.
18:31
Speaker 1: You know, Sean, I had in a previous life, I
18:35
Speaker 1: had lived in Central America for some time in Guatemala,
18:39
Speaker 1: and you know, air conditioning was much less common, at
18:42
Speaker 1: least the place in the place where I was living.
18:45
Speaker 1: And the last thing I did before I returned to
18:48
Speaker 1: the United States was to splurge a little and spend
18:53
Speaker 1: the night in a in a hotel that had this
18:57
Speaker 1: was very big to me, had both carpet and air canditioning.
19:00
Speaker 1: Uh And and now returning with that, like I am
19:05
Speaker 1: constantly amazed by air conditioning. I think it does affect
19:08
Speaker 1: us in ways that we we don't really think about,
19:10
Speaker 1: but you on flashback had mentioned it also played a
19:15
Speaker 1: role in politics. Yes, that's that's right. You know. Um,
19:20
Speaker 1: when comfort spreads over an entire country or over an
19:25
Speaker 1: entire globe, eventually it changes the way people behave, often
19:29
Speaker 1: in unexpected ways. And even though we come to think
19:32
Speaker 1: of air conditioning as a creature comfort as an invention
19:36
Speaker 1: that makes life easier, uh that that idea of comfort,
19:40
Speaker 1: of having an easier life influences how people behave, for
19:44
Speaker 1: for example, moving to different parts of the country that
19:48
Speaker 1: they might normally not want to live in, for example
19:51
Speaker 1: Houston or Phoenix, or or any of a number of
19:53
Speaker 1: places in the U. S. Sun Belt that now have
19:57
Speaker 1: cities with that are home to millions of p bowl
20:00
Speaker 1: but at one time would be it would be absolutely
20:03
Speaker 1: unthinkable to want to spend an entire year in a
20:07
Speaker 1: place like that. Yeah, like the swamp lands of Florida,
20:10
Speaker 1: you know, especially thinking very humid places where it just
20:13
Speaker 1: SAPs your energy out. So we know, without getting too
20:19
Speaker 1: into the weeds on the story of air conditionings invention,
20:23
Speaker 1: we know the idea has been around for a long time, right,
20:25
Speaker 1: how can we make the air in the environment around
20:28
Speaker 1: us cooler? But what would you say, was like the
20:32
Speaker 1: first wave of people empowered to move via air conditioning
20:37
Speaker 1: availability in the US. Well, the big moment on that
20:40
Speaker 1: front is in the early nineteen fifties with the advent
20:44
Speaker 1: of the home air conditioning unit. Because even though air
20:48
Speaker 1: conditioning had been available in large commercial places in America
20:52
Speaker 1: for for most of the early twentieth century and department stores,
20:55
Speaker 1: or like Casey said, in France, in movie theaters, there
20:59
Speaker 1: was not something that was present at home. It was
21:02
Speaker 1: it was an escape from the heat. Uh So, for example,
21:05
Speaker 1: movie theaters in the nineteen twenties and thirties, they would
21:08
Speaker 1: advertise with big icicles and polar bears, and some would
21:12
Speaker 1: just prop open the lobby doors, so if you're walking
21:14
Speaker 1: down the sidewalk, you could feel this breath of cool
21:17
Speaker 1: air coming out, and it would entice you to buy
21:20
Speaker 1: a ticket and come inside. And so that was the
21:24
Speaker 1: reality of air conditioning for decades was it was a
21:27
Speaker 1: it was a comfort in a in a public place.
21:30
Speaker 1: But once the air conditioning unit comes into the home,
21:33
Speaker 1: that's when people start to realize that they can live
21:37
Speaker 1: in a variety of places across the country, and you
21:40
Speaker 1: can see that start to shape population migration in the
21:44
Speaker 1: United States starting in the fifties and sixties, and and
21:47
Speaker 1: ultimately that effects political representation and where people are and
21:52
Speaker 1: what type of people are in different places, right, right,
21:56
Speaker 1: because the way that our you know, our voting and
22:01
Speaker 1: electoral system works, means that the more people who live
22:07
Speaker 1: in a given state, right, the more representation they have
22:11
Speaker 1: in Congress via the House of Representatives, Right. And uh,
22:15
Speaker 1: I guess that goes into municipal government as well. You
22:20
Speaker 1: know now that you mentioned it, Sean, I'm just thinking
22:23
Speaker 1: like Houston, Texas, for instance, without air conditioning, is a
22:29
Speaker 1: automatically going to be a much much smaller town by
22:32
Speaker 1: almost any measure. Is air conditioning responsible for these metropolis ees? Absolutely.
22:38
Speaker 1: If you take Gulf cities like Houston, New Orleans, Tampa,
22:43
Speaker 1: they were about less than half a million people in
22:46
Speaker 1: those cities before nineteen fifty, which seems unfathomable today when
22:50
Speaker 1: they're something more like twenty million people that live in
22:53
Speaker 1: those Gulf cities. And that increase that mass migration to
22:57
Speaker 1: the Sun Belt was as a result of air conditioning. Primarily,
23:01
Speaker 1: you know, you have to wonder if any of the
23:04
Speaker 1: politicians ever thanked air conditioning in a stump speech, you know,
23:09
Speaker 1: or a an acceptance speech, like I'd like to thank
23:12
Speaker 1: God the good voters of the Florida Panhandle and of
23:16
Speaker 1: course air conditioning units the real soldiers of summer exactly
23:22
Speaker 1: and uh, and some notable mostly Republican politicians probably should having,
23:27
Speaker 1: including President Ronald Reagan, whose election in nineteen eighty was
23:31
Speaker 1: sort of the tail end of a of a mass
23:33
Speaker 1: migration south in the United States. I think what a
23:36
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize today, where we tend to
23:38
Speaker 1: think of the Southern States is predominantly Republican states, is
23:42
Speaker 1: that in you know, the first one hundred years, almost
23:45
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, the Democratic Party dominated the South.
23:49
Speaker 1: And so for example, they're about one House of representative
23:53
Speaker 1: seats in the southern US, and the Southern States only
23:56
Speaker 1: about seven of them, about a handful of them were
23:59
Speaker 1: republic looking. For most of the twentieth century, those were
24:02
Speaker 1: the sort of mountain ones in Tennessee and North Carolina.
24:06
Speaker 1: And starting in nineteen fifty four in St. Petersburg, Florida,
24:09
Speaker 1: you start to see that flip. St. Petersburg went from
24:12
Speaker 1: being a democratic constituency to a Republican one. And the
24:15
Speaker 1: main reason for that was that you had a lot
24:18
Speaker 1: of wealthy northern Republicans who were migrating south, people who
24:22
Speaker 1: might have wintered in Florida previously decided to just go
24:25
Speaker 1: ahead and uproot and live there all year long. And
24:28
Speaker 1: I'm wondering too, how this applies to other areas of
24:33
Speaker 1: the world. I think we can. I think we can
24:36
Speaker 1: even expand and go a bit closer to a macro level,
24:39
Speaker 1: because you know, one of the first things people think
24:41
Speaker 1: about when they think about crazy heat in the world
24:44
Speaker 1: is going to be the Middle East, right, places like
24:47
Speaker 1: Dubai or Saudi Arabia. And I'm I'm starting to think
24:52
Speaker 1: that this link you have uncovered applies to in some
24:58
Speaker 1: way to those cities, well, those centers of human capital
25:02
Speaker 1: and learning. Um, it's it's fascinating to me, especially the
25:07
Speaker 1: idea that air conditioning might be responsible for the rise
25:11
Speaker 1: of republicanism. Uh. For for any one interested in learning
25:16
Speaker 1: more about what what Sean and Casey and I are
25:18
Speaker 1: exploring here, uh, just google the term dixiecrat, right. Uh
25:24
Speaker 1: that I believe that is that a pejorative term. I
25:26
Speaker 1: thought it was just sort of like a group name.
25:29
Speaker 1: Not originally it has subsequently come to be somewhat pejorative, right,
25:33
Speaker 1: the idea of being that UH, the Democratic Party of
25:38
Speaker 1: the South at this time, in reconstruction and post Civil
25:41
Speaker 1: War did not have much in common with the Democratic
25:45
Speaker 1: Party as we understand it today. The Democrats are Dixiecrats
25:50
Speaker 1: in the in the post Civil war realities of the South,
25:54
Speaker 1: were very much an oppositional party. They wanted to maintain
25:59
Speaker 1: what they saw as a political and cultural stronghold against
26:04
Speaker 1: the victorious northern UH and largely Republican parties. So you said,
26:11
Speaker 1: there's this massive migration south, and it's enabled by the
26:15
Speaker 1: whole air conditioner, which is, you know, the newest thing
26:18
Speaker 1: that you need to keep up with the joneses or
26:21
Speaker 1: people moving from a specific part of the country like
26:23
Speaker 1: the northeast or the cooler northwest. Where where did all
26:28
Speaker 1: these people come from? Primarily from New England and New
26:31
Speaker 1: York and the rest belt. And to put this in context,
26:35
Speaker 1: about eighty six seats in Congress went from the North
26:39
Speaker 1: to the South during this time period. And as the
26:42
Speaker 1: South grew more populous, it's clout in Washington improved as well,
26:46
Speaker 1: and those were predominantly Republican seats, sean permitting to just
26:51
Speaker 1: brainstorm or conspire a bit here. But I'm also wondering
26:56
Speaker 1: whether manufacturers of air conditioning equipment maybe not predicted this trend,
27:00
Speaker 1: but I'm wondering whether they were able to see it,
27:03
Speaker 1: because surely they noticed where most of their sales were
27:07
Speaker 1: occurring or where things were um rising right in certain demographics.
27:12
Speaker 1: Do we know if anyone in the air conditioning industry
27:17
Speaker 1: clocked this or saw it or were they just thinking, man,
27:21
Speaker 1: we're gonna be rich and at a low ambient temperature.
27:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure they were keeping track of it, and it
27:27
Speaker 1: was a bonanza for them. And you can see the
27:30
Speaker 1: studies and the and the census figures and other things
27:33
Speaker 1: during the time period for not only the growth of
27:35
Speaker 1: the population in the South, but the percentage of American
27:38
Speaker 1: homes that had air conditioning at this time. You know,
27:41
Speaker 1: I think it goes from something like of households in
27:44
Speaker 1: the sixties to fifty percent and seventy and and and
27:49
Speaker 1: up and up from there too. I think it's about
27:52
Speaker 1: or so today. And we can also see the effects
27:56
Speaker 1: of air conditioning. I would pause it in the growth
28:00
Speaker 1: of infrastructure, right, you have to have a much more
28:03
Speaker 1: reliable energy system, especially you know in like a sweltering
28:09
Speaker 1: New Orleans summer. New Orleans is a terrible example. There
28:13
Speaker 1: are already a lot of people living there. But but
28:16
Speaker 1: the uh maybe let's say, um, San Antonio another very
28:21
Speaker 1: hot place. I'm wondering. I'm wondering what other effects happen here,
28:28
Speaker 1: because I think it's an unfortunately common occurrence. A lot
28:33
Speaker 1: of people have experience that uh stomach churning emotion when
28:40
Speaker 1: you have the A c on too high, maybe your
28:43
Speaker 1: campinging somewhere, or your cars getting overheated. Uh. There are
28:48
Speaker 1: parts of the world now where we as a species
28:50
Speaker 1: cannot envision living without air conditioning. But is it driving
28:56
Speaker 1: energy infrastructure in these cities as well as driving voting
28:59
Speaker 1: pop relations? Absolutely? I mean, I think you find that
29:03
Speaker 1: this has gone from being a luxury to a necessity
29:06
Speaker 1: in a lot of places like like San Antonio, or
29:08
Speaker 1: like Phoenix, where you have to have an enormous infrastructure
29:12
Speaker 1: to support millions of people, um that live in a
29:16
Speaker 1: place that basically in the case of Phoenix, you know,
29:18
Speaker 1: just over a century ago probably had twenty thousand UM
29:22
Speaker 1: and and not two million or more, and you have
29:26
Speaker 1: to have heat relief efforts on hand. You have to
29:29
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, legions of h VACT repairman. It's
29:34
Speaker 1: just a much different landscape, one that is geared towards
29:38
Speaker 1: treating this particular home appliance. And air conditioning has changed
29:49
Speaker 1: the US, it's changed the world. There were a couple
29:52
Speaker 1: of things I wanted to chat with you about, because
29:56
Speaker 1: we may be potentially in some situation, we may be
30:00
Speaker 1: shooting ourselves in the climate controlled foot with air conditioning.
30:04
Speaker 1: I'm thinking specifically with your excellent example of Phoenix, Arizona.
30:10
Speaker 1: It's a great example of how the use of air
30:14
Speaker 1: conditioning can actually make air conditioning more necessary in the future,
30:20
Speaker 1: right because we're making cooler inside buildings and structures and
30:24
Speaker 1: stores and so on, but we're doing that by expelling
30:28
Speaker 1: hot air into into the environment. I found a study
30:33
Speaker 1: that said the hot air pumped out of air conditioning
30:37
Speaker 1: units in Phoenix, Arizona raise the city's average nighttime temperature
30:42
Speaker 1: by something on the order of two degrees celsius. Again
30:46
Speaker 1: that that's two degrees celsius for basically everybody on the
30:49
Speaker 1: planet except for the United States. For US, US residents.
30:53
Speaker 1: That's thirty five point six degrees fahrenheit. Nothing to sneeze at.
30:56
Speaker 1: That's that's a pretty significant jump. Yeah, And like you said,
30:59
Speaker 1: it's a it's a vicious cycle now where uh, you know,
31:03
Speaker 1: the massive use of air conditioning does affect the climate
31:06
Speaker 1: and does affect affect the temperature, and which in turn,
31:10
Speaker 1: you know, just enhances the need for air conditioning. And
31:13
Speaker 1: if you think it's bad as a result of cities
31:15
Speaker 1: like Phoenix, you know, wait till air conditioning becomes far
31:18
Speaker 1: more prevalent in places like Delhi or Jakarta or other
31:21
Speaker 1: cities in the world. Yeah, that's a that's a prescient
31:25
Speaker 1: and disturbing point, shot, especially when we consider the hundreds
31:30
Speaker 1: of millions of people who live in these who live
31:33
Speaker 1: in these areas. You know, it makes me wonder. I
31:37
Speaker 1: am not the expert here, ma'am, but it makes me
31:40
Speaker 1: wonder if maybe we should go back to the days
31:43
Speaker 1: of having the ice trucks run. Right when when that
31:47
Speaker 1: that was an industry in New England, Right, they would
31:50
Speaker 1: literally drive these trucks all the way up to Canada.
31:52
Speaker 1: I believe they would chop off chunks of ice, they
31:55
Speaker 1: would cover it in hay, and they would be like, hurry, hurry, hurry,
31:58
Speaker 1: We've got to put our foot on the gas and
32:00
Speaker 1: it back down to New York. I don't know that
32:04
Speaker 1: was a real thing though, right, That was a fairly
32:05
Speaker 1: prevalent industry beforehand. Absolutely, And and just so many other
32:09
Speaker 1: ways of keeping cool that we've kind of forgotten about today.
32:13
Speaker 1: People used to spend lots of time outdoors in the shade,
32:16
Speaker 1: under trees, you know. They had a lot of public
32:19
Speaker 1: fountains where you could go cool off. There's just there's
32:22
Speaker 1: a whole way of coping with the heat that we've
32:25
Speaker 1: we've seemed to largely forget about. Yeah, you know, no,
32:28
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm one of those people who's naturally
32:31
Speaker 1: always kind of cold, So I have I have space
32:34
Speaker 1: heaters distributed strategically around my house. Um, and I think
32:39
Speaker 1: that's something that we as we as humans, uh, find
32:44
Speaker 1: ourselves quarreling with pretty often. Like we're I think we've
32:48
Speaker 1: become so adjusted to having this minute control over our
32:52
Speaker 1: inner temperature that some people just can't find a good
32:56
Speaker 1: temperature anymore. I mean, Casey, I said, I you've got
33:00
Speaker 1: a knowing glint in your eye. Are you one of
33:03
Speaker 1: those people who's always like too cold, too hot, or
33:05
Speaker 1: do you know someone who is well. I was just
33:07
Speaker 1: thinking of the dynamics here at the apartment. The thermostatic,
33:11
Speaker 1: of course, is in the central living area, and there's
33:15
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a constant push pull on,
33:19
Speaker 1: you know, bumping it up a degree, bumping it back
33:21
Speaker 1: down a degree, and so on. Um. And it's funny
33:24
Speaker 1: that the variance is literally just like a degree that
33:26
Speaker 1: we kind of like go up or down on. So,
33:29
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just it was just funny to me.
33:31
Speaker 1: What about what about you, Sean? Are you in a
33:34
Speaker 1: oh this is so bad? Are you in a temperature
33:37
Speaker 1: cold war? No? Not at home right now, But I
33:40
Speaker 1: I am with respect to uh podcasting and having I
33:43
Speaker 1: turned the A C off whenever I'm recording, And so
33:46
Speaker 1: how I noticed myself getting progressively uncomfortable the longer I
33:49
Speaker 1: I record the podcast. I don't know if you have
33:51
Speaker 1: that experience, Oh oh yes, yeah. So we we've been
33:56
Speaker 1: recording in our respective bunkers, you know, over the course
34:01
Speaker 1: of the ongoing pandemic. But for most of our show's history,
34:07
Speaker 1: Casey Nolan I recorded in something that looked very much
34:11
Speaker 1: like an insulated shipping container like you would see on
34:14
Speaker 1: a cargo ship, and it was exactly like sitting inside one.
34:18
Speaker 1: It wasn't barbaric. There was a window, uh so that
34:23
Speaker 1: Casey could see us and we could see him. You
34:25
Speaker 1: still really did luck out. You got the catbird seed
34:28
Speaker 1: on that one. Casey. Oh yeah, I was. I was
34:30
Speaker 1: outside the sweat box, so it got hot out there,
34:33
Speaker 1: but it was like probably ten fifteen degrees hotter it
34:36
Speaker 1: seemed inside. When you guys finished after like an hour,
34:39
Speaker 1: it was like a locker room in there was pretty bad.
34:41
Speaker 1: It was very good for managing sound Sean, but it
34:44
Speaker 1: was very bad for circulating air um. Probably the most
34:49
Speaker 1: uh impactful anecdote I can share about that is, uh,
34:55
Speaker 1: you know, was the first time recording in that in
34:57
Speaker 1: that shipping container for this show and for other shows.
35:00
Speaker 1: This is the first time in my life I walked
35:02
Speaker 1: out of a room and thought, wow, you know, I
35:05
Speaker 1: can feel the temperature drop. And then I realized, I'm like, whoa,
35:09
Speaker 1: I smell like the people I was in there with
35:12
Speaker 1: like and that's the and that's I believe, in the
35:15
Speaker 1: parlance of our time, that's called the funk. I got
35:18
Speaker 1: the funk uh. Um, but of course, you know, we
35:24
Speaker 1: do these things for you all listening in the audience today. Now,
35:28
Speaker 1: imagine if you had to do that and I will
35:30
Speaker 1: invest in suit or multiple petticoats. Oh, you know, it's
35:35
Speaker 1: the main thing. It's the main reason that I'm not
35:37
Speaker 1: more into petticoats. Really, if I'm being honest, it's day.
35:40
Speaker 1: I definitely have no objection to the aesthetic. Oh man, Casey,
35:45
Speaker 1: I think we did it again. We did we? Uh,
35:48
Speaker 1: this has a way of happening. I've noticed the impromptu
35:52
Speaker 1: two partner. Yes, yes, we have another impromptu two parter,
35:56
Speaker 1: assuming Sean Braswell will continue going on this strange journey
36:02
Speaker 1: with us. There's just so much more we want to
36:06
Speaker 1: get to. Uh, Sean, what what do you say? Are
36:09
Speaker 1: you up for a part two? I would love to
36:11
Speaker 1: come back and talk to you more about Unintended Consequences.
36:14
Speaker 1: Been fantastic, good because I don't know what we would
36:17
Speaker 1: have done if you said no. So I'm glad that
36:20
Speaker 1: worked out. Uh. In the meantime, Well, while we're getting
36:23
Speaker 1: to part two of our episode, we highly recommend you
36:26
Speaker 1: check out Shawn's new podcast with I Heart Flashback, which
36:30
Speaker 1: contains stories very much like this, uh, far deeper dives
36:34
Speaker 1: than we're getting to today, about everything from air conditioning,
36:39
Speaker 1: two cigarettes to Henry Ford in a very weird way,
36:44
Speaker 1: and also spoiler alert kudzu, Sean. Where can people go
36:48
Speaker 1: to find flashback? Sure, you can find Flashback History's Unintended
36:52
Speaker 1: Consequences on Apple podcasts or the I Heart Radio podcast
36:56
Speaker 1: app or or wherever you get your podcasts. And we'd
36:59
Speaker 1: also like to hear your stories of unintended consequences, things
37:04
Speaker 1: that you think your fellow listeners would enjoy. Ridiculous history
37:09
Speaker 1: is well, you know, all over the internet. We've basically
37:11
Speaker 1: got everything now but a Pinterest because of you know,
37:14
Speaker 1: some ongoing litigation, but don't worry about that. Just find
37:17
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, find us on Twitter, find us on Instagram.
37:20
Speaker 1: You can talk to Casey and Noel and I directly. Uh.
37:24
Speaker 1: We're also going to volunteer Sean here. Sean. If people
37:29
Speaker 1: want to reach out to you about flashback and maybe
37:31
Speaker 1: share some some of their stories, where should they find you?
37:34
Speaker 1: Please email me at flashback at AUSSI dot com. That's
37:38
Speaker 1: flashback at oz y dot com. We've been inviting our
37:41
Speaker 1: own listeners to share with us their stories of unintended consequences,
37:45
Speaker 1: as well as other stories from history that we might
37:47
Speaker 1: not have covered or missed. Fantastic. I cannot wait to
37:51
Speaker 1: read the stuff people are gonna send Casey, the stuff
37:54
Speaker 1: they're gonna post. I mean it will hopefully be a
37:57
Speaker 1: bit of a bomb to our wounded egos now that
38:01
Speaker 1: we realize we chose the wrong career paths and are
38:04
Speaker 1: not in fact cigarette tycoons. So as always, thanks to
38:09
Speaker 1: Christopher Hasiotis, thanks to Jonathan Strickland a k a. The
38:14
Speaker 1: Quister can get me, have forgotten to thank him on
38:16
Speaker 1: this or a future outro us and uh we'll we'll
38:21
Speaker 1: see him soon. Of course, we're also always glad to
38:24
Speaker 1: shout out Eve's Jeff Cote, our pure podcaster for this
38:28
Speaker 1: day in history. Let's see who else Casey we got?
38:31
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, you compose this banger of a track where
38:34
Speaker 1: we're listening to at the beginning and ending of pretty
38:36
Speaker 1: much every episode. Who else we got? We got? No Brown? Um?
38:41
Speaker 1: I think that's about it. Oh yeah, it'd be weird
38:43
Speaker 1: if you thank yourself, right. Yeah? I can't. I can't.
38:45
Speaker 1: I can't go that far. We're not at that Kanye level. Yet,
38:48
Speaker 1: but we'll get it. We'll get there, Yes, of course.
38:52
Speaker 1: Super producer Casey Pegram, thank you so much for going
38:56
Speaker 1: on yet another ridiculous historical journey with us. We can't
38:59
Speaker 1: wait to hear your stories, and we can't wait to
39:02
Speaker 1: bring you part two of our series on Unintended Consequences.
39:13
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
39:16
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
39:19
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,