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1900-1930
1930-1960
1960-2000
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In a sense, these are "anecdotes," defined as "short narratives of interesting, amusing, or biographical incidents." But there is another way of answering "What Happened?"-- through the lens of data and measurement, which shows us how the lives of everyday Americans changed. (The plural of anecdote is data.)
We begin our look at social indicators before the time of Gross National Product, public opinion polls, rates of unemployment, out-of-wedlock births, infant deaths and maternal mortality (which was the second leading cause of death among women, beaten out only by tuberculosis.) We see the United States going from half the size of the four biggest European nations to twice the size of all of them combined. We see a nation of 50 million, taking in 25 million immigrants. We see the population of cities soar, and then fade, as America becomes the first majority suburban nation. We see a nation with less mobility today than in 1900, the sharp rise and slow fall of violent crime rates, and increasing wealth, with a big argument about how it is shared. "The First Measured Century" is a fast paced narrative with unique graphics. It's history as you've never seen it, measured. And dramatic.
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PBS Program | Trends of the Century | Viewer's Voices | Interactivity | Teacher's Guide |
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As
Americans reflect on the official end of the twentieth century, we ask,
"What happened?" The answers are called "history,"
and these days, there is more than one way of telling history. Americans
have learned about yesteryear in terms of events, politics,
personalities, science, inventions, and arts. We saw: Titanic, Lindbergh,
Challenger, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, world wars, the Roaring
Twenties, hula-hoops, Elvis, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Watergate, the civil
rights and feminist movements, the Beatles, Reagan, O.J. and Monica. Some
of the best have come from PBS.
The
three-hour PBS program "The First Measured Century," tells the
story of America by the numbers through the eyes of those who did the
measuring and the interpreting, often in highly controversial and
unusual circumstances. These include George Gallup, Alfred Kinsey,
Robert and Helen Lynd (authors of "Middletown,") Daniel P.
Moynihan, W.E.B. Dubois, Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop, Frederick Jackson
Turner, Franz Boas (who turned back the tide of "scientific
racism,") James Q. Wilson (co-author of the "broken
windows" theory of crime prevention), Frank Fukuyama, William
Julius Wilson, and many others who, for the most part, are unheralded.