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