Building bridges (literally)
To change public morale's shape, cut tape
Welcome back to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
Today, you’re in the steady hands of This Day host Jody Avirgan.
Here’s what happened over the week ahead in American history…
May 23
1846: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States
1909: Helen “Nellie” Taft, wife of President William Howard Taft, suffers a stroke that causes her to retreat from the White House to recover
1934: Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed in Louisiana
1944: The Texas Democratic Party splits over supporting FDR, with a significant portion calling for the “restoration of states’ rights which have been destroyed by the Communist New Deal” and “restoration of the supremacy of the white race”
May 24
1775: John Hancock becomes President of Congress
1879: William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the anti-slavery Liberator, dies
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge opens during a ceremony presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland
May 25
1738: A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War
1961: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces the goal of putting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade
1978: The first of a series of bombings orchestrated by the Unabomber detonates at Northwestern University
May 26
1637: The Pequot Massacres begin: Puritans and their Native allies marched on the Pequot village at Mystic, slaughtering all but a handful of its inhabitants
1868: The Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal
1924: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a law restricting immigration.
1986: “Hands Across America” gathers Americans to line up from coast to coast in order to raise awareness about homelessness and hunger
2009: President Barack Obama nominates federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court
May 27
1937: The Golden Gate Bridge opens for the first time for “Pedestrian Day.” Cars would be allowed starting at noon the following day
1939: The SS St. Louis, carrying Jewish refugees, is turned away from multiple countries, including the US and Canada and forced to return to Europe, where 254 of the passengers would be killed by Nazis
2016: Barack Obama becomes the first president to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
May 28
1830: President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the Army to force Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states, setting the stage for the Cherokee Trail of Tears
1851: Sojourner Truth prepares her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech. It tells us a lot about how myths are made, and historical figures are flattened over time
1984: On Memorial Day 1984, President Ronald Reagan led a state funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for an unidentified American soldier killed in the Vietnam War
May 29
1846: 13 years after being granted their freedom, a group of formerly-enslaved Virginians arrive in Ohio to settle on land that they’d secured in a long court battle
1848: Wisconsin enters the union by act of Congress
1917: John F. Kennedy is born
1973: Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California
1988: Ronald Reagan begins his visit to the Soviet Union for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more.
If you’re going to launch an iconic suspension bridge, may I suggest the last week in May? Moreover, can I suggest you do so at a time of larger economic unrest?
The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge are on the list above, 54 years, 3 days, and 2,622 miles apart (as the crow flies - crows don’t need bridges.)
I suppose it makes sense to open a big bridge in late May. You put the finishing touches on during the early Spring, you can have a ribbon cutting where everyone’s fingers aren’t freezing, and you are ready for the summer rush.
Both opened with pedestrians flooding across the bridge, and were promptly handed over to car traffic. At least the Brooklyn Bridge has maintained its elevated pedestrian walkway -- to my mind, still the best super-touristy thing to do in NYC.
Both bridges, of course, connected two important parts of major metropolises — Brooklyn was its own city when the BK Bridge opened in 1883. They both served to hasten economic expansion during turbulent times.
The mid-1800s saw rapid industrialization but also growing inequality, huge strikes, and stock market crashes — these were given dramatic names like “The Great Upheaval” and even “The Great Depression.” History kinda forgot about those when the actual Great Depression came along a couple generations later. In 1937, in the middle of the Great Depression, we found $35 million (about three quarters of a billion dollars today) to build the Golden Gate Bridge — which came in early and under budget.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we turn to infrastructure during turbulent economic times. The infrastructure itself will become an economic engine, and the construction projects can provide jobs. They represent a visible can-do spirit. Politicians, of course, love a bridge opening. President Chester Arthur was there when the Brooklyn Bridge opened to pedestrians — though the first test-run took place a couple weeks before, using a herd of elephants on loan from P.T. Barnum. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while seated in the Oval Office, pressed a golden telegraph button to ceremonially open the Golden Gate Bridge to vehicular traffic. He did it at 3pm ET, noon PT; I’m told there was rush-hour traffic by 2.
I remember when the Obama administration touted “shovel-ready” jobs during the 2009 recovery programs; I know the Biden administration is desperate to slap their name on every bridge and factory and suddenly-on-time-Amtrak-train. Maybe it will help this fall.
But in 2024, would building a bridge really help build bridges? I’m not sure if there’s anything these days that can capture the imagination and can-do spirit in the way that those iconic bridge openings did. I mean, we did have a bridge-related story that captured the imagination recently. And it did become political — albeit quickly politicized. And that was the Baltimore bridge collapse. I’m sure that’s not a metaphor or anything.
— Jody Avirgan
A Little More Esoterica
On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed the financial and environmental impact of corn in the U.S., which naturally included talking about Richard Nixon’s agriculture secretary, Earl “Rusty” Butz. As Oliver alluded to, Butz’s end came after a media firestorm over racist comments made on an airplane. Attentive listeners—or those who remember a name like Earl “Rusty” Butz”—will recall we devoted an episode to that, well, episode!
This Memorial Day season, we’ve devoted several episodes to past stories of war, sacrifice, and loss. What historical moments have you been thinking about?
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