It’s packed with unintended consequences, which, come to think of it, would make a great title for a BackStory spin-off…

I suppose that’s why I worried about it being too nebulous when I suggested it.

History of Backlash – 1920s (flappers/prohibition, scopes/religious zealots), 1960s (counterculture/silent majority)

I like this one. The pendulum trope in social and economic history recurs a lot. I saw an interview with Robert Reich (on his new book Aftershock), and he mentions the concentration of income to the top in those terms, citing circa 1880 to 1929 and the New Deal through the mid 1970s as examples of the extreme swings of the pendulum, with 1928 and 2007 as comparable statistically speaking.

i wonder if we are doomed to repeat this cycle of extremes in our history, and if we are unique in this regard (Weimar Germany and Naziism suggests we’re not).

What about home ownership, that which got us into the recent recession: How has the concept of owning a home changed over time? Certainly pioneers went west to establish homesteads, but in the cities, prices put owning a home out of reach for all but the wealthiest. When did the concept of owning a home become so central to the ideal of American dream? And how has the pursuit of owning a home, which resulted in the birth of the suburbs, changed us politically and socially?

(I seem to be an idea hamster today.)

1. Childbirth and children – when did childbirth start happening in a hospital, and not at home? When did the medical profession even get involved in the birth of babies? And what was life like for children throughout history (given that “teenagers” are a more recent invention)? Were they truly little workers for the family, seen and not heard?

2. Leisure and amusements – how did the Puritans relax (if they ever did)? Pioneers and pioneer families? Amusement parks were big at the turn of the last century; was this in response to the rise of the middle class and leisure time?

What do you think would be the best time of year to air such a show?

February, of course!

Has no one yet suggested Marriage? Seems pertinent to me, even if perhaps too hot-button. Surely the ‘institution’, it’s practice, associated laws and crimes, attitudes – how they’ve slowly changed and how reactionary some developments might have been.

Thanks for the opportunity to suggest!

Thanks for suggesting, Jason–I was just thinking about marriage as a topic the other day. We’re topicked out through October, but I don’t see this issue going away anytime soon…What do you think would be the best time of year to air such a show?

In case you missed it, our history of courtship…http://backstoryradio.org/2010/02/love-me-did-a-history-of-courtship/

For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health,
The BackStory Team

Thanks for the opportunity to suggest!

D’oh!

…and wrap it in a history of transportation: wagon train, railroad, automobile.

Great suggestions, one and all…Kally, you might be interested in checking out our history of transportation, an oldie but a goodie: http://backstoryradio.org/2008/07/traffic-how-we-get-from-here-to-there/

It’s packed with unintended consequences, which, come to think of it, would make a great title for a BackStory spin-off…

Enjoy!

…and wrap it in a history of transportation: wagon train, railroad, automobile.

The consequences are many:

- The rise of mass production, which extended to other industries
- The rise of the automobile, which created our “car culture” and subsequent development of highways at the cost of of intercoastal mass transit
- The squashing of the nascent electric car industry at the turn of the last century
- Our subsequent reliance on oil (and its unintended consequence of reliance on the Middle East)

Could be interesting! Thanks for considering.