WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:04.759 Welcome. This is Rebeccah Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:04.839 --> 00:00:08.560 I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 3 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:12.679 twenty twenty six. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading 4 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:15.679 service intended for people who are blind or have other 5 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:19.600 disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please 6 00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:22.839 join me now for the first article, which is titled 7 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:26.480 The Queen of the Ghetto gave New York's immigrant community 8 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:31.679 a voice. A century later, its re emerging Aziya Yazirska 9 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:34.960 wrote from experience, then worked hard to make sure her 10 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.880 work found an audience. Then a new audience found her. 11 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:45.359 By Fred Nattis in the eighteen nineties, the crowded Jewish 12 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:49.119 enclave on New York's Lower East Side, filled with horses, 13 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:53.640 push carts, clothes lines, and Hebrew shop signs, drew fascination 14 00:00:53.799 --> 00:00:58.600 and derision from the American public. This emigrant community was 15 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:03.320 considered exotic and creative. It was also decried as squalid 16 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:07.319 and foreign. At the same time that Uptown audiences were 17 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:11.719 flocking to Yiddish theaters, novelist Henry James was writing with 18 00:01:11.879 --> 00:01:16.480 alarm about the Hebrew conquest of New York. Growing up 19 00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:20.079 in this crucible of a New America, a Jewish immigrant 20 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:25.239 named Azia Yazirska, through sheer force of personality, would overcome 21 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:29.200 prejudice to become one of the Roaring twenties most popular authors, 22 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:33.159 one whom a New York newspaper dubbed Queen of the Ghetto. 23 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:38.319 Yazirska's writing gave voice to the ghetto's dwellers as she 24 00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:42.680 documented the struggles, particularly of immigrant women, to lead full 25 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:46.599 lives in the United States. Her work helped non immigrants 26 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:50.719 understand the striving of the foreign born, and though her 27 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:54.680 fame has wavered, her work remains as vital today as 28 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:58.480 it was one hundred years ago, capturing the immigrant experience 29 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:03.959 with the vividness rarely matched in American letters. Yazirska's family 30 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:08.120 arrived in New York from Poland in eighteen ninety, when Yazirska, 31 00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:11.360 the youngest of nine children, was about ten years old. 32 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:14.400 They were among the two million to three million Jewish 33 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:18.039 people who migrated to the US between eighteen eighty and 34 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:22.120 the early nineteen twenties. While her parents encouraged her brothers 35 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:25.879 to pursue careers, they expected their four daughters to gain 36 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:30.199 a minimal education then do menial work in sweatshops before 37 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:35.560 quickly marrying her father, Bernard stressed that a woman without 38 00:02:35.599 --> 00:02:40.159 a man was less than nothing. Yazirska disagreed, and her 39 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:44.319 father came to call her blood and iron for her wilfulness. 40 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:47.400 When she was still a teenager and working long hours 41 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:50.719 in a laundry, she left home and took a room 42 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.039 on East sixty third Street in the Clara DeHirsch Home 43 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.080 for Working Girls, where staff prepared emigrant girls to be 44 00:02:58.199 --> 00:03:02.479 carmt workers or servants, or to train as stenographers. This 45 00:03:02.719 --> 00:03:05.840 was the first phase of Yazirska's effort, as some of 46 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:09.280 her later fictional characters would say, to work myself up 47 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:13.400 for a person. A benefactor provided her with a scholarship 48 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:17.919 to Teachers College at Columbia University. After graduating in nineteen 49 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:21.560 o four, she became a cooking instructor in city schools, 50 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:25.800 teaching though was not her calling. She later described the 51 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:31.199 work as a treadmill of deadness. Yazirska's nineteen eleven marriage 52 00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:36.280 to Arnold Levitas, a typographer, proved no escape. After giving 53 00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:40.639 birth to their daughter, Louise in nineteen twelve, Yazirska detailed 54 00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:43.800 her ensuing discontent with the role of stay at home 55 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:48.439 mother in an unpublished essay, The Rebellion of a Supported Wife. 56 00:03:49.159 --> 00:03:52.800 She ended the marriage in nineteen sixteen and dedicated herself 57 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:58.960 to writing short stories For several years. Yazirska collected rejection slips. 58 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:02.759 She was brim with ideas, but the writing didn't come easy. 59 00:04:03.240 --> 00:04:07.000 As she described it, sometimes the vivisection I must commit 60 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:10.879 on myself to create one little living sentence leaves me 61 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:16.920 spent for days. Yazirska developed a style she termed Immigrant English, 62 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:21.639 mimicking the idioms of New York's Yiddish speakers. I told 63 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:25.199 her my head was on wheels from worrying. Her characters 64 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:29.120 are hungry for food and for fulfillment, and feel impeded 65 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:33.040 in the effort to become a person in America. Their 66 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:38.120 relentless drive reflects the author's rage at women's subordinate roles, 67 00:04:38.439 --> 00:04:41.959 at their poverty, and at the widespread disdain they received. 68 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:45.639 As the narrator says in the short story How I 69 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:50.639 Found America, Without the public's understanding, the immigrant would forever 70 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:54.800 remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness 71 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:59.360 of the unused gifts within his soul, her own gifts. 72 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:04.040 She was deter herman to use. In nineteen seventeen, Yazirska 73 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.439 was in her mid thirties, had published only a few stories, 74 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:11.160 and was unable to find full time teaching work, so 75 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:14.600 she followed her mother's advice to direct her complaints as 76 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.879 at a department store to the top. On a cold 77 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.920 day late that year, she dropped in unannounced, into the 78 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:26.600 Columbia University office of John Dewey, a major force in 79 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:30.680 progressive education. Dewey was a dean at Teacher's College, where 80 00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:35.199 Yuzirska had trained. That day, she spoke passionately to him 81 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:39.639 about her dreams. The tall sage was stunned and charmed. 82 00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:43.519 She gave him several short stories to read, and Dewey 83 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:47.920 grew infatuated. Soon he was writing her love letters and poems. 84 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:52.560 In one, he prophesied that from Yazirska, a great song 85 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:57.360 shall fill the world. Dewey bought her a typewriter, encouraged 86 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:01.079 her to audit his graduate seminar, and to help subsidize 87 00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:05.399 her writing, employed her on a sociology project in Philadelphia. 88 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:09.319 He also forwarded an essay of hers to the New Republic, 89 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:14.560 The romance between upper crust philosopher and passionate immigrant, which 90 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:18.720 was to inspire many of Yazirska's later writings. Didn't last 91 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:22.439 more than a year. After the break up, Dewey demanded 92 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:26.560 she return his letters. She refused, and lifted some of 93 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:31.079 his phrases for upper class characters in her fiction. After 94 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:33.920 the new Republic ran the piece Dewey had sent them, 95 00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:38.279 editors began snapping up her stories. The critic Edward J. 96 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:42.279 O'Brien gave Yazirskas The Fat of the Land the top 97 00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:46.079 ranking in his annual anthology of Best Short Stories for 98 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:49.959 nineteen nineteen. The tale offered a fresh portrait of the 99 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.759 immigrant Jewish mother in the character of Hannah, a woman 100 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:58.120 of frayed nerves and wild emotional swings. When her children 101 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:02.199 snatched food from her market basket, she shouts, murderers, what 102 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:05.639 are you tearing from me? My flesh? From? Where should 103 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:09.600 I steal to give you more? The children prosper, while 104 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:13.959 Hannah's old country ways remain in embarrassment. As adults, they 105 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:17.879 settle her in a comfortable town house with servants. Ambivalent 106 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:21.839 about her new status, Hannah is caught between worlds. She 107 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:25.399 feels at home neither. During a return visit to the ghetto, 108 00:07:25.800 --> 00:07:29.199 nor amid the new comforts of the fat of the land. 109 00:07:29.959 --> 00:07:34.519 When Hufton Mifflin published Yazirska's short story collection Hungry Hearts 110 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:39.160 in nineteen twenty, sales were sluggish. Serving as her own publicist, 111 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.560 she knocked at the door of Hurst newspaper columnist Frank 112 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.680 Crane and handed him a copy of the book. In 113 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:50.600 his syndicated column, Crane wrote with awe about Yazyirska, insisting 114 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:55.160 that her stories revealed an alien people's naked soul. That's 115 00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:59.759 when Hollywood came calling. In the nineteen tens and twenties, 116 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:03.680 film producers, many of them Jewish, were looking for stories 117 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:06.920 that highlighted the humanity of Jewish immigrants at a time 118 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:10.720 when groups such as the Emigration Restriction League and supporters 119 00:08:10.759 --> 00:08:15.879 of eugenics were stoking fears of foreigners. Movie studios produced 120 00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:19.000 more than three dozen silent films set in the Jewish 121 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:22.519 ghetto in the nineteen twenties, making the ghetto picture its 122 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:27.319 own genre. In nineteen twenty one, the pioneering phil magnate 123 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:32.120 Samuel Goldwyn offered Yazirska ten thousand dollars for film rights 124 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:35.320 to Hungry Hearts and put her on salary to complete 125 00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:39.000 the script. She stepped off a westbound train in Los 126 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:43.279 Angeles in January nineteen twenty one, wearing a simple blue suit, 127 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:48.200 felt hat, and sandals. Journalists had gathered to cover her arrival, 128 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:52.320 and before climbing into a limousine, she spun tales to them, 129 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:56.559 suggesting that Goldwyn's contract had saved her from hard labor 130 00:08:56.600 --> 00:09:00.559 in Manhattan's sweatshops and laundries. She did not mention her 131 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:05.639 long stints as a teacher and writer. Headlines followed sweatshops 132 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:11.039 Andderella When's fortune in movies, Yet Yazirska soon wearied of 133 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:14.519 the star treatment and the studio system. The script was 134 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:17.159 completed in a few months, and she briefly remained in 135 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:20.639 Hollywood to work on a novel, but found no inspiration. 136 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:26.039 After rejecting contracts from Goldwyn and producer William Fox, founder 137 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:29.799 of Fox Film Corporation, she returned East for the most 138 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:33.679 productive period of her life. In nineteen twenty three, she 139 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:38.519 published her first novel, Saloam of the Tenements, which featured 140 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:43.200 a street wise Jewish girl who marries an upper class philanthropist. 141 00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:48.399 Famous Player's Laski, the predecessor to Paramount Pictures bought the 142 00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:52.039 film rights for fifteen thousand dollars, and the movie appeared 143 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:56.200 in nineteen twenty five. In that same year, Doubleday published 144 00:09:56.279 --> 00:10:00.600 Yazirska's finest novel, Bread Givers, a coming ev age tale 145 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:06.279 with echoes of Louisa may Alcott's Little Women, Yazirska describes 146 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:09.399 the fate of a group of four sisters, three of 147 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:15.919 whom are forced into dubious marriages by their father, Moesha Smolensky. Sarah, 148 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:19.399 the feistiest of the sisters, breaks away from her family 149 00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:23.759 as a teenager. In their frequent arguments, her father, like 150 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:29.240 Yuzirska's own, calls Sarah blood and iron. After many struggles, 151 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:34.360 Sarah achieves independence by becoming a school teacher. In a coda, 152 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:38.159 Sarah and her husband, a school principle, take in her 153 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:42.320 widower father, unruly as ever, whom Sarah has found selling 154 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:45.559 chewing gum on the streets. A reviewer in The New 155 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:50.840 York Times hailed the novel's raw, uncontrollable poetry, but it 156 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:54.200 was the last of her books to sell well. Yazirska 157 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:58.080 wrote two more novels to diminishing interest, and the nineteen 158 00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:01.840 twenty nine stock market crash wiped out her Hollywood earnings. 159 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:05.159 Within a few years, the one time Queen of the 160 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:08.879 Ghetto applied for government relief and joined the New Deal's 161 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:13.240 Federal Writers Project, where for one assignment she employed her 162 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:16.759 creative talent to describe the different species of trees in 163 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:21.919 Central Park. In nineteen fifty, her autobiography, Red Ribbon on 164 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.039 a White Horse, with the foreword by the poet W. 165 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:29.799 H Auden, gained critical praise but few readers. She wrote 166 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:32.960 book reviews for The New York Times, but otherwise lived 167 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:36.120 out her days far from the spotlight, and died in 168 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:39.919 nineteen seventy at a California nursing home after a stroke. 169 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:46.039 Her work would soon emerge from obscurity after a chance rediscovery. 170 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.679 In the late nineteen sixties. Alice Kessler Harris, a British 171 00:11:50.679 --> 00:11:55.639 born historian later a professor at Columbia University, was researching 172 00:11:55.720 --> 00:12:00.519 Jewish participation in New York's labor movement. Finding refferences to 173 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:04.519 Yazirska in Yiddish materials, she took breaks from the library's 174 00:12:04.519 --> 00:12:08.799 microfilm machines to read Yaziska's out of print books. In 175 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:12.480 the early nineteen seventies, As the women's movement gained momentum, 176 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:16.799 Kessler Harris shared her photocopy of the novel with publishers, 177 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:21.440 painting Yazirska as an unsung hero of an earlier feminist movement. 178 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:26.399 In nineteen seventy five, thanks to her efforts, Percia Books 179 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:30.879 published a new edition of Bread Givers. Now a century old, 180 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:34.919 the novel has sold more than four hundred thousand copies 181 00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:39.240 since its re issue. Many readers still identify with its 182 00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:43.399 portrait of a demanding immigrant father. I can't tell you 183 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:47.120 the number of Chinese and Indian and Nepalese who've written 184 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:50.240 to me to say how the book resonates. Kessler Harris 185 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:54.799 tells Smithsonian. The father in the book is clearly an exaggeration, 186 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:58.960 but that exaggeration is familiar to so many people from 187 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.039 different cultures that it's one of the things that give 188 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:07.080 the book its standing power. Yazirska's blood and iron, the 189 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:11.679 passion and stubbornness that informed her prose, explain her endurance 190 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:15.639 and the jolt of recognition her words continued to offer readers, 191 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:18.879 not bad for someone who once said of her early 192 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:22.440 days that she was just one of many new Americans 193 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.639 beating out their hearts at your gates for a breath 194 00:13:25.639 --> 00:13:31.919 of understanding and accompanying this article fun fact, who was 195 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:37.679 Anzia Yazirska. Yazirska was a fearless and imaginative promoter of 196 00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:40.919 her own work, and even lobbied her publisher in Vain 197 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:44.240 to have Herbert Hoover write the forward to Hungry Hearts, 198 00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:49.200 her nineteen twenty short story collection. When Samuel Goldwyn produced 199 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:53.799 a nineteen twenty two film inspired by Hungry Hearts, director E. 200 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.840 Mason Hopper filmed it authentically write where the stories are 201 00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:03.960 set in New York's Lower eath east Side. Next, when 202 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.159 America found itself ready to roll, Route sixty six, stretching 203 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:12.440 from Chicago to Los Angeles, was the Road of endless possibilities. 204 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:16.120 The country's mother road. Started out as a way to 205 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:19.279 get from point A to point B, but quickly became 206 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:22.200 the host of a culture and a symbol of freedom. 207 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:27.519 By Elana Shrr, A road trip today can feel like 208 00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:31.399 an industrial affair. You travel eighty miles per hour on 209 00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:35.480 six lane highways, where brightly let exits deposit you at 210 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:40.679 twenty four hour fuel stops and Chaine motels. Yet not 211 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.159 that long ago route sixty six, a two lane highway 212 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:49.480 was the height of modernity. See America's Wonderland crowed nineteen 213 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:53.639 forties billboards advertising the road, which then represented the fast 214 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:57.519 lane to the future, connecting Chicago to California and a 215 00:14:57.559 --> 00:15:01.919 shining example of early interstate travel. When cars were new 216 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:05.919 in the early nineteen hundreds, railroads offered the most reliable 217 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:12.159 long distance transportation. Thoroughfares called highways were often unpaved paths 218 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:16.240 along what had once been hunting trails or wagon ruts. 219 00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:19.799 Many had poor signage and were prone to washouts, and 220 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:23.240 featured terrifying corners that might be fine for a horse 221 00:15:23.559 --> 00:15:28.200 but wreaked havoc on new fangled motor cars. In nineteen sixteen, 222 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:32.000 the federal government stepped in passing the Federal Aid Road 223 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:36.639 Act and offered states money to develop major highways. Then, 224 00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:40.720 in nineteen twenty one, Congress mandated that federal funds be 225 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:45.240 used to connect those roads into an organized interstate system. 226 00:15:45.679 --> 00:15:49.759 The government push was welcomed by an Oklahoma businessman named 227 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:54.080 Cyrus Avery, a prominent member of the American Association of 228 00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:59.399 State Highway Officials. Avery successfully argued that Americans would be 229 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:03.279 best served by improving the tangled yarn of roads running 230 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:07.320 through the Midwest to the coast and building connections between them. 231 00:16:07.799 --> 00:16:11.799 On November eleventh, nineteen twenty six, Route sixty six became 232 00:16:11.879 --> 00:16:16.879 an official federal highway, but the road was far from complete. 233 00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:20.080 Only around eight hundred miles of the commissioned two thousand, 234 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:23.799 four hundred forty eight miles between Chicago and Santa Monica 235 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:28.639 were asphalt. The rest were paved with dirt, gravel, bricks, 236 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:34.799 or even wooden boards. To hasten completion, Avery organized envoys 237 00:16:34.840 --> 00:16:37.799 from the eight states traversed by Route sixty six to 238 00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:41.480 promote the new highway with advertisements, maps, and even a 239 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.519 nineteen twenty eight foot race from Los Angeles to New 240 00:16:44.600 --> 00:16:47.840 York City, the latter chosen in hopes of attracting East 241 00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:52.000 Coast visitors. The Bunyan Derby, as it came to be known, 242 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:55.759 took eighty four days and reportedly left one hundred forty 243 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:59.960 four of its one hundred ninety nine entrants hobbled. Only 244 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.639 fifty five runners finished, and the winner, Andy Payne, a 245 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:07.119 member of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, used his twenty 246 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:10.920 five thousand dollars grand prize. Around five hundred thousand dollars 247 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.640 to day to pay off his family's farm, and fittingly 248 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:18.960 by a car. Meanwhile, road crews were working their way 249 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:22.200 across what Avery promoted as the main street of America, 250 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.359 and the entire stretch was finally paved by nineteen thirty eight. 251 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:30.279 By that time, the depression had sent dust bowl refugees 252 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:33.799 westward along Route sixty six as they fled the empty 253 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:36.920 fields of the Midwest for the golden promise of farm 254 00:17:36.920 --> 00:17:40.680 work in California. In his nineteen thirty nine novel The 255 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:44.799 Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck called the Highway the mother Road, 256 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:49.240 evoking the refuge that Oakey's sought, and the routs roll 257 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:53.000 in the berth of West coast cities. When the United 258 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:56.519 States entered World War II, Route sixty six became an 259 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:01.480 artery from military transports heading from forts to courts. After 260 00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:05.359 the conflict, the highway cruised into its glory days, brimming 261 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:08.400 with families and big plymouths eager to tour their newly 262 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:12.720 triumphant country. Road trippers gawked at the brick and glass 263 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:17.400 of Big City Chicago, towering cigarros in Arizona, or the 264 00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:22.119 crashing waves of the Pacific America was beautiful, people had 265 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:25.640 money and vacation time. Route sixty six was the place 266 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:29.160 to spend it. So many travelers hit the road, in 267 00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:33.119 fact that by mid nineteen fifties, Route sixty six couldn't 268 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:36.359 support all the traffic. Bit by bit, the road was 269 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:40.359 widened or bypassed in favor of new multi lane highways, 270 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.240 until the old route was officially demoted from its status 271 00:18:44.279 --> 00:18:49.240 as a federal highway in nineteen eighty five. Its stretches 272 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:54.039 reverted to state controlled byways and county roads. Mom and 273 00:18:54.119 --> 00:18:57.759 pop establishments began to fade away as the modern world 274 00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:02.079 rushed past on new interstates. Sections of the original route 275 00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:06.119 were swallowed up by sand or built over as cities expanded. 276 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.559 Yet the allure of the roots, gorgeous scenery, and twentieth 277 00:19:10.559 --> 00:19:14.920 century Americana continues to attract travelers from around the world. 278 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:18.720 It's still possible to cover several hundred miles on the 279 00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:23.519 old road, especially in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, and 280 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:25.880 even grab a cup of coffee and a slice of 281 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:31.200 pie at a picturesque cafe in Luther, Oklahoma. The third 282 00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:35.279 generation of the Threat family as working to preserve one 283 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:40.039 historic stop. Alan Threat Senior opened the Threat Filling Station 284 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:44.079 in nineteen fifteen to serve black travelers during the treacherous 285 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:48.000 days of Jim Crow. As the only black owned business 286 00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:53.160 between two sundown towns where black travelers were unwelcome, The 287 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.799 Threat became a haven for black motorists and a site 288 00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:00.559 of community for locals, hosting barbecues and bagga on a 289 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:05.200 full size baseball diamond. Much farther west in the blowing 290 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.480 sands of the Mojave Desert, Albert o'cura purchased the old 291 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:13.640 railway town of Amboy, population zero, in two thousand and 292 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:17.519 five and began the painstaking work of restoring its vintage 293 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:22.319 gas pumps at mid Century Motels. After Okura's death in 294 00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:26.480 twenty twenty three, his son Kyle continued his dream of restoration. 295 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:30.599 We can't give up, because if not us, Kyle o'cura says, 296 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:34.799 then who On a map, Route sixty six might look 297 00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:38.559 like a mere, choppy diagonal line running from Chicago to 298 00:20:38.599 --> 00:20:42.039 the Santa Monica Pier. Yet it has helped tell the 299 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:45.559 American story. The road is a living thing, and at 300 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:51.279 every stop you'll find its caretakers Accompanying the article did 301 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:55.200 you know what is the musical Highway? One of Root 302 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:59.880 sixty six's strangest attractions came as recently as twenty fourteen, 303 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:04.039 when the New Mexico Department of Transportation installed a series 304 00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:08.119 of custom designed rumble strips outside to Harris, New Mexico. 305 00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:12.319 When a traveler drove over the strips at precisely forty 306 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:16.599 five miles per hour, the vibrations played America the Beautiful. 307 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:21.359 It was a feat of imagination and engineering, and short lived. 308 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:25.000 By twenty twenty two, because of new asphalt, the song 309 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:29.680 was no longer playable in full. And also with this article, 310 00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:35.920 road shows in these classic movies brash, gritty, sometimes outrageous. 311 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:41.480 Root sixty six plays a starring role by Brandon Tensley 312 00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.519 The Grapes of Wrath In this nineteen forty film adapted 313 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:50.920 from John Steinbeck's novel, The Jode Family leaves Oklahoma amid 314 00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:54.359 the Great Depression and heads along Route sixty six towards 315 00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:58.000 the promise of California. The New York Times lauded the 316 00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:01.359 dust Bowl migration tale as to deserving of a place 317 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:05.960 on a small, uncrowded shelf devoted to the cinema's master works. 318 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:10.839 Easy rider. Two men score big in a Los Angeles 319 00:22:10.839 --> 00:22:15.279 cocaine deal, then ride toward Marty Grass in New Orleans. 320 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:18.920 Directed by Dennis Hopper, the nineteen sixty nine film cast 321 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:22.200 Root sixty six as a symbol of freedom and helped 322 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:25.640 push Hollywood onto a new road of its own, ushering 323 00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:29.759 in an era when directors with distinct voices and visions 324 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:34.599 began to run the show. Two Lane Blacktop, starring the 325 00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:38.720 singer songwriter James Taylor and Beach Boys co founder Dennis Wilson. 326 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:43.119 Monte Hellman's nineteen seventy one cult film tracks a group 327 00:22:43.160 --> 00:22:47.400 of young street racers tearing through the Southwest. The movie 328 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:51.359 evokes a bittersweet moment not long before Root sixty six's 329 00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:57.279 two lanes were outnumbered by interstate highways. Rain Man. In 330 00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:02.240 Barry Levinson's nineteen eighty eight dramedy, brothers Charlie Tom Cruise 331 00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:07.480 and Raymond Dustin Hoffmann travel from Cincinnati to Los Angeles 332 00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:11.920 to claim an inheritance. They follow stretches of Route sixty six, 333 00:23:12.039 --> 00:23:16.240 visiting landmarks like the Big Eight Motel in El Reno, Oklahoma. 334 00:23:17.039 --> 00:23:20.160 The journey to the west and into the past helps 335 00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:26.319 bridge the brother's estrangement, and finally cars. In John Lassiter's 336 00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:30.240 two thousand six animated film Lightning mc queen, a talking 337 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.799 race car is headed to an important race, but winds 338 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:37.599 up stranded in the fictional town of Radiator Springs. Once 339 00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:40.960 a major stop on Route sixty six, he learns of 340 00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:44.880 the highway's bygone greatness. Cars didn't drive on it to 341 00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.319 make great time when resident recalls, they drove on it 342 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:55.319 to have a great time. And finally, the Smithsonian's renovated 343 00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:59.039 carousel will return to the National Mall for another round. 344 00:23:59.599 --> 00:24:02.880 The clos Essex Marriago Round is gleaming again. But it's 345 00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:06.640 more than an amusement. It's a ride through history. By 346 00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:11.319 Lonnie G. Bunch. The third to take in a museum 347 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:15.519 exhibition with all its art and historical significance, is to 348 00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:19.920 appreciate the meticulous planning that goes into it. Designers create 349 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:25.200 galleries around relevant objects. Curators spend years digging through centuries 350 00:24:25.240 --> 00:24:30.319 old archives. Art handlers agonize over mounting a painting just right. 351 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:34.400 Yet one historic item on the National Mall landed at 352 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:39.400 the Smithsonian with far less deliberation. Secretary s Dilon Ripley 353 00:24:39.559 --> 00:24:43.519 first brought a carousel to Washington in nineteen sixty seven, 354 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.880 calling it a living extension of the museums, although people 355 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:52.440 worried it was more silly than substantive. The New York 356 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:56.839 Times even reported concerns that the institution was becoming an 357 00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:02.480 ivy colored Disneyland. Despite the doubts, the Smithsonian has managed 358 00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:06.759 to maintain Ripley's vision, curating an artifact with the richer 359 00:25:06.839 --> 00:25:11.119 story than many of our grandest buildings. Carousels were not 360 00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:15.359 always meant for entertainment. They were originally designed as training 361 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:19.720 mechanisms for jousting without tiring a horse. By the late 362 00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:23.960 eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, the carousel as we 363 00:25:24.039 --> 00:25:27.960 know it arrived in Europe and then America. The figures 364 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.000 at this time were mostly made of wood, and other 365 00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:34.640 animals besides the horse were added to the carousel repertoire. 366 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:38.799 World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression 367 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:43.000 reduced the available wood for carousel animals, and they began 368 00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:47.279 to be built of aluminum. The ornately decorated animals went 369 00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:51.039 out of style, making way for faster roller coasters and 370 00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:55.640 other forms of entertainment. In nineteen forty seven, a different 371 00:25:55.720 --> 00:26:00.680 gleaming carousel was installed at gwyn Oak Amusement Park outside Baltimore, 372 00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:05.359 about fifty miles north of Washington, d c. Open in 373 00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:09.720 eighteen ninety four, Gwen Oak was built along streetcar lines 374 00:26:09.759 --> 00:26:14.160 as an invitation to neighbors from all economic strata. Yet 375 00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:19.039 Black residents, despite constituting about a quarter of Baltimore's population 376 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:24.000 by nineteen fifty, were not welcome. Starting in nineteen fifty five, 377 00:26:24.440 --> 00:26:27.720 an eight year effort to integrate gwen Oak mirrored the 378 00:26:27.759 --> 00:26:31.960 civil rights push farther south. It began with years of 379 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.279 picketing the park's All Nations Day, which excluded countries with 380 00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:41.519 primarily black populations, but over time the gwen Oak protesters 381 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:45.920 became bolder, joining the national landscape of students braving hostile 382 00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:50.279 crowds to attend school in Little Rock, Arkansas, bus riders 383 00:26:50.319 --> 00:26:54.880 taking to the sidewalk in Montgomery, Alabama, and teenagers sitting 384 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.799 unbowed at a Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter. On August 385 00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:03.799 twenty eighth, nineteen sixty three, the same day Martin Luther 386 00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:07.759 King Junior shared his dream with crowds on the National Mall, 387 00:27:08.519 --> 00:27:12.640 Sharon Langley became the first African American child to ride 388 00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:17.440 the carousel at Gwyn Oak after hurricane damage shuttered the 389 00:27:17.480 --> 00:27:21.559 park in nineteen seventy three. The carousel went into storage. 390 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:25.759 A few years later, as Ripley's original carousel began to 391 00:27:25.799 --> 00:27:29.440 show its age, the Smithsonian began looking for a suitably 392 00:27:29.519 --> 00:27:34.440 grand replacement. Gwen Oak's hand carved beauty, an emblem of 393 00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:38.799 the struggle for civil rights, fit the bill. For four decades, 394 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:42.880 riders of all ages, especially our youngest learners at the 395 00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:48.039 Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, have laughed as the Washington Monument 396 00:27:48.119 --> 00:27:52.839 appeared and disappeared from view. This April, after a detailed renovation, 397 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:56.119 the carousel will return to its rightful spot on the 398 00:27:56.200 --> 00:28:02.079 mall as an unexpected witness to history. This concludes readings 399 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:05.680 from the Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your reader has 400 00:28:05.720 --> 00:28:08.759 been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have a 401 00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:09.400 great day.