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<v Speaker 1>Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to

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<v Speaker 1>day I will be reading from a special edition of

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<v Speaker 1>Smithsonian Magazine America at two fifty the Revolutionary Spark. As

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<v Speaker 1>a reminder, Radio I is a reading service intended for

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<v Speaker 1>people who are blind or have other disabilities that make

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<v Speaker 1>it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now

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<v Speaker 1>for the first article titled Every Generation of Teenagers redefines

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<v Speaker 1>pop culture through its favorite music, fads, movies, and trends.

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<v Speaker 1>When new government policies allowed kids more time to grow up,

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<v Speaker 1>the teenager was born, and every decade or so they've

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<v Speaker 1>changed the ways they entertained themselves and everyone else by

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<v Speaker 1>April White. The United States invented the teenager in the

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<v Speaker 1>mid twentieth century, and then teenagers reinvented the nation repeatedly.

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<v Speaker 1>The creation of a new demographic was an accident. Really.

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<v Speaker 1>New deal policies moved teens from the workplace the classroom.

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<v Speaker 1>A booming post World War II economy gave them disposable income.

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<v Speaker 1>The rise of the automobile offered unprecedented freedom. Soon companies

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<v Speaker 1>began to see teenagers as customers. Often high schools five

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<v Speaker 1>days a week, teens formed their own communities, proving grounds

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<v Speaker 1>for generation defining media, fashion, and communications trends. Those obsessions

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<v Speaker 1>reshaped the social landscape, from the birth of rock and

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<v Speaker 1>roll to the rise of emojis. In each era, teens

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<v Speaker 1>identified themselves by what they watched, listened to and read,

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<v Speaker 1>where they hung out, and how they talked to one another.

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<v Speaker 1>Here's a sampling of their favourites. The Silent Generation. Teens

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<v Speaker 1>in the nineteen forties and fifties rebel without a cause.

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<v Speaker 1>The James Dean Coming of Age classic played into adult

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<v Speaker 1>sphere of delinquents, and it turned an undergarment, the T shirt,

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<v Speaker 1>into a fashion statement when paired with genes disc jockeys.

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<v Speaker 1>Teens wanted to listen to something different from their parents,

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<v Speaker 1>anointed radio djays such as rock and roll hypeman Dick

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<v Speaker 1>Clark and rap forerunner Jocko Henderson as their taste makers.

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<v Speaker 1>Drive in restaurants, car centric dining chains think A and W,

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<v Speaker 1>Sonic and Bob's Big Boy became public squares, pen pals

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<v Speaker 1>inspired to act as international peace makers. Post war era

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<v Speaker 1>teens sought to correspond with their overseas peers transistor radios.

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<v Speaker 1>These low cost devices gave control of the dial to

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<v Speaker 1>teenagers who turned listening to music into a hobby. Boomers

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<v Speaker 1>teens in the nineteen sixties and seventies. Beach Party films,

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<v Speaker 1>Beach Party and similar movies were heavy on fun, light

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<v Speaker 1>on moral lessons, and almost entirely devoid of adults. Music

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<v Speaker 1>festivals Woodstock is the most famous of the era's rock festivals,

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<v Speaker 1>which allowed teens to connect with artists and like minded fans.

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<v Speaker 1>A countercultural movement flourished going out. Teens told their parents

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<v Speaker 1>and polsters that didn't matter where they were going, as

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<v Speaker 1>long as they were out of the house, often just

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<v Speaker 1>driving around. Princess telephones, the utilitarian black rotary telephone, got

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<v Speaker 1>an upgrade to meet the demands of the teen market.

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<v Speaker 1>At and T's Princess Model, which debuted in nineteen fifty

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<v Speaker 1>nine and a rainbow of colors, was the first phone

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<v Speaker 1>series to be an interior design choice. Teen Crush magazines,

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<v Speaker 1>Tiger Beat, and other teeny bopper titles featured photos of

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<v Speaker 1>hunky stars and casually intimate details about teen heartthrobs, making

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<v Speaker 1>them a precursor to today's voracious celebrity gossip culture. Gen

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<v Speaker 1>X teens in the nineteen eighties and early nineties slacker films.

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<v Speaker 1>In response to the striving world of boomers, these teens

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<v Speaker 1>turned to the cynical directionless stereotype immortalized in movies like

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<v Speaker 1>Slacker Clerks, singles, and reality bites. Portable music music became

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<v Speaker 1>personal for Gen xers, who could broadcast beats from their

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<v Speaker 1>boon box or listen privately anywhere on a walkman, first

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<v Speaker 1>a portable cassette player, and then a portable CD player.

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<v Speaker 1>The mall most Gen X teenagers held after school or

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<v Speaker 1>summer jobs. The last cohort for which that was true,

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<v Speaker 1>which met malls, were where many both worked and played.

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<v Speaker 1>Motorola pagers beepers, first used by doctors, made savvy teens

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<v Speaker 1>of the early nineties the first always connected generation. MTV

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<v Speaker 1>the network influenced the esthetic of eighties teendom with video

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<v Speaker 1>jockeys in bright colors, fast paced editing, and its unrivaled

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<v Speaker 1>ability to anoint the next big artist Millennials teens in

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<v Speaker 1>the late nineteen nineties and two thousands smart teen flicks

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<v Speaker 1>tapping into teen's self deprecating sense of humor. Hollywood produced

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<v Speaker 1>inexpensive satires like Rushmore, Legally Blonde, and Mean Girls. Hits

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<v Speaker 1>in theaters and at the local blockbuster. Napster teenagers started

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<v Speaker 1>and fueled the short lived and controversial peer to peer

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<v Speaker 1>music sharing service that pushed the record industry into the

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<v Speaker 1>online era. Skate parks cities erected structures in parks and

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<v Speaker 1>public areas to keep skateboarders off the streets, but their

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<v Speaker 1>style couldn't be contained. Even those who never attempted to

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<v Speaker 1>ali adopted their loose fitting fashion. MySpace. Teens flocked to

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<v Speaker 1>this early social media site where they could shape their

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<v Speaker 1>own identities, customizing pages with music, photos and designs to

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<v Speaker 1>connect with friends. Y a literature book series about teens,

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<v Speaker 1>think Twilight, The Hunger Games, Gossip Girl, Sword in popularity

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<v Speaker 1>and received the Hollywood treatment, becoming pop culture for all ages.

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<v Speaker 1>Zoomers teens in the twenty tens and twenty twenties. Animation

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<v Speaker 1>animated movies, including classics like Shrek and twenty twenties breakouts

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<v Speaker 1>like K Pop Demon Hunters, continue to attract teens. According

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<v Speaker 1>to a UCLA study, nearly half of gen Z watchers

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<v Speaker 1>prefer them to live action options mood music. Today's teens

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<v Speaker 1>are ignoring the genre distinctions of past generations. They rely

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<v Speaker 1>on algorithmic streaming services to create playlists that fit a

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<v Speaker 1>mood or an activity. TikTok. More than half of zoomers,

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<v Speaker 1>many of whom were teenagers during the pandemic, are on

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<v Speaker 1>TikTok every day. Fast evolving trends have helped popularize the

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<v Speaker 1>short form video platform, now a widespread source of news, comedy,

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<v Speaker 1>and advice. Emojis. These teens of the first native emoji speakers,

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<v Speaker 1>broadening the language's vocabulary, customizing characters, and making them common

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<v Speaker 1>in all kinds of conversations, from the classroom to the

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<v Speaker 1>dating scene to the workplace. Nostalgia TV streaming video services

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<v Speaker 1>now provide tens of thousands of television options available on demand,

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<v Speaker 1>a frequent choice for today's adolescent audience. The hits of

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<v Speaker 1>their parents' generation like Friends, Er and The West Wing

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<v Speaker 1>and with this article did you know Elders carry Big Sticks?

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<v Speaker 1>Despite the description, the Silent Generation was very vocal and

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<v Speaker 1>highly influential, fueling monumental social shifts. Well known activists of

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<v Speaker 1>the Silent Generation include Martin Luther King Junior, Gloria Maurice Steinhem,

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<v Speaker 1>Dolores Huerta, John Lewis, and Angela Davis. About seventy one

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<v Speaker 1>percent of boomers and members of the Silent generation age

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<v Speaker 1>sixty five plus voted in the twenty twenty five presidential election,

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<v Speaker 1>more than younger generations. Next, how the hashtag became the

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<v Speaker 1>way to instantly invite literally everyone into the conversation. In

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<v Speaker 1>the nascent days of Twitter, users wanted a quick way

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<v Speaker 1>to cluster posts about a single subject. Someone suggested using

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<v Speaker 1>a pound sign and hashtag. The rest is history by

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<v Speaker 1>Clive Thompson. At first, there wasn't much to it. In

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<v Speaker 1>the summer of two thousand and seven, Twitter was barely

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<v Speaker 1>a year old. It didn't yet have pictures, video animated gifts,

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<v Speaker 1>or even retweets. Users could post teen c one hundred

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<v Speaker 1>and forty character updates and hope one of their followers

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<v Speaker 1>saw them. But Chris Messina, a tech consultant, had an

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<v Speaker 1>idea about how to improve it. He wanted a way

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<v Speaker 1>for users, including total strangers, to cluster around a subject

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<v Speaker 1>the weather, the super Bowl, last night's TV show and

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<v Speaker 1>discuss it. He often went to bar camp meetups, where

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<v Speaker 1>tech nerds got together in real life to exchange technological ideas.

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<v Speaker 1>It'd be fun, he thought to have ongoing conversations online

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<v Speaker 1>about the gatherings. On August third, at three twenty five pm,

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<v Speaker 1>he tweeted a suggestion, how do you feel about using

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<v Speaker 1>hashtag pound for groups? As in hashtag bar camp. Messina

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<v Speaker 1>didn't realize it, but he'd just changed the way people

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<v Speaker 1>would communicate online. He had invented a modern day web

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<v Speaker 1>use for the hashtag. His idea was a clever borrowing

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<v Speaker 1>of an older, earlier Internet behavior. In the nineties, users

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<v Speaker 1>of Internet relay chat, a form of real time messaging,

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<v Speaker 1>would deploy the pound sign as it's called on landline

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<v Speaker 1>phones to create separate rooms for specific subjects, such as

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<v Speaker 1>hashtag Microsoft or hashtag Linux. But on Twitter, hashtags quickly

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<v Speaker 1>grew into something new, a powerful way for da everyday

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<v Speaker 1>users to kick start conversations on a global scale. It

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<v Speaker 1>would show what the zeitgeist was and show the conversation

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<v Speaker 1>that was happening digitally in real time. As Messina, now

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<v Speaker 1>an investor and a product designer, told me recently, the

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<v Speaker 1>folks at Twitter hated it. It's ugly. Biz Stone, a

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<v Speaker 1>co founder, told him the doubters were wrong. Hashtags exploded

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<v Speaker 1>on the platform as users discovered they were a brilliant

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<v Speaker 1>way to connect people and ideas, using a hashtag meant

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<v Speaker 1>participating in any fast moving conversation, especially regarding news events. Indeed,

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<v Speaker 1>only a few weeks after Messina shared his idea, a

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<v Speaker 1>ferocious fire erupted in San Diego, Twitter users began adding

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<v Speaker 1>hashtag San Diego fire to updates to allow users to

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<v Speaker 1>follow what was going on. Within hours, Messina recalls it

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<v Speaker 1>was clear that monitoring hashtag San Diego fire was quote

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<v Speaker 1>better than trying to tune in to the place police

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<v Speaker 1>or firefighters radio channels to figure out where the evacuations

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<v Speaker 1>were happening. What followed was a new form of citizen journalism.

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<v Speaker 1>When major events such as the two thousand and nine

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<v Speaker 1>democratic uprising in Iran hashtag Iran election, the hashtag super Bowl,

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<v Speaker 1>or Barack Obama's State of the Union address hashtag SOTU occurred,

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<v Speaker 1>users could follow not just what the mainstream media was reporting,

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<v Speaker 1>but updates and opinions from everyday people in real time.

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<v Speaker 1>Because anyone could post a hashtag about literally anything, Twitter

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<v Speaker 1>users created millions of tiny, bespoke communities, says Gene Burgess,

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<v Speaker 1>digital media professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia,

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<v Speaker 1>where she lives. Local farmers, not necessarily the most digitally

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<v Speaker 1>savvy users began using the hashtag agcchatz or agchat oz

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<v Speaker 1>to virtually meet weekly and just chat about rural policy

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<v Speaker 1>or what's going on with the weather. Hashtags offered the

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<v Speaker 1>magical feeling of being in a huge crowd where you

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<v Speaker 1>could watch history unfold right in front of you. An

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<v Speaker 1>airplane landed in the Hudson River, Let's talk about it.

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<v Speaker 1>They also allow you to be funny and playful, like

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<v Speaker 1>adding hashtag I can't believe I'm saying this after an

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<v Speaker 1>embarrassing admission. It was like the thing we're saying in

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<v Speaker 1>the aside whispered in someone's ear, says Gretchen McCulloch, a

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<v Speaker 1>linguist who specializes in online communication. After the two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>and eight presidential election, the hashtag became inextricable from political organizing.

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<v Speaker 1>Tea Party members relied on hashtags from hashtag Tea Party

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<v Speaker 1>to hashtag t COT for top conservatives on Twitter to

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<v Speaker 1>spread their message, as did the denizens of hashtag Occupy

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<v Speaker 1>Wall Street. In the wake of the twenty thirteen acquittal

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<v Speaker 1>of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, activists began using the

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<v Speaker 1>tag hashtag black Lives Matter to discuss policing in black communities.

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<v Speaker 1>Not long after came hashtag me Too, coined by the

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<v Speaker 1>writer and organizer t Rana Burke, which spread wildly when

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<v Speaker 1>women began using it to discuss sexual predation and assault.

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<v Speaker 1>With hashtags, the political sphere became shaped not just by elites,

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<v Speaker 1>but by all. No longer did you have to wait

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<v Speaker 1>to be interviewed on the six p M or the

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<v Speaker 1>ten p M news, says Andre Brock, Associate Professor of

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<v Speaker 1>Black Digital Media at Georgia Tech. You could write your

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<v Speaker 1>little utterance, put the hashtag in there, and it could

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<v Speaker 1>be seen by millions of people. In twenty fourteen, Scrabble

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<v Speaker 1>made hashtag a playable word, and the Oxford English Dictionary

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<v Speaker 1>added it. Tags were prominent on movie posters, ads, and

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<v Speaker 1>graffiti murals. The hashtag's success had pros and cons. It

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<v Speaker 1>allowed people to spread messages promoting social change for world

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<v Speaker 1>shaking rebellions like hashtag Arab Spring, or even manufactured moments

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<v Speaker 1>like the hashtag ice Bucket Challenge, But it also offered

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<v Speaker 1>new ways to harass and bully at scale, and to

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<v Speaker 1>supercharge conspiracy theories. It helped cluster like minded folks into

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<v Speaker 1>online echo chambers, and the hashtag's popularity ultimately led ironically

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<v Speaker 1>to its decline. As more services Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and

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<v Speaker 1>YouTube adopted hashtags, influencers and marketers began jamming dozens of

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<v Speaker 1>tags onto each post, hoping to maximize their audiences. This

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<v Speaker 1>cluttered the screen and began to annoy users, who nowadays

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<v Speaker 1>are more likely to ignore them. Meanwhile, trolls increasingly hijacked

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<v Speaker 1>popular hashtags by using them to target and insult people.

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<v Speaker 1>In the twenty twenties, social networks began relying more heavily

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<v Speaker 1>on an algorithmic sorting of their feeds, hashtags lost their

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<v Speaker 1>power to draw attention. Still, the the hashtag isn't dead.

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<v Speaker 1>Creators continue to sprinkle them in posts, and they still

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<v Speaker 1>festooned posters, but the blazing period when they single handedly

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<v Speaker 1>channeled global conversation has come to an end. They're a

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<v Speaker 1>reminder though, of what was so experimental, chaotic, and thrilling

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<v Speaker 1>about the early days of social media, when a stray

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<v Speaker 1>suggestion by a random user could change how the Internet worked.

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<v Speaker 1>And with this article, memes stupid or hilarious, they can

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<v Speaker 1>be dumb and inspired, vanilla, and shocking. Most of all,

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<v Speaker 1>They're Everywhere by Ted Scheinman. Much of the Internet's terrible

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<v Speaker 1>beauty comes from watching strangers imitate one another, particularly via

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<v Speaker 1>Internet memes. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme

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<v Speaker 1>in nineteen seventy six, defining it as a unit of

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<v Speaker 1>cultural transmission or imitation. For Dawkins, memes including beliefs, catchphrases,

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<v Speaker 1>and fashion trends, behaved rather like genes or viruses, reproducing

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<v Speaker 1>and mutating. By nineteen ninety one, the philosopher and cognitive

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<v Speaker 1>scientist Daniel Dennett observed that cultural memes were replicating at

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<v Speaker 1>rates that make even fruitflies and yeast cells look glacial

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<v Speaker 1>in comparison. Things were about to accelerate further as early

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<v Speaker 1>Internet memes, often simple images superimposed with text, emerged in

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<v Speaker 1>the mid nineties, exploding on upstart American platforms like Reddit,

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<v Speaker 1>eBaum's World, and Something Awful. These were deadpan, little handshakes

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<v Speaker 1>extended by weird individuals to other weird individuals. Yet online

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<v Speaker 1>memes quickly broke containment. You didn't need to be tech

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<v Speaker 1>savvy or even young to contract the meme bug. Internet

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<v Speaker 1>memes allow for endless improvisation and provide a uniquely suitable

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<v Speaker 1>means of expressing unwieldy or even perverse feelings. Take the

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<v Speaker 1>horrified girlfriend who sees her boyfriend checking out another woman,

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<v Speaker 1>or the cartoon dog sitting at a table drinking coffee

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<v Speaker 1>and telling himself this is fine while the room around

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<v Speaker 1>him is engulfed in flames. That's a very efficient way

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<v Speaker 1>of communicating a crisis otherwise best described in German philosophy.

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<v Speaker 1>Internet memes are also popular among extremists, as are most

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<v Speaker 1>rhetorical innovations, from hyperbole to alliteration. With their dense compression

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<v Speaker 1>of meaning and ability to travel, memes have changed the

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<v Speaker 1>way many of us communicate, even when we're not online.

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<v Speaker 1>They are a participatory language for the age of mass networks,

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<v Speaker 1>and they give everyone the chance to be in on

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<v Speaker 1>the joke. And with this article, did you know Bye

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<v Speaker 1>bye Birdie? Twitter, the platform that spawned the modern hashtag,

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<v Speaker 1>shuddered in twenty twenty two, replaced with the rebranded site

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<v Speaker 1>known as x. At its peak that same year, about

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<v Speaker 1>three hundred and seventy million users were registered on Twitter

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<v Speaker 1>world wide. The former brand's blue bird logo is no

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<v Speaker 1>longer used, and terms such as retweet are slowly disappearing

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<v Speaker 1>from the lexicon. Next The Whole World in Your Hand

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<v Speaker 1>by Tracy Scott Forsen. When Martin Cooper placed the first

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<v Speaker 1>ever cell phone call on a clunky ten inch nearly

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<v Speaker 1>three pound Motorola Dine Attack eight thousand X handset in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy three, he didn't mince words. Joel, I'm calling

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<v Speaker 1>you from a cell phone, a personal portable hand held

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<v Speaker 1>cell phone, he remembers telling a rival engineer Joel Ingel.

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<v Speaker 1>Cooper knew he was ushering in a communications revolution, but

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<v Speaker 1>even he could not have foreseen how the device would

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<v Speaker 1>come to change nearly every facet of modern life. By

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<v Speaker 1>the late nineteen nineties, cell phone users could make calls,

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<v Speaker 1>play rudimentary games, and send text messages. But it wasn't

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<v Speaker 1>until Apple's iPhone was introduced in two thousand seven and

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<v Speaker 1>its App store a year later that smartphones became the

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<v Speaker 1>appendages they are today. By replacing not only calculators and maps,

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<v Speaker 1>but also bank tellers, taxi dispatchers, and more, they have

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<v Speaker 1>made it easier to sail through daily life while limiting

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<v Speaker 1>human interaction, connecting us to vast networks, while arguably isolating

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<v Speaker 1>us a constant companion of finger tap away camera. One

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<v Speaker 1>of the most remarkable seismic shifts summoned by the smartphone

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<v Speaker 1>has been with the personal camera. A twenty twenty four

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<v Speaker 1>report found that more than ninety percent of the four

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<v Speaker 1>point seven billion photographs taken every day are shot with smartphones.

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<v Speaker 1>Maps GPS technology long pre dates smartphones, but calling up

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<v Speaker 1>directions on your phone has become an essential part of

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<v Speaker 1>every road trip or city venture. Nostalgia may weep for

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<v Speaker 1>the serendipitous fines you'd come across when lost, but being

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<v Speaker 1>able to avoid that five mile traffic backup is quite

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<v Speaker 1>nice too. Food Tonight's dinner could be a delivery ordered

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<v Speaker 1>from door dash or from a recipe on the New

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<v Speaker 1>York Times cooking app. The world is literally your oyster.

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<v Speaker 1>Just be sure to snap a pick to post on Instagram.

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<v Speaker 1>Time Pieces Got the time? Used to be a common question,

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<v Speaker 1>but now everyone carries a clock in their pocket or purse.

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<v Speaker 1>In the twenty tens, smart watches hit the market, and

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<v Speaker 1>step trackers such as Fitbit turned a watch into a

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<v Speaker 1>personal trainer. Television cultural critic Derrick Thompson recently wrote an

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<v Speaker 1>essay titled Everything is Television, in which he postulated that

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<v Speaker 1>culture of all forms, podcasts, movies, art, memes are turning

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<v Speaker 1>into what used to arrive via antennas on a box

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<v Speaker 1>in the family rooms and games. What's a six letter

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<v Speaker 1>word for a blockbuster game with the humble beginning try

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<v Speaker 1>wordle According to The New York Times, millions of players

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<v Speaker 1>take a stab at guessing each day's words, and its

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<v Speaker 1>games were played more than eleven point two billion times

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<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty five. Hailing a ride perhaps the most

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<v Speaker 1>noteworthy example of a Silicon Valley startup disrupting an entire industry.

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<v Speaker 1>Ride sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft hit the

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<v Speaker 1>roads running in the early twenty tens. Uber recorded more

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<v Speaker 1>than thirteen point five billion trips in twenty twenty five.

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<v Speaker 1>Music the technology has come a long way since transistor

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<v Speaker 1>radios and the Walkman. Last year, Spotify boasted more than

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<v Speaker 1>seven hundred million listeners to its music, podcast and audiobook offerings.

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<v Speaker 1>The top artist around the world Puerto Rico's Bad Bunny,

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<v Speaker 1>his fourth time earning that title. E Books, Can a

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<v Speaker 1>book still be called a page turner if even it's

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<v Speaker 1>not on paper? Even as e readers continue to be popular.

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<v Speaker 1>Apps also give the daily commuter or beach bum the

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<v Speaker 1>chance to pour through their favorite reads on their smartphones.

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<v Speaker 1>Mail in one day, you can hear from the same

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<v Speaker 1>friend via text, email, Google chat, Instagram, DM slack, a

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<v Speaker 1>group chat on WhatsApp, and many more methods of communication

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<v Speaker 1>happening instantaneously via a friendly note delivered by the postal service.

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<v Speaker 1>Hardly ever, telephone. Even though modern English still uses the

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<v Speaker 1>term dial to call a friend, the rotary phone hasn't

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<v Speaker 1>been a regular feature of daily life in more than

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<v Speaker 1>four decades. Today, many find a video chat is preferable

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<v Speaker 1>to a phone call. And Finally, banking, the days of

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<v Speaker 1>writing a personal check or balance and sing a checkbook

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<v Speaker 1>may be waning. A new study reported that only twenty

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<v Speaker 1>six percent of gen Zers have ever written a check.

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<v Speaker 1>Banking apps and money transfer apps like Venmo have made

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<v Speaker 1>the practice rare and in many instances unnecessary. Finally, with

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<v Speaker 1>a few tweaks, the country's favorite sports went from pastimes

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<v Speaker 1>to part of the fabric of our culture. Can you

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<v Speaker 1>imagine a football game where there was never a passing play?

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<v Speaker 1>The forward pass is just one of the innovations that

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<v Speaker 1>made these contests into events by David J. Roth. The

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<v Speaker 1>forward pass. In its earliest days, football was brutal, even deadly,

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<v Speaker 1>with offense and defense smashing and scrabbling for a yard

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<v Speaker 1>or two at a time. The Chicago Tribune reported that

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen athletes died playing the sport in nineteen oh five alone,

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<v Speaker 1>the last year before college football's rules committee legalized the

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<v Speaker 1>forward pass to prevent total barbarism. Notre Dame's subsequent success

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<v Speaker 1>with the passing game set football toward the more open, creative,

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<v Speaker 1>full field sport played today, still brutal, but more elegant

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<v Speaker 1>and much more popular. Baseball's farm system. In the early

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen twenties, manager Branch Rickey realized that his cash poor

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<v Speaker 1>Saint Louis Cardinals were quote at a disadvantage in obtaining

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<v Speaker 1>players of merit from the miners end quote, then a

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<v Speaker 1>sprawling and ad hoc enterprise. Rickey's Cardinals took over a

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<v Speaker 1>minor league team in Houston in nineteen twenty four, and

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<v Speaker 1>from there gradually built a system through which young players

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<v Speaker 1>could improve over years, learning the finer points of a

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<v Speaker 1>difficult sport while staying under the control of one team.

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<v Speaker 1>It was a sound investment that made him history. Soon

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<v Speaker 1>every other team followed suit. A quarter century afterward, Ricky

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<v Speaker 1>signed Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers. Integrating baseball, the latter

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<v Speaker 1>milestone in sports history, helped redefine American culture. Night baseball.

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<v Speaker 1>In nineteen thirty the Negro League's Kansas City Monarchs started

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<v Speaker 1>traveling with six floodlights on flatbed trucks, and their resulting

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<v Speaker 1>night games gave fans with day jobs the chance to

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<v Speaker 1>see live baseball. Crowds flocked, and big league clubs came

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<v Speaker 1>around to playing under the lights from the White House,

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<v Speaker 1>President Franklin Roosevelt through the first switch to illuminate Crosley

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<v Speaker 1>Field before the Cincinnati Reds played and won MLB's first

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<v Speaker 1>night game in nineteen thirty five, Ohio crowd of twenty thousand,

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<v Speaker 1>four hundred twenty two was nearly ten times the team's

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<v Speaker 1>average daytime draw. Attendance skyrocketed, and eleven of MLB's sixteen

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<v Speaker 1>teams had electrified. By America's entry into World War II,

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<v Speaker 1>the lights helped usher in the era of live sports

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<v Speaker 1>as the premiere television product. The shot clock. Basketball before

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<v Speaker 1>the nineteen fifties was a dry game of keep away,

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<v Speaker 1>until the shot clock made its NBA debut in the

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen fifty four fifty five season. Syracuse National's owner Danny

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<v Speaker 1>Biasone devised the concept with NAT's general manager Leo Ferris.

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<v Speaker 1>In the Liveliest Games, Biasone said, I noticed each team

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<v Speaker 1>took about sixty shots. That meant one hundred twenty ty

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<v Speaker 1>shots per game. So I took forty eight minutes and

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<v Speaker 1>divided that by one hundred and twenty shots. That left

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<v Speaker 1>teams with twenty four seconds per possession, enough to imbue

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<v Speaker 1>each trip down the floor with urgency. And with this

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<v Speaker 1>article did you know the Major League Baseball pitch clock?

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<v Speaker 1>In twenty twenty three, Major League Baseball introduced a new

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<v Speaker 1>innervation with the goal of shortening game times, a pitch clock.

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<v Speaker 1>In its first year, the average length of a nine

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<v Speaker 1>inning game dropped twenty four minutes, the shortest since nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>eighty five. Despite initial fears that the clock would increase

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<v Speaker 1>injuries to pitchers, analyzes found that no statistically significant increase occurred,

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<v Speaker 1>and the number of Tommy John surgeries had actually decreased.

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<v Speaker 1>This concludes readings from The Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your

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<v Speaker 1>reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening and

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<v Speaker 1>have a great day.