WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.720 --> 00:00:05.360 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and today 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.839 I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 3 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:12.800 twenty twenty six. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading 4 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:15.720 service intended for people who are blind or have other 5 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:20.480 disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please 6 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.359 join me now for the first article, which is Part 7 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:27.120 two of The Librea tar Pits have been sucking in 8 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:32.200 visitors for millennia, Paleontologists are still finding out what lies 9 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:38.560 within the ooze by Richard Konniff. In part one, we 10 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:41.920 explored the Librea tar Pits as both a famous tourist 11 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:45.399 attraction and one of the world's most important fossil sites, 12 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:49.479 where natural asphalt has trapped and preserved animals for tens 13 00:00:49.479 --> 00:00:54.759 of thousands of years. Over roughly sixty thousand years, countless creatures, 14 00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:59.320 including mammoths, saber toothed cats, dire wolves, and smaller plants 15 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:02.759 and insects, became stuck in the sticky seeps and were 16 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:08.439 preserved in remarkable detail. Scientists value Librea because it offers 17 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:12.359 an unusually rich and diverse snapshot of ice age life 18 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:16.359 in North America, revealing a world once dominated by large 19 00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:20.480 predators and prey that vanished around thirteen thousand years ago. 20 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:25.840 The site's fossils allow researchers to study entire ecosystems, from 21 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:31.879 megafauna to microscopic remains, all preserved together. We also learned 22 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:36.560 about modern scientific work at Librea, including how paleontologists and 23 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:42.079 volunteers carefully excavate clean and catalog fossils while the public watches. 24 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:48.439 Researchers increasingly focus on microfossils such as seeds, pollen, insects, 25 00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:54.239 and vital liths to reconstruct ancient environments and better understand 26 00:01:54.599 --> 00:02:00.159 why ice age species went extinct. Recent research suggests that 27 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:03.799 climate change, human hunting, and the increased use of fire 28 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:08.639 may together explain the rapid collapse of these ecosystems. By 29 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:13.439 studying both large and tiny fossils, scientists hope Librea can 30 00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:17.719 offer lessons about environmental change that remain relevant as modern 31 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:23.400 ecosystems face similar pressures today. Here now is part two. 32 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:29.520 A graduate student at UCLA named Lisa Martinez had been 33 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:33.879 assembling a detailed charcoal record from the critical time period 34 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:39.400 using core samples from nearby Lake Elsinore. Her results were 35 00:02:39.479 --> 00:02:43.919 hidden at first behind an embargo of an important scientific paper, 36 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:48.919 even from the paper's authors, including paleo but botanist Reagan Dunn, 37 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:52.159 and then Dunn says, when I was finally able to 38 00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:55.199 see that thesis and I saw her charcoal record, I 39 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:59.319 just nearly fell off my chair. Martinez quickly became a 40 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.960 co author on the paper. What we saw by looking 41 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:05.840 at her record is that there's hardly any fire in 42 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:09.360 the system until about thirteen thousand, two hundred years ago, 43 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:14.240 Dunn says, and I was like, Oh my god, it's humans. 44 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:17.719 The resulting twenty twenty three study found no evidence for 45 00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:22.159 the over hunting theory. Instead, the researchers proposed what they 46 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:26.199 called a more nuanced approach, a climate human synergy of 47 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:29.599 humans and wild life adapting with a wide range of 48 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:33.319 results to a climate that was rapidly changing around them. 49 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:40.879 During previous periods of climate change, Emily Lindsay, a Librea palaeodcologist, says, 50 00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:45.280 animals were able to move freely to better habitats. If 51 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:48.840 ice sheets were expanding over the northern regions of what 52 00:03:48.919 --> 00:03:51.879 is now the US, the animals could move south to 53 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:56.680 greener pastures. But once humans began transforming the landscape, the 54 00:03:56.759 --> 00:04:02.400 animals faced new barriers. For Lindsay Dunn and their co authors, 55 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:06.919 these findings reveal not just what happened thirteen thousand years ago, 56 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.879 but also what seems to be happening now Over the 57 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:15.319 past century. They noted southern California's climate has warmed ten 58 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:17.959 times faster than it did at the time of the 59 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:23.879 extinction recorded in such detail at Librea. Frequent, prolonged droughts 60 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:28.639 and wildfires are common again as they were then. Ecosystem's 61 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:32.879 failure to recover after fire suggests. They warned that critical 62 00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:38.199 thresholds for re establishment have already been crossed. Last year, 63 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:42.720 wildfires driven by fierce Santa Ana winds raced through neighborhoods 64 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:47.079 all around metropolitan Los Angeles over more than three weeks. 65 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.680 The fires incinerated more than fifty eight square miles of 66 00:04:50.759 --> 00:04:55.680 habitat for humans and animals alike, destroyed more than sixteen thousand, 67 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:59.959 two hundred homes, schools, and other structures, placed some too 68 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:04.680 hundred thousand residents under evacuation orders, and killed thirty one people. 69 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:09.360 Economists estimated the damage to the local economy at more 70 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:13.720 than two hundred and fifty billion dollars. A Librea staff 71 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:17.920 member was among the locals who lost their homes. Along 72 00:05:17.959 --> 00:05:22.240 with many other institutions, Librea's Page Museum shut down for 73 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:26.160 two days. The site itself was unharmed, and as the 74 00:05:26.199 --> 00:05:29.759 city gradually came back to life, it was almost possible 75 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:33.560 to go on as if nothing had changed. Soon after 76 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:37.600 the fires, Let's imagine a screenwriter shows up at Librea. 77 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:40.680 She opens her laptop to a script set at the 78 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:45.319 tar pits, working title death Trap, Heart and Throat. Scenes 79 00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:49.399 of escape from catastrophe begin to fill the page, but 80 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:52.839 then she starts to noodle around with a new plot point. 81 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.040 What if a small band of determined researchers come out 82 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:02.879 of Librea with the story powerful enough to save our world? 83 00:06:03.399 --> 00:06:08.519 And accompanying this article, did you know the Secrets of Librea? 84 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:13.120 No dinosaur fossils have been found at Librea because the 85 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:16.360 area was underwater at the time they roamed the earth, 86 00:06:18.199 --> 00:06:22.439 and the Chumash people used the area's asphalt for waterproofing 87 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:29.639 baskets and sealing canoes long before the first Europeans arrived. Next, 88 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.800 this massive collection of more than a million tools tells 89 00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:38.560 the striking history of jewelry making in America before computers. 90 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:43.720 In Ai, beautiful trinkets were formed with a combination of hubs, dyes, finesse, 91 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:48.360 and force. Kevin Potter has perhaps the world's largest assemblage 92 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:54.439 of them. By Richard Grant. Look at this, says Kevin Potter, 93 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:58.800 marveling at an intricate Art Deco butterfly design carved into 94 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:02.279 an old, weathered block of steel. A guy made this 95 00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:05.759 with chisels and piles. It probably took him two weeks. 96 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:11.279 This hub would have made gorgeous, top quality brooches. Potter 97 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:15.120 fifty six, is a jewelry maker, but he also presides 98 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:18.959 over the largest collection of artifacts from America's Golden Age 99 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:23.079 of jewelry manufacturing, which he's packed into two big warehouses 100 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:27.839 and a scruffy old Tucson neighborhood. Animated and loquacious with 101 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:32.639 a sardonic edge, almost invariably clad in work overalls, Potter 102 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:36.079 has preserved a part of American history which, even though 103 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:40.240 it touched tens of millions of lives in intimate emotional ways, 104 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:45.279 is now largely forgotten. People love jewelry, but most of 105 00:07:45.319 --> 00:07:48.120 them don't think about how it was made. Potter tells me, 106 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.720 with an air of wistful indulgence. They don't think about 107 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:56.279 the artistry involved, the craftsmanship, the techniques. They don't think 108 00:07:56.279 --> 00:08:00.839 about the tools and equipment. Potter's great collection is dominated 109 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:04.120 by hubs and dyes, which are small blocks or pucks 110 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:07.399 of steel with designs engraved on them. Back in the 111 00:08:07.399 --> 00:08:12.079 bygone era of industrial dye struck jewelry, factory workers would 112 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:16.759 use powerful machines to press or strike these engraved designs 113 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:20.879 into sheets of gold, silver, and other metals. The difference 114 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:24.439 between hubs and dyes is usually described in terms of 115 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:29.360 male and female. Hubs are male, the design is engraved 116 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:34.200 in relief such that it protrudes from the surface. A 117 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:37.320 dye is then made by pressing or striking a hub 118 00:08:37.639 --> 00:08:40.960 into a plank piece of steel, embedding a mirror image 119 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.159 of the hub's design in a shallow cavity. Jewelry can 120 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:48.240 be struck between the male hub and the female dye, 121 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:52.840 or between the dye and the flat surface. Collectively, hubs 122 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:56.159 and dyes are known as tools, and here in these 123 00:08:56.240 --> 00:09:00.720 extraordinary warehouses Potter has amassed, in estimates did one point 124 00:09:00.759 --> 00:09:04.039 two million hubs, far more than any one else in 125 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:08.960 the world. In the front warehouse building tools are stacked 126 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.919 on racks of shelving lining the walls and corridors. They 127 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:17.840 fill up drawers and cabinets and invade bathrooms and office spaces. Potter, 128 00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:21.759 who began his career as a goldsmith, says every one 129 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:24.759 of these tools took between forty and one hundred hours 130 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:29.120 to make. You're looking at lifetimes of human labor and artistry, 131 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:33.360 often multiple generations of the same families making these tools. 132 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:36.519 Forty years ago, they would have been worth hundreds of 133 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:41.080 millions of dollars, but that value evaporated when the technology changed. 134 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:45.879 People sell them now as paper weights. The air inside 135 00:09:45.919 --> 00:09:50.080 the building has a metallic, oily industrial smell. The hubs 136 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:55.080 and dies compete for space with antique engraving machines, screw presses, 137 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:59.240 hulking drop hammer machines, old wooden tool boxes that belonged 138 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:03.480 to master in ravers Rube Goldberg looking to contraptions for 139 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:08.120 making fine delicate necklaces, hand forged anvils, including a French 140 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:12.039 specimen dating to seventeen eighty nine, and a mind boggling 141 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:17.080 array of other archaic machines and equipment. The sheer volume 142 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:21.200 of unfamiliar visual information is overwhelming, and it's noisy too. 143 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:25.840 Bang clang thud, whoosh. Because Potter and his twenty five 144 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:29.679 employees are using the old machines to make jewelry and 145 00:10:29.799 --> 00:10:34.600 the old hubs to make new dyes. His company, Potter USA, 146 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.559 founded in his garage in nineteen ninety seven, sells the 147 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:42.360 dyes on the Internet to hobbyists, along with small hydraulic 148 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:45.600 presses so that customers can use them to make their 149 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:50.159 own jewelry. Those customers, he says, are predominantly older women. 150 00:10:50.919 --> 00:10:54.720 They number nearly fifteen thousand and live all over the world. 151 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:58.320 I think it's the coolest thing, Potter says, a guy 152 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.559 one hundred and fifty years ago may this tool. Now 153 00:11:01.639 --> 00:11:04.799 his design is being used again and thousands of people 154 00:11:04.840 --> 00:11:07.799 are falling in love with his art. It's like we're 155 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:12.120 bringing him back to life. The profits from this business 156 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:16.279 enable Potter to keep up his voracious collecting habit. He 157 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:19.919 has bought up consignments of tools from defunct jewelry factories 158 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:26.000 in New York City, Newark, Attleborough, Massachusetts, as well as Paris, Prague, Helsinki, 159 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:29.519 and various German cities, but a major part of his 160 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:33.080 collection comes from Providence, Rhode Island, once known as the 161 00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:37.320 jewelry capital of the world. By the late nineteenth century, 162 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:41.799 jewelry makers and Providence were using hubs, dyes, drop hammers, 163 00:11:41.799 --> 00:11:45.759 and heavy presses to mass produce detailed jewelry from sheet 164 00:11:45.799 --> 00:11:50.000 gold and other metals. It was a major departure Before 165 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:54.480 die striking, jewelry was made almost entirely by hand using 166 00:11:54.519 --> 00:11:58.759 metal work skills dating back thousands of years. Artistry and 167 00:11:58.840 --> 00:12:02.679 craftsmanship were still required to make the tools, but die 168 00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:05.759 striking was a shift from an artisanal era to an 169 00:12:05.799 --> 00:12:10.559 industrial one. Many of the Providence factories were family owned, 170 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:15.080 and conflicts would often arise. Potter says that a cousin, 171 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:18.279 usually a tool maker, would leave in a fit of 172 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:22.759 spite and start his own factory. The companies kept multiplying 173 00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:26.120 over time, and the whole thing kept getting bigger and bigger, 174 00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:29.639 until you had these giant factories three hundred square feet, 175 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:33.720 which is three home depots. He said. For most of 176 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:37.759 the twentieth century, these factories produced millions of pieces of 177 00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:41.200 die struct jewelry a year, and they were being exported 178 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:46.279 all over the world. Providence made good quality jewelry available 179 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:49.039 to everybody for the first time in history. Potter says, 180 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:53.039 rolled gold really put them on the map. It looks 181 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:55.720 like solid gold, but it's a very thin layer of 182 00:12:55.759 --> 00:13:00.159 gold over brass, so it's affordable. At its peak, in 183 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:04.679 nineteen seventy eight, the Providence jewelry industry employed thirty two 184 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:09.159 thousand people and some three thousand production facilities, ranging from 185 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:14.080 giant factories to front room mom and pop operations. Soon afterward, 186 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:18.799 it fell into a calamitous decline. The business was decimated 187 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:22.840 by companies in Asia, which undercut prices, using cheaper labor 188 00:13:23.240 --> 00:13:27.919 and inexpensive lost wax casting, in which molten metal is 189 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:32.799 poured into a mold. Hundreds of US jewelry companies shut down, 190 00:13:33.159 --> 00:13:37.399 laid off their employees, and shuttered their factories around two 191 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:40.759 thousand seven or two thousand eight. When Potter found out 192 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:44.080 that bankrupt jewelry companies were melting down their hubs and 193 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:48.399 dies into scrap, he was horrified. I couldn't stand to 194 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:52.080 see all that history and artistry destroyed forever, so I 195 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:55.080 started buying up tools to save them as many as 196 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.240 I possibly could, And that's what I've been doing ever since. 197 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:05.000 Pater de Christafaro, founder and curator of the Providence Jewelry 198 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:08.399 Museum in Rhode Island recalls how in two thousand and eight, 199 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.840 Kevin came to Providence like a tomb raider coming into 200 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:15.360 the Valley of the Pharaohs. He bought three hundred million 201 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.639 dollars worth of tools for pennies on the dollar. He 202 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:23.600 mounted an enormous collection, and he got the best potter. 203 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:28.240 USA is largely a family operation. Kevin works alongside his 204 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.840 wife Danielle, who's in charge of the office and the finances. 205 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:35.639 Their son, Vincent, is a jewelry maker who dresses in 206 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:39.320 overalls and a newsboy cap. From his father and his 207 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:42.639 own research, he has acquired a vast knowledge of the 208 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:46.840 history of American jewelry making. Vincent helps his father with 209 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:49.720 the collection and the tool business, and he runs his 210 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:54.519 own company, Cranston Fancy Wire, which sells bracelets and engraved 211 00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:59.360 strips of copper, brass and silver. We have the tools 212 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.600 organized by the companies who made them because it keeps 213 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:05.720 a better historical record, says Vincent as he shows me 214 00:15:05.799 --> 00:15:09.720 around the collection, which includes pieces from seventy four companies. 215 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.720 Opening a cabinet loaded with hubs and dies, he says, 216 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.279 this is Gorum, a company founded in eighteen thirty one. 217 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.919 They made high end silverware and trophyware in Providence and 218 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:26.080 closed in nineteen eighty six. Lovingly, Vincent shows me a 219 00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:30.000 gold bracelet he spotted recently in a Tucson thrift store. 220 00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:32.960 It was made in the mid twentieth century with one 221 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.159 of the dyes in the Potter collection. He bought the 222 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:39.399 bracelet and says he's now reunited it with the very 223 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:43.399 dye that struck it decades ago in Providence. As we 224 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:47.360 moved through the collection over several hours, it becomes apparent 225 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:50.480 that the Potters preside over a unique record of American 226 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.120 life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and not just 227 00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:58.200 the changing fashions in men's and women's jewelry. The die 228 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:01.840 striking process was also used used to make medals, silver 229 00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:06.960 Christmas ornaments, souvenir pins, law enforcement shields, and hood emblems 230 00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:10.759 for cars, to name just a few. Kevin shows me 231 00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:14.519 into one office that's devoted to military tools, including the 232 00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:17.799 dyes that struck the purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the 233 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:21.840 Silver Star, and the Medal of Honor. Potter has a 234 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.279 vintage hub for U. S. Army officer's belt buckles and 235 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:29.399 one that made badges for the Space Program. In another room, 236 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:32.440 displayed high on a wall, is the die that struck 237 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:36.960 early badges for the Los Angeles Police Department. I've got 238 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.240 the tools that made the pins and rings for the 239 00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:44.080 Skull and Bones Society at Yale, Kevin says. Moving into 240 00:16:44.120 --> 00:16:47.360 a different room, he rifles through a cabinet and pulls 241 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:50.120 out the dyes that struck the World Series rings in 242 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.600 nineteen forty two and nineteen forty six, and both the 243 00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:57.120 prize medals and the participation medals for the first Winter 244 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:01.080 Olympics hosted by America at Lake Placid in nineteen thirty two. 245 00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:05.519 The actual metal sells for about ten thousand dollars. So 246 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.240 what's this worth? He says? This is the die that 247 00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:12.920 made all those metals, the real original. Other than Kevin 248 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:16.839 and Danielle, the employees at Potter USA are mostly in 249 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:20.240 their twenties and thirties, and this is a deliberate strategy 250 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:24.839 on Kevin's part. The techniques for making die struck jewelry 251 00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:27.839 weren't written down. You can't look them up in a book. 252 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.720 It was all passed down by word of mouth. By 253 00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:33.880 showing the next generation how it was done. That's what 254 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.480 I'm doing here. I don't want to see the knowledge 255 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:40.960 die out. In the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, die 256 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:46.200 striking from hand engraved hubs was supplanted by computer aided 257 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:51.480 design CAD software and C and C computer numerical coat 258 00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:55.759 control machines that engrave texture and create models for the 259 00:17:55.799 --> 00:18:01.119 lost wax casting process. Now those technologies threatened by the 260 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:06.079 advent of artificial intelligence three D model generators. You don't 261 00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:09.000 even have to draw anything, says Potter. Just tell it 262 00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:11.039 what you want and there it is, ready for three 263 00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:14.799 D printing. In the spirit of meet your destroyer. We 264 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:17.200 tried it and it made a perfect die from a 265 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:21.839 photograph of a piece of jewelry. He thinks Potter USA 266 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.640 will survive because it caters to hobbyists who enjoy working 267 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:28.920 with their hands. But Potter has no doubt that the 268 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:33.240 jewelry industry will once again be transformed. You can't fight 269 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:37.920 technological change that powerful, Potter says. The artisans who made 270 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:41.400 jewelry by hand for centuries were put out of business 271 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:46.720 by industrial diestruck jewelry. Now AI is uppending the business 272 00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:53.359 model again. That's just how it goes. And accompanying this article, 273 00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:58.279 did you know inside Rhode Island's by gone jewelry empire. 274 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:03.880 Road Island's jewelry dominance began with the economic boom that 275 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:08.000 followed the Civil War. In eighteen sixty five, forty five 276 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:12.039 jewelry companies employed some seven hundred workers in Rhode Island. 277 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:15.599 Ten years later, there were one hundred and thirty jewelry 278 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:19.039 companies in the state, accounting for nearly two thousand, seven 279 00:19:19.119 --> 00:19:24.160 hundred workers. By eighteen eighty, Rhode Island produced more than 280 00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:27.279 a quarter of all jewelry made in the United States. 281 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:31.119 At that time, the state was home to one hundred 282 00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:35.000 forty eight firms, one hundred forty two of which were 283 00:19:35.039 --> 00:19:41.200 based in the major hub of Providence. Next stamps of approval, 284 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:46.400 A traveling salesman built an empire on savings and changed 285 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:52.640 shopping forever. By Heather Hughes. The idea of rewarding loyal 286 00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:57.680 customers has existed for millennia. In Ancient Egypt, merchants offered 287 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:01.240 their regulars tokens that could be redeemed for staples like 288 00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:05.480 bread or beer. In the late seventeen hundreds, one New 289 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:09.880 England merchant gave customers copper tokens to exchange for merchandise, 290 00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:14.240 but the first large scale loyalty program didn't appear until 291 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:19.119 the late nineteenth century. In eighteen ninety one, traveling salesman 292 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:23.640 Thomas Sperry came upon an intriguing incentive program in a 293 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:28.200 Milwaukee department store which issued stamps with each purchase that 294 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:32.759 customers could later redeem for merchandise. Sperry saw a chance 295 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.519 to make a business out of printing these stamps and 296 00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:41.559 selling them to retailers. With investor Shelley Byron Hutchinson, in 297 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:45.799 eighteen ninety six, Sperry founded the Sperry and Hutchinson Company 298 00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:49.519 known as S and H, which issued its first green 299 00:20:49.519 --> 00:20:53.440 and white paper stamps at stores in Jackson, Michigan, near 300 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:58.240 Hutchinson's hometown of Ippsilany. For every ten cents spent at 301 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:03.359 participating stores, customers received a stamp worth ten points. Once 302 00:21:03.400 --> 00:21:06.160 you'd acquired enough stamps to fill an sn H Green 303 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.160 Stamps booklet, you redeemed them at an S and H 304 00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:14.000 show room for anything from furniture to silverware. The program 305 00:21:14.119 --> 00:21:17.640 was a fast success with regional dry goods stores, and 306 00:21:17.720 --> 00:21:21.759 soon with department stores and grocers. By its second year, 307 00:21:22.039 --> 00:21:25.640 SNH had expanded to sixty seven cities, and Sperry and 308 00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:30.920 Hutchinson began opening more showrooms or redemption centers, where customers 309 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:34.799 presented their stamps for merchandise. One book could get you 310 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:38.599 a porcelain lamp, while six booklets could get you a bicycle. 311 00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:43.400 In the early nineteen hundreds, SNH launched its catalog, which 312 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:47.079 became one of the most widely circulated publications in the country. 313 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:51.240 By nineteen sixty four, S and H was distributing a 314 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:55.319 reported thirty two million copies a year as customers redeemed 315 00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:59.400 more than a billion stamps weekly. That decade saw green 316 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:03.920 stamps zenith. The United States had approximately eight hundred S 317 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:08.279 and H redemption centers and more than ten thousand participating businesses. 318 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:12.960 Andy Warhol immortalized the stamps and the nineteen sixty two 319 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:16.400 silkscreen now in the collection at the Museum of Modern 320 00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:20.000 Art in New York. But in the mid nineteen seventies, 321 00:22:20.039 --> 00:22:23.240 as the U s economy stagnated, S and H began 322 00:22:23.319 --> 00:22:27.519 to declant decline. By the late nineteen eighties, fewer than 323 00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:32.759 one hundred retailers were still participating, and as many stores 324 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.000 chose to cut out the middleman by offering their own 325 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:40.160 rewards programs, s, and H Green stamps never quite recovered. 326 00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:44.720 In nineteen eighty one, the founding families sold SNH, but 327 00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:49.279 in nineteen ninety nine one of Sperry's great grandsons repurchased it. 328 00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:54.240 The stamps went digital the following year, rebranded as Green Points, 329 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:58.279 but this and other rebrands failed to recapture the magic. 330 00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:02.799 SNH was op Thanks to the phenomenon it had recreated, 331 00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:07.960 many retailers now offer rewards programs which are bigger than ever. 332 00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:12.319 In twenty twenty four they accounted for twelve billion dollars 333 00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:19.000 in economic activity. Next, with Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau found a 334 00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:22.640 way to inform and entertain a generation of newspaper readers, 335 00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:27.880 one panel at a time. A new biography chronicles the 336 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:31.480 history and evolution of the reserved artist who has always 337 00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:37.039 let his pen do the talking. By Brandon Tensley. It's 338 00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:40.319 a bit difficult today to imagine a comic strip wielding 339 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:45.279 serious political power, but Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury, which ran daily 340 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:49.480 from nineteen seventy to twenty fourteen, got famous by helping 341 00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:52.880 millions of Americans make sense of the radical shifts in 342 00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:58.039 their country. So immense was Doonesberry's influence that President Gerald 343 00:23:58.079 --> 00:24:01.680 Ford quipped in nineteen seventy five, there are only three 344 00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:04.559 major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is 345 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.839 going on in Washington, the electronic media, the print media, 346 00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:14.519 and Doonsbury. Not necessarily in that order, Trudeau has long 347 00:24:14.599 --> 00:24:18.000 managed to stay out of the public eye. In Trudeau 348 00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:21.039 and Doonsbury, The Cartoonist Who Turned the News into Art, 349 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:25.559 the first major biography of the artist, journalist Joshua Kendall 350 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.039 offers a definitive and inviting account of Trudeau's career based 351 00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:33.799 on archives and interviews, including with politicians who were on 352 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:38.400 the receiving end of his barbs. Kendall takes us from 353 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:41.920 Saranac Lake, the village in the Adirondack Mountains where Trudeau, 354 00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:46.519 as a precocious elementary school exactingly directed plays in his 355 00:24:46.599 --> 00:24:49.880 family's home. I was a little dictator, he jokes. To 356 00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:55.400 Yale University. There as an undergraduate around nineteen seventy, Trudeau 357 00:24:55.599 --> 00:24:59.680 first confronted war as the Vietnam draft lottery loomed over 358 00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:05.000 him and his classmates. A scarred upper digestive tract saved 359 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.519 Trudeau from being conscripted. The social environment wasn't the only 360 00:25:09.599 --> 00:25:13.799 thing that was changing. Trudeau was too. He started drawing 361 00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:17.240 a strip called bull Tales, first published in the Yale 362 00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:21.559 Daily News on September thirtieth, nineteen sixty eight, which contained 363 00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:25.519 the seeds of Doonsbury. In those early days, Trudeau was 364 00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:29.079 per his editor at the Yale Daily News, a classic 365 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:32.960 male chauvinus pig. That changed when he fell for Annie 366 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:36.359 her Boat, one of the first women to enroll as 367 00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:41.160 a Yale undergraduate in nineteen sixty nine. At first, she 368 00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:45.920 described his work as a sexist piece of crap. Yet 369 00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:48.920 the two dated and Trudeau's time with Hurlbut made him 370 00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:54.240 a lifelong feminist. Doonsbury debuted in twenty eight newspapers in 371 00:25:54.319 --> 00:25:58.240 nineteen seventy, and Trudeau created bold women characters such as 372 00:25:58.319 --> 00:26:02.359 Jonie Caucus and troduced to nineteen seventy two, who embodied 373 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:06.920 a new liberation. By the new century, Doonsbury was appearing 374 00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:11.400 in around fourteen hundred newspapers. Trudeau also made innovations in 375 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.920 more recent years, creating the Amazon sitcom Alpha House twenty 376 00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:20.279 thirteen to fourteen, starring John Goodman. Goodman calls me the 377 00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:23.559 script Nazi. Trudeau told the New Yorker in twenty fourteen, 378 00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:27.240 which means I protect every period in comma. The little 379 00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:31.759 dictator was still at work. Trudeau drew in readers by 380 00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:35.880 focusing on the often bizarre and confusing daily life faced 381 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:40.279 by baby boomers. Kindle rights and unlike the artist's role 382 00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:44.880 model Charles Schultz, the Peanuts creator, whose terrain is our 383 00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:49.119 often painful inner life, Kendall notes, Trudeau's is the absurd 384 00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:56.920 external reality that envelops us. Finally, ask Smithsonian, you've got questions, 385 00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:02.079 we've got experts. Are there any planets in space that 386 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:06.200 don't orbit around US star? The answer is from Jennifer 387 00:27:06.359 --> 00:27:11.960 c Ye, Observational Astronomer, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian. 388 00:27:12.839 --> 00:27:17.160 As planetary systems form, it's theoretically possible that some planets 389 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:20.279 whose orbits haven't fully stabilized could be kicked out of 390 00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:24.200 their star systems through close gravitational encounters with other planets 391 00:27:24.319 --> 00:27:28.319 or stars. In stellar nurseries where many new solar systems 392 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:32.200 are forming, The James Webb Space Telescope has detected hundreds 393 00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:36.599 of isolated objects smaller than Jupiter. These might be planets 394 00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:41.400 based on their small mass. However, they might be miniature 395 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:44.440 brown dwarfs, failed stars that are too small to fuse 396 00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:49.720 hydrogen the way our Sun does. This concludes readings from 397 00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:53.680 the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. 398 00:27:54.039 --> 00:27:56.000 Thank you for listening, and have a great day.