The One Hundred Things That Changed
America the Most Since 1900
Social
Sciences
Percolating
since the late 1800s, the new fields of the social sciences began transforming
how we learn about humanity – less based on philosophy, and more based on data.
Anthropology, sociology, and communications all followed. Psychology slowly got
folded into the mix, as it became more rigorous. To this day, the social
sciences remain some of America’s most popular majors.
Women’s
Magazines
As
women married and moved farther afield, they lost the family and community
support and knowledge. In stepped women’s magazines to help them out (and their
corporate advertisers): with advice on everything from cooking to hygiene to
child rearing. Many of the brands of today began developing their loyalty back
then (Hershey’s, Quaker Oats, Clabber Girl, Pepsi-Cola, Gillette, Pepsodent…)
Airconditioning
Electrified
by Willis Carrier in 1902, air conditioning did much more than make homes
comfortable. It made exploration possible – from the deep seas to the rockets
that went to the moon. Climate controlled spaces allow for preserving rare
manuscripts but also the banks of servers for companies like Google. And it
globally doubled the economy by making work year-round.
Flight
One of
the first big breakthroughs in science and technology of the century was the
Wright Brothers’ 1903 flight in North Carolina, and the development of
heavier-than-air aircraft. The airplane would play a pivotal role in the First
World War, a little over a decade later. It would remain fundamentally
unchanged until the end of the Second World War, with the advent of the jet.
Standard
Oil
In 1904
Ida Tarbell published her expose on Standard Oil – headed by John D.
Rockefeller, the world’s richest man. Trust-busting, the end of monopolization,
became a hallmark of the Roosevelt and Taft administrations – forcing giant
companies to split up. Not that oil went away, mind you – in fact it kept
increasing in importance as the century wore on.
Factory
Meats
By the
early 1900s, the slaughterhouses of America had become industrialized, in the
first significant step towards today’s factory farms. Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle painted a gruesome portrait of what was going on in those
blood-reeking warehouses. On the one hand we got the Food and Drug
Administration, on the other corporations realized they could use factory
principles starting at conception.
Plastic
Originally
invented in Europe, plastic took off in America with Bakelite and its various
successors. Without it many of the great innovations of the century would have
been impossible, from medical supplies to polyester. It replaced traditional
materials from shellac and rubber to wood and metal – and ended up in the
oceans of the world, not biodegrading…
Fordism
The
modern assembly line was developed for the Model T Ford in 1908, with
standardization, repetitive tasks, and interchangeable parts all coming
together to revolutionize industry. Along with making labor unskilled, it also
wanted workers to be able to afford their products. Efficiency experts
followed, such as the Gilbreths, and a punch-clock style of factory work
emerged.
Income
Tax
The
United States finally created the Income Tax with a Constitutional amendment –
so that the government could be funded by more than taxes on things like, say,
alcohol. One of the cornerstones of the Progressive movement, it taxed people
proportional to their wealth. The IRS began to take its modern shape.
National
Parks
The
1916 creation of the Park Service brought to fruition a radical idea of vast
swathes of land belonging to the citizens – an idea which had never been tried
anywhere else in the world. This was a huge leap from the idea of a ‘commons’ –
that was effectively conservationist – to preserving land, even if it had
resources like timber, for its beauty and grandeur.
The
Rise of the Supermarket
In the
1910s the first supermarket, the Astor Market, was created, in NYC. Piggly
Wiggly in Memphis came a year later. From this basic idea – consolidation and
centralization of purchasing things – came everything from modern department
stores to the rise of Walmart and the slow decline of mom-and-pop stores.
Standardized
Tests
The IQ
test was heavily modified in America, and launched a whole field of
standardization in testing and trying to determine who we really are: Are we
smart enough for the army? Are we qualified applicants for college? What is our
personality type? This sort of quantification of people would have huge ripples
through society – just think of getting confirmed for a loan.
Hollywood
The
location had to be 1) far away from Edison in New Jersey and 2) have lots of
sun. Already by the 1910s Hollywood was becoming the location for sweeping
epics to be shot, such as DW Griffiths’ Intolerance, and the studios
followed. The groundwork was laid so that by the 1920s Tinseltown was emerging
as a global arts hub.
Telecommunications
By 1915
the first transcontinental telephone line had been laid, and the telephone’s
inventor Alexander Graham Bell called Watson once again – from New York to San
Francisco. In the early decades of the century telephone lines began to connect
the country, transforming the invention from urban novelty to national
necessity.
Changes
in Representation
The
1910s also saw the House of Representatives cap the number of members of the
House, which had, up to that time, grown more-or-less proportionately, as the
Constitution required. More than a century later, and the House is still 435
members. Meanwhile, Senators would now be directly elected by the people,
making them more prone to populism.
Suffrage
The
1920s radically changed the lives of American women, when they finally got the
vote after a campaign which had, in the immediate decades prior, significantly
stepped-up the pressure on Washington to let women have equal citizenship. From
the Silent Sentinels to the first woman elected to the House (from Montana), it
was a revolution.
Public
Schools
Not
until the late 1910s did the whole U.S. require attendance in public schools in
elementary grades. Of course enforcement was basically nil at first, and it
would be decades before high school was added to that requirement. But gone
were the tenement days of playing stickball in the street and wandering the
alleys aimlessly throughout the year.
Native
Rights
Citizenship
finally came under President Coolidge, roughly a generation after the
reservation system had removed the indigenous population to their remote
outposts. As Americans, native people now could vote, and their voices would
slowly emerge in a way that would require the rest of the country to listen,
from improving conditions on the reservations, to casinos, to the Red Power
movement.
Birth
Control
Women’s
right to use and learn about birth control was heavily regulated and usually
forbade. Contraceptives were often banned, and so women did not have any
control or say in when they had children. Along comes Margaret Sanger, among
many others, who began educating women and fighting for birth control.
Prohibition
and Organized Crime
The
only time America took a right away from all adult citizens: the right to make,
buy, and drink alcohol. Of course alcohol still flowed, from Canada and
bathtubs to the speakeasies of the cities and moonshine of the rural areas. As
a consequence guys like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano became major American
figures until the Amendment was appealed.
Banking
The
Bank of Italy – later the Bank of America – created two major reforms that
opened up banking to the masses. First, they introduced branch banking, which
meant you could get your money anywhere, not just from that particular safe.
Second, they began giving out small loans to middle class people and
businesses, which was previously not done.
Thomas
Midgely Jr.
The
one-man environmental catastrophe added lead to gasoline in the 1920s, which
would adversely affect the health and mental condition of millions of Americans
– it cost us more than 800 million IQ points, as a nation. The he created
Freon, in 1928, the use of which in refrigerators and such led to the hole in
the ozone layer.
Jazz
America
had developed a globally-popular musical form, and a host of great names from
Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington became icons. Thanks to records, people in
London could listen to jazz as it morphed into swing, and big bands
proliferated everywhere. Most notably: it was a black artform, connecting
communities from New Orleans to Chicago.
The
Great Depression and Dust Bowl
With
the 1929 stock market crash, a chain reaction with global consequences
followed, leading to millions out of work, and some starving to death.
Desperate poverty was compounded in the mid-30s with the Dust Bowl drought of
the plains and farming states, leading to displacement, food shortage, hobos
riding the rails, Hoovervilles, and all the rest.
The
New Deal
FDR
came into power and began turning the United States around. Big employment
projects, like the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress
Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority did everything from painting
murals in post offices and building national park trails to providing
electricity to rural America. It redefined how government can take care of
people in need.
Skyscrapers
Until
the 1930s, the first skyscrapers were still in the stone-heavy fashion of the
era, such as the Beaux Arts Woolworth Building in New York – they just took
prevailing trends and made them taller. By the time of the Chrysler and Empire
State Buildings, though, a new visual and engineering language had emerged,
radically altering skylines.
The
FBI
In the
1930s the Federal Bureau of Investigation began morphing into its
currently-recognized form, with J. Edgar Hoover at the helm until the 1970s.
The enforcement branch of the Justice Department became a vast wing of the
Executive Branch, but also was tasked with keeping the Presidency accountable
to the law in decades to come.
Social
Security and Insurance
By 1935
Social Security had launched, and retirement began to be secured – insurance
against indigency. At the same time, the first major medical insurance schemes
began to launch, bringing together, for example, groups of teachers, to cover
medical expenses. Universal healthcare was hotly debated, but rejected, setting
up a century-long, and ongoing, battle.
Fair
Labor Standards – Labor Unions
By the
mid-1930s, labor unions, whose members were once gunned down with Presidential
support in the 1800s, were now ascendant. Their power would continue to grow as
they got results, like the FLS Act: it created the minimum wage, overtime pay
for more than 40 hours, and finally ended much child labor. For the next two
decades union membership would continue to grow, to 1 in 3.
Frank
Lloyd Wright
The
U.S. had long copied and slightly adapted the architecture of Europe – from
neoclassical plantations to Beaux Arts federal buildings and Victorian
mansions. Wright introduced America’s first truly unique architecture, based on
integration with land and surroundings, most famously on view at Fallingwater.
For half a century he kept pushing the envelope.
Addiction
Alcoholics
Anonymous was one of the first attempts to treat addiction not in moral terms,
but as an illness. This has become the scientific understanding: that addiction
is a disease that can be treated, either in group therapy or in treatment
centers (think of the Betty Ford clinic), or through other means. It began
humanizing the issue, shifting away from addicts as people who were ‘weak’.
Disney
This
was the age of Disney’s innovation – from Steamboat Willie to Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs to Fantasia. Everything from inventing
the multiplane camera to Mickey Mouse in the newspapers meant that Walt
Disney’s company was emerging as a major cultural juggernaut. In later years it
would pioneer everything from nature documentaries to Disneyland.
Comics
For
decades comic book collections of humorous strips, like the newspaper funnies,
had been around, but 1938’s Superman changed everything. The industry
immediately ballooned, and superheroes became part of our world, later adapted
into film serials, films, tv shows, and a huge quantity of merchandise. By the
21st century you could get an Oscar portraying the Joker.
Internment
Camps
One of
the nation’s darker chapters, after being attacked at Pearl Harbor, thousands
of Japanese American citizens were rounded up and sent to camps from California
to Arkansas. Many died initially due to the conditions – innocent people who
were deprived of all their rights. Remarkably, the legal framework for the
camps is still on the books, after multiple challenges.
World
War II
The
First World War hadn’t hugely affected America, in terms of casualties or
international power (we didn’t end up joining Wilson’s League of Nations).
Being the first power since the Romans to win a two-front war, and defeating
fascism, on the other hand, meant the U.S. was now a superpower. It’s imagery
and moral superiority informs the nation to the modern day.
Nuclear
Weapons
The
development of a weapon which could level an entire city, as witnessed at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forever changed the planet. It heralded a new age in
Big Science – like national laboratories in Tennessee and New Mexico. It
created fallout and fears of radiation, as increasingly large weapons were
developed, and eventually stockpiled.
Bretton
Woods
The
post-war economic setup was largely established at the famed New Hampshire
conference. The global economy was tied to the dollar, the International
Monetary Fund was created, as was the World Bank. Keynesian economics, which
America had embraced since the 1930s, became tied to liberal democracies
globally.
The
CIA
By the
1940s, the Central Intelligence Agency, focused on international intelligence,
was made official. In the first couple of decades it quickly pivoted from
trying to predict global events, to trying to influence them, notably in a
series of coups and other secret meddling operations around the world, from
Latin America to Asia.
The
GI Bill
Loans
to start businesses, buy houses, and attend college for free. It lifted a
generation of veterans into the solidly middle-class. It also aggravated racial
tensions, since it was usually denied to black veterans. Those loans began a
self-perpetuating cycle of generational wealth, allowing white America to pull
further ahead from their fellow black citizens who’d made the same sacrifices.
Suburbia
As the
vets returned from the war, the Levittowns of the East Coast became the model
for family homes – moving out of the tenements and into world of the white
picket fence and lawn with two-bedroom one-bath house and a two-car garage. Redlining
came with it, and white flight from the urban centers of American cities.
Car
Culture
Car-centric
sprawl of places like Southern California began reshaping the country: the
Interstate Highway System was formed, the commute, planned obsolescence of
cars, fast food, and the underfunding of forms of public transit and rail
systems all followed. Add to that billboard advertising, the proliferation of
motels, car camping, and a host of other changes.
The
Red Scare and Cold War Fears
The
first Red Scare had been in the 1920s, but this one was far more consequential,
ruining lives and careers, and propelling the noxious Joseph McCarthy to
international fame with his notorious witch hunts. Fallout shelters, “duck and
cover”, the Rosenbergs trial, and mutually assured destruction at the hands of
nuclear weapons all came about as a consequence.
The
Military-Industrial Complex
America’s
companies made money off the Second World War and used the Cold War to keep a
permanent arms race going, and get lucrative government contracts to build
everything from nuclear-powered submarines to the newest forms of stealth
aircraft. It was recognized as insidious by the time Eisenhower left office,
warning America against it becoming entrenched.
The
Beats and Counterculture
Individualism,
jazz, sexual freedom, and alcohol. If this sounds like the ‘sex, drugs, and
rock n roll’ of the later hippies it’s because they ripped off the Beats
practically whole cloth (except the wardrobe, trading black in for tie-dye and
peasant shirts). The Beats were even the ones who got interested in Eastern
religions first – again, to influence the later 1960s and 70s.
Madison
Avenue
Advertising
had been developing in new ways for decades, leaving behind paragraphs of story
for simple slogans, and mascots, like those for sports teams, for brands. Soon
Madison Avenue and public relations, quietly becoming the influencers of
American opinion, were working for the biggest companies and politicians. Polling
had transformed the citizenry into the masses.
Television
Although
invented in the 1920s by Philo Farnsworth, in wasn’t until the postwar
prosperity that households could afford a television set, and throughout the
1950s the number of families that owned one skyrocketed. A cascade of changes
followed: everyone watching the same episodes of I Love Lucy, the nightly news,
a new vehicle for ads, etc.
Baby
Boomer Childhoods
Here
began an intergenerational passing down of culture. The Boom was from 46-64,
and included books like Dr. Spock for parents, and kids’ books that became
classics – Goodnight Moon, The Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild
Things Are, The Snowy Day, and Charlotte’s Web. Not to
mention television – Saturday morning cartoons, A Charlie Brown Christmas,
and just around the corner, Sesame Street.
Rock
and Roll and the Studio System
Recording
studios gained new power in the rock n roll era, as they managed stars,
promoted tours, and sold 45s in the millions. From Sun to Motown, the musical
landscape changed, and vocal music became increasingly important, as musicians
began speaking directly to their audiences (and, as opposed to actors,
unscripted). Soon popular musicians would be millionaires and movers and
shakers.
Modern
Medicine
By the
early 1960s the doctor’s house call had finally disappeared. Births and deaths
became hospital affairs, increasingly: the backdrop for our most important
moments in our lives. Breakthroughs from chemotherapy to the polio vaccine were
also improving treatment and care. MRIs were the biggest breakthrough since
x-rays at the turn-of-the-century.
Mental
Health
The
first medications for mental health began in the early 1950s, as scientists
began better understanding the brain’s chemistry. Slowly, people began to
realize that that mental health issues, from psychosis to depression and
anxiety, could be treated chemically. Nearly 20% of American adults take some
sort of mental health medication, as of 2020.
Civil
Rights
For the
first half of the century, segregation and Jim Crow defined stretches of the
South and the Midwest, and all but one state (Michigan) had laws regarding
segregation. With equal rights and protections, millions of Americans saw their
lives change, from voting power to ending segregation in schools: making Parks,
King, and Malcom X icons, and realigning the political spectrum.
Microchips
Initially,
the public wasn’t much affected by the development of silicon chips,
transistors, and CPUs. Quietly, though, the groundwork was being laid for a
host of developments. Microchips would make giant computers obsolete, and be
found in everything from calculators to household appliances. Of course the 21st
century would be fundamentally different without them.
Obscenity
In a
series of landmark trials throughout the 1950s and 60s, America redefined its
artistic and media landscapes by slowly peeling back laws about obscenity and
treating the American adult like… well, an adult. Everything from adult
magazines and books to the art in museums was affected as a consequence, and
the nation readjusted its understanding of what was ‘too far’.
Immigration
As late
as the 1950s the country was conducting mass deportations of Mexicans – and
Mexican-American citizens – across the Southern Border. In 1965 that changed
with the Immigration and Nationality Act. Quotas, in place for many decades,
were lifted. Priority was given to certain groups, though, based on education
and skills – setting-up a generational series of consequences.
Vietnam
During
the 1960s the number of American casualties escalated dramatically, from what
had started as a small number of troops sent to support the French into a
full-blown conflict of hundreds of thousands fighting to keep communism in
check. The counter-culture rebelled, the free speech movement exploded, and
America lost face as it lost its first major war.
Environmental
Movement
Rachel
Carson’s salvo of Silent Spring launched a revolution in how we treat
our planet, from highway pollution PSAs to the Endangered Species Act, and from
the Clean Air and Water Acts to teaching the food web to children in schools.
Recycling and composting, sustainability, and more care and testing in products
and medicines all followed.
Professional
Sports
By the
1960s the Superbowl had arrived, and football began eclipsing baseball as
America’s favorite sport. By now the leagues had integrated (the Redskins were
last, in 1962), and television brought the game right into your living room. It
wasn’t long until players began making millions in contracts and millions in
endorsements and other ventures.
The
Space Race
The
Soviets launched Sputnik, and then Gagarin into space. America quickly pivoted
to focusing on math and science, and creating a heroic new type of person: the
astronaut. From NASA we got Earthrise, the moon landing, Voyager, the
International Space Station, and space telescopes redefining how we see
ourselves in the cosmos.
IBM
The era
of the giant computer had arrived during and immediately after WWII. But their
corporate usefulness took warming up to. By the 60s, though, tech was entering
the workforce, thanks especially to IBM. The company also changed corporate
culture and organization in these years, besides creating all sorts of tech
innovations, like the barcode.
The
Assassinations
JFK,
RFK, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcom X. In five years, between 1963-1968,
the political and civil rights landscape was turned upside-down. Kennedy was
the first President assassinated since McKinley, and his death helped launch
the modern conspiracy theory, which has become prevalent in the 21st
century.
New
Amendments
Between
1961 and 1971 four new amendments to the Constitution changed how people voted.
The voting age was lowered to 18, D.C. got a say in Presidential elections, and
poll taxes – long a segregationist tactic – were explicitly forbidden. Finally,
it clarified the rules of Presidential succession, which had been fuzzy since
the days of John Tyler.
Farm
Rights
Cesar
Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itliong became the faces of the Hispanic and
Filipino farm workers who demanded better treatment. Two major boycotts, of
grapes and lettuce, tuned Americans in to what was happening – and the power of
the pocketbook. The bracero program of seasonal laborers from across the
border, in place since the Second World War, was rescinded in 1964.
Watergate
and the Pentagon Papers
This
was the earthquake – first America learned Nixon was a foul-mouthed, paranoid
criminal, and people lost faith in the White House. Then the Pentagon Papers
dropped, showing every President since Eisenhower, including liberal heroes
like JFK, had lied to the public about the Vietnam War. The faith and trust were
broken, and has never fully healed.
The
War on Drugs
“We
knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by
getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with
heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their
meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.” – John
Ehrlichman, architect of the War on Drugs.
Roe
v. Wade
The
national legalization of abortion became a touchstone in American politics and
culture. Abortion had been legal until the 20th century, but in the
1960s only a few states had relegalized it. But the right to abortion was, for
the conservatives, too far, and setup a culture war over women’s bodies which
continues to today, lately inflamed Dobbs v. Jackson.
Women’s
Lib and Title IX
Since
Title IX in 1972, discrimination began being repealed on the basis of sex.
Women began to get more social and legal rights. The sexual revolution had
already begun changing mores and values, and the contraceptive pill would be
taken by millions. Equal rights for all became a rallying cry, and sexism began
being called out more openly, all the way up to #MeToo.
School
Segregation
By the
70s the Supreme Court had swung conservative (and has been ever since). In two
landmark cases they undid school integration, in San Antonio v. Rodriguez and
Milliken v. Bradley: Schools didn’t need to integrate through bussing,
and local property taxes could fund school districts. Today, in the 2020s, some
schools are now more segregated than they were before Brown v. Board of
Education, as a result.
Lobbying
vs. Science
The 70s
were a decade when corporate interests began actively trying to sway the masses
about science itself. Climate change caused by fossil fuels, the harm caused by
tobacco, the dangers of asbestos – all of these and more led to drawn-out,
costly fights between bad faith companies against scientists and regulators
trying to tell America the truth. Another pillar of trust began wobbling.
Copyright
Another
corporate victory of the 1970s was the Copyright Act of 1976. Since 1909 the
term of a copyright had been a reasonable 28 years. Then it became life of the
author, plus 50 years. The public domain suffers, as a consequence, with very
little new material entering the public for decades to come, right up to the
present day. It was again lengthened in the 90s.
Retirement
By the
1960s and 70s, the retirement landscape had begun to change. Nursing homes had
begun taking in the elderly who needed help – as an offshoot of increased
hospitalization. Meanwhile retirement homes and communities began to
proliferate, and senior citizens, instead of moving in with their families,
began moving into ‘homes’.
Robotics
The
first robot which could react to its surroundings and complete general tasks
debuted in the early 1970s, called ‘Shakey’ since it shook as it moved around
the room. Science-fiction was here – robots zipping around among us. From toys
to the factory arms that became ubiquitous in automation, they changed our
world.
DNA
and Forensics
Many
American milestones chart the understanding of genetics and the genome since
1900, including the work of Thomas Hunt Morgan, Barbara McClintock, and James
Watson. By the early 1980s, DNA took a commanding role in the world of
forensics, which had been developing more scientific methodology since the late
1800s.
Hiphop
Rap
music was initially only one part of the culture – which combined fashion,
DJing, graffiti, and breakdancing. As the 1980s continued, the music broke away
and quickly matured. It took another decade to fully cross over from the black
to white audience mainstream. Now, in the 21st century, it’s one of
the most popular musical forms in the world.
Gaming
In the
early 80s, gaming meant arcades – Pong and Pacman. Soon came the consoles,
which put the gaming world in the home, connected to the television. It was a
new type of experience – part leisure activity and part artform. A whole slew
of characters entered American’s lives from Japan and elsewhere, such as Mario,
Sonic, and Link.
Neoliberalism
The
revolt against Keynesianism began in the early 80s, reacting to stagflation and
the oil crisis. The new idea was to curb government spending, and allow the
private sector to step in and fill in the gaps, being supposedly leaner and
more adaptable than the government. Meanwhile, the debt as a percent of GDP
also began to balloon, doubling while Reagan was in office.
Tax
Reform and Wealth
The
idea was that you shouldn’t tax the rich, and instead give them tax cuts – a
policy which has consistently defined Republican economics ever since. It also
meant fighting the Unions (membership began to fall, until relatively
recently), and unsurprisingly wages stagnated, and have stayed the same up to
contemporary times. The gap between rich and poor began to increase, reversing decades
of closure.
Deregulation
The
other Reagan era economic breakthrough also helped corporations: deregulation.
Finance began to swell as a proportion of the U.S. economy, and mergers began
to be more popular. A stock market crash soon followed, and boards of trustees
became new powerhouses, demanding quarterly reports and profits, shifting focus
to short-term gains over sustainable growth.
Civics
Education
Due to
the 1983 “Nation at Risk” report, American civics education began to shift,
away from teaching students about democracy and how the government works
towards America’s global position. It also emphasized, in a Cold War framework,
the differences in the global economy, focusing on neoliberalism and Americans
as part of the international workforce.
Women
in the Workforce
As
wages stagnated and the middle class began falling behind, American families
needed to make ends meet. In the 1960s, less than half of American women
worked. By 1990 it was around 60% - mothers and wives needing to help as men’s
wages dropped. Workplace culture had to adapt as women began rising through the
ranks of corporate America and taking seats on boards.
Credit
Cards
Women
entering the workforce wasn’t enough to offset the working- and middle-class
losses of the new economic policies. New credit cards became the means of
making up for the shortfalls in people’s budgets. The American people became a
nation of debtors, and the credit card industry began moving the nation, and
global economy, away from cash.
Home
Computers and the Early Internet
In development
for a couple of decades, the personal computer came into homes in the 1980s,
and then took off in the 90s with the world wide web. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
became household names. Silicon Valley and Seattle were new hubs of American
industry and technology. Early pioneers, like Wikipedia and Craigslist, showed
us the potential of being online.
Megachurches
and Fundamentalism
Christianity
began changing in the 80s, with a significant increase in megachurches:
congregations of many thousands, often in stadium-like settings, getting rid of
the close-knit parish community. Fundamentalist Christianity also began taking
off, often with millenarian leanings, including increasing popularity of groups
like the patriarchal Institute of Basic Life Principles.
Disability
Rights
Civil rights
underwent a major update in 1990, with the Americans with Disability Act.
Discrimination on the basis of disability was outlawed, and the nation began to
make changes as a consequence, from the visible – like installing ramps and
elevators – to the invisible, like hiring protections. Accessibility and
accommodations became part of the everyday.
End
of the Cold War
Pax
Americana had arrived. The United States was now the world’s first unchallenged
global superpower, which would define the 1990s. The military began mothballing
bases, and pivoting to new threats. Meanwhile, the 1033 Program meant police
forces could buy military equipment at significant discount –something had to
be done with all that stuff – which militarized small town America.
NAFTA
Starting
in 1994, the free trade agreement took American jobs overseas, and, along with
automation, dealt a gut-punch to the country’s manufacturing and factory jobs.
Overall, however, most people’s economic bottom-line actually improved. Sweatshops
became a major moral issue in the 90s, as a consequence. In place until 2020,
NAFTA was then replaced with USMCA.
Mass
Incarceration
Beginning
in the 80s and exploding in the 90s, ‘tough on crime’ became a popular political
position for Democrats and Republicans. Black citizens were disproportionately
arrested for crimes, sentenced, and sent to prison – even though blacks and
whites committed the same types of crimes at the same rate. America sent more
of its people to prison – and prison labor – than any other nation in history.
Mass
Shootings
The
infamous Columbine High School shooting was a turning point in the U.S. From
1994 to 2004 the country had an assault weapons ban – and still the atrocity
had occurred. All the same, after assault weapons became legalized again in
2004, the number of mass shootings increased many-fold. Names like Sandy Hook,
Uvalde, Pulse and Virginia Tech all became tragic cultural touchstones.
Google
When
they announced they were going to map the whole world by satellite it was like
a dream – Google Earth and Maps changed how we interact with our surroundings.
And, of course, there was so much more, from the search engine to Gmail and Google
Drive storage, to Docs, and taking over YouTube. It became one of the first trillion-dollar
companies as a consequence.
9/11
and the War on Terror
Ending
the Pax Americana of the 1990s, America’s foreign policy abruptly shifted from
Mideast peace deals between Israelis and Palestinians to fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The global community shifted from support to disgust, as they
discovered the Bush administration had lied to them, and torturing people.
Homeland Security, the TSA, the PATRIOT Act’s surveillance: the nation
radically shifted.
Fox
News
In the
late 80s, the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, and right-wing media began
tentatively coming out into the open. Talk radio was the big story at the time,
but Rupert Murdoch’s Fox became the juggernaut, and by the early 2000s had
become a symbiotic arm of the GOP. As George W. Bush’s popularity sank, they
stuck by him, almost to the end – a pattern hey repeated in decades to come.
Genetic
Editing and Knowledge
By the
start of the 21st century the genome project was well underway, and
cloning had been carried out in Europe. From agriculture to medicine, the power
of genetic editing also led to new vaccines, such as those used for Covid. With
a minute sample of genetic material, you could learn your ancestry – such as
whether you had Neanderthal DNA kicking around, or were part Mongolian.
3G
The
internet of the 90s was very different from today – because sending large files
like music or video was so difficult. With the advent of 3G, all these sorts of
downloads and sharing became possible and easy – laying the foundation for our
21st century internet use. 3G was the first major breakthrough –
platforms like YouTube and Tik Tok are inconceivable without it.
Amazon
Online
retail took off with Amazon, first with books, and then with… everything. Jeff
Bezos became history’s richest person, retail changed forever, and their
warehouses became infamous. They launched new ventures, such as Prime, Audible,
and Twitch, and took over things like Whole Foods. Not to mention all the
gadgets, like Kindle and Echo.
LGBTQ+
Starting
in the early 2000s, gay and trans Americans began to gain their rights,
starting with marriage and continuing to other fields. The nation began
understanding homosexuality and transgender identification, and culture wars
inevitably followed – from sports and drag queens to bathrooms in schools.
Pronouns, queer identity, aromantic and asexual – the country learned a whole
new language.
Social
Media
With
the launch of Facebook to the public in 2006, our communities have changed
irrevocably. Instagram, Twitter, and all the rest changed celebrity, democracy,
and the public square. It connected us around the globe, and connected
families. We have since learned all of the downsides: from addiction, to mental
health crises for children and teens and from disinformation to hate speech.
Smartphones
With
the release of the iPhone and its amazing touchscreen, smartphones came of age
– a phone, camera, and computer all in one. They became ubiquitous and a
must-have device for life and often for work. A cascade of changes followed,
from mobile games to Snapchat filters, and from wildlife identifiers to QR
scanning and Pokémon Go.
Polarization
An
infamous poll relates that Americans are now more divided than they have been
at any point since the Civil War. The process began in the 90s, refusing to
work with the opposition, but was turbo-charged during the Obama and Trump
administrations, and has effectively broken the Legislative Branch. 1946-48’s
‘Do Nothing Congress’ passed only 900 bills. In 2023, Congress passed only 27
bills.
Renewable
Energy
There
was a revolution in the world of renewable energy in the last twenty years.
Solar panels have vastly improved, electric cars are becoming common place, and
the nation has come to recognize (for the most part) that climate change is
real and needs serious addressing. As costs dropped, prevalence followed. Wind
farms, hydroelectric, and all the rest are pointing towards a new future.
Donald
Trump
From
“alternative facts” and “fake news” to double impeachments, and being the first
former President to get a mugshot – the Trump presidency broke all the norms
and seriously weakened America’s support of democracy as a concept. Turning
backs on allies while lending legitimacy to dictators, the immigration crisis
and the wall, the Supreme Court appointments… easily one of the most
consequential presidencies.
The
Pandemic
The
worst health disaster in America’s history came at the tail end of 2019 –
Covid-19. Lockdowns, mass death tolls, masks, vaccine skepticism – it was a
medical nightmare. It also created seismic shifts in the workforce, finally
leading to hybrid and work-from-home being embraced by many, making Zoom calls
ubiquitous, and briefly causing the worst financial collapse since the Great
Depression.
