To be patriotic, I decided to go back the country's founding, and bring the total of landmark developments up to 176 (1,776 was just too many). Without further ado:
The Seventy-Six Things That Changed
America the Most From 1776 to 1900
Declaration
of Independence
The
origins of the United States come from the Declaration of Independence – a
document most all Americans could quote, at least in part. It was adopted on
July 2, 1776, and two days later the language was agreed upon. America was
officially leaving Great Britain. Published a few months earlier, Paine’s
Common Sense helped colonists embrace the bold idea.
Winning
the Revolutionary War
Declaring
independence, however, didn’t achieve it. With fighting having begun in 1775,
the Revolutionary War, led by George Washington, was not over quickly. Many
episodes became part of America’s founding mythos, like the Christmas retreat
across the Delaware. For a little over five years the new nation fought on,
until the victory at Yorktown in 1781 meant freedom.
The
Constitutional Convention
America’s
early history is a sort of odd prelude, governed under the Articles of
Confederation, which were wholly inadequate to running a federal government.
For six years the problems continued, until in 1787 a convention drafted the
new Constitution, and argued for more central authority and powers. It has
remained the foundation of America’s political and legal system ever since.
The
Bill of Rights
It took
a few years of wrangling to get the new states to approve the Bill of Rights –
after the Constitution had been adopted. Easily the most well-known part of the
document, the first ten amendments have become the guiding principles for
America’s citizens, including freedoms of speech and religion, and the right to
bear arms or a speedy trial.
Survey
of American Roads
In 1789
an early civil engineer with tons of foresight – Christopher Colles – created
the Survey of the Roads of the United States. It was the first mapping
of its kind, to help connect travelers and encourage trade. Colles had other
great ideas too: his ideas for New York’s waterways and canal system would
eventually be realized half a century later.
The
Cabinet
When
Washington was sworn in as the first President, he had to figure out what that
meant. Immediately he decided to create a cabinet of advisors – which was
radical, because the Constitution had no such offices in its description.
Jefferson was Secretary of State, Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury, and Henry
Knox Secretary of War. There are now fourteen such positions, in the 21st
century.
National
Bank
Hamilton
is well-known for his work to create a National Bank – again, not found in the
Constitution. Two main issues remained from after the Revolution and
Confederation era: dealing with states’ debts and currencies, and getting the
new federal government a line of international credit. It was an idea that the
U.S. fought with a readopted numerous times in the 1800s.
Whiskey
Rebellion
The
Federal government, it almost goes without saying, will not tolerate armed
rebellion. But this was put to the test almost immediately, and was initially
no sure thing. When troops, led by Washington himself, had to stop an uprising
of farmers outraged by the imposition of a tax on whiskey, it proved the newly
empowered government had more clout than the former Confederation.
Stepping
Down After Two Terms
Washington
could have been a king in all but name. By stepping down after his second term,
while still in good health, he set an extraordinary precedent that was honored
until the Second World War (and then codified in a Constitutional amendment).
Retiring to Mount Vernon, he reverted to being just another citizen – which
also modeled what should happen to retired Presidents.
XYZ
Affair
This
was more than a diplomatic spat – it set a crucial precedent for America’s
handling of foreign affairs. At the root of it was a question: who gets to
conduct foreign affairs? The government? Individual people? And what was the
literal price of negotiating? The latter was the affront of the time – French
diplomats insisting on being paid bribes. Not giving in changed foreign policy
forever.
Washington,
D.C. Established
America
already had some major cities, from Boston to Charleston. But the Constitution
called for a capital – and so D.C. began to be planned, from the boulevards, to
the White House, to the Capitol building. It would be the first statement of
the new nation – moving its original capital from New York to the Potomac.
Second
Great Awakening
Starting
in the 1790s, a Protestant religious fervor swept through America, and inspired
many new sects and movements – some of them quite radical. The Shakers, for
example, believed in celibacy and the end of the world. The Baptists grew
significantly in this era as well. By the 1840s the movement had died out, but
not without lasting cultural consequences.
USPS
The
federalization of the Postal Service began in 1775 under Ben Franklin, but
really got off the ground in 1792. It was instrumental in the early years of
delivering newspapers to the people as well, besides just mail – which the
young government thought was vital, to help keep the populace well-informed. To
this day, the USPS is essential for American shipping.
The
Cotton Gin
Eli
Whitney’s 1793 patent for a machine that helped process cotton radically
transformed the South. Tobacco had been America’s main cash crop since the days
of Jamestown – but that would shift to cotton as a result of Whitney’s machine.
Since cotton still had to be picked by hand, though, many see the cotton gin as
exacerbating the argument for the usefulness of slavery.
Mills
The
precursor to modern factories, mills began operating in New England in the
1790s, first in Rhode Island – producing textiles. Staffed with child laborers
and young, unmarried, women, mill work was tedious and often dangerous –
powered initially by waterwheels and eventually by steam power. It marks the
north beginning to industrialize, distinct from the agrarian south.
The
Alien and Sedition Acts
One of
the first blows to the Bill of Rights was when Adams tried to ban speech that
was critical of the U.S. government and tried to deport anyone who didn’t agree
with American policy during a time of national crisis. It stained his
reputation forever, but the acts didn’t stand. That said, in the centuries to
come, similar curbs on free speech have resurfaced again and again.
Peaceful
Transfer of Power
The
election of 1800 saw the Federalists, led by John Adams, defeated by
Jeffersonian Republicans. Adams, like Washington, became a private citizen, and
a new administration with very different goals and ideas came to power.
Compared to the English history they’d inherited (think of the War of the
Roses) such a transfer of power was revolutionary.
West
Point
The
United States Military Academy was launched in 1802, and became the cadet
training corps for the U.S. Army. In the Revolutionary War, Washington had to
get whatever soldiers he could to fight. By the early 1800s, the country
started to formalize its armed forces, and began developing its navy at the
same time, which would slowly become a powerhouse.
Marbury
v. Madison
The
1803 decision codified the role of the Judicial branch, and the Supreme Court
especially. Courts now could strike down any law that was in violation of the
U.S. Constitution – the main source of judicial review and power to this day.
In the short term, the dispute was over judicial appointments from the outgoing
administration: something familiar to 21st century Americans.
Louisiana
Purchase and Manifest Destiny
When
Jefferson purchased all the land from New Orleans to Montana from the French it
kickstarted a westward movement that would spread white supremacy and an
agrarian vision across the Great Plains. By the 1840s the concept had developed
into a fever-pitch, under the banner of ‘Manifest Destiny’ – that God himself
wanted this for his favorite nation.
Webster’s
Dictionary
American
English got its first dictionary in 1806, and has pulled away from England’s
speech patterns and spellings ever since. Some American words are weirdly
anachronistic – holding onto terms the British have since given up, and others
were brand new (and often heavily indebted to indigenous naming). Soon we’d be
“two countries separated by the same language.”
Steamboats
Robert
Fulton launched his first – and the world’s first – steamship in 1807. No
longer hampered by the variable winds, steamships could travel anywhere,
anytime. As they got larger they managed to take on increasingly rough seas,
became loaded with guns, and began developing into the backbone of America’s
naval and trade vessels.
End
of Transatlantic Slavery
In 1808
the United States, at least legally and formally, stopped importing new
enslaved peoples from Africa. This did nothing for the people in the U.S. who
were enslaved, or their progeny, but it was an important first step for the
nation ridding itself of the evil. The perpetual enslavement of those already
here would last another half century.
The
War of 1812
The
British came back, via Canada, and burned the White House. The war inspired
Francis Scott Key to pen America’s national anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner,
which helped launch the national obsession with its flag. Meanwhile, the Battle
of New Orleans made Andrew Jackson an American hero and household name.
Tecumseh’s
War
As
America began, under Jefferson, looking to the west, the Ohio Valley became the
focal point of the wars with native peoples. Since the Revolution, the
Appalachian Mountains had provided a sort of buffer between the indigenous confederations
and tribes and the new nation. Tecumseh raised an enormous army from across the
continent to keep that boundary. Having lost, the Americans pushed their way
in.
Failed
Compromises
Each
new state that entered the Union led to discussions about whether it was to be
a slave state or a free state – trying to preserve a balance between the two in
Washington, so the South wouldn’t bolt. Many compromises were made, such as the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, which all had the same effect: kicking the can of
the issue down the road.
Monroe
Doctrine
In 1823
James Monroe first stated his cornerstone of foreign policy, which would define
the nation’s view until the present day: Europe was to stay out of the western
hemisphere. By now, of course, America had grown substantially, and the Spanish
were already on the run in South America, thanks to Bolivar. Territory and
military engagements in the Americas were to be under U.S. purview, moving
forward.
“Jim
Crow” and Stephen Foster
By the
late 1820s, or early 1830s, the noxious racial stereotype of Jim Crow had been
formed. Minstrel shows soon followed, and blackface entertainment based on
painful racial stereotypes. At the same time, Stephen Foster – no stranger to
minstrelsy himself – began writing a host of popular songs about the South,
many of which have been passed down, in sanitized forms, to today.
Transcendentalism
People
and nature are good – and that goodness reflects the divine. Such were the teachings
of America’s first major philosophical movement, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Self-reliance was also preached, and the concept of ‘civil disobedience’ was
given its first-ever articulation from Henry David Thoreau, which would inspire
everyone from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.
Democracy
in America
The
first great historical survey of America was written by an outsider – which
helps lend it credibility. Clearly, the United States, now nearly a half
century old, was becoming a power to reckon with on the world stage – De
Tocqueville’s work presented the nation to the world. It was this work which
framed America as a ‘great experiment’.
Jacksonian
Democracy
The
Constitution said that voters were only land-owning white men. Surprisingly it
wasn’t for a number of decades that non-landowning men were able to be voters.
The Jacksonian era ushered in a new period of populism and the Democratic
Party, which remains, in the 2020s, one of the longest-standing of political
parties in the world.
The Trail
of Tears
In the
American South, there were the five ‘civilized’ tribes, which had dutifully
complied with all requests made of them: to speak English, dress as Americans,
and cultivate the land. Andrew Jackson, however, hated all Indians, and so set
forth the tragic Trail of Tears, a forced march to the west which killed many,
and a powerful symbol of the displacement of North America’s indigenous
peoples.
Colt’s
Interchangeable Parts
One of
the first pioneers of interchangeable parts was Samuel Colt. His firearms
revolutionized the early industrial era: taking a complex piece of equipment
and making it easy to manufacture. When part of your gun broke, you could now
replace a single piece, instead of the entire, expensive, revolver. Colt weapons
helped define the U.S.
Telegraph
In the
mid-1830s Morse invented the functional telegraph and Morse Code, which
revolutionized communication. Far faster than the post office or a galloping
horse, you could now send a message to someone as quick as electricity. The
first functional telegraph lines were set up in the D.C. area by the 1840s, and
stayed in place well after the telephone.
Streetcars
In the
1830s the streetcar was developed in America, in places like Harlem and New
Orleans. Slowly horses began to be phased out of the cities of North America as
trams and trolleys became electrified. Urban spaces began to fundamentally
alter how people lived in ways separate from the towns and villages in more
rural areas.
Seneca
Falls
Long
considered the birth of American feminism and the suffrage movement, the great
names of the age were involved in the planning and execution including Lucretia
Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. A few years later Sojourner Truth delivered
her famed ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ – another milestone in the early days of feminism.
Homesteading
and the Oregon Trail
In 1836
the first wagon train to Oregon set out from Missouri. Half a million would
take the route. Starting in the 1840s, homesteading helped defining the
American west. Places like Nebraska had 40% of their land claimed by
homesteaders, as wave after wave of settlers set up in the Great Plains. 1.6
million people took free land past the Mississippi River.
The
Smithsonian
The
Castle building was founded in the 1840s, and began mostly as an academic
institution. In time, the Smithsonian has come to play the role of our National
Museum – the warehouse of our collective history as a country. From the actual
Star-Spangled Banner to modern touchstones like Julia Child’s kitchen and Obama’s
Hope poster, it’s become the repository of our cultural memory.
Frederick
Law Olmsted
Olmsted
was the landscaper of America’s urban green spaces. From New York’s Central
Park to the emerald necklaces of cities like Chicago and Boston, he set up
parks all over. He also planned a variety of college campuses from UC Berkeley
and Stanford to the University of Maine. Most famously, perhaps, was the work
he did on the National Mall.
Annexing
Texas and the Mexican-American War
The
history of Texas joining the Union is complicated. Oversimplifying, a bunch of
Americans went over the border of Mexico and tried to set up shop (which failed
spectacularly – remember the Alamo?). But the U.S. decided to take the land
anyway. American troops marched to Mexico City, and land from San Francisco to
San Antonio became part of the United States.
The
Gold Rush
When
gold was discovered in the Sierra's foothills, it sparked a global race to California to
strike it rich. People came from all over, and the first major hub of America’s
West Coast was established. Similar rushes followed, such as the silver rush in
Nevada a decade later, or the gold rush in Alaska in the 1890s. America was fast becoming a land of
prosperity.
The
Underground Railroad and Growing Abolitionism
Abolitionism
had been part of the U.S. since the founding and before. In 1850 the Fugitive
Slave Act made abetting runaway enslaved people a crime. The underground
railroad had already transported 100,000 people to freedom by 1850, and Harriet
Tubman became an American heroine. In 1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a smash
hit, and inflamed abolitionist sentiments even more.
Paleontology
In the
1850s the first complete dinosaur skeletons were discovered in the United
States. For the next half century, culminating in 1902’s discovery of T. Rex,
America led the burgeoning field of paleontology. Darwin was just around the
corner, and dinosaur fossils would play a pivotal role in redefining history
and science.
Mormons
Head to Utah
The
U.S. Army in 1858 marched on Salt Lake City – a watershed moment. The Mormons,
founded in upstate New York, had been driven out of everywhere, most recently
Missouri, before heading to Utah. Sending troops against American citizens –
even those of a new faith – hadn’t really happened before. The Church of Latter-Day
Saints didn’t go away, of course – in eventually thrived.
Slave
Rebellions and Violence
The
Kansas-Nebraska Act was a catastrophe, leading to Bleeding Kansas, where people
killed each other to determine if the new states would be slave or free. Slave
rebellions, such as Nat Turner’s uprising in 1831, provided a template for John
Brown’s uprising at Harper’s Ferry, which shocked the country. The disastrous
Dred Scott decision made things worse. Violence was breaking out across the
nation.
The
Civil War
Finally,
it all came to a head. One of the world’s first modern wars, the conflict
famously pitted brother against brother, and millions died. Abraham Lincoln
shepherded the nation through its greatest trial. The Gettysburg Address, the
Emancipation Proclamation: the nation changed forever. The Confederacy fell,
but a myth of antebellum plantation life proliferated in the decades that
followed.
Reconstruction
Amendments
By
Juneteenth, slavery was basically ended in the U.S. The best part of
Reconstruction was the three Constitutional Amendments it spawned: abolishing
slavery in the 13th, citizenship in the 14th, and voting
rights in the 15th. They would become a new bedrock of civil and
political rights in America – even if they took the better part of a century to
actually come to fruition.
Failed
Reconstruction Policies
Lincoln’s
assassination nearly stopped Reconstruction in its tracks, though. It limped
on, with a few early victories – the first black Congressmen and Senators, for
example. But soon the Klan had been organized, and Andrew Johnson simply wasn’t
up to the task of guiding the grieving nation. Sharecropping replaced slavery,
and black citizens’ lives were still essentially not free.
ASPCA
and Cruelty to Animals
In 1866
the first laws against cruelty to animals were passed, and Henry Bergh launched
the American Society for the Prevention to the Cruelty of Animals days later. A
shift in consciousness was underway, changing attitudes regarding everything from
work horses to dog fighting – and people began to consider animals’ welfare.
Nowadays nearly 4 million pets are adopted through the ASPCA each year.
American
Literature
From
Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840s to Mark Twain in the 1880s, in the mid-century
American literature came into its own. Leaves of Grass and Moby Dick
in the 1850s helped lead the way in poetry and prose, with many brilliant
artists following, including Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. The nation was finding its voice.
Steel
Production
Bessemer
steel had been discovered in the 1850s, either in the UK or the U.S. Because of
this, modern steel production really took off in the second half of the 19th
century. Production settled especially in the Great Lakes region, from
Pittsburgh to Detroit. By the 1890s new processes replaced Bessemer, but steel
remained part of America’s manufacturing culture.
Trans-Continental
Railroad
With
the famed golden spike in Promontory, Utah, the first transcontinental railroad
was completed, linking the east coast to the west. Slowly things like
stagecoaches and the wagon trains of the earlier generation began to be
replaced. Railroad workers, especially the Chinese, became part of the fabric
of the country.
“The
Wild West” and Barbed Wire
Barbed
wire transformed the west in the 1870s, as the Great Plains changed from bison
to cattle. Ranchers divvied up the land with their new fences, and cowboys
became mythical figures, driving herds to the midwestern slaughterhouses.
Saloons, outlaws, and all the rest followed. Gunslingers and the OK Corral – it
all became part of America’s story.
Baseball
After
the Civil War, baseball, the slowly-developing pastime, became a professional
sport. In the last decades of the century, it went on to become America’s
favorite sport, and leagues were up and running by the 1870s. Precursors of the
World Series followed in the next decade, and cities began to have their own
teams and rivalries.
Third
Great Awakening
Another
religious movement came in the second half of the century. Some of the new
denominations included the Pentecostal sect, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian
Science. The Salvation Army followed, and Christianity got linked to health and
wellness. YMCAs, developed in the UK, came to the US, and it was at a Y where
basketball was invented in the 1890s.
Civil
Service Reform
When
James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 by a deranged office-seeker, one good
thing came out of it as a consequence – the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.
Finally, employment in the U.S. government would be accounted on merit, and not
as favors, patronage, or nepotism. Of course at the local level favors still
ruled, like in Boss Tweed’s corrupt Tammany Hall – but it was an important
start.
Chinese
Exclusion Act
One of
America’s more infamous racist policies was when the Chinese were barred entry
to the country in 1882. Never before had a group of people been denied entry to
the country, and it created a bleak precedent. The Chinese, who had, in the
west especially, taken on many roles in society that were otherwise unwanted,
would not be readmitted legally for decades.
Gilded
Age Wealth
By the
1880s unchecked accumulation of wealth in America had created a fabulously
opulent elite comprised of railroad magnates, shipping magnates, and other
corporate titans and robber barons. Names like Astor, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt
became part of America’s story. Their fortunes built both extraordinary
mansions and civic structures across the continent.
Haymarket
Affair
The
very first rumblings of unionism responded to gilded age wealth and poor
working conditions. But in 1886 a bomb went off at a gathering in Chicago which
set organized labor back for decades. The rally had begun in demand of an
eight-hour working day. Still, by 1894, the U.S. government made Labor Day a
federal holiday – showing the tide was turning in support of working peoples.
Helen
Keller
Starting
in 1887, Anne Sullivan began helping Helen Keller, who was mute, deaf, and
blind, learn how to speak. It was a watershed in the history of disability, and
Keller went on to become an inspiration, and leant her fame to many movements,
from feminism to Socialism. Easily the most famous icon of disability, Keller
became a crucial advocate in changing people’s opinions about the roles of the
disabled.
Johnstown
Flood
In
1889, Johnstown, PA, flooded: One of the worst disasters in American history,
it killed 2,200 people. The cause was human, though – not just a random
accident. A wealthy group of businessmen had created dangerous conditions in a reservoir
above the valley, endangering its inhabitants below. The court battle that
followed helped define legal responsibility to this day.
The Reservation
System
By the
mid-1880s, the reservation system for native peoples was completed. Geronimo
and his followers, members of the Chiricahua Apache, gave themselves up – the
last “wild Indians” of America. Tragedies followed, like the Massacre at
Wounded Knee, in South Dakota in 1890. Concurrent with the end of the frontier,
the internment of native peoples closed an iconic American chapter.
Pain
Relief
Between
the synthetization of aspirin and the development of medical ether for
anesthesia, pain relief changed drastically in the last decades of the 1800s.
Morphine had begun being medically used in the first half of the century – but
it was, of course, highly addictive. Aspirin was nonaddictive, and anesthesia
was a far cry better than ‘bite down on this stick’.
Changes
in Journalism
Nellie
Bly famously went undercover and had herself admitted to an insane asylum in
1887. It launched the modern field of investigative journalism. A decade later,
and yellow journalism was in full swing – sensationalized and ginned-up stories
that were written to sell copy – whether true or not. Famously this pitted
Pulitzer against Hearst: whoever won, the reading public lost.
Thomas
Edison
Edison
– and his associates – created the gramophone and motion pictures. Recorded
sound revolutionized music and entertainment, and then movies revolutionized
drama and entertainment all over again. If he’d only made these two
breakthroughs, he’d be a legend. But he did so much more, including developing the
first commercially viable electric lightbulbs.
Electrifying
Cities
From
whale oil to gaslight, city streets had been poorly illuminated for decades.
Electrifying the cities meant you could stay out late at night, and could be
(more or less) safe. It also meant trading gas and candles for electric
lighting in the home, and eventually outlets for the home. Electric gadgetry
followed, from sewing machines to dishwashers, which were all now viable
appliances.
Statue
of Liberty
One of
the nation’s most potent symbols, Lady Liberty has been lighting the way to
America since 1886. From France, the colossal statue has become visual
shorthand for the U.S. It also inspired one of America’s most well-known poems,
by Emma Lazarus, which begins “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free…”
Ellis
Island and Tenement New York
European
immigration to America became a flood in the years after Reconstruction. This
was critical since it was no longer as exclusively English-speaking: Italians,
Germans, and Eastern Europeans (notably Jews) came in droves. Most, after
disembarking at Ellis Island, stayed in New York City, living in crowded
high-rise tenements in ethnic or religious enclaves.
Hull
House
Besides
NYC, Chicago was another major destination for immigrants in the 1880s, and so
in 1889 Jane Addams launched Hull House. It was a simple premise to our minds:
build a home for immigrants newly arrived to get on their feet, find a job,
learn the language, etc. Yet this was a totally new concept, and earned Addams
one of America’s first Nobel Peace prizes.
Kodak
Cameras
In the
early 1890s, the Kodak corporation made a huge leap in the viability of cameras
with their easy-to-develop film rolls. Photography had been popular since the
1840s, with daguerreotypes, but this breakthrough took photography out of the
early days into the modern – say goodbye single-plate photos. The technology
was widespread throughout the next century.
JP
Morgan
Already
a powerhouse by the 1870s, by the 1890s Morgan was seemingly unstoppable. He
almost single-handedly bailed out the U.S. government in the Panic of 1895 – an
absurd amount of wealth. He ran his namesake company, but was also involved in
U.S. Steel, General Electric, Western Union, and more. In the 1907 Panic he
again had to save the financial sector, effectively on his own.
Plessy
v. Ferguson
Arguably
the most disastrous Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott.
Plessy codified the segregation that had been increasing with Jim Crow and
Black Codes in the South. It allowed segregation to spread, unabated, across
the nation – which it did. In turn, black southerners in the decades to come
would begin leaving to find safety and opportunity in the Great Migration.
Populists
William
Jennings Bryan ran for President three times between 1896 and 1908 and never
won. His political career was, in some ways, the high watermark of the late
1800s populism. Agrarian and rural in origin, this was a seriously left-wing
movement, that was trying to improve the lives of America’s forgotten people.
In some ways, its failure led that demographic to swing conservative.
Overseas
Imperialism
Alaska
was America’s first noncontiguous holding of note, since the 1860s. But it
wasn’t really ‘overseas’ in the same way that, say, Hawai’i was. In 1898 the
U.S. annexed the kingdom – newly created by fruit boss Sanford Dole for the
sole purpose of acquiescing to American imperialism. The rightful monarch had
already been overthrown a few years earlier. Manifest Destiny, it seemed,
didn’t end at the Pacific.
Spanish-American
War and Philippine-American War
Finally
kicking the Spanish out of the hemisphere, taking Cuba, their last stronghold,
and the Philippines, which… definitely wasn’t in the realm covered under the
Monroe Doctrine. The war with the Philippines that followed was brutal, and led
to American occupation for a half century. Meanwhile, in the Caribbean, Puerto
Rico and eventually the Virgin Islands became U.S. territories.
Radio
In 1899
Marconi, the Italian inventor of modern radio technology and broadcasting, came
to the United States and demonstrated what he’d been showing off in Great
Britain for a few years. Americans took to radio in droves, and soon no house
would be without one. Some programs that started on radio continued into the
television era, such as the soap opera Guiding Light. It revolutionized
communication.
