How would you like to drive on a road that had 2-foot-high bumps in the middle of the lane? I wouldn’t either. But that was the standard for a well-built frontier road during the early 1800s. In this podcast I talk about the development of transportation systems in the United States during the 1800s. I include road building Canals, and railroads in the discussion. 

From Jethro Tull (the inventor who kicked off the Industrial Revolution) to Jethro Tull (the Rock Band) this podcast looks at agricultural contributions to the Industrial Revolution during the eighteenth and Nineteenth Century. I start with Agricultural implements that changed the industry like Tull’s seed drill, Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, and Charles Newbold’s plow. I then look at the use of selective breeding and its tie to the inception of the Texas Cattle industry. The podcast winds up talking about the food canning industry. 

When was America's deepest, longest economic depression? What caused the rise of populism in the late 1800s? What happened in 1868 that contributed to modern computing? The answer to these and about 45 other things vital to twentieth and even twenty-first American History, culture and society all took place at the same time the nation was struggling with Reconstruction. Of course, this list is not comprehensive. Can you think of 50 events between 1865 and 1877 that are of historical importance? Here is my list. Enjoy.

If you look at virtually any United States History book, any book, video, film, poem, or whatever, you will be told that the civil war ended with Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. But did it really? How do you define the end of a War, particularly a civil war. Most people will look at the end when the peace treaty is signed, but in a civil war there is really no peace treaty. So does it end with the first fighting force that surrenders, or the last? Does it end with the last battle? Does it end after all of these events, or when the goal of the war was accomplished? Or does it end when someone with the political power to say so says it has ended? This podcast explores the period between Appomattox Courthouse and the Presidential Proclamation announcing the end of the war. The nation, both of them, were tired of war. It was obvious to all that the Confederacy could not endure much longer.