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View Full Version : The History Channel - The Men Who Built America. Anyone watching?



Harold Mansfield
10-31-2012, 09:37 AM
The History Channel has this new series called "The Men Who Built America". It's kind of a chronicle of the early days of free enterprise and monopolies in America in the industrial age, around the mid 1800's to the early 1900's. J.P. Morgan, Westinghouse, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Edison, and so on.

It moves kind of slow, but it's pretty interesting. First and foremost tracing the old money in America back to it's origin, and some of the dirty crap they did to make it is pretty informative.

Saw an episode last night about how Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse (Alternating Current) teamed up to defeat Edison and J.P Morgan (Direct Current) for the Niagara Falls Power contract. Then J.P Morgan basically strong armed Westinghouse out of the company and patents (cause Tesla used to work for Edison), screwed Edison out of his shares and named the whole thing General Electric which is now one of the largest corporations in the world.

Really interesting stuff that I never knew before.

It also makes you a little envious of how new everything was back then (of course knowing what we know now). America was a blank slate for the taking. Also the drive and competitiveness of these guys to be wealthier than each other is both disgusting and fascinating.

If you haven't checked it out yet, I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of reruns and I think the entire set is for sale on DVD.
The Men Who Built America — History.com TV Episodes, Schedule, & Video (http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america)

KristineS
10-31-2012, 12:32 PM
I don't have cable anymore, and when I hear about series like this one is when I miss it most. That sounds really interesting. I will have to look for the DVDs or see if I can catch the series online. I love this sort of historical stuff.

cobase
10-31-2012, 12:42 PM
It also makes you a little envious of how new everything was back then (of course knowing what we know now). America was a blank slate for the taking.

People are going to be saying the same thing about the Internet in 50 years!

Steve B
10-31-2012, 03:04 PM
I've been enjoying it also. I need to set it up as a Season Pass on Tivo so I don't miss any.

vangogh
10-31-2012, 07:34 PM
I don't think I've seen the show yet. Thanks for calling it to my attention. I just set my DVR to record the series. I like programs like this. I probably know some of the history of the people they're talking about, but I doubt I know as much as I think I might.

dynocat
10-31-2012, 11:50 PM
Thanks, Harold. Hubby and I love shows like this too. We'll try to record it.

Another we just heard about tonight that sounds really good is Oliver Stone's Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States - Episode Guide - Season 1 - Showtime (http://www.sho.com/sho/oliver-stones-untold-history-of-the-united-states/season/1#/index). Looks like a 10 part series that starts on November 12th.

vangogh
11-01-2012, 01:49 AM
That sounds like another interesting series. My problem is I keep finding things that look interesting and I record them and then never find the time to actually watch them.

huggytree
11-01-2012, 09:01 PM
ive been watching it here and there

its very interesting to see how the country changed during industrializing.....these guys could do anything since everything was so new that there werent rules/laws yet.....they could kill thousands by flooding a town and the guys walked away. they could hire people to shoot their striking employees and walk away...the little guy was really screwed back then

just think if you were born in 1900 the changes you saw....from a city with dirt roads and horses to the space shuttle.....i was born in 1970 and not much has changed, but from 1900 to 1970 EVERYTHING changed

im not a risk taker....so ill never have an empire....im happy with my place in life and the income i make.....when you get so filthy rich whats the point of trying to get richer for those guys....just to count it i guess

w/o them we'd be a weaker nation....they could only do it in America....i feel some national pride when i watch it....because it couldnt happen in Cuba

vangogh
11-02-2012, 02:42 AM
i was born in 1970 and not much has changed

It's just harder to see the changes while you're living in them.

There's this whole computer and internet thing and now the push toward carrying both around in our pockets. A copy of every book printed between 1900 and 1970 now fits in my pocket. It's reasonable to think in the near future so many more aspects of our lives will be connected to the internet and computers. We'll wake up and talk to our homes and our cars.

The space shuttle is post 1970. So is the space station and pretty much every journey we've taken in space other than the the voyages to the moon. Industries like news. print, music, tv, and movies are undergoing huge disruptions that will fundamentally change them.

We built a 16.5 mile tunnel beneath France and Switzerland to put in motion particles we can barely see and once we have them moving close to the speed of light, we make them collide to see what happens. We've built telescopes powerful enough to see so far out into space that we're essentially looking at things that happened over 13 billion years ago. And we've done it all since 1970.

Today's billionaires start companies in college dorm rooms, just before they drop out. Anyone can start an international business from the comfort of their couch or bed. Companies exist where the employees have never met and barely speak a common language.

A lot of things have changed in the last 40 or so years. We still have 28 years to go to get to 70 years to make the comparison fair. Who knows what changes are coming in those 28 years? The truth is every new technological advance only increases the rate of future technological advances. If anything more will change in the course of our lifetimes than it did in the course of those who came before us. It's just harder to see without the perspective of time.

billbenson
11-02-2012, 03:46 PM
Huggy, you use a fax machine and hand deliver quotes for signature. While you have to have a fax still, only about 2% of companies use them as their preferred method of sending quotes or orders. Your bank doesn't even keep paper copy's of documents.

huggytree
11-02-2012, 08:40 PM
i prefer a hard copy of everything.....when my computer crashes===who cares

in my industry 99% have fax machines

i prefer a hand written signature on my bids.....these computer 'stamps' of a signature are questionable to me.....

i guess i dont see much difference between rockets from 1969 and the space shuttle....especially since were back to rockets again

the I-pod is probably the biggest thing i can think of personally....when my wife got one i was shocked at what that little thing can do....

its not like going from horses to the moon......those days will never come again

the internet is a biggie too....but to me its not earth shattering......probably ahead of the I-pod to most people(but not me)

AccountantSalary
11-02-2012, 10:04 PM
I've been catching this series on DVR but it requires two hours per episode. Not only does it discuss a lot of interesting facts, the production values are quite good, showing recreations of historical scenes.

Harold Mansfield
11-03-2012, 10:48 AM
the internet is a biggie too....but to me its not earth shattering......probably ahead of the I-pod to most people(but not me)

It actually is. It completely put the world economy on permanent steroids. Like VG said, it's hard to see when you are living it, but the internet has changed the entire world and every aspect of how we live in it.

But props to how we got here. From Electricity, to telegraph systems, to radio, to satellites to everyone being connected to the entire world at their fingertips.

If you think about how slow progress and technology moved before the 1800's, where hundreds of years went by between the pen and ink and the printing press. The quickness of which we've gone from the steam engine railroad to airplane commuting, and from the light bulb to sitting on the couch streaming 200 channels of entertainment, the web, and communications through the same line, is actually pretty remarkable.

billbenson
11-03-2012, 12:34 PM
i prefer a hard copy of everything.....when my computer crashes===who cares

i
the internet is a biggie too....but to me its not earth shattering......probably ahead of the I-pod to most people(but not me)

When your house burns down, you will care about only having one copy of your hard copy.

You are obviously in an industry that allows you operate in pretty much an internet free world. That's great. I suspect, though, that as time goes on the fax machine will go away and other things will change that will force people in a different direction.

In the 80's there were 7 regional telephone companies across the country. I was a field sales guy calling on them personally. I had the whole eastern seaboard of the US which had 3 regional bell companies in them. I vividly remember walking into the office of a group of engineers and the secretarial pool was no longer there and everyone had a computer on their desk. I'm sure a lot of those engineers hated the change. Most probably didn't know how to type. But the way business was done changed forever.

In 98 the internet had a large part of costing me my career. Why fly a sales guy like me to Argentina when they could send a power point presentation. It was the beginning of ecommerce.

I need a blender. Walmart is 15 minutes away and I need a new blender. I went to Consumer Reports online and found the one I want. Why spend 15 minutes driving each way, 20 minutes dealing with the crowds at Walmart when I can simply go to Amazon.com for a total of 10 minutes?

The internet has made the world far more efficient.

Harold Mansfield
11-03-2012, 01:12 PM
I need a blender. Walmart is 15 minutes away and I need a new blender. I went to Consumer Reports online and found the one I want. Why spend 15 minutes driving each way, 20 minutes dealing with the crowds at Walmart when I can simply go to Amazon.com for a total of 10 minutes?

The internet has made the world far more efficient.
I with you there. The only thing I physically go shopping for anymore are groceries and clothes. And I'm very comfortable buying clothing items like certain shoe brands, and casual clothing ( shorts, sweats, T-Shirts, Socks, and such) online.

When I talk to people that tell me they are going to out to run errands like pay bills, I always ask "Why", when you can pay all of your bills in about 10 minutes online?

vangogh
11-05-2012, 06:21 PM
huggy the things I mentioned are pretty big. Maybe not all to you personally, but they will be remembered that way. The internet in particular is a huge watershed moment in history. It really has changed so many things, especially in business. It's disrupting plenty of industries and some will probably disappear forever. It's also creating new industries and the way people work.

You also have to remember you're trying to compare 2 different lengths of time. Give us 28 more years and there's a good chance we'll have sent people to Mars. We're sending rovers now, something we never did before 1970. And lets keep in mind that moon thing happened at the very, very end of the time frame you set. It was less than 6 months before 1970 when we got there.