Glenn Beck talks a lot about the Progressive Movement, and how far back it goes and how deep its roots are in America and that it controls both political parties. With the demise of General Motors (at least its current incarnation), the thought occurred to me to relook at the 1939 World’s fair again, and remember GM’s role in what we now understand America to be.
In 1939, the country was still mired in the Great Depression after 7 years of FDR’s plan to spend our way back to prosperity. The country desperately wanted Hope and Change. To those paying attention, War in Europe was very likely to explode again. The country needed something to believe in – a view of the future. The Progressive Movement decided to educate the masses about the Future as they saw it. A few YouTube videos if you’ve not heard of the 1939 world’s fair or need a refresher… 1 2 3
The Progressive Movement was in its full glory – science and technology would solve all our problems if we just let government handle everything. The Soviet Union and Italy had large exhibitions showing their view of the future. The League of Nations would make sure war never happened again if we just let it have more power over nations.
GM had a vision of a network of super highways – that would ultimately become the Interstate highway system 20 years later, where cars would zip along at 100 mph separated safely from each other by radio controls, people could live out in the country and commute into the city, industrial pollution could be kept away from where people lived. The Scientific method applied to farming would produce large crops with very little labor.
Carefully planned cities with engineered and controlled “natural parks” (see: Central Park) would make living in cities wonderful. Robert Moses preached the virtues of scientifically planned communities over the chaos of the free market and individual choices.
Robots would do our work. Figuring out how to spend our leisure time would become our biggest challenge. Westinghouse showed off a new marvel called “Television” (that would be put on the shelf until after the end of World War two)….
One interesting connection I never would have known before last month. Just a momentary glimpse in one of the videos of the 1939 fair showed LifeSavers having an exhibit at the fair. What’s s so significant about that? In 1943, FDR would force NBC to sell off its Blue radio network. Sarnoff refused to sell air time to Labor Unions. The purchaser of the Blue network (which would become the ABC Radio Network) was to Edward Noblel, a Republican who had made his fortune creating the Lifesave candy company, and been FDR’s UnderSecretary of Commerce in 1939. He would only get permission from the FCC to acquire ABC when he promised to end the ban on selling air time to labor unions.