Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 29.

I am your host, Jack Heneman, and I am recording this episode on July 3, 2021 in New Orleans, Louisiana, for release on the 4th of July.

Happy Independence Day, everybody.

Today we celebrate our Independence Day.

This episode is a sidebar, in this case, way, way, way off the timeline.

The title of the episode is from a speech given by Woodrow Wilson on July 4th, 1907, supposedly, but barely, about the author and signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The occasion was the Jamestown Exposition in Norfolk, Virginia that year,

staged to recognize the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown Colony.

You might well ask why I jumped 340-plus years ahead to talk about a Wilson speech out of context.

Well, I had it in mind to do a bonus episode of some sort for the fourth and stumbled across the speech quite by accident,

Googling around as one does. I found the speech interesting for a bunch of reasons, and we'll read it more or less

verbatim, only chopping out a couple of digressions that I think to track from it. Anyway, a little

context might be helpful, even for me, bearing in mind that I don't know much about Wilson because,

well, he's just way off in the distance on the timeline. Haven't gotten to him yet.

In 1907, Wilson was president only of Princeton University. He had not been elected governor of

New Jersey, which would not come until 1911, and he would be elected president in 1912.

But he was obviously thinking about politics and public policy

when he delivered this Independence Day speech.

1907 was smack in the middle of the progressive era

when American politics was in a period of great ferment.

Urbanization, industrialization, massive immigration, and the growth of big new organizations,

including multi-state and multinational business corporations, were upsetting American politics.

...