Things Are Looking Up? A New Year’s Show

Now & Then

Vox Media Podcast Network

History, Society & Culture, News Commentary, News

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Could the arrival of a new Congress and the more hopeful national tone be the start of a new era in American life? Heather and Joanne discuss past transitions between national epochs, from the advent of the Era of Good Feelings, to the rise of the Progressive Era, to the sea change triggered by the 1964 arrival of The Beatles. Now & Then has won the inaugural Gold and Listener's Choice Signal Awards for Best History Podcast! Thank you so much for voting for us! Join CAFE Insider to listen to “Backstage,” where Heather and Joanne chat each week about the anecdotes and ideas that formed the episode. Head to: cafe.com/history For more historical analysis of current events, sign up for the free weekly CAFE Brief newsletter, featuring Time Machine, a weekly article that dives into an historical event inspired by each episode of Now & Then: cafe.com/brief For references & supplemental materials, head to: cafe.com/now-and-then/things-are-looking-up-a-new-years-show/ Now & Then is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is now and then.
0:15.7	I'm Heather Cox Richardson, and I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:19.9	Our topic today comes from something that a bunch of us here at now and then noticed
0:24.7	we're chatting about last week, and that is that there seemed to be a lot of end-of-year
0:31.5	roundups looking ahead that seemed to be cheerier, more optimistic than certainly we've
0:39.6	been used to seeing at the end of several years in the past when more than anything else.
0:44.8	The end-of-year wrap-ups were sort of like, we made it through that year.
0:48.7	So, one of the things that we were interested in exploring today is this very question.
0:56.5	Is what's happening now? How can we explain and how might history show us how to process
1:05.3	why people are really kind of looking up about what's coming down the pike?
1:10.4	What does it mean? And perhaps what does it not mean?
1:13.4	Well, and I loved some of those. Well, first of all, Joanne, happy new year.
1:19.1	Oh, yeah!
1:20.1	And although you and I have talked since the new year, and I loved those, there's all the cartoons,
1:27.5	but one of the cartoons I liked best was all the people standing around a corner down a hallway
1:32.6	from the door that said 2023, and with a long stick cautiously poking it open.
1:37.9	I saw that same cartoon and paused and laughed because it just encapsulated in one little image.
1:45.6	But I think so many of us are feeling right now.
1:48.7	But one of the things that really jumped out, I think, to all of us on the team, was how it feels,
1:54.6	and I think the word feels is going to be important going forward, how it feels like we're
2:00.2	entering a new era. And that made us think about other times in which America appeared or felt
2:07.6	to be entering a new era. And what we wanted to do today was look at those times and maybe identify
	...

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