Worlds Apart: Urban/Rural Divides in America

BackStory

Education, History

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2017

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to the New York Times, the 2016 election “highlighted a growing rural-urban split.” So, on this episode of BackStory, Brian, Ed and Nathan look at what happens when urban and rural Americans collide.

They’ll tell the story of one coastal couple’s proposal to make part of the Great Plains a vast nature preserve and how it wasn’t received too kindly by the residents of those states. They’ll look at how attitudes towards small town voters shaped American politics in the 1920s. Finally, they’ll explore the urban/rural divide during the Founding Era, when city slicker Alexander Hamilton challenged Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a country composed of humble yeoman farmers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor,
0:03.4	the National Endowment for the Humanities,
0:05.4	the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation,
0:07.9	and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.
0:10.4	From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities,
0:12.9	this is backstory.
0:16.9	It's been unprecedented election season.
0:18.9	It's been the most unprecedented and predictable.
0:20.9	It's like 1968 all over again.
0:22.9	1987.
0:23.9	It's $2,000 all over again.
0:25.4	Trump isn't Nixon, Trump isn't Reagan,
0:29.4	Trump isn't George Wallace.
0:31.4	You know, I think history is sort of repeating itself.
0:33.4	I don't think history repeats itself.
0:35.4	History repeats, next.
0:37.4	Welcome to the new backstory.
0:39.4	I'm Ed Ayers.
0:40.4	I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:41.4	Nathan Connolly here.
0:42.4	And this is Brian Balla.
0:44.4	If you're new to the show,
	...

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