Sarah Churchwell
Appearances
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
And I'm Sarah Churchwell, author, journalist and academic.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
We're going to be looking at hidden social histories behind famous chapters from the past.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
And we'll have characters and stories that have been totally forgotten, but shouldn't have been.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
But it's not 9-11. This is the Black Tom explosion of 1916, the story of a massive sabotage campaign as Germany made a desperate effort to keep America from helping the Allies during the First World War.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
And gradually what you see in this period is mounting concern over what became called hyphenate Americans. This idea that foreign immigrant communities had divided allegiances. And so there are increasing demands for effectively loyalty tests.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
And that's the phrase, right? America first. It is a phrase that was first popularized in this context in 1915, a year before Black Tom, in a speech that Wilson gave addressing these mounting concerns about hyphenate Americans, about whether they were real Americans or not.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
And the way that Wilson put it was he said he demanded that immigrant communities stand up and state explicitly whether, he said, is it America first or is it not? And at that point, America first became an incredibly popular phrase. It basically dominates American political discourse for the next decade.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
Then it kind of subsided, and then it has a resurgence around World War II when it was used to talk about whether America should enter the Second World War. And then it went into abeyance for a long time until it made a dramatic reappearance in the 21st century, which listeners will be familiar with.
The Rest Is History
549. The Road to 1066: Revenge of the Vikings (Part 2)
If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
And I'm Sarah Churchwell, author, journalist, and academic.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
We're going to be looking at hidden social histories behind famous chapters from the past.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
And we'll have characters and stories that have been totally forgotten, but shouldn't have been.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
But it's not 9-11. This is the Black Tom explosion of 1916, the story of a massive sabotage campaign as Germany made a desperate effort to keep America from helping the Allies during the First World War.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
And gradually what you see in this period is mounting concern over what became called hyphenate Americans, this idea that foreign immigrant communities had divided allegiances. And so there are increasing demands for effectively loyalty tests.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
And that's the phrase, right? America first. It is a phrase that was first popularized in this context in 1915, a year before Black Tom, in a speech that Wilson gave addressing these mounting concerns about hyphenate Americans, about whether they were real Americans or not.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
And the way that Wilson put it was he said he demanded that immigrant communities stand up and state explicitly whether, he said, is it America first or is it not? And at that point, America First became an incredibly popular phrase. It basically dominates American political discourse for the next decade.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
Then it kind of subsided, and then it has a resurgence around World War II when it was used to talk about whether America should enter the Second World War. And then it went into abeyance for a long time until it made a dramatic reappearance in the 21st century, which listeners will be familiar with.
The Rest Is History
548. The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)
If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.