PENGUIN PRESS An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 penguin.com Copyright © 2017 by Bhu Srinivasan Penguin supports copyright Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader Illustration credits Here: Library of Congress Here: Andy Freeberg / Premium Archive / Getty Images ISBN 9780399563799 (hardcover) ISBN 9780399563805 (ebook) Version_1 For Dina CONTENTS Title Page Copyright Dedication Introduction PART ONE VENTURE TOBACCO TAXES COTTON STEAM CANALS RAILROADS TELEGRAPH GOLD 10 SLAVERY PART TWO 11 WAR 12 OIL 13 STEEL 14 MACHINES 15 LIGHT 16 RETAIL 17 UNIONS 18 PAPERS 19 TRUSTS 20 FOOD PART THREE 21 AUTOMOBILES 22 RADIO 23 BOOTLEGGING 24 BANKING 25 FILM 26 FLIGHT 27 SUBURBIA 28 TELEVISION 29 ROADS PART FOUR 30 COMPUTING 31 START-UPS 32 FINANCE 33 SHOES 34 INTERNET 35 MOBILE Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index About the Author Introduction W hen the free toy packs were being given out to children on our Air India flight that day, I was preoccupied by the sight of the deformed feet of the woman two rows in front of us I paced the aisle back and forth to glimpse and understand how such a thing was possible Most startlingly, her feet were an entirely different skin color than her face Only years later would I realize that this was the visual effect of translucent women’s stockings and not a mysterious Western malady that caused toes to be webbed together But while I was fully entertained by the curiosities of my first plane trip—a one-way journey to America—my mother was anxious, quietly reciting the verses of a Hindu mantra to calm her nerves Thirty-four years old at the time, with a doctorate in physics, she was by training and temperament a believer in rationality But she was about to enter America with two children who didn’t have proper papers, a prospect that led even her to prayer Such was the power of the Immigration and Naturalization Services of the United States of America At the time, some latitude existed, which allowed women traveling on work visas to bring young children without their own passports, provided that additional visas were stamped on the mother’s passport But my brother and I didn’t have visas My mother hoped to get us by on a technicality: Her visa had said “persons” rather than person, and she planned to plead and argue that the errant “s” meant all three of us So for the entirety of our nearly twenty-fourhour journey, the uncertainty of our fate consumed her If we were not allowed in, it likely would have ended the years of preparation, sacrifice, and savings that had gone into our American dream That we were dreaming of America in the first place was the result of a national tragedy India, a poor country with hundreds of millions of people one or two steps removed from starvation, had gone to great expense to educate doctors, engineers, and scientists Yet somehow this investment had turned the country into a third-world finishing school to provide the first world with talent The educated began leaving India They weren’t searching for freedom or fleeing persecution—India was, and is, the largest democracy in the world No, for decades, Indians, like millions of others, had been drawn to the dividends of American capitalism, not the liberties of its constitution We were economic refugees In India, despite two college-educated parents, the sorts of goods that even poor Americans of the early ’80s took for granted—the telephone, television, even refrigeration—had eluded us An automobile, nearly as common to American adults as social security numbers, was unthinkable for us In 1982, when we had finally saved enough for a refrigerator, it was delivered by oxcart—an indignity that I felt even as a child, especially because I had waited and hoped for some time to see a delivery truck But we didn’t need to endure this imbalance for long, this lack of purchasing power stemming from being on the wrong side of the wealth of nations With the proper application of ambition, my mother could convert her education into a global currency, regardless of how illiquid it was in India Ambition in this case meant the willingness to leave behind one’s homeland, culture, family, and large parts of self-identity This has always been the immigrant’s price of admission After years of applying, my mother was offered a post-doctorate position at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York We learned she would be entitled to $14,000 per year According to my calculations, we were rich But to unlock and access such largesse, we needed to borrow the money for exactly one one-way ticket to America for my mother With generosity (and a modest amount of interest), my father’s oldest brother was able to give us the loan It was then arranged that my father’s mother would look after my younger brother and me After an overnight train from Madurai, deep in South India, we made our way to coastal Madras to send my mother off on her first plane trip We didn’t quite know how long she would be gone, but we soon began to receive her letters Within months, one of them had the magic words We, too, the children, would be going to America She would be coming to get us But my visaless father would have to stay behind No technicalities would get him through immigration When we landed after our multileg flight at Kennedy Airport, it seemed that my mother’s in-flight prayers had worked We were allowed in But one more adjustment was required of me While my mother and four-year-old brother raced to another terminal to catch a flight to Buffalo, I was greeted by my aunt, whom I was to live with in Virginia I had met her only once when she had made a trip to India Visiting relatives from America were generally received as dignitaries, so my memory of her was seeded more by her reputation than familiarity Having been settled here for years, with children my age, she provided a far better introduction to America than my mother would have been able to This was evident just days later on Halloween, when I was asked to put on face paint and a wig and knock on neighbors’ doors, carrying a bag Had I lived in India, that October day in 1984 would have been one of significant tumult as Indira Gandhi, the prime minister, had just been assassinated by her own bodyguards Instead I was getting the types of chocolates—for free!— that I had tasted perhaps three or four times in my entire life What else had I been unaware of? Not too many days later, the American election took place —my cousin was quite perturbed by a rumor that Walter Mondale was going to eliminate summer vacations This immediately made me a single-issue Reagan supporter I was also unaware in all of my endless daydreams and imaginations of America that anyone other than whites, and a few well-liked Indians of both varieties, lived here For the first few days, I wondered what all these African immigrants, who seemed to know quite a lot about America, were doing around me Months later, during the school year, I was reunited with my mother in Buffalo Shaped by my parents’ hopes and their need to prepare me for the necessary sacrifices ahead, I was made a believer in America years before I set foot on its soil And every step, I now believed, was a step toward betterment, each alteration of my accent a commitment to assimilation To make things easier, I had even Americanized my name from the lengthy Bhuvanesh to the present Bhu By 1987, my mother’s work took us to San Diego; we moved again a year later when my mother joined a biotech company in Seattle Attending nine schools over five years as I did, with the Pretty Woman (film), 449 price fixing, 241 private equity (leverage buyouts), 448–49 privateering syndicates, 7–8 Prodigy, 465 Progressive Networks, 471 Progressives, 209 Prohibition, 307–19 bootlegging and, 315–19 cultural activity during, 313–15 Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act, passage of, 309 exemptions, 309–10, 312 grape growers and, 310–11 politics leading to, 307–9 property, slaves as, 44–45, 117–18 Prudential Insurance, 331 public/private partnerships, 81–82, 86 Puerto Rico, 246 Pulitzer, Joseph, 148, 226–29, 239, 241 Pullman Palace Car Company, 231 Pure Food and Drug Act, 208–9, 274–75 Quantum Computer Services, 465 radio, 292–96, 301–6 audio transmission and, 302–6 government regulation of, 295–96 Titanic sinking and, 293–94 World War I and, 301 Radio Corporation of America (RCA), 302–4, 305–6, 381 Radio Dealer, 304–5 railroads, 80–91 Civil War and, 140–42 coal and, 80–81 commercial trucking supplanting, 402 corporate entities and, 83–84, 85–86 eminent domain and, 84–85 first tracks and locomotives in U.S., 81–82 immigration and, 89–90 oil transportation and, 157–58 Plains Indians and, 176–77 slow growth of, in 1830s, 83, 85 stock financing of, 83–84 telegraph and, 100–101 transcontinental, 147–48 Vanderbilt and, 87–89 World War I and, 300 Rand, Ayn, 388 Randolph, William, 111 RCA, 438 Reagan, Ronald, 388–89, 433 acting and television career of, 385–87, 390 childhood and education of, 384–85 Remington, 181, 182 repeater, 189 Republican Party, 121, 183, 224 residential construction Great Depression and, 328–29 Levitt’s mass-manufacturing techniques for, 369, 370–72 returning World War II servicemen and, 368–69 retail, 198–210 catalogs and, 205–9 consumer protection laws, need for, 210 country stores, 205 department stores, 201–4 discount stores, 402–4 economies of scale in, 202–3 general stores, 201, 202 mom-and-pop shops, 404 specialty, 201, 202 U.S Postal Service and, 204 women as source of domestic spending and, 198–200 revenue bonds, 77 Riggio, Leonard, 442 RJR Nabisco, 448 RKO, 341 roads, 395–406 discount stores and, 402–4 fast food and, 396–401 interstate highway system, 395–96 oil resources and, 406 Steinbeck on, 401–2 Robert, Joseph, 19–20, 27, 28 Roberts, George, 448 Robinson, John, 6, 10 Rock, Arthur, 423 Rockefeller, John D., 148, 154–56, 158–60, 219, 406 Roebuck, Alvin, 208 Rolfe, John, 19, 20 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 302 bank closures and, 333 election of 1932 and, 330–31 Great Depression and, 332–34 removes U.S from gold standard, 333 World War II and, 355–57 Roosevelt, Theodore, 247, 250–58, 265, 296, 298 background of, 250–51 on government’s role, 252–53 meatpacking industry investigation and subsequent food regulation, 272–74 military expansion of, 254, 293 trusts and, 254–55 United Mine Workers strike and, 257–58 Root, Elihu, 257 Royal African Company of England, 23–24 runaway slaves Britain’s return of Washington’s, 44 Fugitive Slave Act and, 115, 117–19 Rural Free Delivery, 204 Russia, 296, 297, 299 Russia Company, Rust Belt, 438 SAGE (Semi-Autonomous Ground Environment), 416–17 saloons, 182–84 saltpeter, 143–44 Samoset, 14 Sam Walton: Made in America (Walton), 489 Sanders, Harlan, 395, 396–97 San Francisco Examiner, 232–33 Sanyo, 438 Sarnoff, David, 292, 293, 302–3, 304, 305–6 Savage (ship), 44 Schlitz, 183, 184, 311 Schwab, Charles, 248 Scientific American, 185, 187 Scott, Dred, 121–22 Scott, Tom, 140 Scott, W R., Screen Actors Guild, 385 Sea Adventure (ship), 19 Sears, Richard, 207–9 Sears, Roebuck & Co., 208–9, 369–70 Sears Roebuck, 362 secession, 137–38 Second Continental Congress, 43, 44 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 334 See It Now (TV show), 389–90 Selznick, David, 337–38, 342–43, 345–46 Selznick International Pictures, 348 semiconductors, 420, 422–25 Sequoia Capital, 425, 428, 433, 474, 478 Serbia, 297 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), 368 Seven Years’ War, 32–33, 105 Seward, William H., 137, 144, 145 sewing machines, 181–82 Shaw, Todd Anthony (Too $hort), 453 Sherley, James, 16 Sherman, John, 241 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 108, 109, 110, 176–77 Sherman Antitrust Act, 241, 254 Shockley, William, 422–23 Shockley Semiconductor, 422–23 shoes, 453–62 African-American sport star endorsements and, 453–57 Jordan and, 453–56, 460–62 Nike and, 453–59 Sholes, C Latham, 181 silicon, 420 Silicon Graphics, 468 silver, 111, 230 Simpson, O J., 455 Sinclair, Upton, 266–67, 269–73 Singer Manufacturing Company, 181–82 Sioux, 155 Sixteenth Amendment to Constitution, 299–300 slaves/slavery, 116–31 American Revolution and, 44–45 bubble in slave prices (Negro Fever), 126, 130–31 Butler plantation slave auction, 116–17, 122–26 Compromise of 1850 and, 115, 117, 120 cotton and, 56–57, 126–27 Dred Scott decision and, 121–22 Emancipation Proclamation and, 148 English trade in, 23–24 first arrives in colonies, 20 growth of, in late 1600s, 24 indentured servitude versus, 21–23 Missouri Compromise and, 114, 122 as monetary base of South, 127–29, 130–31 political and economic conditions, in 1850s and, 118–22 popular sovereignty and, 120–21 social status and ownership of, 129–30 tobacco’s role in growth of, 26–27 U.S Constitution and, 45, 117–18 value of slaves and, 125–27, 130–31 Slidell, John, 143, 144 smart phones, 486–89 Smith, Adam, 29, 48, 80, 86, 213 Smith, Truman, 350–51 Smith & Wesson, 181 Snow White (film), 344–45 Social Security, 334 Somerset v Stuart, 44 Sony, 438, 483, 484 Sorenson, Charles, 284, 288, 361–62 South Carolina See also Carolina colony cotton production of, 50–51, 56 rice production of, 29 secession of, 137 slavery in, 29 South Improvement Company, 159, 160 South Korea, 484 Soviet Union, 366, 388, 422, 484, 486 space program, 417, 421–22 Spacewar! (computer game), 426 Spain, 104–5 sale of Florida to and U.S recognition of Spanish California, 104–5 slave trade and, 22 Spanish-American War, 246, 247 speakeasies, 314 specialty retail, 201, 202 Speedwell (ship), 10–12, 13 Spencer, Herbert, 174–75, 209 Spies, August, 216–17 Sputnik (satellite), 417 Stamp Act, 33–36 Standard Oil, 158–60, 195–96 Stanford, Leland, 147, 219–20 Star Trek (TV show), 417 start-ups, 421–35 Apple Computer, 431–33 Atari, Inc and, 426–28 employment culture in, 428–29 initial public offerings (IPOs) and, 424–25 Intel and, 423–25 Microsoft and, 430, 433–35 semiconductors and, 422–25 venture capital and, 425–26 steamboats, 58–68 Fitch’s boats, 58–59 Fulton and Livingston paddle wheel steamboat, 59–64 Gibbon’s breaking of Livingston monopoly, 64–66 Vanderbilt and, 66–68 Steamboat Willie (cartoon), 343 steam power clothing and, 47–48 coal and, 80–81 railroads and, 81 steamboats, 58–68 steel, 167–73, 247–49, 300 Steinbeck, John, 368, 401–2 Stewart, A T., 200–202 Stiles, T J., 66–67 Stimson, Henry, 359 stock market closure of, during Great Depression, 333 crash of 1929, 322–23 during Gilded Age, 163–64 initial public offerings (IPOs) and, 424–25, 472–74 Internet bubble and, 472–78, 480–81 mutual fund companies and, 419 new highs of, in 1968, 419–20 venture capital funds and, 425 Stoll, H F., 310, 311 Stone, Oliver, 449 Stonington, 87, 88 Story of Tobacco in America, The (Roberts), 27 Stoudinger (steamboat), 65 Stourbridge Lion (locomotive), 82 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 118, 119, 198–99 Straus, Isidor, 294 Strauss, Levi, 110 studio system, 338–43 subscription financing (shares), 72 suburbia, 367–80 African-Americans excluded from, 377–80 class divisions and, 374 critics view of, 372–73 decline of cities and, 405–6 discount stores and, 402–4 ethnicity and, 373–74 inconspicuous consumption and, 374 Levitt’s mass-manufacturing of housing and, 369, 370–72, 376–79 local taxes in, 375–76 mobility and, 374–75 profile of, 372 rebirth of local democracy in, 375, 376 returning servicemen, lack of housing for, 368–69 school districts in, 375–76 Sudetenland, 351 Sugar Act, 36–37 Sumner, Charles, 121 Superbowl, 394 Supreme Court monopolies granted by states, invalidation of, 66 on slavery (Dred Scott), 121–22 trust decision; Northern Securities case, 255 survival of the fittest, 174, 175, 184 Sutter, John, 107–8 Tabulating Machine Company, 413 Taft, William Howard, 295 Taney, Roger B., 121–22, 131 Tarbell, Franklin, 151–52, 159 Tarbell, Ida, 151, 152, 153, 265 Target, 404 tariffs McKinley Tariffs of 1890, 225–26 on steel, 173 taxes, 30–45 See also tariffs on beer and spirits sales, 184, 308 boycott of British goods in response to, 37–38 Franklin’s proposals for, 31 French and Indian War and, 31–32 income tax, authorized by Sixteenth Amendment, 299–300 income tax, under Cleveland, 231–32 local, in suburbia, 375–76 Seven Years War, 32–33 Stamp Act and, 33–36 Sugar Act and, 36–37 “taxation without representation,” objections to, 33–34 on tea, 38–40 Townshend Act and, 36, 37–39 Taylor, Zachary, 106 tea, 38–40 teamsters, 152, 157 Tea Party, 487 Telander, Rick, 461 Tele-Communications Inc (TCI), 441–42 telegraph, 92–102, 186 Civil War and, 140, 141 early experimentation and research, 92–94 Edison’s inventions for, 189–92 low capital costs of, 99–100 Morse and, 94–100, 104 railroads and, 100–101 Telegraph Supply Company (Brush Electric Company), 186, 187 television, 381–394 cable, 441–42 football and, 390–94 Kennedy-Nixon debate on, 390 McCarthy and, 387–90 national networks for, 382 Reagan and, 384–87 technology and infrastructure for, 381, 382 Tennessee, 56 Tesla, 488 Texas, 114 independence and annexation of, 105–6 secession of, 138 Texas Air, 447–48 textile industry, 436–38 Thomas, Michael, 460 Thompson-Houston, 196 Thomson, Mortimer, 123, 124 Time Warner, 476 Titanic (ship), 293–94 tobacco, 18–29 first arrives in Spain and England, 18–19 indentured servitude and, 21–23 role in eighteenth-century America, 26–29 Rolfe’s planting of Spanish variety in Virginia, 19–20 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 89, 119–20, 178, 376 tolls, and canal financing, 76, 77, 78 Torrio, John, 316, 317 Townshend, Charles, 36 Townshend Act, 36, 37–39 Toyota, 489 Toy Story (film), 480, 482 trade deficits in 1970s, 406 in 2000s, 489 trademarks, 180, 459 trading ports, 28–29 Trading with the Enemy Act, 333 transcontinental railroad, 147–48 Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation (Fulton), 72 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 106 Treaty of Paris (1783), 44 Treaty of Versailles, 326, 327, 349 trucking, 402 trusts, 244–58 commodity and general goods, 245 mechanism for creating, 245–46 railroads and, 251 Roosevelt and, 252–53, 254–55 steel industry and, 247–49 Turner, Ted, 442 TWA, 447–48 Twain, Mark, 162 Twentieth Century-Fox, 341 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 417 typewriters, 181, 182 Tyson, Mike, 450 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 118, 119 unemployment in early 1930s, 328, 329, 330 in 2009, 487 uniform resource locator (URL), 468 unions, 210–23 Homestead factory strike and, 220–23 McCormack Reaper Works strike and, 214–17 Pullman strike, 231 United Mine Workers strike, 255–58 violence and, 215–17 working conditions and, 212–13 United Artists, 341 United Fruit Company, 301, 303 United Mine Workers strike, 255–58 United States Brewers’ Association, 184, 308–9 United States Illuminating Company, 194 Universal, 341 U.S Military Telegraph Corps, 141 U.S Postal Service, 204 U.S Steel Corporation, 248–49, 376–77 USS Jacinto, 143 Valentine, Don, 425, 428 Van Buren, Martin, 96 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 86–89, 190, 220, 432 Gold Rush trade and, 111 railroad business of, 87–89 steamboats and routes of, 65, 66–68 Vanderbilt, William H., 193 Van Syckel, Samuel, 157 venture capital funds, 425–26 origins of, 8, 425 ventures, financing of, 3–17 adventure capital and, 6–9 joint-stock companies and, 6–7 Pilgrims/Plymouth Colony and, 3–6, 8–17 privateering syndicates and, 7–8 subscriptions, 72 Vietnam War, 419 Virginia Colony Boston Tea Party and Townshend duties, ramifications of, 40–45 debts owed British factors by, 28, 42 Dunmore’s seizure of gunpowder of, 43–44 indentured servitude in, 21–23 Jamestown massacre and, 18 Rolfe’s planting of tobacco and, 19–20 slavery in, 20, 23–24, 26–27, 29, 56 taxation and, 34 tobacco and, 26–29, 56 Virginia Company of London founding and business model of, 8–9 Pilgrims granted permission to emigrate by, 5–6 revocation of charter of, 18 Von Meister, William, 464–65 voting rights African-Americans and, 198 of women, 182 wages at Ford Motor Company, 290–91 in industrial economy, 199 Walgreens, 315, 398 Walker, Herschel, 454 Walkman, 483 Wall, Joseph Frazier, 220–23 Wallace, Christopher (Notorious B.I.G.), 453 Wall Street, 163–64 See also stock market Wall Street (film), 449 Wal-Mart, 404 Walton, Sam, 404, 418, 489 Wanamaker, John, 203–4, 292 Ward, Aaron Montgomery, 205–7 Warner Brothers, 340, 341, 465 Washington, George, 28, 31, 44, 45 canals and, 70–72, 73 debts of, 42 home of, 40–41 watermills, 46–47 Watson, Thomas, 414 Watson, Thomas, Jr., 415, 416 Watt, James, 47 Ways to Wealth (Franklin), 67 Wealth of Nations (Smith), 48, 213 Webster Daniel, 66, 114–15 Wechsler, Lew and Bea, 379 Wells, Fargo & Co., 111, 473 Wells, Henry, 100, 110–11 Werner, Max (pseudonym), 355 West, Benjamin, 60–61, 94 Western Inland Company, 76 Western Union Telegraph Company, 100, 190–91 Westinghouse, George, 196 Westinghouse Electric, 196, 301, 303–4, 306 Weston, Thomas, 6, 11, 13, 15 whaling, 149 Whigs, 120 Whiting, James, 280–81 Whitney, Eli, 49–54 Whiz Kids, 411 Whyte, William H., 374 Wilkie, Wendell, 359–60 Willard, Frances, 183 Wilson, Ralph, 393 Wilson, Woodrow, 296, 298 windmills, 46–47 wireless telegraphy See radio Wisconsin, 114 Wolfe, Thomas, 449 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 183, 314 women Beecher’s view on role of, 198–99 temperance movement and, 182–83 as typists, 182 Wood, Sam, 342 Woolco, 403 Woolworth’s, 403 WorldCom, 481 World War I, 297–301 death toll, 300–301 exports during, 298 financing of, 299–300 Lusitania, sinking of, 297–98 U.S enters, 299 World War II, 349–66 anti-interventionist sentiment in U.S., 352–53, 357–59, 363 arms embargo, lifting of, 358 German invasion of Poland starts, 357 German takeover of Continental Europe, 359 Pearl Harbor bombing and U.S entry in, 363 unpreparedness of U.S for, 355–57 war production of U.S., 358–59, 360–62 World Wide Web, 466–68 Worthy, James, 454 Wozniak, Steve, 430–31 Wright brothers, 300 Wynn, Steve, 441 Yahoo!, 474, 475, 478 Young, Owen D., 302 About the Author Bhu Srinivasan is a media entrepreneur whose career has spanned digital media, pop culture, technology, publishing, and financial content Srinivasan arrived in the United States with his family at the age of eight, and as a child lived in the South, the Rust Belt, Southern California, and the Pacific Northwest He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children www.americana.tv What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author Sign up now * The numbers, with their minor discrepancies, are directly reproduced from Carnegie’s memoir * The Constitution would be amended in the next century * At this point in American history, U.S senators were appointed by state legislators—not directly elected by the people ... Virginia gentleman without significant debts was a rarity The enabler was often a London-based factor The factor was a combination of a trader and an agent The wealthy tobacco planter sent his tobacco... I wandered back to Seattle At the University of Washington I was fortunate to take a class taught by acclaimed American historian Richard White: a survey of U.S history up to 1979 Our final assignment... Merchants Adventurers of England, had been formally recognized as far back as 1505 Rather than act as a formal pool of money or resources, the adventurers had always been a loosely affiliated