The U.S. News and World Report Cover from August 7:

• Anarchy Growing Threat to Big Cities?
• Business at Bottom — An Upturn Next?
• New Defense Line in the Pacific
• More War or Real Progress in the Mideast
• Not All This Country is Tense, Troubled

Here’s the bonus question:  What year?  If you guessed 2010 or 2009, you’d be wrong.  The year was 1967.

On the annual trek to Hershey, PA, for the antique car swap meet, I happened upon a couple of bound editions of U.S. News and World Report.  I don’t normally pay much attention to these, but I idly wondered what the headlines were for the year I turned seven.  One of the volumes contained that issue, and when I flipped to the right page and scanned the headlines, I had to pick up my jaw and pop my eyes back into my head.  Then I felt a huge sense of relief.

Could it be that what we’re experiencing today in the world is just more of the same?  Maybe everything isn’t at unprecedented levels of awfulness leaving us doomed to a loss of all life as we ever knew it.  We could be.  But maybe it isn’t inevitable.

Similarly, I looked at LIFE magazines from the same period.  LIFE’s cover for August 4, 1967 read:  “Negro Revolt:  The Flames Spread” with a subheading of “Troops patrol a burning Detroit street”.  I remember this mostly in terms of visiting my grandparents who lived just outside Madison, WI, and hearing family members talk about the riots in the University area.  My grandmother worked in university administration, but I was at an age where the riots I saw on the news and heard adults talking about carried no realism or observable impact on my life, so it was only something I remembered in passing.

The impact of these headlines, specific to Detroit, are of interest today, because of Detroit’s current economic troubles and the decay in city.  Will Detroit find a way to revitalize?  Do they want to?  Frankly, I hope so.

These snippets of information have fed the fire of my growing interest in studying history.  My primary interest has always been American History.  Initially, I was fascinated with Abraham Lincoln.  That interest expanded to looking into Civil War matters.  Which lead to what were the factors which led up to the Civil War.  Then I wanted to understand our current economic and political situation, and I learned it was a movement spawned during the Gilded Age — post-Civil War when Industrialization was booming.  Naturally, that led to abuses (yes, I was taught all this in 8th grade history by a great teacher, but I didn’t REALLY realize why I cared until recently).  Those abuses by industry led to the rise of labor unions, which fulfilled a very necessary purpose to advocate for workers.  The unions were very necessary then.  I’m not so sure how necessary they are now, but, to some extent, workers do need someone who will ensure a safe working environment, reasonable benefits, and the things unions have traditionally fought for.  It may not be a union that needs to do that today, but checks and balances keep business on an even keel, and supply and demand aren’t the only way.  On the other hand, when unions get greedy, business can’t survive.  When that happens, everyone loses.

At the end of the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era embarked.  This was big around the turn of the century (20th), and, when progressives failed to achieve their goals in their initial efforts, they retrenched and began a more subtle effort.  Our schools have embraced Progressive teachings.

I am largely a product of an early Progressive education system — looking back, I can see signs of it.  I think it’s become even more entrenched in the thirty years since I’ve been in the public education system.  If that’s the case, I can see why the acceptance rate for a Socialist form of government has been increasing in our country.

The more I learn, the wider my sphere of curiosity grows.