• Episode 4 - 1930 - Van Lear Black - The Harbinger

  • Aug 21 2024
  • Length: 38 mins
  • Podcast

Episode 4 - 1930 - Van Lear Black - The Harbinger

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  • Summary

  • August 15-21, 1930. Who was Van Lear Black? And what was he a harbinger of? He wasn’t just a man with three middle names, he was the very wealthy owner of the Baltimore Sun back when newspapers were the only media that mattered.

    His demise tells us about 1930, the year the depression really started to bite.

    While times were bad and getting worse, people were still obsessed with two things: keeping tabs on people who were flying around the world in flimsy aircraft which today you wouldn’t step into even if it had wheels, and liquor.

    Prohibition was going strong, but politicians were openly calling for its repeal, while the cops were still making a show of locking up people for having booze. The US was a country split between the wets and dries.

    Meanwhile, a drought was ravaging the Midwest. Another harbinger.

    But baseball, still the number one sport here in the US, provided quite a show. Batting batting averages were never higher. It was the year of everyone being a great hitter.

    In politics we had a General who later became a dictator, a marine who later became a dictator and a German general turned Bolivian general. Wets and dries, drought and a rain of hits, and too many dictators, as usual.
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