Sarah Churchwell

And I'm Sarah Churchwell, author, journalist and academic.

We're going to be looking at hidden social histories behind famous chapters from the past.

And we'll have characters and stories that have been totally forgotten, but shouldn't have been.

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.

Ah.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.

And I'm Sarah Churchwell, author, journalist, and academic.

We're going to be looking at hidden social histories behind famous chapters from the past.

And we'll have characters and stories that have been totally forgotten, but shouldn't have been.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.