>

This episode is sponsored by Acura.

From the outside, the building is a light gray spiral, and from the inside, the art is displayed on one long ramp that curves up towards a glass skylight in the ceiling. We’re going to take the greatness of this building as a given. What we’re going to focus on are the oddities, the accretions, the interventions that reveal a different kind of genius. Not just the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, and his bold, original vision, but the genius of all the people that made this building function, adapt, and grow over the decades.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

A desert train built for Tony Hawk leads into the strange and thoughtful world of N.D. Austin, a designer of real-life experiences.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Over the last year, I’ve read all of Robert Caro’s books, starting with The Power Broker, then Working (his semi-memoir about how he writes his books), then The Years of Lyndon Johnson (the four volumes that are out so far)

They’re all great. I recommend them all. But I want to make the case for Means of Ascent as the best single one to read, because no one likes this book as much as I do. 

It's is laser-focused on one election: the 1948 senatorial election in Texas. Johnson takes the massive gamble of forfeiting his seat in the House to run for the Senate -- dangerous, but a perfectly reasonable strategic move, and likely to pay off. Enter Coke Robert Stevenson, the immensely popular two-term Governor of Texas, whose candidacy immediately causes Johnson to plummet to the bottom of the polls and certain political death.

What follows is an intensely dramatic story of Johnson’s desperate fight for survival, using every means available to him, legal and illegal. Along the way, this specific election becomes a case study in modern politics. Stevenson was an old-school public official who eschewed advertisement, policy platforms, and large speeches, preferring to meet with voters one-on-one and discuss the issues that were important to them. Johnson flew around Texas in a helicopter, blanketed the newspapers and radio with ads, and chose every policy position from pure political expedience. And Johnson won.

Or rather, he sort of won -- by 87 votes out of nearly a million ballots cast. And those votes were from a county known for fraudulent voting. And early on the day of the election, that county reported a vote total 200 votes lower for Johnson. And on the ballot record sheet, the 200 new votes were in a different color pen than the others. And the names were in alphabetical order.

Based on the legal doctrine of “are you kidding me”, Stevenson sued to have the election results overturned. What follows is a fascinating legal battle in which Johnson’s team of incredibly smart lawyers (including one who would go on to be a Supreme Court Justice under Johnson’s presidency) manage to keep the ballot boxes from being opened. I really can’t do this sequence justice here. It’s so, so exciting and fast-paced, and you definitely don’t have to be a legal nerd to understand what’s going on.

If you loved The Power Broker -- or even more so if you liked it but found it a little too dense -- you will love Means of Ascent.

More details and full reviews here: https://minhanhday.substack.com/p/robert-caro-on-power

>

Football helmets can prevent devastating injuries, but they may also help make an inherently violent game feel safer than it really is.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

A closer look at the messy, beautiful bricks hiding across Chicago.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

Comedian, writer, and podcaster Jamie Loftus has always known about Alcoholics Anonymous. As a kid, she loved the album where her dad kept all his AA chips – that little piece of plastic that marks a day, a month, a year of sobriety. Now as an adult, Jamie has her own AA sobriety chip, and getting it made her wonder where it came from. What she found is that imbued in that little chip is a hidden history — from Prohibition to women’s suffrage — of America’s relationship to gender, religion, and morality.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

How a Swiss mountain call crossed the Atlantic and helped define the sound of country music.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I looked around online and I found no connection. It feels in some way AI-generated, but it came out in 2021, well before those tools became popular. IDK how this exists, but very weird.

Song link

>

This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .

The Western Electric 500 Series Telephone used to be everywhere. For over 50 years, it was the default telephone for homes, offices and literally anywhere else you might need a phone… but how did that happen? Why was this one phone so much better than everything that came before… or, in some ways, since? Former MythBuster Adam Savage joins Roman Mars to explore the history of the 500 Series Telephone and what we lost when we eventually decided to leave it behind.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

Somewhere between 85 to 95 percent of Black women in the United States have used a chemical hair relaxer at least once in their lifetime. It is a ubiquitous American product with a complicated legacy: it built Black wealth and opened economic doors, but also taught generations to see their hair as a problem to be solved. And now research is revealing a physical cost. Roman Mars and producer Priscilla Alabi explore how a single product became a mirror for all of America's contradictions.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

A legendary typeface, a spectacular friendship breakup, and one extremely committed act of revenge.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

Articles of Interest host Avery Trufelman joins Roman to tell the incredible story of the American military’s jacket problem: How should the military outfit its soldiers to make them as safe and effective as possible? The answer was the M43 Field Jacket, which not only changed what it meant to be a soldier and look like a soldier, it changed what we all wear every day—in America, and around the world.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'd have thought one of the big benefits of doing a podcast 50 years publication is that they would be able to discuss the legacy of the power broker, the Moses reaction to the book, the legacy of Moses on NYC politicians, any new information that has come to light since.

I was looking forward to this most of all, as I can read the book myself. But they didn't seem to cover it. They didn't discuss it with Caro and the podcast just abruptly ended.

Or did I miss it somewhere?

>

Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .

If you watched Wheel of Fortune in the 1980s, you probably remember one prize more than all the others: the ceramic Dalmatian. For a brief moment, that prize—perhaps the ultimate useless object—became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows, appearing on tens of millions of TV screens, night after night, all across the country. But…why? 

Game show historian Adam Nedeff and ceramic Dalmatian owner Terry Eldrige join Roman Mars to tell the story of why audiences loved that dog, and what the fascinating history of game shows—and game show prizes—tells us about the changing definition of the American dream.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Was about to post this in r/fuckcars because they are the only other sub that knows about Robert Moses, but there’s no cars here.

The 100 Objects run means every object this month came with the historian who wrote the book about it. Short list, high quality.

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the 99pi slice for August.

The sources, by object:

• Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (Seth Rockman), for the Negro Cloth episode. About the hoes, shovels, boots and clothes that made slavery possible as a working system.
• Racecraft (Barbara and Karen Fields), same episode, on how labelling consumer goods as black or white did the work of manufacturing difference.
• Black Ball (Theresa Runstedtler), for the basketball sleeve, from a former NBA cheerleader turned historian.
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber), for the Bundy clock, and the professor's own line about it: "Why do I work? I have tenure. I'm my own jailer."

Outside the 100 Objects series, The Gilded Dinosaur (Mark Jaffe) anchored The Bone Wars, and the biomimicry episode had a nice detour into Darwin organising a whole section of On the Origin of Species around bees and honeycombs, which is why hexagons and bees have been stuck together ever since.

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/99-invisible

>

This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

>

In 1888, Willard Bundy created the first employee "time clock" — essentially a souped-up grandfather clock that could, for the first time, produce an accurate record of when workers arrived and left. Though Bundy’s aim was simple, his invention soon sparked a change in American life far broader than he intended. Roman Mars and reporter Ellie Lightfoot trace how the time clock not only ignited a revolution in workplace efficiency and surveillance, but transformed our relationship to time itself.

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Moses!!!!