Podcasts by The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences
From the automobile to the rocket ship, from chewing gum to the TV dinner, from the first face in a photograph to the first voice on the telephone, the world has been forever changed by impossible technologies and startling ideas. But these inventions do not always make the world a better place. These are the stories of The First, a podcast exploring the history of human innovation, focusing less on iconic inventors and more on the forgotten geniuses and everyday people that were responsible for bringing us the tools of the modern world. Brought to you by Greg Young of the Bowery Boys podcast.
Further podcasts by Bowery Boys Media
Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
All episodes
The First Apartment Building in America (A Stuyvesant Story) from 2018-01-03T14:22:51
Apartment living is something we take for granted today, the option for those who can't afford or don't desire a private home. But how did this type of living situation become popular in the Uni...
Listen
The Lost Highway: America's First Cross Country Road from 2017-12-21T23:10:53
In 1900, there were about 8,000 registered automobiles in the United States. They were a genuine novelty. Those that attempted to go on 'road trips' met with a frustrating reality -- there were ...
Listen
How Electric Light Changed Christmas Forever from 2017-12-07T02:41:34
That string of multi-colored Christmas lights wrapped around your tree (or your house) is far more influential to American history than you might think.
The first electric Christmas ligh...
Listen
The Plant Doctor: The Extraordinary George Washington Carver from 2017-10-06T17:41:56
How much do you know about George Washington Carver, the man born into slavery who became America’s most famous botanist in the first half of the 20th century? He didn’t discover the ...
Listen
The Real Housewives of Early America: The Story of the First American Cookbook from 2017-09-21T22:03:22
“Over the river and through the woods” into the history of early American cuisine.
The first published European cookbooks in the world weren’t meant to enshrine ideal meals but rather to...
Listen
The Rebel: America's Founding Inventor from 2017-08-25T03:09:39
Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American in the world by the time of the Revolutionary War, known as a writer, inventor and philosopher. But as an old man, he would earn another title -- r...
Listen
Lightning Strikes: Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia Experiment from 2017-08-11T04:44:21
How much do you know about one of the most famous scientific experiments in American history?
In 1752 Benjamin Franklin and his son William performed a dangerous act of experimentation, c...
Listen
Franklin Gothic: The Invention of Benjamin Franklin from 2017-07-28T00:10:42
Benjamin Franklin did more in his first forty years than most people do in an entire lifetime. Had he not played a pivotal role in the creation of the United States of America, he still would ha...
Listen
The Secret History of Soft Drinks: A Tale In Four Flavors from 2017-06-20T14:24:10
There is something very, very bizarre about a can of soda.
How did this sugary, bubbly beverage – dark brown, or neon orange, or grape, or whatever color Mountain Dew is...
Listen
The Devil and The First Broadway Musical from 2017-06-01T23:10:27
The Black Crook is considered the first-ever Broadway musical, a dizzying, epic-length extravaganza of ballerinas, mechanical sets, lavish costumes and a storyline about the Devil straight out o...
Listen
The Bowery Wizards: A History of Early American Tattoos from 2017-05-19T02:36
The art of tattooing is as old as written language but it would require the contributions of a few 19th century New York tattoo artists -- and a young inventor with no tattoos whatsoever -- to t...
Listen
The First Song Ever Recorded from 2017-05-05T04:31:53
Imagine if we could hear the voices of Abraham Lincoln, Queen Victoria or Frederick Douglass? Believe it or not, somebody was making audio recordings as far back as the 1850s. This is the story ...
Listen
Josephine and the Dish-Washing Machine from 2017-04-21T19:27:57
Of the tens of thousands of U.S. patents granted in the 19th century, only a small fraction were held by women. One of those women -- Josephine Cochrane -- would change the worl...
Listen
Nikola Tesla and the Wireless World from 2017-03-26T23:50:34
The Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla is known as one of the fathers of electricity, the curious genius behind alternating current (AC), the victor in the so-called War of the Currents. But in this ...
Listen
The Big Story of Old Bet: The First Circus Elephant from 2017-03-13T01:55:48
This year marks the end to the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus and, with it, the end of the traditional American circus. Once at the core of the American circus was the pe...
Listen
Unimate and the Rise of the Robots from 2017-02-24T17:20:39
Robots conjure up thoughts of distant technological landscapes and even apocalyptic scenarios, but the truth is, robots are a very old creation, tracing back to the ancient world.
We can...
Listen
The Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Revolution: The Story of the First Bikini from 2017-02-10T22:00:28
In 1907, the professional swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Massachusetts beach for wearing a revealing bathing suit -- a skin-tight black ensemble which covered most of her body.
... Listen
This Morbid Invention: The First Electric Chair from 2017-01-27T17:32:48
The harnessing of electricity by the great inventors of the Gilded Age introduced the world to the miracle of light at all hours of the day. But exposure to electricity's raw power was dangerous...
Listen
The Cow and The Country Boy (The First Vaccine) from 2017-01-13T06:51:49
This is the story of the first vaccine, perhaps one of the greatest inventions in modern human history. Starring -- a country doctor with a love of birds, a milkmaid with translucent skin, an ei...
Listen
Making the Pledge of Allegiance from 2016-12-16T09:04:08
The Pledge of Allegiance feels like an American tradition that traces itself back to the Founding Fathers, but, in fact, it's turning 125 years old in 2017. This is the story of the invention of...
Listen
The Calling: Thomas Watson and the First Telephone from 2016-12-02T07:23:52
You may know the story of Alexander Graham Bell and his world famous invention. You may know that Bell made the very first phone call. But do you know the story of the man who ANSWERED that call...
Listen
Every Day Is Thanksgiving: The History of the TV Dinner from 2016-11-18T18:08:21
American eating habits were transformed in the early 20th century with innovations in freezing and refrigeration, allowing all kinds of foods to be shipped across the country and stored for long...
Listen
Miss Draper: The First Woman Ever Photographed from 2016-11-04T01:53:45
Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a photograph -- a daguerrotype, actually, in the year 1840, upo...
Listen
The Wheel: Ferris' Big Idea from 2016-10-28T00:22:21
01: The first Ferris Wheel was invented to become America’s Eiffel Tower, making its grand debut at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. The wheel’s inventor George Washington Gale Ferris was a cle...
Listen
TRAILER Introducing The First from 2016-10-11T02:22:17
A preview of The First, a new podcast series from Greg Young of the Bowery Boys: New York City History, examining the birth of inventions and the people whose lives were immediately affected. Listen