Episode 22: Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter - a podcast by SMU Center for Presidential History

Today’s episode is all about the 1970s. Which means we’re talking about two presidents today: Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. As you’ll soon hear, the 70s are hard. They were a time of transition, and historians often treat it as such, as a bridge between the raucous sixties of Vietnam and Nixon to the era of self-gratification and glitz that was the 1980s under Ronald Reagan.  Now, that might not be fair to this decade, which historians are increasingly unpacking and exploring, seeing it as more than a bridge, but a destination itself. Albeit, let’s all agree from the start, a destination with some seriously mockable hair and fashion choices.

We’re talking about two presidents this week, well in part because while every President deserves their due, the truth is Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had the unfortunate fate of being positioned between two presidents of tremendous consequence. That’s a shame really because while both Ford and Carter are recalled for their less than stellar handling of truly intractable problems, they were also perhaps two of the most upstanding and admirable men to ever reside in the White House. 

We first spoke to Professor Jefferson Cowie of Vanderbilt University, author of what really is THE standard book for political, social, and labor upheaval in the 1970s, the aptly named: Staying Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class.  We then spoke to one of our own, Dr. Elizabeth Ingleson, a former CPH Post-doc and author of the forthcoming Making Made in China: The Transformation of U.S. China Trade in the 1970s, which Harvard University Press is bringing out later this year. 

To learn more, visit pastpromisepresidency.com.

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