A Road Trip through US History

Summary

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Bloomberg Businessweek: "A Road Trip through US History"

Date: June 10, 2026
Hosts: Carol Massar (off-mic), Tim Stenovec (off-mic), Janet Lauren
Guest: Beverly Gage, Yale history professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of This Land is Yours: A Road Trip Through US History

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Episode Overview

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, this episode delves into the nation’s rich and complex history by highlighting Beverly Gage’s new travelogue, This Land is Yours: A Road Trip Through US History. The book, which links places and pivotal moments across the nation, serves as a guide for reflection on American identity, democracy, freedom of speech, and the current state of political and educational institutions. The conversation journeys through key sites and eras, exploring historic lessons while also drawing parallels to America’s present challenges.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Structure and Inspiration Behind the Book

• 13 Chapters, 13 Moments/Places:

  • Each chapter anchors on a specific American locale and era—spanning from Philadelphia at the revolution’s dawn to California in the late 20th century, weaving together 250 years of history.
  • Quote (02:59):

    "If you did them all, you would cover these 250 years of US history... what really struck me was both the vast expanse and the amount of kind of contestation that has been there all throughout American history." — Beverly Gage

• Unexpected Connections:

  • The journey revealed surprising links between disparate places, underlining how different regions’ stories intersect in the larger American narrative.

2. Memorable Stops on the Road Trip

• Philadelphia to California:
  • The journey begins in the birthplace of American independence and ends at sites like the Reagan Library and Disneyland, emblematic of political and cultural shifts.
  • Underrated History Hubs:
    • Madura, North Dakota: Focusing on Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy.
    • Dearborn, Michigan: Rich with stories of Henry Ford, American industry, and the labor movement.
  • Quote (04:33):

    "Dearborn, Michigan... where there's a lot of stuff about the history of American industry, of Henry Ford, of the labor movement, all in one small place." — Beverly Gage

3. Deep Dive: Chicago and the Gilded Age (04:59–05:58)

• Industrial Boom & Urban Identity:
  • Chicago’s transformation into a “rail hub, stockyard center, production center,” encapsulating the explosive growth and inequalities of the Gilded Age.
  • The city’s contemporary engagement with its history, especially labor and economic justice, remains vibrant and relevant.
  • Quote (05:00):

    "Chicago is my city on the Gilded Age... mass American industry... still deals in... clashes that happened during the Gilded Age over economic inequality and work conditions." — Beverly Gage

4. Upstate New York: Cradle of Reform (05:58–07:22)

• Erie Canal & Social Movements:
  • The canal brought both economic energy and a hotbed for abolitionism, women’s rights, and progressive activism.
  • Notable residents included Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Harriet Tubman.
  • Quote (06:11):

    "Some of those beautiful places to hike... played this really important role in American history."

  • Quote (06:47):

    "...a real hotbed of abolitionism, of the women's rights movements. And in these little towns were just many, many people working together to try to think about how to transform the rest of the country." — Beverly Gage

5. Then and Now: Division, Protest & Patriotism (07:22–09:21)

• Contrast Between Past & Present Politics:
  • American history is full of social and political division, yet, compared to the Gilded Age or the mid-19th century, there’s less mass protest around core issues like class and economic equality today.
  • The 250th anniversary brings a mix of patriotism, celebration, and critical self-reflection.
  • Quote (08:09):

    "American history is full of division... It's notable in this moment, particularly around questions of class and economic equality... there's so much more protest... than what we're seeing in this particular moment." — Beverly Gage

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Special Focus: Trust & Change in Higher Education

6. The Yale Report on Trust and Grade Inflation (09:31–12:55)

• Eroding Trust Across Institutions:

  • Trust in higher education is declining alongside broader institutional mistrust across society.

  • Grade Inflation:

    • Too many top grades "ruin grades as a mechanism of communication" and dilute distinctions among students (10:01).
    • Grades are supposed to be "a mechanism of communication between the university, its professors, and the outside world" (10:47).

  • Internal & External Pressures:

    • Students face immense pressure to achieve top grades for graduate and professional opportunities.
    • Professors may grade more leniently to attract students or avoid poor evaluations (11:43).
    • Differences between grading in humanities and STEM add to system distortions.

  • Quote (11:43):

    "There's pressure on students who feel like they live in this all or nothing society and that they have to have perfect grades... I think there's also then pressure on professors to not be the outlier." — Beverly Gage

7. The Challenge of Academic Integrity: AI & Technology (12:55–14:06)

• AI's Disruptive Role:

  • Widespread concern about authenticity of student work and meaningful evaluation.
  • Quote (13:04):

    "It's not clear to professors if their students are really doing the work that's being asked of them. And frankly, it's not clear to students if professors are really doing the work that's being asked of them." — Beverly Gage

• Laptops in the Classroom:

  • Gage and many colleagues advocate for “default” no-laptop policies to foster engagement and focus (14:06).

  • Firsthand account: Gage describes a positive experience teaching without devices—greater attention, better classroom feel.

  • Student Testimonial:

    • A listener calls in to share positive experiences with handwritten notes and fewer digital distractions (15:26).

  • Quote (15:52):

    "It builds up a kind of contempt for the classroom... it really changes the, the atmosphere in a way that everyone in the room can feel." — Beverly Gage

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• 02:59:
  "What really struck me was both the vast expanse and the amount of kind of contestation that has been there all throughout American history." — Beverly Gage

• 06:47:
  "A real hotbed of abolitionism, of the women's rights movements. And in these little towns were just many, many people working together to try to think about how to transform the rest of the country and in some ways succeeding in doing it." — Beverly Gage

• 08:09:
  "American history is full of division. It's full of different opinions. Sometimes people are working together, but sometimes they are coming straight at each other." — Beverly Gage

• 11:43:
  "Students feel like they live in this all or nothing society and that they have to have perfect grades to have any chance once they get to the other side of the university... pressure on professors to not be the outlier." — Beverly Gage

• 13:04:
  "It's not clear to professors if their students are really doing the work that's being asked of them. And frankly, it's not clear to students if professors are really doing the work that's being asked of them." — Beverly Gage

• 15:52:
  "It builds up a kind of contempt for the classroom... it really changes the, the atmosphere in a way that everyone in the room can feel." — Beverly Gage

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a sweeping yet intimate look at America's history—its struggles, reinventions, and the ongoing debate over what it means to be American in 2026. As listeners consider the nation’s 250th birthday, the episode’s journey through historical hotspots reminds us that American identity is inherently contested, dynamic, and collective. The discussion extends to education—where struggles over trust, technology, and purpose mirror broader challenges in American society.

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Transcript

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[Janet Lauren]

Well, as the US gets ready to celebrate its 250th birthday as an independent nation, there are many questions about the future of its democracy and also about freedom of speech and a lot more. I think it's safe to say something that has been given kind of a given, I think freedom of speech and democracy when it comes to the nation's history. Our roundtable to talk about this and more. Janet Lauren, Bloomberg News Higher education Finance reporter. She's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Also with us is Beverly Gage, author of a new book just out today. It is entitled this Land Is yous A Road Trip Through US History. It's a travelogue of the United States giving relevant bits of history in areas including Chicago, Atlanta, upstate New York, again ahead of the 250th anniversary of our nation. She is a history professor at Yale and she won a Pulitzer for her biography of J. Edgar Hoover. She joins us. Professor Gage from Cheshire, Connecticut. Good to have you both with us. I want to start with you, Professor Gage. You have this new book. I would love to travel across America and like see all our history points. I always love. I grew up in an area that was very much has a lot of colonial old time houses here just outside New York City. As you traveled around the country, what struck you?

[Beverly Gage]

Well, the book is designed to actually help people do exactly what you're saying, Travel the country and learn about their history. So there are 13 chapters. Each one is both a place and a moment in time. And if you did them all, you would cover these 250 years of U.S. history. And I guess what really struck me was both the vast expanse and the amount of kind of contestation that has been there all throughout American history. And then some of the links between these places that I didn't expect to find better there. Once you hit the road, what would

[Listener/Caller]

you like to highlight? Like what was your favorite stop along the way?

[Beverly Gage]

Well, the book begins in Philadelphia, which is where I'm from, in the era of the American Revolution, and it ends in California in the late 20th century. So the Reagan library and Disneyland and all of the forces that shaped politics in that moment. And then in between, I jumped around a lot. I guess the places that I was most interested in were the ones that I had been to before, and in fact, the ones that I really hadn't heard of before I set out on these trips. Places like Madura, North Dakota, which is all about the history of Theodore Roosevelt, Or Dearborn, Michigan, which I had heard of but had never been to, where there's a lot of stuff about the history of American industry, of Henry Ford, of the labor movement, all in one small place.

[Host/Interviewer]

Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And I really enjoyed it. And hearing also about the travails of traveling along. You forget about COVID when you were writing and your son was in the hotel, and we could really relate to that. So tell me a little bit about your trip to Chicago and why you picked that period. That's my hometown, but I had recently started to read the Devil in the White City, and we were exactly in that point of time.

[Beverly Gage]

Yeah, Chicago is my city on the Gilded Age, which is the period in the late 19th century century that saw the rise of mass American industry and when Chicago itself as a city really came into its own as a rail hub, a stockyard center, production center. All of the things that made Chicago so important in its time. And one of the things that's great about visiting Chicago today is that you can not only see the way the city was built in that era and still go visit a lot of the things that were built in in that moment, but it's also one of the places that still deals in. I think a really thoughtful and interesting way with some of the clashes that happened during the Gilded Age over economic inequality and work conditions and concentrated fortunes and all of these big, big questions there. You can find lots of bits and pieces of that all over Chicago.

[Host/Interviewer]

And talk about your trip to upstate New York. I guess I had not realized how much history there is because you don't think of upstate New York as having a lot other than beautif places to hike these days.

[Beverly Gage]

That's right. Well, some of those beautiful places to hike, in fact, played this really important role in American history. That's a chapter that focuses on the 1840s and 1850s, the years right before the Civil War, when upstate New York really meant two things to most Americans. One was the opening of the Erie Canal, which brought lots and lots of new investment and mobility to that region. But along with that came a whole set of really powerful social and political movements that took off in the Erie Canal region. And that's what I was really going to look at and to visit. Some of the most famous people in all of American history were living in this region during these years. You have Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and John Brown and Harriet Tubman. And I could go on. But as you can see, it was a real hotbed of abolitionism, of the women's rights movements. And in these little towns were just many, many people working together to try to think about how to transform the rest of the country and in some ways succeeding in doing it.

[Janet Lauren]

You know, it's interesting, as you drove around and you talk about the history and people working together to make this country succeed, it's interesting. It doesn't feel like at times that people are working together anymore. We certainly have a dysfunctional Congress that doesn't really cross the aisle or reach across the aisle. There's quite a political divide. And yet I was just talking with someone last night that amid frustration by some with policies out of the government, that there's not a lot of uprisings and people protesting. We certainly did see with ICE agents and so on and so forth. But what do you make of that? I mean, I'm just trying to understand, like, what's going on within our country and how you see it from a historical perspective.

[Beverly Gage]

Yeah, I think that's a really striking insight. One of the reasons that I wanted to write this book for 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, was to try to grapple with some of those questions. One of them is about American patriotism. And I think the ambivalence that an awful lot of people feel in this year that is supposed to be about celebration and commemoration, also about reckoning. They aren't quite sure what to do with a moment like this, given how they're feeling about the country. But as you say, I think if you compare this moment to a lot of earlier moments, American history is full of division. It's full of different opinions. Sometimes people are working together, but sometimes they are coming straight at each other. And I do think that it's notable in this moment, particularly around questions of class and economic equality. If you look at the Gilded Age, there's so much more protest, there's so much more ferment. There's so much more conversation about it in the center of American politics, too, than what we're seeing in this particular moment.

[Janet Lauren]

There's also a particular moment, I feel like, that's going on on campuses. Janet, I want you to kick it off a lot of conversations around great inflation. Yes.

[Host/Interviewer]

So you are also the author of a very important report that came out from Yale earlier this year, the co author of the report on the Committee on trust in Higher Education. And one of the topics that we've been talking about here is grade inflation, which you did address in the report. And we've been writing a little bit about Harvard and grade inflation and curbing the A's. And what was your takeaway after spending a long time studying these issues?

[Janet Lauren]

You're right.

[Beverly Gage]

I co chaired this committee that worked for about a year at Yale, and our charge was this very big subject of trust in higher education. I think it is linked in some ways to the conversation that we were just having, in the sense that trust in institutions of all sorts really has been on the decline over the last several decades. And so higher ed occupies a very particular place in that story. Grade inflation was one of many issues that came up for us. And I think what we saw is that with all of these upward pressures on grades, huge percentages of students getting A's and A minuses now, it's sort of ruining grades as a mechanism of communication. That's what they're there for. They're there for teachers to be able to communicate to students whether they've mastered material where they need to improve. And they're also a mechanism of communication between the university, its professors, and the outside world about what a student has learned while they are in the university setting and kind of how students compare to each other. And so that's the real problem with grade inflation. You know, it's it's partly we've got so many A's because students are actually really well prepared and working pretty hard these days. But even with that, I think we need, you know, a broader mechanism of communication. Otherwise this just becomes meaningless and it becomes very hard to then communicate what we want to talk about.

[Janet Lauren]

Professor Gage, how much though pressure internally is for students to have good grades?

[Beverly Gage]

I think there's a lot of pressure from a lot of directions. There's pressure on students who feel like they live in this all or nothing society and that they have to have perfect grades to have any chance once they, they get to the other side of the university of standing out or succeeding or getting into graduate or professional school. So they have a lot of pressure. And I think there's also then pressure on professors to not be the outlier, to not be the one that's giving the hard grades, because in fact, students may just go elsewhere. I think the prevalence of sort of evaluation, online evaluation info, which students can now process very easily and have really good access to. At Yale, students can very easily search, you know, which courses have heavy workloads, how nice the professor is, how harsh a grader they are, and they can kind of game their choices in that sense. And it's also true there are these big divides between grading and humanities classes, grading and STEM classes. So it's really distorting the system in lots and lots of different ways. And I think a lot of people would agree it's time for a reset.

[Listener/Caller]

Professor, what about students using AI? Just how much has that distorted this whole idea of trust in higher education?

[Beverly Gage]

Well, that's another big issue that came up. And I think it is both an external problem in the sense that there are lots of people wondering if university education is going to be sort of worth the money with all of these new tools out there. And then it's particularly a problem of internal trust, which is to say that it's not clear to professors if their students are really doing the work that's being asked of them. And frankly, it's not clear to students if professors are really doing the work that's being asked of them. So it seems like a huge challenge. We didn't actually write that much about it in the report, in part because it's just this big background challenge that's coming at all of us. I don't think any anyone's quite wrapped their heads around it all together, but it's clearly going to be one of the big issues.

[Host/Interviewer]

What was the feedback you got about the recommendation of maybe not Having laptops in class from students and from your fellow faculty members.

[Beverly Gage]

I think we heard a lot of enthusiasm, particularly among faculty. I taught a class this semester in which I did not allow students to use laptops or phones or tablets. And it was sort of a small lecture class, had about 60 students in it. It allowed for a lot more interactivity. It really gave the classroom a much better feel and allowed people to just be where they were and to pay attention. So I am a great fan of it and I think people have different opinions about it. You know, some of the students seemed slightly alarmed about this. The students were, when the report came out, I would say especially interested in exactly the issues that you brought up, the question of grading and the question of technology use. But, you know, our suggested policy was that that just become the default not to have these things in the classroom. And then of course, professors who want that, who want a different environment, who want to use these tools in explicitly pedagogical ways, can do that and can introduce the technology that they want as opposed to having, you know, everyone's laptop open and everyone distracting not only themselves but but each other in doing things that aren't related to the class.

[Janet Lauren]

Emily just put. We have an internal chat. What did you say?

[Listener/Caller]

So my history professor, Elizabeth Varin at the University of Virginia, we could only do hand notes. And it was one of my favorite classes. It was just notebook. I mean, this was a few years ago, so I imagine it's a lot worse now to control laptop use, but only hand notes. And it was great.

[Janet Lauren]

I think it would be so easy to get lost in your laptop and not listen.

[Listener/Caller]

It's distracting when you see other students using online shopping. Shopping and you're trying to pay attention. So yeah, it's easy.

[Janet Lauren]

It's too easy to be.

[Beverly Gage]

I think it does. It builds up a kind of, a kind of contempt for the classroom. Right. When you see everyone else doing something else, it really changes the, the atmosphere in a way that everyone in the room can feel.

[Janet Lauren]

I totally agree. Amen. Put them down. Put them down. Laptops, phones, all of it. Professor Gage, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Beverly Gage, new book out today, this Land Is yous A Road Trip through US History. She is a history professor at Yale and as we reminded you before, Pulitzer for her biography of J. Edgar Hoover and of course, her own Janet Lauren, Bloomberg News higher education finance reporter. So good to have her here in studio as well.

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