Prologue: Ragtime

[00:33.53] In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Brodview
[00:38.08] Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York, and it seemed for
[00:41.65] some years thereafter that all the family's days would be
[00:46.15] warm and fair.
[00:51.67] The skies were blue and hazy,
[00:56.12] Rarely a storm. Barely a chill
[00:58.81] La la la la...
[01:01.51] The afternoons were lazy,
[01:05.14] Everyone warm. Everything still.
[01:08.86] La la la la...
[01:10.62] And there was distant music,
[01:15.12] Simple and somehow sublime,
[01:19.63] Giving the nation
[01:21.42] A new syncopation-
[01:23.27] The people called it Ragtime!
[01:28.72] Father was well-off. Very well-off. his considerable
[01:34.13] income was derived from the manufacture and sale of
[01:36.83] fireworks and other accoutrements of patriotism. Father
[01:39.68] was also something of an amateur explorer.
[01:44.15] The house on the hill in New Rochelle was Mother's
[01:48.79] domain. She took pleasure in making it comfortable
[01:51.54] for the men of her family and often told herself how
[01:54.29] fortunate she was to be so protected and provided for
[01:57.87] by her husband.
[02:02.38] Mother's Younger Brother worked at Father's fireworks
[02:05.08] factory. He was a genius at explosives. But he was also
[02:09.60] a young man in search of something to believe in. his
[02:13.23] sisterwondered when he would find it.
[02:15.97] Grandfather had been a professor of Greek and Latin. Now
[02:22.26] retired and living with his daughter and her family, he
[02:25.06] was thoroughly irritated by everything.
[02:31.31] The days were gently tinted
[02:35.04] Lavender pink, lemon and lime.
[02:39.52] Ladies with parasols
[02:41.37] Fellows with tennis balls
[02:43.11] There were gazebos, and...
[02:45.85] The were no negroes.
[02:49.48] And everything was Ragtime!
[03:03.93] Listen to the Ragtime!
[03:08.59] In Harlem, men and women of color forgot their
[03:11.25] troubles and danced and reveled to the music of
[03:13.96] Coalhouse Walker, Jr. This was a music that was theirs
[03:17.51] and no one else's.
[03:19.38] One young woman thought Coalhouse played just for her,
[03:22.07] Her name was Sarah.
[03:23.99] Ooooh...
[03:25.71] Booker T. Washington was the most famous Negro
[03:27.50] in the country. He counselled friendship between the
[03:31.12] races and spoke of the promise of the future. he had no
[03:33.89] patience for Negroes who lived less than exemplary lives.
[03:41.16] Ladies with parasols,
[03:44.72] Fellows with tennis balls.
[03:46.53] There were no Negroes
[03:48.35] And there were no immigrants.
[04:06.40] In Latvia, a man dremed of a new life for his little girl.
[04:10.01] It would be a long journey, a treeible one.
[04:13.64] He ould not lose her as he had her mother.
[04:16.30] His name was Tateh. He never spoke of his wife.
[04:20.04] The Little Girl was all he had now.
[04:21.82] Together, they wouuld escape.
[04:23.67] Houdini! Look it's Houdini!
[04:29.91] Ooh... aah!
[04:39.03] Ooh... aah!
[04:45.32] Harry Houdini was one immigrant who made and art of
[04:49.84] escape. He was a headliner in the top Vaudeville circuits.
[04:53.51] Ich bin die Mutter des grossen Houdinis!
[04:57.14] He mad his Mother proud. But for all his achievements, he
[05:01.68] knew he was only an illusionist. He wanted to believe
[05:04.31] there was more...
[05:06.28] Hello, sonny.
[05:08.08] Warn the Duke!
[05:08.95] What did you say?
[05:10.74] And there was distant music
[05:14.39] Changing the tune, changing the time,
[05:18.94] Giving the nation
[05:20.71] A new syncopation:
[05:22.60] La, la, la.
[05:24.36] La, la, la...
[05:26.13] Certain men make a country great.
[05:27.92] They can't help it.
[05:28.84] At the very apex of the American Pyramid-
[05:31.58] -That's the very tip-top!-
[05:33.34] Like Pharoahs reincarnate, stood J.P. Morgan.
[05:36.18] And Henry Ford.
[05:37.94] All men are born equal.
[05:40.64] But the cream rises to the top!
[05:43.39] Let me at those sosn of b**ches! These men are the
[05:48.89] demons who are sucking your very souls dry! I hate them!
[05:54.25] Someone should arrest that woman!
[05:56.04] The radical anarchist Emma Goldman fought against the
[06:00.51] ravages of American capitalism as she watched her fellow
[06:04.23] immigrants' hopes turn to despair on the Lower East Side.
[06:09.66] La la la
[06:11.45] La la la la
[06:14.15] Whee!
[06:15.10] But America was watching another drama.
[06:17.86] Evelyn Nesbit was the most beautiful woman in America,
[06:21.40] If she wore her hair in curls, every woman wore her hair
[06:25.09] in curls.
[06:26.86] Her lover was the eminent architect, Stanford White,
[06:29.58] designer of the Pennsylvania Station on 33rd street.
[06:32.27] Her husband, the eccentric millionaire, Harry K. Thaw,
[06:38.62] was a violent man.
[06:42.22] After her husband shot her lover, Evelyn became the biggest
[06:46.87] attraction in Vaudeville since Tom Thumb.
[06:50.46] La la la la la
[06:53.14] Bang!
[06:54.06] La la la
[06:54.91] Bang!
[06:55.86] La
[06:56.78] Bang!
[06:57.66] And although the newspapers called the shooting the
[06:59.45] Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906...
[07:04.93] And there were ninety-four years to go!
[07:07.64] Whee!
[07:08.50] And there was music playing,
[07:14.08] Catching a nation in its prime...
[07:17.64] Beggar and millionaire
[07:19.49] Everyone, everywhere
[07:21.23] Moving to the Ragtime!
[08:20.18] And there was distant music
[08:24.61] Skipping a beat, singing a dream.
[08:28.26] La la la la
[08:31.05] A strange, insistent music
[08:35.56] Putting out heat,
[08:36.42] Picking up steam.
[08:39.15] La la la la
[08:40.93] The sound of distant thunder
[08:44.52] Suddenly starting to climb...
[08:50.95] It was the music
[08:51.80] Of something beginning,
[08:53.60] An era exploding,
[08:55.51] A century spinning
[08:57.33] In riches and rags,
[08:59.13] And in rhythm and rhyme.
[09:01.00] The people called it Ragtime...
[09:03.68] Ragtime!
[09:06.37] Ragtime!
[09:08.16] Ragitme!
[09:18.70]