tv Second Look FOX March 18, 2012 11:00pm-11:30pm PDT
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up next on a second look, america 100 years ago. and the technological invasions that drove it into the 20th century led by thomas edison. we remember the man who was this country's most prolific inventor. from the lightbulb to the sonogram to the motion picture camera. it's all ahead on a second look. good evening everyone i'm frank somerville. california and the rest of the
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country is about to phase out one of the most important inventions. we're talking about the incandescent lightbulb. the problem today is there's too many of them and they use too much electricity. at the turn of the 20th century most homes were lit by candle or gas lamps. but one man could see the future. in fact, the publisher of the san jose nuclear newspaper thought the lightbulb was the way to go. so he started a movement to lite the way literally. >> reporter: in the early 1900s, san jose was a town of less than 22,000 people. much smaller than the big city of san francisco. but san jose had something even san francisco didn't have. a defining landmark.
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there was no golden great bridge or coyt tower, not yet but san jose had an electric light tower for all to see. >> you find it in the postcards, the stuff were sent back east featured the light tower and how progressive california was. >> reporter: owens persuaded readers that california could save money by eliminating the street light. he suggested building several tower lamps to light the city. >> it symbolized moving toward a whole new era of electricity. >> for all those who were against it there were at least an equal number for it. so i would hardly call it a mistake. >> reporter: but could a tower
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light a town? the debate went on as the tower was built in 1881. here it is under construction and at last it was ready made out of iron pipe. more than 20 stories tall. powered by carbon arch lamps which were state of the art at a time. popular lamps that would later be popular at movie premiers. >> what they were doing is throwing a spark between two electrodes. it simply wasn't enough power to heat up -- to light up a significant area of downtown. owen refused to admit defeat. he published stories of success including a testimonial from a survivor who claimed he could read his newspaper from 2 miles away. >> people said that chickens could not sleep two miles away because of this highlight power
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light over the city. >> reporter: even though it didn't light up the town, word of san jose's tower traveled to paris, the city of lights. >> there's a report that people from paris came here before they built the eiffel tower. >> reporter: public opinion was split. >> any project of that size would be controversial, there's no doubt about it. >> reporter: what little light people had in their homes came from costly gas lamps and gas companies feared an electric light might put them out of business so they mounted a fierce campaign saying it was dangerous to flying ducks and geese. the gas company won, they used the light shower as decoration
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for weekends and festive occasions. owens folley, a term his great grandson resents. >> actually the tower was a great hit until it blew down. >> reporter: weakened by rust and another storm earlier that year the tower collapsed on to the streets below. ironically the same year thomas edison visited panama pacific expedition celebrating his the -- his invention of the incandescent lightbulb. this replica is over a half scale model rising 116 feet straddling this small intersection. but imagine the original spanning four lanes of traffic across san jose's busiest street. imagine this intersection market and santa clara street if the tower were still here. the nighttime sky illuminated by an idea from the past. still to come on a second
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look. the key role thomas edison played. the tiny bay area town that was once a major player in the motion picture industry. whoever said that "less is more" is more or less mathematically challenged. less isn't more, it's less. and the only thing more than more is a lot more. which is exactly what i get at embassy suites. more space... more down time. more family time. more me time. more me time. more me time. because the more more i have, the more i have to have...
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several dozen trademarks. the country moved from the 1800s into the 1900s. george watson prepared this look back at some of america's transforming inventions. prior to 1900, words like movies, neon, truck, tractor they had no meaning. and what for heaven sake was an aviator. in 1903 the wright brothers sent their aircraft into the air for all of 12 second. with their man flight gave birth to aviation. prior to 1900, there was nothing electric any where. gas lamps lit the homes and streets of urban america and
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suddenly thomas alba edison made electricity. edison also captured sound in a tube and made concert halls out of people's living rooms. marconi invented the radio. what was this country like in the beginning of the 20th century? this desert flower america blooming for the first time under the glow of the new century's technology. well butch cassidy and the hole in the wall gang were still robbing banks and trains. west of the mississippi and south of the ohio river most americans had never seen so much as the gas street light or indoor plumbing. half of all americans lived on farms or in towns of less than 2,500 people. 100 years ago, horsepower was
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determined by the number of live horses pulling whatever you wanted pulled which brings us to horsepower as it relates to the automobile. in 1900 there were only about 400 cars. the country had only 100 miles of streets. in marin county, a proclamation was passed that the residents were a horse loving people. before the century was a decade old there were 200,000 cars in the united states. half of them fords. the automobile opened up the
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country to the common man the way the covered wagon opened the west to manifest destiny. the country was suddenly smaller, horizons loomed closer as new roads became the arteries of the nation filled with the flowing blood of the people's atmosphere. skylines reflected the new construction technique which allowed buildings to grow around a steel skeleton. you could pretty much make a building as tall as you wanted. america was growing up in every sense of the word. teddy roosevelt was the country's energetic -- from the great white fleet to the heroic almost incomprehensible canal cut through the jungles of panama. america was now a wonderful force. the bay area town where charlie chaplin made one of his
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we're taking a second look tonight at some of the inventors and inventions that changed the world 100 years ago. one was the motion picture camera. like so many other things it was invented by thomas edison. one town here in the bay area was once home to a prolific movie making enterprise. in 2001 ktvu's bob mackenzie told us the epic tale of little town that could have been a contender. >> reporter: our story begins in 1903 when a film called the great train robbery revolutionized movie making. this was not the usual 20
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second nickolodian flick but a 20 minute epic. with a whole squad of actors shooting it out. a major actor in the film was gm anderson the vigorous young man in the black hat soon to be known worldwide as bronco billy. 54 years later, anderson told in a filmed interview how the great train robbery knocked the audience over. >> and i said to myself then, that's it. it's going to be the picture business for me. >> reporter: anderson got a money partner, started his own film company and proceeded to knock out reels at the price of $9 a month. he picked anderson county which now is part of fremont. bruce says it's no wonder anderson picked niles to settle
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in, the town has the greatest weather and the canyon. >> the canyon is a natural setting for making movies. it was just the perfect place. >> reporter: indeed bronco billy saw niles county as a location for shoot outs, stick ups and horse chases. anderson brought a naturalistic style that would forever replace the older two reelers. he hired real cowboys instead of actors and told them to be themselves. this film the making of bronco billy proports to tell how a legend was born. billy coming into town as a dude, gets intimidated and told he better go learn to shoot so he does. after a while he reemerges as a rooting tooting fast shooting cowboy and the next time the bad guy taunts him he dispatches the fellow. from then on billy is bronco billy the outlaw with the heart of gold usually just a gallop
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ahead of the posse. billy had built a sizable movie house. in 1914 charles chaplin came to work for s & a for the handsome salary of $1,200 a week. bruce gates informs me that chaplin preferred this hotel on the main street where he could get some service. david keen of berkeley is writing a book on s & a studios he says bronco billy was a movie pioneer. >> at the heart he was a loner character. he didn't have lots of friends. knew pactly what he wanted on the set and didn't take anything from anybody. >> reporter: charles chaplin was really a shy man who compensated by performing on screen and off. >> he was always trying out his little tricks you know with his hat and his cane for any kind
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of crowd that was around niles and whether they wanted to see it or not. >> reporter: the 30 minute bronco billy films were successful so anderson didn't try to make a longer film but the movies were about to change. chaplin was ready for the change, in the tramp, he perfected his movie character. gave him the touch that would capture the audiences hearts as well as make them laugh. charlie left s & a for a more lucrative career in los angeles. >> and they literally one day were shooting a movie and just came in the afternoon and shut everything down and left. it was that quick. >> reporter: niles keeps his past alive with images of charlie and bronco billy and keeps its main street historically intact. when we come back, the new technology at the time that gave us these lasting images of the 1906 earthquake.
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thomas edison was a prolific inventor at the turn of the 20th century he put one of his inventions to work chronicling the news of the day. one of the places he made them was in san francisco after the 1906 earthquake. you will see some of edison's images on a story bob mackenzie did. >> reporter: pockets loaded with cash in a time of swaggering optimism. in this film we see the st. francis hotel looking much like it does today. but many of the surrounding
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buildings would not survive. their dreams were ability to be derailed. it struck an earthquake of terrifying force. in a city made by stacking one brick on top of another the quake was devastating. hundreds died in the first minute. flora allen was 3-1/2 like most people sleeping peacefully at 3:00 a.m. >> the first thing i remember about the earthquake is shaking -- somebody shook my bed and i landed on the floor screaming. >> reporter: helen spearing was an 11-year-old girl sleeping in a murphy bed. the kind of bed that lifts up and shuts into an alcove in the wall. >> i remember i was in a bed and the bed started to go up and was going to close and be up there with me in it. i got out of there in a hurry. >> reporter: betsy shum's
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parents decided to clear out of their china townhome. >> my father they don't have any time to pack any clothing. my father have to carry my mother out, and a neighbor has to carry me out. >> reporter: san franciscans balked -- walked out of one horror to the other. >> he said toya look at san francisco burn. and the sky the whole sky was red, red as a beautiful sunset. >> reporter: but was a disaster for adults adults was an adventure for children. >> dad took us to the top of
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the fairmont. from there we saw four big fires at 10:00 in the morning. big fires. >> reporter: men formed volunteer groups to fight the fires and got a nasty surprise. san francisco's water system was entirely inadequate to the task. gist to name one problem the -- just to name one problem, the city has prepared by building wooden tanks that held thousands of gallons of water. >> when the earthquake came the tanks had split and the water went out. the water they just went around blasting things. they decided that they can't put out the fire and the fire was getting closer to the buildings, you know. >> reporter: as the fires approached their homes, thousands of san franciscans fled. many just taking their clothes. >> because they were scared of the fire. the fire was getting closer and
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closer. they wanted to get out of san francisco. san francisco was doomed. >> reporter: but even people who's homes were still standing and out of immediate danger crowded into tents in jefferson park with nothing above them but canvas they felt safer. >> people were scared to go back in their homes. they put up a tent and stayed out there at the park. >> reporter: jefferson park is there today yet the victorians are long gone. back then the homeless shared the park with soldiers. helen pierce parents found a tiny two room house and moved their children into it. when other families wanted to move into them they couldn't refuse. >> there were 14 of us living in that. so we had quite a gang. and then it was up to my father to provide the food. >> a caravan of u.s. troops arrived with food and medicine and other supplies.
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the army also took the job of enforcing a new law against open fires. with gas pipes leaking throughout the city, any small blaze might cause an explosion. helen remembers her mother lit a candle as a soldier walked by the house. >> he said turn out that light. but i have to have it to get things out of the bureau drawers. put out that light or i will shoot. he had two guns one in each hand. and out went the light. >> reporter: over the course of a week, major fires burns themselves out. but the neighborhood smoldered for weeks longer. 25,000 buildings were reduced to hoax that had to be pulled down and hauled away. there were survivors. the flood building has stood through the quake though gutted by fire it was too proud a building to tear down. the flood building is there
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today. as the fires at last subsided, san franciscans took walks and contemplated the awesome damage that had been done. >> there was nothing much left. all the big buildings were demolished or burned out or no good. some 700 san franciscans died in the quake and fire. many more had lost everything, everything but the optimism that had built the city in the first place and would help them build it again. and that's it for this week's second look. i'm frank somerville. we'll see you again next week.
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