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America built through the Depression
Building through hard times
The Great Depression failed to impede relentless progress in the United States, which had long been home to the world's most far-seeing definitive optimists. The Manhattan Project was started in 1941 and had already produced the world's first nuclear bomb by 1945. Americans continued to remake the face of the world.
Highways and the moon
The Interstate Highway System began construction in 1956, and the first 20,000 miles of road were open for driving by 1965. NASA's Apollo program began in 1961 and put 12 men on the moon before it finished in 1972.
Definitive optimism
Definitive optimism holds that the future will be better than the present if you plan and work to make it better. It works when you build the future that you envision.
How did builders finish the Empire State Building so fast?
Construction took about 13 months, with a workforce that peaked near 3,400 people. Steel was fabricated in advance and delivered to the site just in time, so little material sat idle in the street. At its fastest, the frame rose more than four stories in a week. The building opened on May 1, 1931, and stayed the world's tallest until 1970.
How was the Golden Gate Bridge paid for?
Local voters in six Bay Area counties approved a 35 million dollar bond measure in 1930. When few investors would buy the bonds in the early Depression, Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini bought them in 1932. Tolls repaid the bonds, and the debt was retired in 1971. Construction began in January 1933, and the bridge opened to traffic in May 1937.
Why did the Manhattan Project move so quickly?
The project ran on a budget of about 2 billion dollars and employed around 125,000 people at its peak. Its sites in Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los Alamos worked on different parts of the problem at once instead of waiting on one another. Army general Leslie Groves ran the effort. The first bomb was tested at the Trinity site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.
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