Entirety of Randolph Air Force base, its circular design. Its a beautiful base. Its a functional base. It was built just in time to help the air force steadily build its numbers so that it would have an awardwinning air force by 1942, 1943, and they built it to be the showplace of the air force, and it became known as the west point of the air. Because as with engineers and artillery specialists in the army, here is where you learned the craft of flying and supporting flying operations. And so many of the greats in air force history started here and have come back here. A lot of people mention this base as being important to san antonio. It is. Why is it important . Randolph has always been a steady generator for business, steady generator for technology, innovation, and some of the very best of American Society come here. Its one of the most diverse bases in the air force. And if you want diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds, religions, the air force is a place to go. Randolph might be more emblematic of that than any other base because we all learn to fight, fly, and win here. And almost everyone comes through ends up at one time or another. Randolph field for the basic course. Nearby kelly field for advanced students. Combine to form the nerve center of americas air force training program. Expanding u. S. Defense calls for the schooling of 30,000 pilots each year. San antonio had always been looking for another base outside of what was brooks and kelly. As the air force expanded, they realized the need to have a larger base. So in 1926, the air corps act gave a lot of money to the federal government and to the Army Air Corps in particular to build new bases. So, the selection of land here north of san antonio kind of brought together the fruition of all the three bases together, training the number of pilots that would be necessary as we moved between the war periods in the 20s and 30s. And so, randolph became that iconic visual for the air force. As you come through at harmon drive, you see the taj mahal, the administrative building, and its kind of an impressive thing. And for young people coming to the air force, that first sight of this impressive, Tall Building kind of gave them a sense of pride, not only in what they were about to do, but in their country. So i think in that way, randolph was kind of reflective of the pride for our nation at the time. So, in those early films, those films from early world war ii, it was almost a recruitment tool that would be used. The army would use it at different bases throughout the country. The air corps branch of the army would use it here at randolph to kind of highlight and say, hey, you know, if youre thinking about joining, lets join, you know, the air service, the air corps. Back then, the movie was the thing that you would go to. So, every saturday or, you know, the kids would go there and they would see, you know, the randolph, the west point of the air. Theyd see Randolph Air Force base. Theyd see the training. And even then, remember, flying was new, so the idea of actually getting in an aircraft and, you know, leaving the surly bounds of the earth were something that every young person probably would imagine they would be able to do. And for a lot of folks, especially leading into world war ii, i mean, we turned out a lot of pilots for the service in world war ii. So, when you look from this perspective, what you see is you see the layout of the base. So, clark, who laid out the base, was working in a motor pool down at kelly field. And frank lahm, general lahm had been appointed to take care of this flying training here at randolph and to get the base layout. So, clark designed the base. He was an architect in a former life but now was a flying trainer and gunner instructor. And he decided to lay out the base so that there was three flying ramps or flying strips, and then in the middle, it would be a concentric area where centered in the middle in a circular design around the three sides of the air strips, it was easy access. So from any point on the base, you can cut through the circle, through the middle circle, and get to another part of the base, rather than have to walk all around. So its kind of a neat design, and clark wanted to design what he called an air city, and thats what randolph is today. Theres always flying training going on here at randolph. Theres t38s, 26t1s, t6s tha fly. They do what they do here as the mission here for most of the flying training is they train training instructors. So, basically, the aircraft that you hear flying today are already licensed pilots, air force pilots, who are coming here to learn how to train other pilots. How to train other pilots. Its one thing to fly a plane. Its another thing to teach someone else to fly a plane. Thats what they do here at randolph. Were in front of the old hospital on randolph. Its part of the school of aviation medicine complex that came from brooks to randolph when it opened. One of its first enduring missions is to study the physiology of flight. Through world war ii, they developed all types of things like the g suits that help keep pilots conscious during a d dogfight. After the war, it became a focus of Space Training. A lot of people dont realize it, before nasa the air force was in charge of the space aspect of technology and investigative research. As space became more and more the international kind of proving grounds and battlefield, randolph became less and less prominent and much of the Space Training went back to brooks, which became the Human Systems command. But as i speak, that technology has made a full circle. The technology that made randolph possible, the Aviation Technology that was just exploding in the 20s and 30s, now we have a space force. A lot will have started here at randolph. We will hand that baton to the space force. In fact, we already have. As we have learned from just studying this base, you never know where thats going to lead, what technologies. Maybe a new base or maybe an old base that we can visit in 90 years and see what their impact was. Our cities tour staff recently traveled to san antonio, texas he to learn about its rich history. To watch more video, visit cspan. Org citieie cspan. Org citiestour. Were featuring American History tv programs this week as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, from our lectures in history, we will do an academic tour of texas. We start with a history professor teaching about George Washingtons character. He examines how the first president interacted with his contemporaries. American history tv tonight starting at 8 00 eastern on cspan3. Up next, a lecture on the post Industrial Transformation of work from the 1960s to the end of the 20th century. Georgetown University Professor joseph mccarton described barcodes and computers which enabled Global Supply chains. He talks about the more to shareholder capitalist, decrease in union power and increase in income inequality. All right. Welcome. Im joe mccarton. This is history of u. S. Working lives. Today were go being to be talking about a period from 1968 to 1988 that i call turnabout years. I come up with the title this way because of a historian that wrote about the