100 Years of 100 Things: US Population & Mortality Shifts; The ERA; New Yorker Cartoons; Roller Coasters

Enjoy some of our favorite recent conversations from the centennial series:

Mark Mather, demographer and associate vice president for U.S. Programs at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) walks us through the shifts over the past 100 years in U.S. birth rates, followed by changes in U.S. mortality statistics.

Julie Suk, a law professor at Fordham University and the author of We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020), reviews the history of the Equal Rights Amendment, from its introduction by Alice Paul in 1923 through its current disputed status, following passage by a 38th state and President Biden's declaration that it's the "law of the land."

• Liza Donnelly, writer and cartoonist at The New Yorker and the author of Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Women Cartoonists, 1925-2021 (Prometheus, 2022) and the substack "Seeing Things", talks about the evolution of the "New Yorker cartoon" over the magazine's 100-year history.
• Co-hosts of The Season Pass podcast, Robert Coker, author of the book Roller Coasters: A Thrill Seeker's Guide To The Ultimate Scream Machines (Main Street, 2002) and Douglas Barnes, talk about the history of roller coasters, from the "Golden Age" of 1920's wooden coasters like Coney Island's Cyclone through modern steel "stratacoasters," like the late lamented Kingda Ka, which was recently imploded to make room for something even bigger.

These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity; the original web versions are available here:

100 Years of 100 Things: US Population Shifts (Jan 2, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: US Mortality Causes (Jan 6, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: The ERA (Mar 4, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: New Yorker Cartoons (Mar 20, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: Roller Coasters (Apr 11, 2025)