Episodes Nearest to January 1, 1910 to March 5, 1920: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Industrial competition between Chicago and Pittsburg
    date 1915map Cook, Illinoistags Pittsburg, Chicago, Steel and Iron Industry, Economy

    Internal competition in a country can be a strong force for development and improvements in some industries.  This “American versus American” phenomenon appeared in many industries in the US. In the early twentieth century, the United States was still developing. At that time, many industries were still in their early stage  -- the car industry and aviation industry, for example. Because these...

  2. The Lynching of Leo Frank
    date August 17, 1915map Cobb, Georgiatags Anti-Semitism, Crime/Violence, Lynching

    On August 17, 1915, Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman awoke to 25 armed men storming into the jail he was being held at in Milledgeville, Georgia. Despite faulty and clear mishandling of evidence, as well as forced confessions from many witnesses, Frank was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 13 year old Mary Phagan, a young girl that was employed in his factory. However, influenced...

  3. Immigrants Who Couldn’t Get on The Train
    date 1914map Cook, Illinoistags Migration/Transportation, Railroad

    In 1914, Stephen Graham, a traveler from Britain, was riding a train towards Chicago. Upon arriving at the station, he was comparing the American rates with the Russian rates and Great Britain rates: “The cost of working is more in America than in Russia, and the trains are twice as fast; but that is not enough to set off against the enormous differences in fares. . . It is absurd to compare the...

  4. America’s Health Threat - The Industrial Revolution
    date 1914map Elkhart, Indianatags Farm Labor, Health, Pollution

    In 1914, Stephen Graham, a traveler from Britain, was tramping along the border of Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan, from Toledo to Angola, Indiana. He was entering the West, where fields were wide and square and roads were straight and flat. One evening, he stopped and took a rest at a farm, where he noticed that there was no labor but just the family working in the field. He noted in his journal,...

  5. With poor immigrants to America
    date 1914map New York, New Yorktags European immigrants, America in 19th Century., Immigrants

    In 1914, Stephen Graham, an European, wrote a book describing his first journey in the United States and why he was so impressed. First, he wrote about why he came to U.S., “I came to America to see men and women and not simply bricks and mortar, to understand a national life rather than to moan over sooty cities and industrial wildernesses. Hundreds of thousands of healthy Europeans passed annually...

  6. How the United States Differentiated Itself From England
    date 1914map New York, New Yorktags Differences, Immigrants

    What were people truly gaining from venturing to America? This is what many like the writer below quested to experience and understand.  Stephen Graham, a British traveller, walked about New York City and stopped to converse with an American man in a club. The man opened Graham’s eyes to the American mentality when Graham asked if it was embarrassing to take such great risks such as death and...

  7. At the Hands of “los diablos tejanos”
    date September, 1915map Hidalgo, Texastags Mexican-American, Texas Rangers, Treaty Guadalupe Hidalgo, Lynching, Protocol of Queretaro, Borderlands, General Frederick Funston, Texas-Mexico border

    During the first week of September in 1915, Texas Rangers prowled searching for Mexican bandits in Cuevitas, Texas.  An article in the Boston Daily Globe, reported that a Ranger called his fellow companions to come to a halt.  He spotted a group of Mexican men around a campfire and descended from his horse towards them.  The Rangers caught the riders by surprise and quickly placed them...

  8. The FDR and Lucy Mercer Affair
    date November, 1913 to 1913map Albany, New Yorktags The Great Depression, Affair, FDR, Lucy Mercer

    Franklin D. Roosevelt will forever be remembered for his public contribution to our nation during the Great Depression years. However, the confidence FDR exuded publically was also used in a more private nature. Late in 1913 Lucy Mercer was hired by Eleanor Roosevelt to act as a social secretary and as such she managed any of the paperwork and social affairs of Eleanor. When FDR first saw Lucy,...

  9. The Beverly Beacon: Rise of Women's Voice in Media Publications
    date November 1, 1913map Essex, Massachusettstags Women, Politics, women's rights, Media

         In New England at the turn of the twentieth century women took pen to paper to address the struggles among women in the fight for equality. The Beverly Beacon was the first all women published newspaper. Emerging in the early 1900s, it expressed women's opinions about social, economic, and political aspects of life in the rural New England town of Beverly Massachusetts. The women...

  10. 1916 Jersey Shore Shark Attacks
    date 1916map Atlantic, New Jerseytags Shark Attack, 1916, Jersey Shore, New Jersey

    During the summer of 1916, five people were injured by a Great White Shark along the Jersey Shore area of New Jersey. Four of the victims were bitten while swimming in areas that were not considered to be a hotspot for sharks, and the other victim was bitten while trying to rescue another person. At first, many people had no idea what type of animal could have attacked these people, and journalists...

  11. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916
    date September 1, 1916map Dist Columbia, District of Columbiatags Progressive Reformers, Lewis Hine, Keating-Owen Act, Child Labor

    Congress drafted the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 as a means to regulate youth labor.  This Act was named for its sponsors, Democratic Representatives Edward Keating and Robert Latham Owen.  The Act prohibited the shipment or delivery for shipment for interstate or foreign sale of any goods or services that were produced by laborers under the age of 14 in a factory, shop or cannery...

  12. Frederick A. Blossom resigns post as Director of the National Birth Control League
    date December 8, 1916map Allegheny, Pennsylvaniatags birth control, Frederick A. Blossom, Birth Control Movement, Margaret Sanger, Virginia T. Heidelberg, NBCL

    Conflict remained high between Frederick A. Blossom, a socialist party member from Cleveland, and the members of the Executive Committee of the National Birth Control League. The Executive Committee of this organization advocated the removal of birth control from “the category of obscene materials and information”. The open bill versus the doctors-only bill was the contested topic up for debate. ...

  13. The New York Milk Committee Preaches Pure Milk by Moving Pictures
    date March 24, 1913map New York, New Yorktags Health/Death, Women, Progressive Reformers, Urban Society, Food Regulation

    Urban infants in the 1840s had only a 50 percent chance of living to the age of five. Progressive reformers believed that high infant mortality was linked to adulterated and infectious milk, a concern that remained even after New York passed regulation laws. On March 25, 1913, the Committee of Women's Organizations of the New York Milk Committee held a meeting to educate mothers living in the...

  14. The March for Freedom
    date March 3, 1913map Frederick, Virginiatags Women, Women's Rights

    The day was March 3, 1913 in Washington D.C., many women at the time have wanted equal rights, that they were not receiving, so many important women icons decided to act upon their beliefs. The women gathered 5,000 supporters, such as Mrs. Taft. She and other supporters walked down Pennsylvania Avenue in hopes of rallying the crowd and getting as many supporters as possible. The women used decorated...

  15. Patriotism or Equal Rights: The Suffragist’s Dichotomy during World War I
    date February 26, 1917map Dist Columbia, District of Columbiatags Women, women's rights, suffrage, World War I

    The Great War in Europe had already lasted much longer than anticipated by the early months of 1917. Despite a long-standing precedent of neutrality in the face of foreign conflict, the United States steeled itself for the possibility of war. On February 26, 1917, the New York Times ran an article entitled "Suffragist Pledge Aid to the Nation" covering the National American Woman Suffrage...

  16. The Espionage Act of 1917
    date 1917map Dist Columbia, District of Columbiatags World War I, J. Edgar Hoover, Espionage Act, Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, A. Mitchell Palmer

    In 1917 the United States Congress passed the Espionage Act while involved in World War I. This act made it illegal for someone to obtain, distribute, or possess information relating to the national defense of the United States, her dependents, or those under her control or jurisdiction. The act also made it illegal to aid, conspire, or share any information or documents relating to national defense....

  17. Land for African American Schools
    date July 4, 1912map New Hanover, North Carolinatags Education, african americans

    “After a lengthy and at times acrimonious debate, the House today passed a bill conveying to the board of education of New Hanover County, N.C., thirty-four acres of land in the city of Wilmington for the erection of an industrial school for Negroes,” reported the Raleigh News and Observer. African Americans in the early twentieth century faced poverty, joblessness, poor housing, unequal...

  18. Morality and Birth Control- What Every Woman Should Know
    date February, 1918map New York, New Yorktags women's health, Margaret Sanger, birth control

     

    Morality and Birth Control by Margaret Sanger is a pamphlet written in 1918 questioning the morality of denying the knowledge of birth control to working class women. She compares the lack of education given to women at that time to the “shackles of slavery.” Sanger believes that birth control is the first step towards women’s freedom. She gives several examples of how not...

  19. Citizens Appeal to the White House to put an end to Lynching
    date May 19, 1918map Brooks, Georgiatags letters, Women

    On the night of Thursday, May 16, 1918 assailants killed white farmer, Hampton Smith in his home and wounded his wife in Brooks County, Georgia. The next night a white mob lynched two black men in conjunction with Smith's murder. By Sunday a mob lynched two tenants of Smith, husband and wife, Hayes and Mary Turner, while another black man went missing, also believed to be involved in Smith's...

  20. Lumbee Education in Segregated North Carolina
    date September 5, 1911map Robeson, North Carolinatags Normal school, Lumbee, Segregation, Indians

    “The State is in earnest in her effort to educate all of her children” declared H. L. Edens on September 5, 1911. The remark was made in an announcement that declared the Indian Normal School of Robeson County, which would later become the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, had been accepted “as a State institution.”

    In a time in which the South was entrenched deeply in the...

  21. Middle-Class Blacks on Lynching
    date August 31, 1911map New Hanover, North Carolinatags middle-class, Lynching, african americans

    “The key to success for our race depends not on uprising and quarrels, but on the obedience to law and order.” Doctor W.M. Alexander echoed these words throughout a congregation of 500 prominent African American men at a conference in Wilmington. During the discussions on lynching and the crime rate among African Americans, Alexander argued to his constituents that submission to law was the...

  22. Spanish Influenza Aspirin Scare
    date October, 1918 to 1918map Jefferson, Alabamatags Medicine/Health, epidemic, influenza

    In 1918 the American Bayer aspirin manufacturer ran an advertisement in the October 18, 1918 edition of the Birmingham News, assuring readers that “the manufacture of Bayer-Tablets and Capsules of Aspirin is completely under American control.” They wanted to assure readers that they were “being operated as a 100% American concern” and that the overseers of that operation were all...

  23. Flu Ravages Families in Birmingham
    date October 20, 1918map Jefferson, Alabamatags Medicine/Health, influenza

    Ms. Lucy Dickinson, writing for the Birmingham News in October 1918, sent out an urgent plea to the city for a foster mother. An infant had been brought to the Children's Hospital by neighbors who had been caring for him. The baby's parents were victims of the epidemic “Spanish” influenza and were being treated at the local infirmary. Dickinson explained that the two "big-hearted fellows”...

  24. Fun Times During the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic
    date October 21, 1918map Jefferson, Alabamatags influenza, Medicine/Health

    On October 21,1918, Birmingham News staff writer Henry Vance told his readers “[i]t is much better to be interned than interred.” The Spanish influenza had reached Birmingham, and officials had advised citizens to stay inside to avoid infection. Each day Vance featured a new game idea suitable for families to play while they remained indoors. In number six of a series called “Indoor...

  25. 30th Division in Combat
    date October 29, 1918map Orange, North Carolinatags 30th division, Sergeant V. J. Johnson, World War I Letter, Pvt. Jesse M Avery

    When soldiers were sent to war, they left behind loved ones who anticipate the worst; not knowing the status of their soldier was the biggest scare of all.  The only way a soldier could update his or her family was by keeping in touch with them by letters. The strength a letter carried was remarkable; a few words written on a piece of paper would easily keep the mind from wondering or worrying.  ...