In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...
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. ...
In 1914 in Walker County, Alabama, pellagra was prevalent. Dr. C. A. Grote, the County Helath Officer, was desperately trying to understand the cause of, and find a treatment for, the disease. He spent that year observing the disease with the assumption that it was infectious in nature. He used "preventative measures" against pellagra the same as he would against any other infectious disease. He...
Everyone is familiar with the myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow who kicked over the lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire. Far fewer are familiar with the story of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. A cigarette and not a cow was rumored to have caused the destruction. More important than the causes are the outcomes. The Baltimore Fire of 1904 led to important change in fire safety equipment....
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...
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...
Most people assume anti-eugenics sentiment only started to occur after the Second World War however that is not the case.[1] As early as the 1910’s sociologists like Maximilian P. E. Groszmann and A.L Sweet raised concern about eugenics; they wasn’t against eugenics as a whole but did disagree with its use in crime and punishment.[2] There were three main arguments against...
The opening and subsequent expansion of the Henry Ford Factory in 1903, among many other factors, led to the population of the city of Detroit skyrocketing to one million residents between the years of 1910 and 1920. The rapid expansion of urban populations led to concerns that the remaining farmers would not be able to grow enough to feed them all. Some urban intellectuals suggested that people...
In 1917 at the annual meeting of the Alabama Medical Association in Mobile Alabama Dr. Partlow stood in front of the committee and said “we have succeeded in getting the legislature to enact into law “The Alabama Mental Deficiency Bill,” which looks to establish of “ The Alabama Home” the for "Feeble-Minded". After 20 years of lobbying and research Alabama found itself in position to...
Parents of children in New York City in 1859 had great reason to fear scarlet fever. Per historian John Duffy, in its endemic state, scarlet fever killed one to two hundred young people in New York every year, and was worse during epidemic years. Parents were not alone in fearing the disease. Physicians dreaded an encounter with scarlet fever because they knew little about treatment and frequently...