Episodes Nearest to May 9, 1946 to April 16, 1947: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Breaking Barriers in Baseball
    date May 9, 1946 to April 16, 1947map New York, New York, Jefferson, Alabamatags African American, Sports, Baseball

         The difference between the North and South in the United States has been similar to that of night and day. During the period between the 1870s and the 1970s, the South is generally viewed by outsiders as a backward, ultra-racist region, and the North is seen as tolerant and progressive. Only a year apart, Birmingham, Alabama praises its successful Negro League Baseball team, while New York...

  2. Funeral for the founder of Los Altos, California
    date July 30, 1946map Santa Clara, Californiatags Railroad, Urban Life/Boosterism, Paul Shoup, Sarah Winchester

    The development of Los Altos, California, is credited to Paul Shoup and the interurban railroad system. “The father of Los Altos”, died on July 30, 1946, in Los Angeles, California. The memorial service was held at the chapel of Stanford Memorial Church. Ira S. Lillick and fellow members of the board of trustees of Stanford University delivered the eulogies. His family was present, most notably...

  3. Operation Crossroads:  Sailor Witnessed Atomic Bomb Test
    date July 1, 1946 to August 10, 1946map Camden, New Jerseytags Science/Technology, War

    At 0800 hours on July 1, 1946, the United States conducted the Able Test in Bikini Lagoon, the first of three scheduled atomic bomb tests that were part of Operation Crossroads.  Among those who witnessed the atomic bomb test was Joseph Patrick McShane Jr., a nineteen year old sailor from Oaklyn, New Jersey.  From the deck of a transport ship, McShane watched the blast, which was “I think about...

  4. Work In An All-Black Community
    date January 1, 1946 to January 5, 1946map Orange, Floridatags Zora Neale Hurston, Eatonville, life

    Zora Neale Hurston was an African American woman born in the first all African American town in America.  She wrote countless accounts of different things she saw and experienced and this is very important because what she experienced was completely different than what most other African Americans experienced.  In the short story “Turpentine” she accounts when she walks down to see where the...

  5. Greek Immigrants in U.S. find new start
    date January 1, 1946map Jefferson, Alabamatags Greeks, birmingham

    Stamatis Demoes was saddened to leave his Greek hometown behind. He would miss the people and the vineyards he worked in. But he had no choice because his town had been destroyed in an attack by Communist rebels. Demoes was part of the outnumbered troops that fought against them to the very end. After his town was virtually destroyed, Demoes and his family managed to come to Birmingham, AL with...

  6. Reactions to Intigration in Baseball
    date October 25, 1945map New York, New Yorktags Baseball, Segregation, Rickey Branch, Jackie Robinson, Reactions to Intigration

          In the New York Times article entitled, “Rickey Takes Slap at Negro Leagues”, Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers faced a hailstorm of critics as he announced his decision to sign Jackie Robinson to the previously all white Brooklyn Dodgers farm team.  Facing the press, he dispelled the rumors that he had been forced into making the deal, that the Negro leagues had...

  7. Plane Crash near Los Gatos Canyon
    date January 28, 1948map Fresno, Californiatags Plane Crash, Deportees

    Thirty-two people perished when a plane crashed near Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga, California in Fresno County on the 28th of January 1948.  The plane caught fire, starting in the left engine-drive fuel pump, 50 miles after its departure from Oakland California.  The victims of the plane crash include four Americans, Franck attkinson the pilot, his wife Bobbi Attkinson who served...

  8. Secondary Education in Robeson County in 1945
    date May 15, 1945map Robeson, North Carolinatags Education, Pembroke State College, UNCP

    “Thursday May 17, has been set as Senior Day, when high-school senior students of Robeson County are invited to visit the college, see its various activities and mingle socially with its students and faculty,” reports the May 15, 1945, issue of The Robesonian.   As the article described, the students had a full day planned for them at Pembroke State College, including tours of many...

  9. An Act of Heroism
    date June 2, 1948map Orange, Floridatags Susan Wesley, Rollins College

    Greeting incoming Freshman at the start of the 1943-1944 year Miss Susan Wesley assisted in the girls unpacking, settling in, and adjusting to life away from home. A dorm mother to many girls who attended Rollins College Susan Wesley was an employee for the college a total of twenty-four years. The girls depended on Susan to help them through tough times, nurse them to health when sick as well as...

  10. Rerouting the Kissimmee: A Really Good Bad Idea
    date 1948map Osceola, Floridatags Kissimmee River, Army Corps of Engineers, Florda, Conservation

    Florida has always been a huge swampland, with flooding, lakes, and rivers at every turn. It is why Walt Disney was able to acquire all the land necessary for Disney World at such low prices. Florida has also always had flooding issues.  The Kissimmee River, prior to 1962, ran 103 miles from Lake Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee. [1] The problem with this was that the distance between the two lakes...

  11. An Extraordinary Slave Preacher
    date 1949tags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Race-Relations, Slavery

    In 1849 Rev. William White wrote a narrative about African American Preachers. In it he tells the story of a black preacher known as "Uncle Jack." Slave traders kidnapped Jack from Africa when he was seven years out and sold him into slavery in Nottoway, Virginia. When he was forty he heard a Presbyterian Minister from Prince Edward County preach and became religious. White wrote that once Jack...

  12. Levitt & Sons Advertises New Housing Design
    date 1949map Bucks, Pennsylvaniatags Housing, Economy, World War II

    After receiving much criticism on his first mass-produced, low-cost housing design, the influential post-World War II real estate developer, William Levitt, introduced a new design in 1949.  As advertisements for the new Rancher sprang up across Pennsylvania, many citizens, including veterans who would receive significant discounts, flocked to the Exhibit Center in the Levittown suburbs.  The...

  13. Criticism of Japanese Internment
    date January 5, 1944map San Mateo, Californiatags japanese internment camps, World War II, Japanese

    In a letter to the editor of the Los Altos News, Samuel B. Herbert argued against the rhetoric of a Mr. Spenser stating that Japanese people, even citizens, should be exiled from the country and deported back to Japan following the end of the war. Herbert made several valid points for why he disagreed with Mr. Spenser’s statements. Firstly, there were many American born Japanese who were...

  14. Esquire v. Walker: The Varga girl trial
    date October 1, 1943 to November 29, 1943map Dist Columbia, District of Columbiatags Law, Censorship, Pin-up, Varga

    This trial has everyone paying attention.  It is no wonder; the right to display pin-up art in men’s magazines is on trial.  Post Master General Walker is in Supreme Court against Arnold Gingrich and various brilliant lawyers of Esquire.  The prosecutor Walker assembles four assistant post masters to prove that Esquire’s Varga pin-ups “had gone too far in exploiting the...

  15. Old Winter Park Road
    date January 1, 1950map Orange, Floridatags Winter Park, Feminism

    Post World War II the Unites State’s history is shaped by activism. Starting with the African American civil rights movement, feminist and homosexuals found their voice and followed with their own activist movement. Sarah (Mrs. Joe K) Galloway’s story, “Joyce Kilmer Was Right!” is a small representation of this, particularly the feminist movement.

    In her story Galloway tells how in...

  16. An Uncommon Sentiment
    date January 1, 1950 to December 31, 1950map Hamilton, Tennessee, Jefferson, Alabamatags Ethics, Coal, Steel industry, Race Relations, Steel, Coal Industry, Discrimination, Racial Tension, South

    H. S. Chamberlain had a problem on his plate back in the mid-twentieth century.  Everyone sought cheap labor in the steel and coal industries, but feared employing certain groups of people because of their behavior.  Blacks treated with trepidation were the majority of workers in these industries.  For the most part, blacks saw nothing but discrimination and fell under the watchful eyes of white...

  17. Spencers Supports, Supporting Working Women
    date February, 1943map New York, New Yorktags corsets, fashion, working women

    The strong, modern women of the 1940's no longer desired the wasp waist corsets of previous generations.  The new breed of woman wanted practicality.  Hence, the advertisements of the time did not dwell heavily on waist reduction or social expectations, rather, the emphasis focused more on health issues.  An example from Ladies Home Journal published in the February 1943 issue for Spencer Supports...

  18. A Daughter Learns of Anti-Semitism and Heroism in Nazi Occupied Tunisia
    date November, 1942 to May, 1943map Africa, Outside UStags Anti-Semitism, historical memory, Holocaust, Tunisia

    Over 70 years ago, Faiza Abdul-Wahab’s father, Khaled, rescued several Jewish families from German troops occupying the town of Mahdia, Tunisia. After the occupation commenced in November 1942, Nazi and Vichy leaders in Tunisia enacted a set of anti-Semitic laws similar to those in Europe. According to the sources found in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archive, these...

  19. Anti-Semitic Laws and Lawbreakers in Nazi Occupied Tunisia
    date November, 1942 to May, 1943map Africa, Outside UStags Holocaust, Anti-Semitism, Tunisia, historical memory, Africa

    On November 23, 1942, German soldiers arrested prominent Jewish leaders across Tunisia. When Moises Burgel, the President of the Tunisian Jewish community, was arrested, it marked the beginning of the Holocaust in North Africa. By the end of November, Nazi Germany had occupied all of Tunisia and enacted anti-Semitic laws in addition to the Vichy laws already in place. According to the sources found...

  20. A Campaign for Freedom
    date February 7, 1942 to February 14, 1942map Allegheny, Pennsylvaniatags World War II, Civil Rights, Double V Campaign, Freedom

                February 7, 1942, was a day that changed America. Segregation and discrimination had reached a point that was no longer tolerable, and according to the Pittsburgh Courier, it was time for a campaign. The “Double V Campaign,” as it was called, stood for two victories for black Americans: a victory at home and a victory abroad. 

                This...

  21. Despite the Odds, William Neal Brown overcomes discrimination through equal opportunity.
    date December 7, 1941map Newport News, Virginiatags Tuskegee Airmen, Equal Opportunity, Blacks in the military

    All was quiet at the home of William Neal Brown until a broadcaster came over the radio shouting Pearl Harbor has been attacked, Pearl Harbor has been attacked! It was at that moment on December 7, 1941 he decided to volunteer his services for the armed forces of the United States. Brown was living in Newport News, which was a shipyard that built battleships and aircraft carriers to supply the pacific...

  22. Advancements In the Women's Rights Movement
    date October 29, 1951map Worcester, Massachusettstags Women, Women's Rights, suffrage

    Over one thousand women gathered in Worchester, Massachusetts, for a Women's Rights Convention in October 1851. "Wit, humor, truth, poetry, absurdity, and misdemeanor madness, were all component parts of the proceedings and speeches," wrote a journalist for the Daily Alabama Journal. Among the speakers were E. Oakes Smith, Abby Kelly Foster, and Lucretia Mott. The journalist observed...

  23. "US Declared Able to Wage Cold War"
    date November 10, 1952map New York, New Yorktags Cold War, Red Scare

    How ready was the United States ready for the Cold War? On November 10, 1952, an article was printed in the New York Times.  Its purpose was to cover a dinner forum at the New School for Social Research at 66 West Twelfth Street, Manhattan, New York to discuss the need for the continuance of the newly coined “Cold War,” as well as the economic and social ramifications of the war that would...

  24. Teenage School bus Drivers, Black and White, Crash on South Carolina Highway
    date January 20, 1953map Clarendon, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Desegregation, Transportation, Segregation, Supreme Court, Children, Public Schools, Black History, Black Schools, South Carolina, Buses

    “W.H. Ridgeway, the 16-year-old driver of the white bus, sobbed in his hospital bed and told his mother over and over how sorry he was the wreck had happened”

    The Columbia State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper, reported this pitiful scene on January 21st, 1953, under the front-page headline, “Clarendon School Bus Crash Kills 2”. The State ran no pictures of the crash, but the...

  25. Bus Driver, Age 18, Killed in Head-On Collision At Work
    date January 20, 1953map Clarendon, South Carolinatags Clarendon County, workplace safety, highway safety, Buses, African-Americans, South Carolina

    The certificate kept by the Clarendon Memorial Hospital records the death of Willie Lemon, an 18-year-old bus driver involved in a head-on collision on the highway near Jordan, South Carolina, on January 20, 1953. Vital information is recorded on Lemon. He was occupied as a school bus driver. He is listed as an unmarried, colored male from Manning, South Carolina, with no social security number.

    His...