AMERICA'S EMERGENCE AT THE FOREFRONT
ENCYCLOPEDIC INFORMATION: HISTORICAL/CULTURAL/SOCIETAL
1910-1919

Kathi Yacio
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I. GENERAL NOTES:

World population:
1900: 1.6 billion, 1910: 1.7 billion, 6.2 percent increase, 1920: 1.9 billion, 11.8 percent increase.  (20I)

After World War I, Victorian innocence is considered over. (20I)  Progressivism endures from 1895 until the first World War, in which many people feel disquieted, and this initiates the occurrence of many reforms.  Labor unions continue to expand, due to middle class dissatisfaction. (10s)
World War I is called the “Great War,” and the “war to end all wars.”  The U.S. is initially neutral, but this is challenged in 1915 when the British ship Lusitania is sunk by the Germans.  By 1917, the U.S. becomes involved in the war, fighting with the Allies, spurred on by unrestricted German submarine warfare.  (HC) This is a war of technology: tanks, which go through barbed wire; machine guns, which enable one soldier to possess the firepower of 40 riflemen; poison gas and chemical warfare, which is actually introduced by the Germans in April 1915.  (AT)
Certain groups of people face discrimination: Lynchings of African-Americans continue.  The first suffrage parade occurs in 1910, and the 19th Amendment is ratified in 1919.  Child labor is rampant, and a minimum age law is passed. (10s)
By 1910, the U.S. possessions extend from sea to sea, Central America, Caribbean, and the Pacific.  In 1916, the Danish West Indies are acquired. (20I)

Total immigrants to the U.S.: (20I)
The decades before and after the 1910’s are included, for comparison.
1901-1910: 8,795,386 - 1907 is peak year
1911-1920: 5,735,811
1921-1930: 4,107,209

Presidents:
William Howard Taft, 3/4/1909 - 3/3/1913, 27th
Woodrow Wilson, 3/4/1913 - 3/3/1921, 28th
http://www.americanpresidents.org/

Daily U.S. newspapers: 1910: 2,433
In 1990, for comparison: 1,611

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II. WORLD WAR I:

This Great War is renamed World War I when its “sequel” breaks out approximately 20 years later.  (DD)  World War I is a “contest not of fighting spirit but of technological might.” (AT)

According to “America’s Time,” American poet Allan Seeger (1888-1916), who joins the American Legion, writes in a diary (date not available), “...it’s a miserable life, shivering in these wretched holes in the dirt...living in our own holes in the ground, only showing our heads outside to fight and to feed.”  He is killed during the war, on July 4, 1916.

By the end of World War I on November 11, 1918, 9 million men’s lives are lost.  The men who return to the U.S. are facing a suffering economy and layoffs.

Sidenote: The story regarding Robert E. Burns, which begins in the next decade, is very effective in relaying the desperation some men may have felt after returning to the U.S. upon the end of World War I.
http://www.uga.edu/ugapress/books/shelf/0820319430.html 
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III. AUTOMOBILES/MASS PRODUCTION: (20I)

In 1913, Henry Ford introduces the first assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan, for the Model-T.  He does not invent the assembly line or the automobile, but allegedly he is the one who thinks of the car as popular transport which should be available to the masses.  Because of his methods, cars are cheaper than horses and carriages (horses require feeding and care even during downtime).  Man hours to make autos fall from 12.5 to 1.5 (no year given), and the price decreases from $850 to $310.  The car has no doors, no side windows, no speedometer, no windshield wipers, and black is the only body color.  Model-T’s had been introduced in 1908, and by 1914, 250,000 have been sold.  Ford knows: raise wages, in turn, raises consumption, in turn, this increases production.  In 1914: industry pays $2.40 a day, Ford pays $5.00 a day, and instead of nine hours in a workday, eight hours.

Eventually more variety in products result.  Cars have a great effect, including that they gave rise to suburbs, shopping centers, weekend recreation/camping, drive-thrus, fast food, and a mobility to women and teenagers where they haven’t been able to travel as freely before.  The cars and the assembly line method are important achievements in themselves, and so are all the societal changes they bring with them.

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IV. POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND FOREIGN RELATIONS:

1910:

A revolution begins in Mexico, overthrowing President Porfirio Diaz the following year. The United States sends military forces, changing the nature of U.S.-Mexican relations. (HC)

1911:

American banana shipper Samuel Zemurray sponsors a coup in Honduras to establish a government more favorable to banana growers. (HC)

The Supreme Court orders the breakup of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, citing the monopoly has engaged in unreasonable restraint of trade in the oil industry. (HC)

1912:

New Mexico and Arizona are admitted as states, the last new states to be admitted to the union until 1959. (HC)

U.S. Marines invade Honduras, Cuba, and Nicaragua to protect American business, agricultural, and political interests. The troops will remain in Nicaragua until 1933. (HC)

Theodore Roosevelt runs as the Progressive party candidate for the White House, drawing votes away from Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Woodrow Wilson wins the election. (HC)

1913:

The Sixteenth Amendment permits Congress to levy a graduated income tax, the beginning of the era of regular personal taxation. (HC)

The Seventeenth Amendment provides for the direct election of U.S. senators. (HC)

1914:

Affects U.S.: World War I breaks out in Europe after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, catapulting most of Europe into a cataclysmic conflict within months. (HC) 

U.S. forces invade the port city of Vera Cruz in Mexico in response to ongoing anti-American acts in the revolution-torn country. (HC)

After ten years of work and 30,000 casualties suffered in its construction, the Panama Canal opens to shipping traffic. (HC)

1915:
Lusitania, a British liner, is sunk off the Irish coast by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. Of the 1,195 lives lost, 128 were U.S. citizens. Even though the Germans had warned Americans not to take passage on British ships, the incident contributed to the rise of American sentiment in favor of entering on the side of the Allies. (HC) 
1916:

Francisco Pancho Villa leads raids into New Mexico, killing 17 Americans. The U.S. military spends the next year chasing him through Northern Mexico to no avail. (HC) 

President Woodrow Wilson narrowly wins re-election with the campaign slogan “he kept us out of war.” (HC)

(also Gender Relations) Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to Congress. (HC)

1917:

British intelligence intercepts a telegram from German foreign secretary Arthur von Zimmerman announcing German plans for unrestricted submarine warfare and an alliance with Mexico should the U.S. enter World War I. (HC)

The U.S. declares war on Germany in response to its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. (HC)

The Jones Act makes Puerto Rico an American territory, granting Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship and allowing them to be drafted for the war effort. (HC)

New legislation requiring immigrants to pass literacy tests severely restricts immigration to the United States. (HC)

Corset donations provide enough steel for two battleships. (20I)

1918:

President Wilson introduces his Fourteen Point proposal for peace in Europe. (HC) 

Fourteen Points, formulation of a peace program, presented (Jan. 1918) by Pres. Wilson near the end of World War I. The program called for a just, unselfish peace that would offer self-government to the European national groups and pave the way for general disarmament and open agreements between nations. The program had two purposes: to reach the people and liberal leaders of the Central Powers, in the hope that their influence would help shorten the war, and to provide an actual framework for the peace discussions. The first aim was successful, but despite the enormous moral authority the Fourteen Points conferred on Wilson, the program's important points were lost in the compromises that came out of the peace treaty). 
(HC)

1919:

The Treaty of Versailles assigns most of the blame for World War I to Germany. The treaty requires Germany to cede territory to France, Belgium, and Poland; give up its colonies; and pay extensive war reparations.  The U.S. Senate refuses to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, opposing the League of Nations and the boundaries drawn by the treaty. (HC)

U.S. authorities deport anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The two go to Soviet Russia but quickly become disillusioned with communism. (HC)

The House of Representatives refuses to seat socialist Victor Berger, a congressman from Wisconsin. After being stripped of his seat, Berger is re-elected, but Congress again refuses to seat him. (HC)

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V. BUSINESS:

1912:

F.F. Woolworth Co. is incorporated when Frank Woolworth buys out several five-and-dime store chains.  (HC)  Woolworth closes its U.S. stores in 1997.

1915:

The U.S. is benefitting from World War I, because it is providing loans to Britain and France, which are in turn purchasing arms from U.S. factories. (AT)

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VI. LABOR:

1911:

TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY (March 25):
A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in lower Manhattan kills 146 seamstresses, causing reforms in the garment industry and stimulating the labor movement.  Many of the workers are teenage girls, some thought to be 14 years old.  The fire starts at approximately 4:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the end of the workday, allegedly by someone dropping a lighted match or cigarette onto a pile of discarded fabric.  The exits had been locked from the outside to keep the workers from slipping out, and many workers are killed when they jump from the building.  The workers had been on strike the year before to demand more safe and sanitary conditions at their workplace.  Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, owners of the company, are acquitted of manslaughter, but when the Triangle factory reopens weeks later in a nearby building, fire inspectors find the exit door blocked by sewing machines.  Speaking about New York, Frances Perkins, who was later (1933) appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt as secretary of labor, and the first female cabinet member in American history,  “We banded ourselves together, moved by a sense of stricken guilt...to prevent this kind of disaster from ever happening again.”  She later says that the New Deal began “in that terrible fire.”  Charles Francis Murphy, who was boss of Tammany Hall for 22 years, was another individual who rallied for change in the labor movement. (AT, HC, NY)

Note on Tammany Hall: (HC)
Tammany Hall is a political force and benevolent association (providing assistance to immigrants and to the poor) in New York City from its beginnings in 1789.  According to www.historychannel.com, “frequently its leadership was identical to the Executive Committee of the local Democratic party, and it was a major or controlling faction in the party in 1821-1872 and 1905-1932.” 

1912:

Congress sets an 8-hour workday for all federal employees. Most American workers continue to work 10- to 12-hour days. (HC)

1913:

The U.S. Department of Labor is founded in response to demands from the nation's leading union, the American Federation of Labor. (HC)

25,000 textile workers walk off the job in the Paterson Silk Strike to demand an eight-hour workday. The six-month strike draws national attention but fails to produce any gains for workers. (HC)

1914:

In an effort to prevent labor conflict, Henry Ford offers workers in his Detroit plants the wage of $5 a day, more than twice the national average. (HC)

1918:

The Supreme Court strikes down the Owen-Keating Child Labor Law of 1916 as unconstitutional. It argues that regulations restricting child labor violate states' rights. (HC)

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VII. PROGRESSIVISM, SUFFRAGE, RACE, AND GENDER:

1911:
New York journalist Harriet Quimby becomes the first U.S. woman to become a licensed airplane pilot, and the second woman in the world to do so. She is the first woman to fly her own aircraft across the English Channel in April 1912. She is killed in an aviation show accident later in 1912.  See sources at end.

1914:

Feminist Margaret Sanger coins the term “birth control” in her newspaper, “Woman Rebel.” (HC)

1915:

The Ku Klux Klan, dormant since the end of the Reconstruction era, is revived in Georgia to promote the ideology of white supremacy. (HC)

D.W. Griffith's motion picture “Birth of a Nation” introduces many innovations to the industry, but is condemned by African Americans for its racism. (HC)

1916:
 
West Indian black nationalist Marcus Garvey moves to New York and opens an American branch of his Universal Negro Improvement Association. (HC)
 
Margaret Sanger opens the first American birth-control clinic in Brooklyn. It is raided by police, and Sanger is jailed for thirty days. (HC)

1919:

Race riots break out in 29 American cities as African-American soldiers returning from Europe and demanding greater civil rights are opposed by mobs of whites. (HC)

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VIII. ART AND ARCHITECTURE:

1913:

The Armory Show in New York introduces cubism to the United States. Among the artists shown are Marcel Duchamp, whose Nude Descending a Staircase shocks visitors. (HC)

Built by Cass Gilbert, the Woolworth Building, a.k.a. the Cathedral of Commerce, opens in lower Manhattan. At 60 stories, it will remain the world's tallest building until 1931.  The 80,000 lights on the building are powered on at 7:30 p.m. April 24, when President Woodrow Wilson, 200 miles away, turns on an electric switch in the White House.  (HC, NY)

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IX. ENTERTAINMENT:

1911:

Irving Berlin's song “Alexander's Ragtime Band” popularizes ragtime for mass audiences. (HC)

1912:

In the movie industry, Universal Pictures is founded by several film producers including German Carl Laemmle, who later heads the company. (HC)

1913:

By 1913, Times Square is a center of the arts and nightlife.  It is lighted by more than a million bulbs, earning the district the nickname “The Great White Way.” (NY)

The modern crossword puzzle makes its first appearance in December 1913 in the New York World's Sunday supplement ("Fun"). The puzzle was diamond-shaped instead of square, and it was reportedly very taxing for the typesetters.  Sources are at end.
1917:

The war infiltrates music; popular songs include “Over There”' by George M. Cohan and “You're In The Army Now” by Isham Jones. (HC)

1918:

In the film industry, Warner Brothers Pictures is incorporated in California by Polish-born filmmakers Harry and Albert Warner and their Canadian-born brother, Jack. (HC)
 
On its tour of Europe, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band spreads the taste for jazz internationally. (HC)

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X. MEDIA:

1910:

At the movies, newsreels are popular, making world news more accessible to Americans. (AT)
 
1919:

The New York Daily News, America's first successful tabloid newspaper, begins publication in New York. (HC)

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XI. SPORT:

1912:

Oklahoma Native American Jim Thorpe wins the pentathlon and decathlon at the Olympics in Stockholm, though he loses his medals when he later admits to having played semi-professional baseball. (HC)
 
1913:

Knute Rockne transforms the game of football with his use of the forward pass. (HC)

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XII. ECOLOGY:

1914:

The last known passenger pigeon dies in the Cincinnati Zoo, making this species extinct. (HC)

1916:

National Park Service is formed.  Sources are below.

1919:

The United States establishes Grand Canyon National Park and Acadia National Park. (HC)

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XIII. SCIENCE

1911:

Chromosome mapping is studied by Thomas Hunt Morgan and Alfred Sturtevant, and Ernest Rutherford theorizes the structure of an atom. (AL)

1912:

Alfred Wegener proposes a theory of continental drift. (AL)

1914:

The first successful heart surgery is performed on animals by Alex Carrel. (AL)

1915:

Albert Einstein proposes the general theory of relativity. (AL)

1917:

Freud publishes “Introduction to Psychoanalysis.” (AL)

1919:

Robert Goddard proposes using rockets to send vehicles to the moon. (AL)

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XIV. TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES:

1915:

Long-distance telephone service begins between New York and San Francisco. (HC)

Alexander Graham Bell says to Thomas Watson via the first transcontinental telephone call, “Mr. Watson, come here...” (AL)
 
1918:

Air mail service begins between Washington, D.C., and New York. Price: 24 cents. (HC)

1919:

Dial telephones are introduced by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Telephone operators, mostly women in the workforce, protest and threaten to strike. (HC)

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XV. PRODUCTS:

1913:

Tobacco gets a boost when the R.J. Reynolds Company introduces its first cigarettes under the brand name Camel. The product's logo is borrowed from a Barnum and Bailey circus ad. (HC)
 
1918:

Lever Brothers introduces Rinso, the first granulated soap flakes for laundry. (HC)

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XVI. FOOD:

1912:

The presence of vitamins is discovered in food. (20I)  Casimir Funk creates the term “vitamine” for what was originally called an “accessory blood factor.” (AL)

1914:

George Washington Carver's experiments with peanuts introduce myriad uses for them and give Southern farmers a new cash crop to grow after boll weevils devastate the cotton industry. (HC)

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XVII. FASHION

1910:

The Gibson Girl (S-shaped silhouette) has the last year of popularity; clothes of a more comfortable fit are beginning to be in demand. (AL)

1914:

The tango dress comes into fashion, based on the popular new dance. Fabrics are influenced by Cubist designs.  (AL)

1918:

Due to a ban on German dyes, clothes are limited to blue, black, and brown, which matches a somber mood. (AL)

1919:

Suffragettes wear new styles with pockets, and men take on the “natural” or “natty” style, with unpadded shoulders and slim pants. (AL)

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XVIII. OTHER EVENTS:

1910:

Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain dies, the same year that Halley’s comet makes its regular appearance.  Twain was born the same year Halley’s comet made its last appearance, 75 years before, in 1835. He had once predicted, “I came in with Halley’s Comet ... and I expect to go out with it.”(AL)

1912:

The Titanic sinks on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. 1,513 passengers are lost, 711 are rescued. (HC)

1918:

An influenza epidemic spreads across Asia and war-ravaged Europe to the Americas. The epidemic eventually kills 20 million people, including 500,000 Americans. (HC)

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XIX. 1910/1920 STATISTICS (AL)

1910:
Population: 92,407,000
Urban/Rural: 42/50
Farm: 35 percent
Life expectancy: Male: 48.4, Female: 51.8
Births/1000: 30.1
Marriages/1000: 13.2
Divorces/1000: 1.1
Deaths/1000: N/A
Per 100,000: Heart: N/A, Cancer: 76, Tuberculosis: 154, Car accidents: 2
Unemployed: 2,150,000
GNP: $35.3 billion
Federal budget: $0.675 billion
National debt: $1.15 billion
Union membership: 2.1 million
Strikes: 1204
Car sales:  181,000
Average salary: $750
Homicides/100,000: 4.6
Suicides/100,000: 15.3
Lynchings: 76
Labor force, male/female: 3.8/1
Public education: $426 million
College degrees: Bachelors: Male/female: 28,700/8,400
Doctorates: Male/female: 399/44
Attendance: Movies, weekly: est. 30 million
Baseball, yearly: 6.8 million
Consumer price index: 28 (1967 equals 100)
Eggs: 34 cents per dozen
Milk: 8 cents per quart
Bread: 5 cents per loaf
Butter: 36 cents per pound
Bacon: 26 cents per pound
Round Steak: 17 cents per pound
Oranges: 48 cents per dozen
Coffee: 28.2 cents per pound
12-day cruise, New York to Halifax, N.S.: $60

1920:
Population: 106,491,000
Urban/Rural: 54/52
Farm: 30 percent
Life expectancy: Male: 53.6, Female: 54.6
Births/1000: 27.7
Marriages/1000: 12.0
Divorces/1000: 1.6
Deaths/1000: 13.0
Per 100,000: Heart: 370, Cancer: 83, Tuberculosis: 113, Car accidents: 11
Unemployed: 2,132,000
GNP: $91.5 billion
Federal budget: $6.4 billion
National debt: $23.7 billion
Union membership: 5 million
Strikes: 3411
Car sales:  1,905,500
Average salary: $1236
Homicides/100,000: 6.8
Suicides/100,000: 10.2
Lynchings: 61
Labor force, male/female: 4/1
Public education: $1.04 billion
College degrees: Bachelors: Male/female: 32,000/17,000
Doctorates: Male/female: 522/93
Attendance: Movies, weekly: est. 33 million
Baseball, yearly: 9.3 million
Consumer price index: 60 (1967 equals 100)
Eggs: 68 cents per dozen
Milk: 17 cents per quart
Bread: 12 cents per loaf
Butter: 70 cents per pound
Bacon: 52 cents per pound
Round Steak: 42 cents per pound
Oranges: 63 cents per dozen
Coffee: 47 cents per pound
Player piano: $475

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XX. TCU

From www.tcu.edu:

At 8:30 am on March 22, 1910, a fire of unproven origin destroyed the magnificent 'fireproof' main building in Waco. Insurance money was small and made only a modest contribution toward paying the debts against the building. The prospect of Waco's providing funds for the rebuilding was so doubtful that several Texas cities, including Dallas, sent invitations for the school to move.
Wise trustees accepted an offer from Fort Worth which provided for a campus of 50 acres (far removed from the center of the growing city), $200,000 in money, and assurance of connections with city utilities and the street car.
For the 1910-11 school year, trustees leased several two story buildings at the comer of Weatherford and Commerce for classes, and TCU students used the lawn of the Tarrant County Court House for their first Fort Worth campus.
On September 6, 1911, the University opened on its new campus with three new buildings: a class room and administration building known then as Main but now known as Reed Hall, a dormitory for women called Jarvis, and a dormitory for men called Goode which stood where the present Clark Hall stands.

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KEY TO SOURCES:

BOOKS:
Barzun, Jacques, “From Dawn to Decadence,” copyright 2000. (“DD” above)
Burns, Ric/Sanders, James/Ades, Lisa, “New York,” copyright 1999. (“NY” above)
Glennon, Lorraine, editor-in chief, “20th Century Illustrated,” copyright 2000. (“20I” above)
Gordon, Lois and Alan, “The Columbia Chronicles of American Life: 1910-1992,” copyright 1995. (“AL” above)

VIDEO:
‘The Century: America’s Time,’ ABC News and the History Channel, 1999. (“AT” above)

WEBSITES:
www.historychannel.com (“HC” above).
http://www.nhmccd.edu/contracts/lrc/kc/decade10.html (“10s” above).

African-American History:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timelin3.html

Crosswords:
http://thinks.com/crosswords/first1.htm
(the next series of text is for one site) http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=28458&tocid=0&query=crossword%20puzzle%2C%20history%20of

Park Service:
www.nps.gov/grca
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=56377&tocid=0&query=national%20park

Progressivism and Suffrage:
http://www.myhistory.org/historytopics/articles/progressivism.html
http://www.pbs.org/onewoman/suffrage.html

Harriet Quimby:
www.harrietquimby.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flygirls/peopleevents/pandeAMEX05.html

Allan Seeger:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/seeger.html
http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/listallies.html

Titanic:
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/index.shtml

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