The early 1900s in America was a point in time when the Industrial Revolution was changing the way many Americans made a living. The topics in this section cover daily life in this time period and how new inventions changed the working world.
It's hard to believe that less than a century ago, the United States tried its best to legally ban alcohol. Prohibition spawned illegal speakeasies, organized crime and economic turmoil. Learn about it in this article. See more »
The United States economy crumbles and rebuilds itself with astonishing regularity, falling from periods of economic success into panic. What are five of the worst financial panics in history, and what can they teach us about our current recession?
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The most high-tech prison of its day, built on an island of rock and fortified by concrete and steel, Alcatraz was created to house the worst of the worst.
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It's hard to believe that less than a century ago, the United States tried its best to legally ban alcohol. Prohibition spawned illegal speakeasies, organized crime and economic turmoil. Learn about it in this article.
See more »
She was a humble Irish immigrant working as a cook in New York's prestigious Oyster Bay community. Sure, Mary Mallon was a carrier of typhoid fever, but was she really a ruthless murderer? Some say her trademark dessert was to die for -- literally.
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As 2007 comes to a close, it's fascinating to take a look back and see how things have changed. A century ago, most of us could only expect to live until about 50! Check out this list of some of the major events of 1907.
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The Statue of Liberty was given to the United States by France to symbolize freedom. Find out 20 interesting facts about the Statue of Liberty, including statue's real name and when construction began.
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Dust Bowl, the popular name for that part of the southern Great Plains subjected to severe wind erosion during the 1930's.
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The turn of the century brought a new wave of optimism and amazing new technologies. It was also a time of unprecedented expansion in the railroad industry -- until World War I arrived.
See more »Theodore Roosevelt believed that the Chief Executive should be an aggressive leader in both foreign and domestic affairs.
See more »Villa, Francisco (known as Pancho ), the assumed name of Doroteo Arango (1877 - 1923), a Mexican outlaw and revolutionary leader.
See more »Pinchot, Gifford (1865 - 1946), a United States forester and political leader. Pinchot was one of the first persons to advocate planned conservation of natural resources.
See more »Grandfather Clause, a device once used by some states to discriminate against blacks in voting.
See more »Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 1901 - 02, an agreement by which Great Britain recognized the right of the United States to build a canal across Nicaragua or Panama.
See more »Initiative and Referendum, two methods of direct lawmaking by the people. These two devices of direct legislation are sometimes used where the voters have become too numerous or scattered to assemble in one meeting.
See more »Reed, John (Silas) (1887-1920), a United States journalist and revolutionary. He is best known for Ten Days That Shook the World (1919), an eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
See more »La Follette, a family prominent in United States politics and active in the Progressive movement in Wisconsin.
See more »Borden, Lizzie Andrew (1860 - 1927), the defendant in a celebrated murder case of the 1890's.
See more »Louisiana Purchase Exposition, an exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904.
See more »Mooney Case, a controversial California legal case that gained worldwide attention.
See more »Muckrakers, the name applied to certain United States writers who exposed social, economic, and political evils in the two decades before World War I.
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