early 1900s library

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.

Featured Article: How Alcatraz Worked

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. See more »

Articles 21-32 of 32

Olympia

Olympia, in ancient Greece, the site of a sanctuary and of the Olympic Games. It lies in the valley of the Alfiós River in the western part of the Peloponnesus.

Pan American Exposition

Pan American Exposition, an exposition held at Buffalo, New York, in 1901. It commemorated a century of material and cultural progress in the Western Hemisphere.

Panama Canal

Panama Canal, a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panama-California Exposition

Panama-California Exposition, 1915, an exposition held at San Diego, California, to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.

Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, an exposition held at San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.

Platt Amendment

Platt Amendment, an enactment of the U.S. Congress in 1901 defining relations with Cuba, then under United States occupation following the Spanish-American War.

Prohibition

Prohibition, in the United States, the forbidding by law of the sale—and usually also of the manufacture and transportation—of alcoholic beverages.

Pure Food and Drug laws

Pure Food and Drug Laws, federal laws to ensure the purity and safety of foods, drugs, cosmetics, therapeutic devices, and related products.

Rebecca Latimer Felton

Felton, Rebecca Latimer (1835–1930), a United States woman suffrage leader. She was the first woman to serve as a United States senator.

Recall

Recall, a method by which, in certain state and local governments, the voters may remove a public official from office before his regular term expires.

Venustiano Carranza

Carranza, Venustiano (1859–1920), a Mexican general and political leader. He assumed presidential powers in 1914, and in 1915—after a year of civil war—was accepted as provisional president.

Victoriano Huerta

Huerta, Victoriano (1854–1916), a Mexican general and president. Huerta, a full-blooded Indian, was an important military figure in the government of Francisco Madero, who had overthrown the Díaz dictatorship in 1911.