Month: September 2018

(More about foul weather at a time when our minds are preoccupied by hurricanes and typhoons) Hail is formed during thunderstorms when there is an intense updraft, high water content increases, and, if the storm cloud is well below freezing, ice water forms. The colder the air temperature, the more hail. Hailstones are essentially layers of ice, sometimes too small to be noticed, other times golf-ball size or larger. Hailstorms can last 10-15 minutes. Read about a devastating Kansas hailstorm a century ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS.)

Nearly half the U.S. soldiers who fought in World War One were foreign born. Because of large-scale immigration at the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. changed from a population that was 60 percent British and 35 percent German at the time of the Civil War into the proverbial “melting pot” at the start of the Great War: 11 percent British, 20 percent German, 30 percent Italian and Hispanic, and 34 percent Slavic. In fact, one-third of all Americans were foreign born or the children of immigrants. WWI draftees, who today we might call “hyphenated Americans,” spoke 49 different languages. Although it made communication difficult, the recruits performed splendidly on the battlefield and were proud to fight — and die — for their country and its principles of democracy and inclusion. Read more about the era of WWI and the lives of an immigrant family on the Lower East Side in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

In 1909, two years before the infamous 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, shirtwaist factory workers in New York City went on strike to demand higher pay, shorter hours, and better working conditions (including ventilation, lighting, and bathroom breaks). Many manufacturers agreed, but not Triangle which instead fired 150 suspected union sympathizers. Read more about sweatshop labor 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

New York City has always had a greater percentage of immigrants as part of its total population than the U.S. as a whole. Right before World War I, over 40% of its population was immigrants. After restrictions were passed in the 1920s, immigrants as a percentage of the city’s population dropped to 18% by 1970, before bouncing back up to 36% in 2000. Read more about NYC’s immigrant population one hundred years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

One of four pairs of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, and stolen in 2005 from a museum in her home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, has been found. The FBI, which conducted the undercover operation, is still searching for those responsible. Read more about The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

The Mafia, a.k.a. the Mob, established a stronghold in Las Vegas during Nevada’s anti-gaming legislation (1911-1931) and national Prohibition (1920-1933). Both thrived in underground casinos and speakeasies. Read more about how the Mafia first infiltrated Las Vegas 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In honor of Labor Day: Unsanitary Chicago meat-packing conditions documented in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle included mixing rat droppings, dead rodents, and sawdust into sausages; adding red dye to spoiled meat to make it look fresh. There were even reports of workers falling into rendering tanks, being ground together with animal parts, and sold as lard. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).