Author: annsepstein@att.net

Composer Julia Wolfe sought the right scissors — dozens of pairs — for the January 24th premiere by the New York Philharmonic of her oratorio “Fire in My Mouth,” which commemorates the 1911 Triangle Waist Company factory fire that killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrant women. Scissors manufactured by Wiss made the satisfying “swoosh” sound Wolfe sought. The Crossing chamber choir “plays” them in the oratorio, which also features 146 girls from the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. Read more about a young Italian immigrant who survives the Triangle fire in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The California Gold Rush began 171 years ago today (January 24, 1848) when carpenter James Marshall found shiny flakes in the American River near Sutter’s Mill in the Sacramento Valley. “It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold,” he said. Days later, the treaty ending the Mexican-American War left California in the hands of the U. S. The following year, “Forty-Niners” quintupled California’s population to 100,000. During the gold rush, miners extracted more than 750,000 pounds, but after gold became scarce, many stayed on. By the end of the decade, the state boasted 380,000 residents. Fifty years later, California experienced another “boom” when movies became the next bonanza. Hollywood, later dubbed “The Silver Screen,” became the seat of the film industry in the early 1900s. While movie-making now takes place the world over, greater Hollywood is still the major site of production. Today the U.S. television and film industry employs an estimated 2.1 million people. Read more about Hollywood and movie history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

The largest wave of Italian immigration to the United States (Stati Uniti) took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Between 1820 and 1978, 5.3 million Italians immigrated to the U.S., including over two million between 1900 and 1910. Only the Irish and Germans immigrated to this country in larger numbers. Read more about Italian immigrants to the U.S. 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Ratification of the 18th Amendment, which instituted Prohibition (1919-1933), was supported by many proponents of temperance, including religious fundamentalists and women battling domestic violence. But anti-immigrant racism was also a major factor, fueled by the so-called second Ku Klux Klan, which warned against the “foreign invasion of undeveloped races” whose members, stereotyped as saloon-drinking brawlers, “threatened the white Protestant American way of life.” Catholics, African-Americans, and Jews (who ironically rarely drank outside the home) were major targets of anti-drinking crusades, which often turned violent. The reign of terror drove many working-class families toward the Democratic Party, which opposed Prohibition. The legislation also gave the U.S. government an unprecedented role in law enforcement, which continues to this day. Read more about this era and anti-immigrant discrimination in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

One hundred years ago today (January 15, 1919), the Great Molasses Flood devastated Boston’s North End. By midday, the temperature had soared to 40 degrees after having dropped to 2 degrees earlier in the week. Rivets of a 50-foot molasses storage tank, owned by U.S. Industrial Alcohol, began to shoot into the air, followed by a roaring sound as 2.3 million gallons of molasses, a dark tidal wave 25 feet high by 160 feet wide and weighing 26 million pounds, flooded the busy waterfront neighborhood at 35 mph (belying the expression “slow as molasses”), killing 21 people, aged 10 to 78. The explosion should not have come as a surprise. The previous summer, one of the hottest on record, nearby residents noticed drips running down the tank’s walls. The owners reacted by painting the outside rust-brown, the color of molasses, to hide the leaks. Despite trying to place the blame on anarchists, the company was held responsible and fined the equivalent of $15 million in today’s dollars. Researchers later concluded that among the tank’s many design flaws, the walls were too thin. The foreman in charge of the project had no technical training and couldn’t even read blueprints. In response to this disaster, the Boston Building Department thereafter required detailed calculations and expert review before approving building permits. Many other municipalities followed. Read about how other fatal industrial accidents in the early 1900s led to construction and occupational reforms in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In some ways, life in the village of Loro Piceno, on the east coast of central Italy, hasn’t changed in over 100 years. You get samples of homemade Vino Cotto (literally cooked wine), wherever you go. Butchers still make ciauscolo, the Italian salami typical of Marche. Musicians serenade guests with instruments made of sticks and bones. Read more about this idyllic Italian village a century ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Researching a story on the activism of female circus performers in the suffragette movement, I learned about the history of women and tattoos. At the height of its popularity in the mid-19th century, the circus was one of the few places where women could earn an independent living as sideshow performers. They took advantage of the public’s fascination with body art to tattoo themselves. Ink also became an expression of independence for Victorian women outside the circus, particularly socialites who used it as a form of rebellion. Required by custom to keep their bodies covered, they brought tattoo artists into their homes to ink them in places that could be hidden. Even royals got in on the act. Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston’s mother, had a snake tattoo on her wrist, handily covered by a lace-trimmed sleeve or camouflaged by a bracelet. By the turn of the 20th century, three-quarters of New York City’s society ladies had adopted the fashion, favoring tattoos of butterflies, flowers, and dragons. You could say the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves was written on women’s skin. Discover more facts unearthed while researching the reality behind fiction in BEHIND THE STORY.