Category: Learn History Through Fiction

In the late 19th and early 20th century, U.S. laundry labor was heavily identified with Chinese Americans. Discrimination, lack of English, and lack of capital kept them out of other careers. Around 1900, one in four ethnic Chinese men in the U.S. worked in a laundry, typically 10-16 hours a day. Read more about Chinese laundry workers and anti-Chinese discrimination in the early 1900s in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Adolf Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun (who became his wife less than two days before they committed suicide by cyanide) came from a respectable Bavarian Catholic family, daughter of a school teacher and traditional housewife. She met Hitler when she was 17 and he was 40, and described him to a friend as a “gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache, light-colored English overcoat, and carrying a big felt hat.” When Braun became Hitler’s companion two years later, she kept up habits he criticized including smoking, sunbathing in the nude, and wearing makeup made of animal products (Hitler was a vegetarian). Disapproving Nazi party officials referred to her as “The Fuhrer’s Whore.” Braun pampered her two Scottish Terriers, named Negus and Stasi, who she featured in home movies. She was an avid photographer who did her own dark room processing, and took many of the pictures and films of Hitler that survived the war. Read more about Nazi Germany and Hitler’s inner circle in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the early 1900s, Chicago was less racially segregated than it is now. However, the first part of Dan Ryan Expressway, built in 1961-62 to make it easier to get downtown, runs between the white west-side “Bridgeport” neighborhood and the “Black Belt” on the east side. Its effect was to divide the city and isolate blacks. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

As charming as viewers find the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, filming it was hazardous to the actors. Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, suffered second degree and third degree burns during the second take of her fiery exit from Munchkinland as her billowing cape trailed behind her broomstick. After recuperating at home for six weeks (during which the star Judy Garland visited her), she insisted a stand-in do all of the fire scenes. Buddy Ebsen, who originally played the Tin Woodsman, had an allergic reaction to the silver paint and was hospitalized with lung problems. He was replaced by Jack Haley and the composition of the paint was changed. Read more about the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Upton Sinclair, muckraking author of The Jungle, a 1906 novel about the horrors of the Chicago meat-packing industry, later founded the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He ran unsuccessfully as a Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Congress in the 1920s and lost a bid for governor in 1934, after founding the End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement. Read more Chicago and California history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The little people (then called “midgets”) who played Munchkins in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz ranged in age from 20 to 40. They included several married couples, twin brothers, and four members of the Doll Family: Daisy, Gracie, Harry, and Tiny. MGM was determined to use real midgets, not children. The studio advertised all over the country, visited circuses, and sent out talent scouts. As word got out, every little person in the country arrived in Hollywood by bus and train to audition. MGM eventually hired 122 little adult performers to populate Munchkinland, supplemented by ten child actors. Read more about the Munchkins and the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the last century, Pentecostals defied norms calling for racial segregation and enforcement of Jim Crow laws. Women were also vital to the early Pentecostal movement, believing baptism in the Holy Spirit empowered them to engage in activities traditionally denied them. The Pentecostal Church was one of the first religious groups to ordain women. Their progressive attitudes put Pentecostals at odds with their conservative Kansas neighbors, often leading to violent clashes. Read about religious tensions in America’s heartland 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

During WWII, Henry Ford hired little people (then called “midgets”) to build B-24 bombers on the assembly line at his plants in Ypsilanti, Michigan and Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were recruited from circus sideshows and the entertainment industry, and had the advantage of being small enough to crawl into the wings and buck rivets from inside. Each B-24 required 313,237 rivets so there was plenty of work for them to do. Read more about WWII and little people in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Although Nevada’s anti-gambling laws went into effect soon after Las Vegas incorporated in 1911, the city’s diversified economy and stable business base allowed it to grow until 1917. However, when the war effort diverted railroad activity and a national rail strike followed in 1922, the city’s finances suffered. Compounded by prohibition (1920-1933), Las Vegas became fertile territory for illegal activity. Jim Ferguson, a.k.a “King of the Tenderloin,” was the state’s first organized crime boss, who easily bootlegged moonshine by paying off local politicians. Read more Las Vegas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Women’s hats went wild in the late 1930s. Tall toques were made even higher with extra feathers. On occasion they were decorated with velvet petals or a mass of roses, violets, or clusters of lilies of the valley. One of the most useful styles to emerge was the cache-misère turban which enabled the wearer to hide her tresses on a bad hair day while still appearing immaculately groomed and elegant. Read more about fashion trends in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).