Category: Learn History Through Fiction

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).

Kansas has more members of the Pentecostal religion, an evangelical faith, than any other Midwestern state. Charles Parham, the religion’s founder, moved from Iowa to Topeka in 1899 at the age of 26. His arrival caused an uproar in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, which objected to the gospel of “good news,” the belief that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ sins can be forgiven and people reconciled with God. Thus a fundamental Pentecostal requirement is that one be born again. Read about religious tension in America’s heartland 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

On May 28, 1935, the California-Pacific International Exposition opened in San Diego’s Balboa Park. The Palisades buildings were erected in a record few months, including a complete remodeling of the House of Hospitality. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

At the 1910 Chicago Electrical Show, the hot new gadget was a “time-a-phone” which allowed a person to tell time in the dark by the number of chimes for the hour, gongs for the quarter-hour, and a high pitched bell for minutes. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Southern European immigrants, including Italians, were not welcomed in the United States. On December 18, 1880, a New York Times editorial titled “Undesirable Emigrants” railed against the arrival of “promiscuous, filthy, wretched, lazy, criminal dregs [from] the meanest sections of Italy.” Read more about Italian-Americans in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

A World War One victory parade was held in New York City on September 10, 1919 to honor General John J. Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and 25,000 soldiers who had served in the AEF’s 1st Division on the Western Front. Read more about the parade, an uncle’s search for his missing nephew, active duty and the home front in the First World War, and the life of an immigrant family on NYC’s Lower East Side during this era in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was influenced by UNESCO’s 1950 statement “The Race Question,” which scientifically and morally condemned racism, and by the research of Harvard psychologists Kenneth & Mamie Clark whose “doll test” studies showed how racism hurt the self-esteem of young black schoolchildren. Read more about race relations in Topeka 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In the early 1900s, tansy was a frequent choice to induce abortion. The perennial flowering plant, native to Eurasia and found throughout mainland Europe, had been used there as an abortifacient since the Middle Ages. Although ineffective and toxic to the liver in large doses, poor women used it because the cost of a doctor’s abortion was $25 to $75, or two to six times the average weekly wage. Read more about abortion options for women 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In 1941, in San Diego, Robert Oscar Peterson opened his first drive-in restaurant called Oscar’s. Ten years later he founded Jack In The Box, the first drive-through restaurant at 63rd Street and El Cajon Boulevard. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).