Post by *~Mrs. Cooper ~* on Dec 29, 2006 2:34:44 GMT -5
1910-1919 - End of Innocence
The decade began with optimism high and continuing economic growth. The country was fox-trotting, discovering jazz music, and learning to drive the more than 10 million automobiles that were now competing with mules and horses for room on America's unpaved roads. War was a thing of the past. Americans were on a high road.
"Most Americans knew that forces of evil were bad, that sin was social as well as personal," historian Martin Marty says, "but they didn't really believe the forces of evil would hold us back."
The established rules were soon to be challenged. Between women's suffrage, racial tension, and labor unrest, the American way of life was about to change. In 1910, hundreds of women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote, a right denied to "criminals, lunatics, idiots--and women." In 1915, widespread growth of Ku Klux Klan chapter throughout the nation led to the terrorizing of immigrants, Jews, Catholics, and especially blacks. In the first six months of 1916, our country saw 2,093 labor strikes and lockouts. Life in the United States bristled with tension.
The outbreak of World War I quickly submerged the undercurrents of change. One June 6, 1917, in the twelve hours between 7:00 A., and 7:00 P.M., 10 million young men registered for the draft.
The war was a noble cause for American's; for Europeans, however, it was shattering. The Battle of Marne claimed half a million lives in a week; a million in two weeks. "Europeans had a sense of the frutility of it all," Marty says. "For Americans, it didn't happen that way. We were over there making the world safe. [Woodrow] Wilson even called our boys 'Christ's soldiers'."
Innocence came to an end in the years between 1914-1919, a time which brought the realization that "hard work, self-reliance, and faith in God is not enough."
* * *
A Decade at a Glance
The decade began with optimism high and continuing economic growth. The country was fox-trotting, discovering jazz music, and learning to drive the more than 10 million automobiles that were now competing with mules and horses for room on America's unpaved roads. War was a thing of the past. Americans were on a high road.
"Most Americans knew that forces of evil were bad, that sin was social as well as personal," historian Martin Marty says, "but they didn't really believe the forces of evil would hold us back."
The established rules were soon to be challenged. Between women's suffrage, racial tension, and labor unrest, the American way of life was about to change. In 1910, hundreds of women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote, a right denied to "criminals, lunatics, idiots--and women." In 1915, widespread growth of Ku Klux Klan chapter throughout the nation led to the terrorizing of immigrants, Jews, Catholics, and especially blacks. In the first six months of 1916, our country saw 2,093 labor strikes and lockouts. Life in the United States bristled with tension.
The outbreak of World War I quickly submerged the undercurrents of change. One June 6, 1917, in the twelve hours between 7:00 A., and 7:00 P.M., 10 million young men registered for the draft.
The war was a noble cause for American's; for Europeans, however, it was shattering. The Battle of Marne claimed half a million lives in a week; a million in two weeks. "Europeans had a sense of the frutility of it all," Marty says. "For Americans, it didn't happen that way. We were over there making the world safe. [Woodrow] Wilson even called our boys 'Christ's soldiers'."
Innocence came to an end in the years between 1914-1919, a time which brought the realization that "hard work, self-reliance, and faith in God is not enough."
* * *
A Decade at a Glance
1911 A Chinese revolution ends the 2,000-year-old Manchu dynasty.
1912 A maiden voyage of the Titanic ends in tragedy.
1912 War breaks out in the Balkans, setting the stage for World War I.
1912 Woodrow Wilson defeats Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft to become president.
1913 The International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York City unveils Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, as well as other modern art, to America.
1913 Federal income tax is introduced in the U.S. through the Sixteenth Amendment.
1914 The first transcontinental telephone call is made.
1914 Albert Schweitzer opens a hospital in the French Congo.
1914 The term movies is coined as the motion picture business emerges.
1915 The Lusitania, a British passenger liner, is sunk by a German submarine, killing 1,198 passengers, including 128 Americans.
1916 Wilson is re-elected.
1917 The United States declared war against Germany.
1918 World War I ends, leaving 8.5 million dead, 21 million wounded.
1919 In some areas, people start dialing phone numbers without the aid of an operator.
1919 A world-wide flu epidemic creates an international public health crisis.
1919 The League of Nations is formed, but the U.S. refuses to join.