1910's Notes

The Sinking of the Titantic
The Titanic was the unsinkable ship, so they said. On April
14, 1912  enormous icebergs were sighted in the direct path of the Titanic, but little did they know one of the icebergs was going to kill the majority of them. By 11:40 p.m. the iceberg had then done the damage, by scraping the edge. The Titanic's bow was under at 2:17am. Seeing chaos all over and panicked faces was a tragedy its self. At 3:00 am the Titanic had totally vanished. The sinking of the Titanic was a major event of the second decade.
Facts about the Titanic
Capacity was 3,547 people
Length was 882.9 feet
Width was 92.5 feet
Weight was 46,328 tons
There were 20 life boats
705 people survived 
329 First Class survivors

Slang
1. cooties - untouchable
2. duck soup - really easy
3. take a gander - look at
4. grifter - con artist
5. you're such a heel - loser, jerk
6. hoosegow, pokey - jail
7. keen - cool, sharp
8. nickel and dime you to death - keep increasing and adding to what's needed
9. rinky dink - lame, old, run down

Facts to Know:
Population: 93,000,000         Average Salary: $750.00 a year
Life expectancy: 51 female, 48 male  1/1000 divorces
New York City – fastest growing city and center of US wealth
Presidents: Taft, Woodrow Wilson
Music: Ballroom Decade, Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, Foxtrot, Tango
Film – Birth of a Nation – controversial film that stereotyped blacks and increased prejudices
Toys: Erector sets, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys
Top Cites in 1910  - NYC (6.5 M) , Chicago (2.5M) , Philadelphia (2M), Boston (1.5M), Pittsburgh (930,000)
Unemployed 2,150,000
National Debt:  $1.15 billion
Attendance:  Movies 30 million per week
Lynchings:  76        Divorce:  1/1000
Vacation:  12 day cruise  $60
Milk $.32 / gallon  Hamburger 2 lbs. .25
Ladies coat 12.50 Two big cans of pineapple .35  Picture show .10
Vacuum cleaner 5.00
Kewpie Dolls
Raggedy Ann Dolls (1915)
Labor Unions continued to grow
 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire kills 145 female workers
 minimum age law passed to limit child labor abuses
 18th amendment to start prohibition
 19th amendment ratified in 1919 giving women the right to vote

FASHION
Women’s skirts become narrower and hemlines rise above the ankle
Cross cropped hair worn under hats
Arabian look, soft loose materials
Liberation from the corset
Freedom to wear trousers, short hair
Hair under turbans
The hemline of their fashionable skirt became higher and rose above the ankles. This was partly because women began to work in the garden and using cars more often. They needed a higher skirt so the material didn't get in the way of the accelerator or brakes.

SPORTS
One of the sports heroes of 1910's was baseball player Ty Cobb of Royston, Georgia. One of the first 5 players named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Best hitter and overall player of his time.

Another sport hero of the 1910's was American Indian, Jim Thorpe.  Way before Deion and Bo, Thorpe was one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time and won several gold medals. He played football, baseball, and participated in several Olympic track and field events.

1914-1918 The Great War

Americans neutral providing food and supplies only until 1917
Why fought?  Serbia declares war on Austria/Hungary and assassinates the Duke and Duchess. Germany joins with them. High tensions between the nations of nationalism, imperialism, and militarism.
Allies: France, Britain, Russia, US, Italy
Central Powers: Germany, Austria/Hungary, Turkey/Ottoman Empire
Results:
US Deaths – combat 53,513    Other 63,195  Cost: $18.7 billion
Germany would pay restitution for losses suffered by Allies, accept responsibility for the war, lose land, be limited in their military size, lose overseas colonies
US emerges as one of the most important world powers
Sets stage for WWII
Wartime laws that forbid people from speaking out against the gov’t.
Socialist and pacifists arrested for their actions

Woodrow Wilson’s plan for peace – Fourteen Points
-End of secret agreements, freedom of the seas, free trade, limit on arms, principle of self-determination, form the League of Nations for world peacekeeping.
-(rejected by Senate because would lead to more distrust by American people of the gov’t., showed we shouldn’t have been involved in the war to start with, committed the US to help in future wars.

Panama Canal opens in 1914. Biggest problems – malaria, yellow fever, digging through mountains, system of locks and pumps, landslides

The Lusitania an ocean liner on its 202 voyage across the Atlantic is sunk by a German u-boat (submarine). One of the major causes that leads the US to get involved in the war.

At The Movies - The Little Tramp
In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made him the highest-paid actor — possibly the highest paid person — in the world.
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, was the most famous actor in early to mid Hollywood cinema era, and also a notable director. His principal character was "The Tramp": a vagrant with the refined manners and dignity of a gentleman who wears a tight coat, oversized pants and shoes, a derby or bowler hat, a bamboo cane, and his signature toothbrush moustache. Chaplin was one of the most creative personalities in the silent film era; he acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually scored his own films.

TIMELINE
1910 
Boy Scouts of America and Campfire Girls are founded
1911 
Triangle Shirtwaist fire leads to reforms in building codes and labor laws
First electric self-starter for automobiles
First air conditioner invented
1912
U.S. Public Health Service is established
Arizona becomes the 48th state
Woodrow Wilson elected as U.S. president
Sinking of the Titanic
First use of zippers in clothing


1913
In Georgia – Leo Frank Trial
- case of anti-semitism in the murder of Mary Phagan
1914
Outbreak of World War I
Panama Canal opens
1915
Fist use of poison gas in warfare
Death of educator Booker T. Washington
1916 
Albert Einstein proposes Theory of Relativity
Woodrow Wilson reelected as U.S. president
1917
The United States enters World War I
1918
President Woodrow Wilson proposes Fourteen Points, a plan for world peace

-

1919
Communist rising crushed in Germany
Treaty of Versailles signed in Paris
First airline links established between London and Paris
Worldwide influenza epidemic
White Sox' scandal
Prohibition starts – 18th Amendment

White Sox Scandal Background

The 1919 World Series resulted in the most famous scandal in baseball history. Eight players from the Chicago White Sox (later nicknamed the Black Sox) were accused of throwing the series against the Cincinnati Reds. Details of the scandal and the extent to which each man was involved have always been unclear. Despite being acquitted of criminal charges, the players were banned from professional baseball for life.
No club played better in 1919, but few were paid so poorly. Many knowledgeable observers believe that it was the owner’s stinginess that is largely to blame for the Black Sox scandal: if Comiskey had not grossly underpaid his players and treated them so unfairly, they would never have agreed to throw the Series. Comiskey was able to get away with paying low salaries because of the "reserve clause" in players' contracts. This clause prevented players from changing teams without the permission of the owners. Without a union, the players had no bargaining power.

More Inventions!
Jan Matzeliger Shoemaking machine 1883
Whitcomb Judson zippers 1893
King Gillette safety razors 1895
Mary Anderson windshield wipers 1903
Edwin Binney crayons 1903
CJ Walker hair straightener 1905
Leo Baekeland plastic 1909
Willis Carrier air conditioning 1911
Clarence Crane lifesavers 1912
Garrett Morgan gas mask 1914