1910: Books and Literature

Sep7

Author Mark Twain died in on April 21, 1910. He was born in 1835 when the comet had last visited our solar system. Twain wrote in his autobiography: “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'”

Important books of 1910:
Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House.
Sigmund Freud, Origins and Development of Psychoanalysis.
E. M. Forster, Howards End.

For children in 1910:
Maida’s Little Shop by Inez Haynes Irwin. One of Jen’s favorites: “Maida’s Little Shop was originally published in 1910, and was the first of a series of 15 books about the motherless daughter of a magnanimous tycoon, and her close-knit group of friends.”

Andrew Lang’s last fairy book, The Lilac Fairy Book, was published in 1910. In all, Andrew Lang published twelve fairy-tale collections, starting in 1889 with The Blue Fairy Book. You can listen to all of Lang’s fairy tale collection books at Librivox.

Also in 1910, American illustrator and author Rose O’Neill’s first childrenâ€™s book was published, The Kewpies and Dottie Darling. A few years later Kewpie dolls, based on Ms. O’Neill’s characters, became popular. There’s something about the Kewpie doll that I find disturbing. It’s supposed to be cute and innocent, but it seems . . . sort of sinister.

1910: The Arts

Sep6

Go here to look at some amazing photographs from Tsarist Russia, taken in color circa 1910. I have a tendency to think that people lived in black and white that long ago whereas the beautiful colors of God’s world existed then, too. Look and see if you don’t have to keep reminding yourself that the photographs are of real people from the early twentieth century, not actors dressed up as Russian peasants.

Tango fever sweeps Europe and the United States as fashionable young people learn to dance the tango, a dance that originated in the slums of Argentina.

I’m not sure why this couple is dancing about on the edge of some kind of pier or marina, but you can see why many found this new dance to be quite shocking and suggestive.

1910: Events and Inventions

Sep5

February 12, 1910. A force of 2,000 Chinese troops march into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, is forced to flee to India.

February 20, 1910. Boutros Pasha Ghali, the first native-born prime minister of Egypt, is assassinated by an Egyptian nationalist. Egypt is under British control, and the Egyptians themselves have only limited power of self-rule.

February 27, 1910. U.S. surgeons find and remove a nail from the lung of a boy by using an X-ray machine.

May 6, 1910. George V becomes King of Britain upon the death of his father, Edward VII.

May 31, 1910. The Union of South Africa becomes a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The new government will be led by Prime Minister Louis Botha who was a leader in the defeated Boer army that fought against Britain in 1900-1901. He is now a convinced supporter of South Africa’s independence and participation in the British Dominion.

June 30, 1910. Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin easily persuades the Duma to pass a law that ends most aspects of Finnish independence. Russia takes over Finland completely.

August 22, 1910. After defeating the Russians in war and in peace, Japan officially annexes Korea.

October 4, 1910. Republican revolutionaries overthrow the Portuguese monarchy. 20 year old King Manuel II, who came to the throne after the assassination of his father and brother two and a half years ago (1908), flees to Gibraltar.

November 20, 1910. In Mexico, rebels begin the attempt to oust president and dictator Porfirio Diaz, who has ruled Mexico for over thirty years. Leaders in the rebellion include Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Victoriano Huerta, and Pascual Orozco.

More than a million immigrants enter the United States in 1910. The largest ethnic groups are Italians, Poles, Jews, Slovaks, and Greeks.

1910: Statistics and Interesting Facts

Sep3

In 1910:

The average life expectancy for men was 47 years. Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

'1910 - Oldsmobile Model 23-24, limited, 6 cylinders.' photo (c) 2009, New York Public Library - license: http://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

In Old California was the first film to be made in Hollywood.

Map of the World in 1910.

The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour. The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at home.

Ninety percent of all doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND by the government as ‘substandard.’

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, ‘Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health’.

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

Setting: Turn of the Century, 1900-1909

Sep2

Historical fiction is a great way to learn about history. In fact, I learned a lot of my history facts from novels. I’m often moved by a fiction book to go look up the story behind the story, to see if the author got her facts right. Here are a few adult fiction titles set in or around the turn of the century—nineteenth to twentieth, that is. No, I haven’t read all of these, but I have tried to give you a link to a review written by someone who has for each book listed. If you have reviewed any of these, leave a link in the comments, and I’ll add your review to the list. Or if you have read another book set in the early 1900’s that you liked, please share.

The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert. Author Beatrix Potter solves mysteries in this book and the ones the follow in the series when she moves to Hill Top Farm after the death of her fiance. Reviewed by Allison at On My Bookshelf.

City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell. Highly recommended. A young Mennonite missionary in China meets and marries a fellow missionary and lives through the turmoil of civil war. Semicolon review here.

Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine. Mystery and suspense in early twentieth century London. Reviewed by Superfast Reader.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to exonerate a falsely imprisoned man named George.

Beautiful Dreamer by Joan Naper. Chicago, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

The Birth House by Ami McKay. A midwife in a Nova Scotia fishing village. Reviewed at Maw Books Blog..

Empire by Gore Vidal. Caroline Sanford runs a newspaper dynasty during the years 1898-1907–with insights into the Spanish-American War, the Hearst newspaper conglomerate, and the presidencies of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, among other historical events and persons.

A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick. In 1907, a fifteen year old girl dreams of a career in photography, a dangerous job reserved for men. Reviewd by Tracy at Relz Reviewz.

Jack London: Sailor on Horseback by Irving Stone. Biographical novel about the eponymous author.

Lake of Fire by Linda Jacobs. Romance blossoms in Yellowstone National Park, June, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Highly recommended. Will’s grandfather elopes with a woman half his age three weeks after his wife dies in 1906, causing a scandal in their small Georgia town. Cold Sassy Tree is on my list of the 100 Best Novels of All Time.

City of Light by Lauren Belfer. 1901 in Buffalo, New York as Niagara Falls is being harnessed for electricity.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson. Idaho and Montana, 1903. A nineteen year old woman murders her abusive husband and then runs away from his brothers who are thirsty for revenge.

The Quickening by Michelle Hoover. American Midwest in the early 1900’s. Reviewed by Caribousmom.

Painted Ladies by Siobhan Parkinson. A community of artists in Skagen, a fishing village in the north of Denmark, live a Bohemian lifestyle while producing great works of art. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

For more historical novels of the twentieth century, look at HistoricalNovels.info.

1909: Books and Literature

Aug31

Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter was published in August, 1909. It tells the story of Elnora Comstock who lives with her widowed mother Katherine on the edge of the Limberlost, a marshland in Indiana where Elnora plans to catch moths and other nature specimens to sell to collectors to finance her continued high school education.

Elnora and her mother have a troubled relationship. Katherine Comstock blames Elnora for the death of her husband, Elnora’s father, in the swamp many years before. A young man, Phillip, comes to the Limberlost, and he and Elnora become friends and work together to explore and to gather Elnora’s moths.

Nature lovers should enjoy this lovely story in spite of the somewhat high-flown and archaic language. In fact, what with the modern environmental movement, I would think A Girl of the Limberlost is poised to make a comeback. Maybe as a movie or a simplified or updated ebook? It’s in the public domain, and you can download it to your favorite ereader here. The movie’s been done a few times, but I’ve not seen any of the versions. Any recommendations?

Selma Lagerlof, a Swedish novelist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. Her most famous novel, Jerusalem, tells the story of a group of Swedish Christians who went to Jerusalem to join The American Colony, a Christian religious community whose members believed that if they were to do acts of service to humanity (feeding the hungry, caring for orphans, etc.) in Jerusalem it would hasten the day of Christ’s return. The leader of this community (before the Swedish Christians came to join) was Horation Spafford, the man who wrote the much beloved hymn, It Is Well with My Soul.

1909: Events and Inventions

Aug30

January, 1909. William Howard Taft is inaugurated president of the United States, and Teddy Roosevelt goes off on a safari to Africa to let the new president get to work out of his shadow. (Unfortunately, Teddy casts a big shadow, and even from Africa he begins to realize that he doesn’t like what Taft is doing as president.)

March 31, 1909. French film producers Emile and Charles Pathe begin to film the news. The brothers have sent cameramen to every continent to look for news stories of interest to the general public, and the resulting films, called newsreels, will be shown all over the world.

April 6, 1909. Robert E. Peary reaches the North Pole along with his assistant, Matthew Henson, and four Eskimo guides. Henson and two of the guides were actually the first to reach the Pole, and Peary arrived forty-five minutes later and confirmed that they were in the right place. Read more at Who Discoverd the North Pole at Smithsonian.com.

April 27, 1909. The Young Turks overthrow the sultan of Turkey, Abdulhamid II, and replace him with his brother who takes the title of Mohammed V. Abdulhamid II ruled the Ottoman Empire as an absolute monarch, but the Young Turks demand reforms and a constitutional government which begins to be implemented as Mohammed V becomes a constitutional monarch with very little real power.

May 1909. German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich produces the first successful drug to treat for syphilis.

July 25, 1909. Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first man to pilot an aircraft 21 miles across the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover in England. You can read more about Bleriot and his adventures in flight in the picture book, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, written and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provenson. And Scholastic has some teaching suggestions for using The Glorious Flight in the classroom.

July, 1909. Mohammed Ali, Shah of Persia, flees to Russia as forces favoring a constitutional government replace him with his twelve year old son, Ahmad Mirza. Persia (Iran) becomes somewhat more free with democratic reforms implemented, or at least suggested, by the Grand Majiles, Persia’s parliament.

October 26, 1909. Prince Hirobumi Ito of Japan is assassinated by An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist opposed to the annexation of Korea by Japan. Prince Ito had been the Japanese Resident-General of Korea, and the Japanese used the assassination as an excuse to take total control of Korea and try to absorb it into the Japanese empire.

December, 1909. U.S. chemist Leo Baekeland prepares to market his newly invented plastic which he calls “Bakelite.”

1908: Events and Inventions

Aug28

February 1, 1908. Anarchists assassinate King Carlos I and his heir Prince Luis Filipe as the royl family are traveling in an open carriage in Lisbon, Portugal. This event is usually called The Lisbon Regicide. A shocked King Edward VII of England, a friend of King Carlos, said of the assassination, “They murdered two gentlemen of the Order of the Garter in the street like dogs and in their own country no one cares!”

May 16, 1908. Oil discovery at Masjid Sulaiman in southwest Iran (Persia). A British army officer sends a coded message to the British government telling them the news: “See Psalm 104 Verse 15 Third Sentence and Psalm 114 verse 8 second sentence.” Un-coded, the telegram read: “That he may bring out of the earth oil to make him a cheerful countenance … the flint stone into a springing well.”

April-July, 1908. The Young Turks, a group of reform-minded nationalists, force Sultan Abdul Hamid of the Ottoman Empire to restore the parliament and the constitution which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. This revolution is the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire. Map of the expansion and decline of the Ottoman Empire. I would like to read A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin, which gives the history of the continuing decline of the Ottoman Empire and tells how the changing borders and power adjustments made during and after World War II continue to affect the situation in the MIddle East today.

August 12, 1908. The first Model T Ford goes on sale for $850. Automaker Henry Ford has promised to “build a car for the multitude,” and he hopes by using the assembly line technique to produce 18,000 cars a year. Take a brief look at Henry Ford, the businessman and the man, in this post by blogger Aarti Nagaraju.

August 19, 1908. King Leopold of Belgium hands over government of the Congo Free State (Zaire, Democratic Republic of the Congo) to the Belgian government after thirty years of brutal dictatorial rule of the African colony by Leopold alone.

September, 1908. German mathematician Hermann Minkowski is the first person to define time as the fourth dimension. (LOST connection, anyone?)

October, 1908. Austria-Hungary takes over the Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina by decree and with the help and approval of Russia.

October 5, 1908. Ferdinand I of Austria declares Bulgaria a fully independent kingdom, with himself as Tsar.

December 2, 1908. The two year old Prince Pu Yi ascends to the imperial throne of China, according to the wishes of Tsu-Hsi (Cixi), the Empress Dowager of China who recently died under suspicious circumstances. Emperor Pu Yi’s father, Prince Chun, will rule as regent in his son’s place for the time being. The movie The Last Emperor tells the story of Pu Yi’s life in a somewhat fictionalized, but fairly accurate, version.

December 28, 1908. The city of Messina, Italy is struck early in the morning by the most violent earthquake ever recorded in Europe. Estimates put the death toll at at least 75,000 people.

Movies Set In the First Decade of the Twentieth Century: 1900-1909

Aug27

Lagaan (2001). Bollywood movie actually set in 1893, but it shows the cultural mileau of India under British rule. Warning: itâ€™s long, with subtitles, but well worth the time.

Finding Neverland stars Johnny Depp as playwright James Barrie. I wrote about my initial impressions of the movie here. I would like to see the move again, and I think it might make a better impression the second time around.

Miss Potter (2006). Fictionalized biography of authoress Beatrix Potter.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Musical set in St. Louis, Missouri during the St. Louis Worldâ€™s Fair of 1904.

Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Another classic musical set in Tsarist Russia in 1905.

How Green Was My Valley. Based on a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, this film features a Welsh family and the mining community in which they live around the turn of the century. the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1941.

Yankee Doodle Dandy. Biopic about American songwriter and composer George M. Cohan, starring James Cagney as Cohan. The song “Yankee Doodle Boy” was Cohan’s signature piece as a composer and as a song-and-dance man himself who performed his own work. The film came out in 1942, and production began on it just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. So the movie was purposefully patriotic to the max in order to lift the spirits of an American audience headed into war.

The Winslow Boy. We just watched this movie, set in Britain and based on a true story, yesterday. Well, I watched, and the urchins fell asleep. It’s not an exciting or fast-moving plot-driven picture. However, the script and the setting are intriguing. The story is about an upper middle class family who sacrifice everything—their savings, the daughter’s upcoming marriage, the older son’s career—to defend the honor of the younger son who is accused of stealing a five shilling postal order and is expelled from military school. The boy, Ronnie, says he didn’t do it, and the family honor is at stake. Such a different world, different values. You can read more about the movie, the play by Terrence Rattigan, and the historical incident that Rattigan mined for his play at Wikipedia.

My twentieth century history students are supposed to choose one of these movies set in the first decade of the century to watch and then write a reflection paper (kind of like a blog post, at least like my blog posts) about the movie. Which one would you suggest to them if they asked your advice? Do you have any other suggestions for movies set in this time period?

1908: Music and Art

Aug27

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 in 1906â€“07. The premiere was conducted by the composer himself in St. Petersburg on 8 February 1908.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? was a popular hymn, published in 1908, writen by Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel.

And here’s an entire playlist of popular music from the first decade of the twentieth century. Please listen, especially if you’re in my class, and tell me what you think. Any favorites? (You may have to have a free Spotify account to listen, but I have Spotify invitations to give away if you want one.)

What about the art? Favorites, anyone? Or comments?

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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