|
1910-1919 |
Political and
Social History |
Literature |
|
1910 |
Mann Act adopted by Congress to stop the
transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes" and to
stem the importation of European women to work in American brothels. This
law becomes known as the "white slave traffic act," and in the next few
years, alarm about the "white slave trade" grows rapidly.
In Osawatomie, Kansas, Theodore Roosevelt
calls for "a square deal" in a speech that will become a rallying cry for
the Progressive Movement.
Mexican revolution against Dictator Porfirio
Diaz.
|
Jane Addams,
Twenty Years at Hull House
Deaths of
Mark
Twain (b. 1835),
Rebecca
Harding Davis (b. 1831), and William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) (b. 1862)
|
|
1911 |
Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette helps
found the National Progressive Republican League. On 16 October, the
National Conference of Progressive Republicans nominates him for president.
25 March. Fire breaks out at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory, killing 146 workers, mostly women and girls; some jump
to their deaths when inadequate equipment makes rescue impossible.
(See documents and images at the
Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire site at Cornell University.)
Initially denied statehood because it permits
the recall of judges, Arizona drops the provision and is admitted as a
state.
Finding the Standard Oil Company to be in
restraint of trade, the Supreme Court orders it and and the American
Tobacco Company to be dissolved.
Efficiency expert Frederick Taylor publishes
The
Principles of Scientific Management.
|
Edith
Wharton, Ethan Frome
Theodore Dreiser, Jennie Gerhardt
24 January. Progressive journalist and popular
novelist
David
Graham Phillips (b. 1867) is shot and killed outside the Princeton Club
in New York.
The Masses (New York), 1911-1918
|
|
1912 |
15 April. The Titanic strikes an iceberg, and
1502 lives are lost because the ship did not carry enough lifeboats.
17 May. The Socialist Party nominates Eugene
V. Debs for president.
5 June. In what is now known as "Dollar
Diplomacy," the U. S. sends marines to protect business interests in Cuba.
Split between Taft and Roosevelt, progressive
members walk out of the Republican National Convention in Chicago, form the
Bull Moose third party, and nominate Roosevelt. In October, Roosevelt is
shot at close range, but the folded-up speech in his coat pocket blocks the
bullet and saves his life.
At the Democratic Convention, the Democrats
nominate Woodrow Wilson after William Jennings Bryan throws his support to
Wilson after the 46th ballot.
Wilson is elected in a landslide by 435
electoral votes.
|
Edith
Wharton, The Reef
Willa Cather, Alexander's Bridge
Theodore Dreiser, The Financier
Sui-Sin
Far (Edith Maude Eaton), Mrs. Spring Fragrance
Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage
James Weldon Johson,
The
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
 Mary
Antin,The
Promised Land
Founding of Poetry magazine.
|
|
1913 |
The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified; it
provides for a graduated national income tax.
California Governor Hiram Johnson signs the
Webb Alien Land-Holding Bill into law; it excludes the Japanese from holding
land. The Japanese government and Wilson protest.
The Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for
the popular election rather than the appointment of senators, is passed.
Henry Ford adopts the conveyor-belt technology
developed by the meat-packers.
 The
Armory Show in New York City introduces modern European art to the United
States. (Image of Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a
Staircase, no. 2 courtesy of The Virtual Armory Show, a site no longer
available.)
|
Edith
Wharton, The Custom of the Country
Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
Ellen Glasgow, Virginia
Robert Frost,
A Boy's Will
Jack
London, The Valley of the Moon
Henry
James, A Small Boy and Others
Oscar Micheaux, The Conquest: The Story of
a Negro Pioneer
|
|
1914 |
American Society of Composers, Authors, and
Publishers (ASCAP) is formed in New York City.
Archduke Francis Ferdinand is assassinated in
Sarajevo, after which the Austro-Hungarian Government declares war on
Serbia.
August. Germany declares war on Russia and
France; Great Britain declares war on Germany as German troops invade
Belgium. Japan also declares war on Germany.
Panama Canal opens for shipping
Clayton Anti-trust Act exempts organized labor
from anti-trust restrictions, which had been used against labor by companies
in the past.
United States evacuates troops stationed in
Vera Cruz, Mexico.
5 September. Allied victory at the Battle of
the Marne.
Edwin Markham,
Children in Bondage (problems of child labor)
|
Theodore Dreiser, The Titan
Henry
James, Notes of a Son and Brother
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
Vachel Lindsay, The Congo
Carl Sandburg, Chicago
Frank
Norris, Vandover and the Brute
Sinclair Lewis, Our Mr. Wrenn
Ambrose Bierce (b. 1842) disappears in
Mexico and is presumed dead.
Death of S. Weir Mitchell (b. 1829)
Death of
Sui-Sin
Far (Edith Maude Eaton)
|
|
1915 |
7 May. Lusitania is sunk without warning,
losing 1198 out of 1924 passengers. Although tensions run high even after
Germany offers condolences, Wilson says, "There is such a thing as a man
being too proud to fight." The U. S. demands reparations, but Germany
delays.
Iron and Steelworkers strike for the 8-hour
day.
|
T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock"
Edgar Lee Masters,
Spoon River Anthology
Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
Margaret Deland, Around Old Chester
Theodore Dreiser, The "Genius"
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, The Bent Twig
Robert Frost,
North of
Boston
|
|
1916 |
In Mexico, Pancho Villa kills 18 American
mining engineers whom he has forced off a train.Two months later, he raids
towns in New Mexico with a force of 1500 men, killing 17 Americans. General
John Pershing pursues Villa across the border in a two-year unsuccessful
effort to capture him.
Wilson campaigns for re-election on the slogan
"He kept us out of the war." He wins the election.
Workman's Compensation act enacted by
Congress.
Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman
elected to the House of Representatives.
Mexican President Carranza orders U. S. Troops
out of Mexico.
|
Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems
Sherwood Anderson, Windy McPherson's Son
Mark
Twain, The Mysterious Stranger
William
Dean Howells, The Leatherwood God
Grace King, The Pleasant Ways of St. Medard
Amy Lowell, Men, women, and Ghosts
Ring Lardner, You Know Me Al
Deaths of
Henry
James (b. 1843),
Jack
London (b. 1876), and Richard Harding Davis (b. 1864)
|
|
1917 |
5 February. Immigration Act requiring a
literacy test for immigrants and excluding Asiatic workers other than
Japanese is passed over Wilson's veto.
2 April. Saying that "the world must be made
safe for democracy," Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany.
18 May. The Selective Service Act is passed,
providing for the concription of men between 20 and 30 for military
service. The first American troops arrive in France in October.
 By
the end of the war, 2,000,000 men will have landed in France; 49,000 will be
killed in action, 230,000 wounded, and 57,000 will die of disease.
(Image courtesy of the
World War I: Trenches on
the Web site.)
|
Hamlin
Garland, A Son of the Middle Border
Abraham Cahan,
The Rise
of David Levinsky
Sinclair Lewis, The Job
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence
T. S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other
Observations
David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her
Fall and Rise
Edith
Wharton, Summer
Oscar Micheaux, The Homesteader
Pulitzer Prizes established.
|
|
1918 |
Wilson proposes "Fourteen Points" for peace in
the world.
25 June. Marine brigade of U. S. 2nd Division
captures Bouresche and Belleau Wood, suffering high casualties (9500 men).
17 July. Second Battle of the Marne.
26 September. 896,000 American troops join
135,000 French soldiers in an attack at Argonne Forest.
In the fall of 1918, a deadly influenza
epidemic strikes; before it ends in 1919, it kills an estimated 20 to 40
million people worldwide. (See the
Timeline of the epidemic at PBS's American Experience site and the
Influenza
Pandemic site at Stanford.)
11 November. Germany signs the armistice
treaty.
|
Willa Cather, My Antonia
Edith
Wharton, The Marne
Henry Adams,
The
Education of Henry Adams
Mary E.
Wilkins Freeman, Edgewater People
Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
O. Henry Award for the short story established
|
|
1919 |
Prohibition Act becomes law; it will go into
effect on January 16, 1920.
February 6-11.
The Seattle General Strike shuts down the city and leads to arrests
among socialists and others deemed subversive.
26 June. Signing of the Versailles Treaty,
which the Senate later refuses to ratify.
31 August. Communist Party is formed in
Chicago.
25 September. President Wilson suffers a
stroke and never fully recovers.
|
Pulitzer Prizes: For literature--Booth
Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons; for biography--Henry Adams,
The Education of Henry Adams
Sherwood Anderson,
Winesburg, Ohio
|
|