1900

 

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“No man has done his business properly who has missed a single dollar he could have secured in the doing of it...It is one of the first principles Mr. Rockefeller taught me...it is a religion to us all.” 

Henry H. Rogers

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A baby born in the United States in 1900 can expect to live to age 46 if male, age 48 if female.

 

If a pharmacist in 1900 was looking to stock his shelves with medicinal cures for various ailments — gout, perhaps, or indigestion — he would be likely to consult the extensive catalog of Parke, Davis & Company, now Parke-Davis, one of the most successful and well-regarded drug companies in the United States. [Quack remedies were not uncommon.] … Another elixir by the name of Duffield’s Concentrated Medicinal Fluid Extracts contained belladonna, arsenic and mercury. Cocaine was sold in an injectable form, as well as in powders and cigarettes. The catalog proudly announced that the drug would take “the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent” and “render the sufferer insensitive to pain.”

 

Today, of course, we think of medicine as one of the pillars of modern progress, but until quite recently, drug development was a scattershot and largely unscientific endeavor. One critical factor was the lack of any legal prohibition on selling junk medicine. In fact, in the United States, the entire pharmaceutical industry was almost entirely unregulated for the first decades of the 20th century.

 

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Kodak introduces the Brownie, the first camera for amateurs. 

There are 8,000 automobiles in the United States and 18 million working horses and mules. 

Teddy Roosevelt writes a friend about an old African proverb: “Walk softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

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“We have never believed him to be equal to the white man.”

March 23: In Congress, South Carolina Sen. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman rises to debate. Sen. John Spooner of Wisconsin has condemned the cold-blooded murder of several African Americans in Tillman’s state.The South Carolinian does not deny the killings occurred, or that it was all part of an effort to make sure “negroes” realized they’d never be able to vote. He blamed the killings on their “hot-headedness,” which “caused the shotgun to be used.” 

He went on to explain how the vote had been taken from negro hands, and tried to justify what had occurred: 

 

We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his “rights”—I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores. But I will not pursue the subject further.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: If you’ve never heard of Tillman before, his racism is extreme and defined his political career. 

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June: Dr. Walter Reed begins a series of experiments that eventually prove Yellow Fever is spread by mosquitoes. In fact, studies soon show that a mosquito can pick up the virus only if they feed on a human subject during the first three days of infection. By 1902, the disease had been eradicated in Cuba.

 

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“Well-digging” and the Wright Brothers. 

The Wright Brothers were an interesting pair. Orville was expelled from school in sixth grade. Wilbur dreamed of becoming a minister when he was young, like their father. Their first efforts in flight involved gliding; but their first glider wouldn’t lift off the ground as they calculated, unless they tilted the wings far back—which also meant it would hardly move forward. The brothers were mathematical geniuses and could not understand why their careful calculations were wrong. 

They tried flying their glider like a kite, and held on with ropes, which helped them gain a better idea of what was wrong (the curvature or “camber” of the wing would later prove to be the key). As Harry Combs wrote in his magnificent biography of the brothers, Kill Devil Hills (p. 96) one day,

 

…They lowered their machine to the ground, left it for a moment to do some other work, and suddenly felt an unexpected gust of wind. They sensed trouble, and as they spun about, helpless, the glider whirled into the air, tumbled for 20 feet or so, and slammed down with sounds that cut them to their bones. What had been a glider was now a twisted and broken pile. In silence, they dragged the wreckage back to their tent, sharing an unspoken desire to walk away from their vexations and go home. They were ready to quit.

 

In fact, pioneers in flight learned a number of lessons the hard way. Or as Combs put it, “the world’s entire ‘flight-training program,’ up to this point, had encountered a fatality rate of almost 100 percent.” Otto Lilienthal, a German, was an early leader in glider flights, earning the nickname, “The Flying Man.” One day a wind pushed the front of his glider up—in the same way, if one holds a hand out a car window, and tilts it up, and a high enough angle, the hand is blown backward. In the air, this leads to a “stall.” Forward motion is slowed, and the glider falls almost like a stone. Lilenthal stalled out during a test in August 1896, fell fifty feet, and broke his neck.

 

In years to come, the brothers would crash into the sands at Kitty Hawk, where they went every summer, often enough to label their dives to earth “well-digging.”

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Spring/Summer: The following is from the historian Edward Ellis, writing in 1900:

 

During the summer of 1900 the attention of the civilized world was drawn anxiously toward China, in consequence of what was known as the “Boxer” uprising in that country. The “Boxers” represented the national element of the empire, and constituted so large a part of the population that at one time it seemed as if the established government would be overturned. The rebellion spread over a great part of the country, and was led by some of the most influential men in the empire. At their head was Prince Tuan, an uncle of the reigning monarch. The Dowager Empress also manifested strong sympathies with the national movement, and throughout the excitement and the subsequent military operations she retained control of the government with a strong hand and held the Emperor virtually a prisoner in her possession.

 

The uprising was the result of an intense anti-foreign sentiment, of many years growth, but greatly embittered during recent times by the dread of a division of the empire among foreign powers and the overthrow of native rule and institutions. The “Boxers” were in fact Chinese patriots, devoted to the institutions of their people; but they went about their operations in a barbarous and cruel manner, which brought down upon them the just condemnation of the civilized world. There was likewise a deep seated and almost universal hatred of foreign missionaries and their native converts, growing out of the efforts of the former to supplant the ancient religion and moral precepts of Confucius with those of Christianity. Hundreds of missionaries, as well as native Christians, were barbarously tortured and massacred. These outrages were not confined to the men, but included many women and children; and in numerous instances the tortures inflicted on these helpless victims were so brutal as to exceed the power of language to describe.

 

At length, about the last of May, the rebellion culminated in the murder of a Japanese secretary of legation and the German Minister at Peking, and an attack by the “Boxers” on the foreign legations in that city. The imperial troops participated in these outrages. For nearly three months the ministers and their families were subjected to a state of siege by the infuriated natives, and were protected only by a small body of legation guards. Day and night throughout this entire period the “Boxers” and the imperial troops kept up in almost continuous cannonade of the legations; while numerous assaults were made upon the works which the inmates had improvised. So great was the dread of torture in case of capture that the foreigners deliberately prepared themselves in that event to kill their own families and then commit suicide.

 

Amazed and horrified at the situation, all the foreign powers now united in a general movement for the relief of their people. Fleets hastily gathered in Chinese waters, and large bodies of troops were hurried toward the points of danger. At Taku the Chinese resisted the landing of foreign soldiers, which necessitated the bombardment of the forts. These were reduced and captured on the 17th of June. The allies now landed their troops and prepared to march against Peking. The nations participating in the movement were the Americans, Japanese, British, Germans, French, Austrians, and Italians, and their combined forces amounted to about 30,000 men.

 

The port of Tientsin was stormed and captured July 13-14, with the loss of 800 killed and wounded. Among the former was the gallant Colonel Liscum of the American contingent. A forced march for Peking was now inaugurated and after several battles of considerable magnitude on the way, in which the allies displayed the most amazing fortitude and daring, the troops entered Peking and relieved the legations on the 14th of August.

 

In a footnote, Ellis notes that the fighting at Tientsin was “of the most desperate character, and it was there Liscum fell, along with eighteen of his men, and seventy-five of the Ninth wounded. He quotes Major L. W. Waller, of the U.S. Marines:

 

Our men marched ninety-seven miles in the five days, fighting all the way. They have lived on about one meal a day for six days, but have been cheerful and willing always. They have gained the highest praise from all forces present and have earned my love and confidence.

 

I have earnestly to recommend to your notice for such reward as you may deem proper the following officers: Lieutenant S. D. Butler, for the admirable conduct of his men and all the fights of the week, for saving a wounded man at the risk of his life and under heavy fire…

 

Butler will eventually win two Medals of Honor, rise to the rank of general and then become a spokesman for pacifism, criticizing imperialist motives that led to  U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. (33/2121-2123)

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September 8: A ferocious storm and tidal wave smash the low-lying city of Galveston, Texas. 

Ellis tells the tale (33/2118-2120):

 

Early in the morning of September 8th 1900, it was known that a severe storm was brewing. It had swept with tremendous force over New Orleans and gathered fury as it careered down the Texas littoral. At midday the wind was almost a hurricane; a few hours later it became an unmistakable one. At six o’clock the full force of the tempest broke over the doomed city. Wind and waves joined in their awful work, and what one spared the other annihilated. It was wind and rain at first, and then from the depths of the Gulf, with a roar that drowned a screaming gale, rushed a prodigious tidal wave, like that which, in 1755, buried the city of Lisbon. Coming from the east, it bore down upon the low, flat sea front with nothing to check or moderate its fury. Rolling over Galveston, where, all lights having been extinguished, everything was in total darkness, it crushed the city like an avalanche.

 

At first it was believed that Galveston, with its 38,000 inhabitants, was wiped out, but such catastrophes are rare. Incoming vessels encountered drifting corpses a hundred miles from the shore, and scores of bodies were found entangled among the weeds and brushwood, seven miles inland. Necessity compelled the carrying of hundreds of these bodies out to sea for burial, but many were washed back again, whereupon they were gathered and burned; morgues were important improvised, but deaths were so numerous that identification soon became impossible. All able-bodied men, no matter what their station and calling, were forced to help in the work of disposing of the dead and clearing up the city, for in no other way could a virulent pestilence be averted.

 

Amid the grief of surviving relatives and the general consternation, martial law was declared, and Adjutant-General Scurry was placed in charge of the city. Enough food had been saved to stave off famine until relief arrived. Distribution warehouses were established in each ward, and the people displayed a heroism never surpassed. While the exact number of deaths will never be known, probably between 6,000 and 7,000 perished in Galveston alone, and, including those of isolated villages and along the coastline, the fatalities could not have been much less than 10,000.

 

Hardly had the news of this calamity been telegraphed to the world when the wires began throbbing with messages of sympathy and with orders for relief, while railway trains and swift steamers, laden with provisions and supplies, hurried southward. Help came from all parts of the Union, for no hearts are quicker than those of Americans to answer the call of distress. Governor Sayers and his assistants showed herculean energy in meeting the crisis and in securing, by every means possible, the comfort and safety of the survivors. The governor’s message to the citizens of New York, who had been prompt and liberal in their contributions, was typical of Texan gratitude to the other cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, which had helped so nobly the desolated city: “As long as we live, as long as our children live, and as long as our children’s children live, never will we forget your kindness and the confidence you have reposed in the people of Galveston.”

 

What more graphic picture can be drawn of the woeful calamity than that of Mayor Jones, who, in the latter part of September, in his appeal for relief, after declaring that 6,000 persons were drowned and the property loss was $30 million, said:

 

“Along the beachfront upward of 2,600 houses by actual map count, are totally destroyed. Of these not a timber remains upon the original site, and the wreckage constitutes the embankment of debris extending along the entire beach from three or four blocks inward for about three miles, the removal of which will cost $750,000 to $1,000,000. From this debris there are still daily uncovered by the workmen now systematically employed, from thirty to fifty bodies which are burned or buried on the spot. Moreover, we estimate that 97 ½ per cent. of the remaining houses throughout the city were damaged in greater or less degree. On the removal of the debris, in the clearing of the streets, to make temporary repairs of houses, and distributing supplies and in the general work of restoration, our entire citizenship are engaged, without compensation.”

 

Ellis adds, 

So complete was the destruction of the city that many thought it wise to abandon all thought of rebuilding Galveston, but this feeling soon gave way to the determination to erect upon the ruins a greater and more enduring city, that should laugh at the rage of the elements. (33/2118-2120

 

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November 8: Sister Carrie, written by Theodore Dreiser, is published, but the novel so scandalizes the public, that only a few hundred copies are sold, and the publisher makes no effort to improve sales. It is essentially banned in the United States, although it sells in England. 

The “problem” with the story is that “Sister Carrie,” as her family calls her, is a country girl from Wisconsin, who moves to Chicago, then becomes the mistress of several men in succession. She later becomes a famous actress – and she’s not ashamed of her sexuality. In novels up to that time, a “fallen woman” would suffer a cruel fate by the end of the story. 

In 1900, the average American would have been shocked, had they picked up a copy of the novel.