1890–1919 ∼ Striking it Rich
Indians massacred at Wounded Knee (1890) / Alaskan gold rush begins in 1897 a year after the discovery of gold in the Klondike; peaks the following year / Sixty percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas; ten percent of students graduate from high school (1900) / Spindletop oil plume gushes, and the Texas black gold rush begins (1901) / Henry Ford institutes the five-dollar day for his factory workers (1914)
Milestones: Plessy v. Ferguson declares it illegal for blacks to ride in the same railroad car as whites (1896) • Spanish American War (1898) • Chinese immigration banned except for diplomats, students, and merchants (1900) • Andrew Carnegie gives $350 million for social causes (1900–1919) • Lee De Forest invents the vacuum tube, essential to the development of electronics (1906)
1920–1929 ∼ Good Times
For the first time, more Americans live in urban areas than in rural ones; forty-six percent of Americans own their own homes (1920) / Ford Model T costs $290 (down from $950 in 1908), and is now accessible to many working Americans, including those who work in Ford factories (1924) / Sixty-three percent of Americans live in homes with electric lights (up from 16 percent only 15 years before) (1927) / Mail order catalogues and magazines bring fashion awareness to every household (1925–1929) / Workers laid off and production cut back due to over-production and large stocks of unsold inventory (1929)
Milestones: Nineteenth Amendment passed, giving women the right to vote (1919) • Invention of Freon makes widespread home refrigeration feasible (1920s) • Permanent immigration quotas imposed (1924) • First national radio networks begin, NBC (1926), CBS (1927) • Penicillin is discovered (1928)
1930–1945 ∼ A Troubled Economy
Thirty percent of students graduate from high school (1930) / Fifteen million Americans are out of work, nearly 25 percent of the population (1933) / The Federal Housing Administration provides government-insured mortgages, bringing home ownership within the reach of more Americans than ever before (1934) / 50,000 coal miners strike in Birmingham, Alabama against exploitation (1934) / Fair Labor Standards Act establishes minimum wages, maximum hours, and the abolition of child labor (1938) / The G.I.
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