Month: June 2019
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The Laying On of Hands for Fingerprints
In 1919, “The fingerprints of every sailor and soldier serving the United States are on record… In Argentina it is true of every civilian. In time it may be true of all the world.” Indeed. By 2009, the FBI had 63 million fingerprints on file. Their database started in 1924, just five years after this article […]
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Recalcitrant Rhode Island
Only three states didn’t ratify the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition, before it went into effect: Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. As Prohibition was about to take effect, Rhode Island considered disobeying it. A few months after this June 1919 article, the state attempted to do just that. In December 1919, the state’s Attorney General Herbert Rice […]
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Why They Entered Annapolis
The new boys at the U.S. Naval Academy were surveyed in 1919 about why they had joined, and their answers varied considerably. Five favorites: “I came here mainly to beat out a friend at West Point.” “Life here must be one continual round of hops, entertainments, fights, escapades, and every other wildly romantic thing not […]
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Women as ‘Permanent Peacemakers’
Paris issued 3.125 million bonds to help pay off its WWI debt, and they were dispensed by random through a giant wheel — a wheel of fortune. No word on whether Pat Sajak announced the results. The Civil Governor of Paris at the time explained to a local engineer: “Now, we want you to make […]
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Why Suffrage Fight Took 50 Years
If the constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote was first introduced in 1878, why didn’t it pass Congress until 1919? Four major reasons: women’s minds had to be changed, so did men’s, politics, and money. 1.) Women’s minds had to be changed. In the beginning of the movement the entire world, including women, […]
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Investigating the War
A century ago, House committees were heavily investigating the executive branch, while the president’s own party (in the House minority) accused the committees of partisan warfare. Sound familiar? None of the investigations, the Republican leader said, would be inquisitorial, but they would be undertaken and conducted only so far as the interests of the country […]
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What the Army Did to Them
Many WWI soldiers returned home as changed men. Women, while grateful for the military victory, were often dismayed at what had become of the men they sent away, calling it “the lowering of the quality of young American manhood.” What emerged from the talk of which these samples have been reported was that at least […]
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If Germany Doesn’t Sign — Starvation
Germany surrendered November 1918, ending WWI in practice, as all countries agreed to cease hostilities while peace terms were negotiated. But the peacce terms weren’t finalized until June 1919. That month, the world asked: would Germany sign? This article from the time described just how horrendous it would be for Germany if they didn’t sign […]
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Plans For Dry New York
With Prohibition going into effect mere weeks away, what were the bars of New York City to do? Replacement options were sprouting in an attempt to replicate the bars’ former atmospheres, only without alcohol. The Salvation Army, for one, is getting ready to enter the field. It will run substitutes for saloons, which, it is […]
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Puritan Attacks on the Stage and Its Clothes
Revealing clothing was becoming more popular at social events in 1919 — more revealing by the standards of the day, at least. Acceptable clothing in the staid theater, however, changed much more slowly. In a recent play a young actress engaged in a game of “strip poker” in which she “lost” large quantities of her […]