Category: History
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Thirty Years of International Copyright
The Chace Act of 1891 gave copyright to non-U.S. works in return for international copyright protections for American authors. On the law’s 30th anniversray, Brander Matthews wrote that he considered the law a smashing success. It remains the least adequate [such law] now in force of any of the civilized nations; but, improvable as it…
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Martin Van Buren’s Autobiography
Martin van Buren’s autobiography wasn’t published until 1920: 60 years after his death and 80 years after he was last president. That’s like if FDR’s or Herbert Hoover’s memoirs were only published now. 80 years ago in 1941, FDR was president. Excluding JFK, the president who died closest to 60 years ago (of natural causes)…
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Woodrow Wilson’s Administration: Eight Years of the World’s Greatest History
During Wilson’s last week as president, his reputation was already trending upward, due to blunders by President-elect Harding. As this March 1921 New York Times Magazine article noted: The President’s unpopularity had been so violently expressed by the election of Nov. 2 that it was bound to be mitigated soon after, and this natural reaction was…
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False Splendor of Past Inaugurals
Ah, the days before microphones. This 1921 article described how “not a dozen men have ever heard a Presidential inaugural address.” That same year, Warren Harding became the first president with loudspeakers at his inauguration. The people around him do not hear him. The newspaper men have seats nearer than the other invited guests on the…
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The Party of Discontent
Would a third party candidate spoil the 1920 presidential election? At least three presidential elections in the past three decades alone were very likely altered by third-party candidates: 1992: Independent candidate Ross Perot earned 19.7 million votes, mostly from Republican George H.W. Bush, likely tipping the election to Democrat Bill Clinton. 2000: Green Party candidate…
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The Vice Presidency Comes to the Fore
“The two parties in 1920… have both nominated men of Presidential stature for Vice President,” a New York Times article that summer read. Those two men were FDR and Calvin Coolidge, who would both become president. In fact, 1920 is the only year in American history when both major-party vice presidential nominees later became president.…
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Who’s Who Among Nominees for the Hall of Fame
Of 1920’s seven inductees into NYC’s Hall of Fame for Great Americans, probably only two would be considered household names today: Mark Twain and Patrick Henry. That year’s honorees feature many names that would stump a modern audience, even a well-educated one. This 2018 New York Times article quoted Cultural Landscape Foundation executive director Charles A. Birnbaum: The…
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The Anti-Wilson ‘Mania’
Woodrow Wilson was unpopular near his presidency’s end, but how would he be remembered by history? This 1920 article predicted he’d be remembered well. By 2017, a C-SPAN survey of historians ranked him the 11th-best president. The 1920 article noted that Wilson was hated by many during his own lifetime, just like Washington and Lincoln……
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Lafayette, Citizen of America
Foreign male heirs of Marquis de Lafayette, the French military officer who led the colonies in Revolutionary War battles, were to be granted Maryland citizenship in perpetuity by a 1784 state law. Would that stand in the federal government’s eyes? In 1919, when this New York Times article was written, the answer was still unclear…
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Laboratory of Dry Law Enforcement
Government in 1919 began testing seized substances to determine if they violated Prohibition by containing too much alcohol. Medicines, after all, could contain some — but at a certain point the “medicine” would become illegal. Many attempts are being made to evade the prohibition law by disguising alcoholic beverages as patent medicines. Some of those discovered…
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