Category: Transportation
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Drying Up Freedom of the Seas
During Prohibition, could the government enforce the alcohol ban by searching any ship coming in from the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans — even outside U.S. territorial waters? A 1923 New York Times Magazine article described the debate: Hitherto, the infringement of such maritime liberty has been confined to periods of war and, even then, has been…
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The Taxi Lady Takes the Road
In 1923, more women were beginning to work as New York City taxi cab drivers. The first licensed female NYC cab driver was Gertrude Jeannette in 1942. However, the first unlicensed female NYC cab driver was decades prior: Wilma K. Russey in 1915. During the years in between, more women were starting to drive cabs in the…
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U-Boats Off Shore!
Franklin D. Roosevelt… assistant secretary of the navy? Many people — or perhaps even most people — today don’t even remember what position FDR held right before his presidency: governor of New York. But virtually nobody remembers what position he held even before that: assistant secretary of the Navy. FDR held the #2 spot in…
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3,000 Planes a Month
America is the leader in aviation technology today, and has been for decades. But that was not the case in 1918, even though the Wright Brothers who hailed from Ohio had invented the airplane only a few years before. As this May 1918 article explained, the U.S. had some major catching up to do upon entering…
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France’s Airman-Artist Tells How He Works
Henri Farré was the official painter of the French government during World War I, whose job was to paint battles as he observed them from airplanes. While this may seem like a strange occupation to be funded at taxpayer expense after the invention of the photograph, WWI was also the first major military conflict to feature aviation.…
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Speeding Up the Mails for American Soldiers
Before the age of email, instant messaging, texting, and even mass phone calls, communication from families to soldiers was much more difficult, as this 1917 article details: “The time when the soldiers from the firing line did not get the home mail they were hoping for came at the end of one of the eighteen-day…
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Farmers Buy Forty Per Cent. of Motor Cars
The urban population has surged from 29.5 percent in 1880 to 46.3 percent in 1910. The Census Bureau estimates that cities contain 62.7 percent of the U.S. population today. A major change in rural life came with the development and popularity of the car. In 1917, the top two states by number of cars per…
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Orville Wright Says 10,000 Airplanes Would End the War Within Ten Weeks
Less than 14 years after Orville Wright became the first human being to ever take flight in an airplane, he had lived to see his invention was being used in World War I, the first major war to utilize the technology en masse. (His brother and co-inventor Wilbur Wright had passed away in 1912.) In…
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Hunters in Autos Exterminating Big Game
The relatively new invention of the automobile was producing unforeseen consequences for hunters. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, thought that lawmakers should ban the practice: “There is not the slightest doubt,” he said, “that if things are allowed to remain for the next three years as they have been during…
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One-Man Submarine Invention of an American
Small submarines definitely still exist today, though to my knowledge the operator sits inside. I’m not aware of a current design which requires lying on one’s stomach and pedaling. Although the pictured invention might look a bit silly to a modern day viewer, the idea behind the invention still has merit to it: “The only…
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