20th Century Blog

The most famous of all the units fighting in Cuba, the “Rough Riders” was the name given to the First US Volunteer Cavalry under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in May 1898 to join the volunteer cavalry. The original plan for this unit called for filling it with men from the Indian Territory, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma. However, once Roosevelt joined the group, it quickly became the place for a mix of troops ranging from Ivy League athletes to glee-club singers to Texas Rangers and Indians.

The Rough Riders saw battle at Las Guasimas when General Samuel B. M. Young was ordered to attack at this village, three miles north of Siboney on the way to Santiago. Although it was not important to the outcome of the war, news of the action quickly made the papers. They also made headlines for their role in the Battle of San Juan Hill, which became the stuff of legend thanks to Roosevelt’s writing ability and reenactments filmed long after.

Roosevelt and the commander of the unit, Colonel Leonard Wood, trained and supplied the men so well at the camp in San Antonio, Texas that the Rough Riders was allowed into action, unlike many other volunteer units. They went to Tampa at the end of May and sailed for Santiago de Cuba on June 13. There they joined the Fifth Corps, another highly trained, well supplied, and enthusiastic group consisting of excellent soldiers from the regular army and volunteers.

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. It is 5,989 feet long over the East River connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan. Completed in 1883, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, the first steel-wire suspension bridge and the first bridge to connect to Manhattan. The Brooklyn was referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge but then later on it was changed to simply the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge finally opened to people in May 1883 and people immediately stated riding through it. The person who helped all of this happen was John Roebling. The Brooklyn Bridge was located between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The bridge was really long. The Brooklyn Bridge took 13 years to build with many hard working men a part of the process. I still find it hard to believe that it took that long.

The Manhattan Bridge was also built later on in the years. It also connected Brooklyn and Manhattan. The reason I think that they built the Manhattan Bridge was because the Brooklyn Bridge was getting a lot of traffic. I think it was pretty hard to cross the bridge at a normal speed because a lot of people were trying to get to work, school and other things.

Muckrakers often wrote about the wretchedness of urban life. The muckrakers wrote about poverty and they showed society as big business. They played a significant role in the social justice movements for reform and the campaigns to clean up cities. They reported and publicized the dark corners of American society in a sensational way.

The period from 1700-1802 saw an increase in the kind of reporting that would come to be called “muckraking”. The term “muckraker” was first used in a speech on April 14, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt: “In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; Who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor”.

Upton Sinclair, Jr wrote over 90 books in many styles. Sinclair was defeated by Frank F. Merriam in 1934 when he ran for governor of California and after this defeat, he largely abandoned politics to return to writing. However this race in 1934 became known as the first race to use modern campaign techniques like motion pictures. He became very popular in the first half of the 20th century, gaining particular fame for his 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle. The book dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that partly contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Packing Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Ida Minera Tarbell was an America teacher, author and journalist. She was known as one of the leading “muckrakers’ of her day which helped to create the idea of “investigative journalism”.

The World's Columbian Exposition — also known as The Chicago World's Fair — was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World. The exposition covered more than 600 acres featuring nearly 200 new buildings of classical architecture, canals and lagoons, and people and cultures from around the world. Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892, but the fairgrounds were not actually opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, the fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.

On October 9, 1893, the day designated as Chicago Day, the fair set a record for outdoor event attendance, drawing 716,881 people to the fair. They had many types of foods from around the world for people to enjoy. At the fair they had the very first Ferris Wheel. They had Forty-six nations participated in the fair such as Haiti and many themes such as the Land of Oz, and Walt Disney’s theme parks. Disney's father Elias had been a construction worker on some of the buildings at the fair.

The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acres in the neighborhoods of South Shore, Jackson Park Highlands, Hyde Park and Woodlawn. Most of the buildings were based on classical architecture. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City. The spurning of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show proved a serious financial mistake. Buffalo Bill set up his highly popular show next door to the fair and brought in a great deal of revenue that he did not have to share with the developers.

Woman’s Suffrage & Nineteenth Amendment

People at this time viewed woman as citizens, but only when it came to certain aspects. One of these aspects did not include the right to vote. Woman were mostly looked at as inferior. Men were always known as the strong ones, and without the men the government thought we (the woman) couldn’t do anything, as an example voting, working in business or running a government.

Many people have different views on what the role of a citizen is. Some view a person as a citizen if they take part in the community. But then again, some people view citizens as others that are allowed to vote and make a difference in our community. Unlike woman these people were known as men.
At the Seneca Falls Convention’s the first seed was planted in the 1840’s. The anti-slavery convention in London held a conference that refused to seat Lucretia Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott called out for another convention to address the condition of women. Eight years later, it was known as a spontaneous event.

Either way, the view is that people must have a part in the community. The Nineteenth Amendment stated that the woman had the right to speak out and vote. Susan B. Anthony joined the fight, arguing that "the right women needed above every other, was the right of suffrage." She was a big reason women now have these rights.