Dates in Books

history, dates, past, present, future

[its-a-date]

10 p.m. – I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

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This agitation came to a head in a meeting in the Methodist chapel at Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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19 July. – We are progressing.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

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So in good years, farm income soared; in depressions like that of the 1890s the situation was grim. By 1900 a third of America's farmers were working as tenants – hardly Jefferson's vision of liberty.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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The result was massive growth in American agriculture – between 1870 and 1900 the number of farms doubled to 5.7 million, wheat production more than doubled to 600 million bushels, and the number of cattle virtually tripled to 68 million.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

[its-a-date]

The depression of the 1890s brought to a head the mounting antagonism between the beneficiaries and the victims of America's frenzied industrial revolution.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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For five consecutive years unemployment soared above 10 percent.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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That summer the Regiment won national renown for its courageous assault on Fort Wagner, part of the defenses of Charleston.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 was intended to celebrate four centuries of American achievement since Christopher Columbus. Its "white city" of gleaming stucco and electric lights was a wonder of modernity and during the six months the fair was open 27 million people – equivalent to two-fifths of the U.S. population – came to marvel. But by the time it closed in the autumn of 1893, the United States was in the grip of the worst depression it had yet experienced.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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A survey of workers in Pittsburgh, hometown of H. J. Heinz and Andrew Carnegie, found a similar story: "An altogether incredible amount of overwork by everybody, reaching its extreme in the twelve hour shift for seven days in the week in the steel mills and the railway switchyards. Low wages for the great majority of laborers employees by the mills, not lower than in other large cities, but low compared with prices – so low as to be inadequate to the maintenance of a normal American standard of living" and "still lower wages for women."

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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Despite the "brown-stone trimmings, plate-glass and mosaic vestibule floors, the water does not rise in summer to the second story, while the beer flows unchecked to the all-night picnics on the roof."

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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The biggest by far was New York, which grew from 1 million inhabitants to 3.5 million between 1860 and 1910.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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By the 1900s the Union Stockyards on the southwest side of Chicago covered almost a square mile and produced 80 percent of America's meat.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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During the quarter-century before World War I, the New York skyline – indeed the whole city – had been transformed. Sailing into the bay again in 1904, after a long absence, the Boston intellectual Henry Adams found the view "more striking than ever – wonderful – unlike anything man had ever seen," yet also, said Adams,

like nothing he had ever much cared to see. Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky. The city had the air and movement of hysteria, and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and alarm, that the new forces must at any cost be brought under control. Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world irritable, nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

[its-a-date]

These early skyscrapers were a far cry from the smooth, unadorned modernist concrete and glass towers of the late twentieth century.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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As the building went up, Woolworth kept increasing the number of stories to ensure that it ended up higher than the tower of the Metropolitan Insurance Building. The result was indeed the world's tallest building – for seventeen years.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds

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Unlike Chicago, Manhattan did not impose any height restrictions until 1916 and so, in America's corporate capital, the country's biggest businessmen vied to produce the world's tallest building. In late 1902 no fewer than sixty-six skyscrapers were under construction in Lower Manhattan, some of them rising to twenty-five stories.

"America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States," revised and updated edition - David Reynolds