Category: Learn History Through Fiction

Slot machines are called “one-armed bandits” because of the lever on the side, or “fruit machines” because of the images of three fruits across top that results in a win (jackpot) if they match. Read about when gambling was illegal in Las Vegas (1911-1931) and how the Mob established underground casinos in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Germany has agreed to compensate survivors who fled the Nazis as children in the Kindertransport. From November 1938 (after Kristallnacht) to September 1939 (when Germany declared war on Poland), about 10,000 children, 7,500 of them Jewish, from Germany, Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, were sent to Great Britain. Many never saw their parents, who were killed in the Holocaust, again. The $2,800 paid to each of the estimated 1,000 survivors, most of whom remained in England or emigrated to the U.S., Canada, Australia, or Israel,, is symbolic compensation for the physical, psychological, and spiritual harm done to them. Most never recovered from the trauma. To learn more about the life-long effects of the Kindertransport on the children whose lives were torn apart, read my short story, “Golo’s Transport,” published in The Madison Review, Fall 2017) (see SHORT STORIES).

In the mid-1950s, TIME, the weekly news magazine founded in 1923, featured covers devoted to the economy, Hollywood, psychiatry, Russia, labor, and fashion. Titles and photos inside its distinctive red border included the following: The Bull Market (a bull on Wall Street); Gentleman Prefer Ladies (Grace Kelly); Exploring the Soul – A Challenge to Freud (Carl Jung); Shakeup in the Kremlin (Nikita Khrushchev); AFL’s George Meany (smoking a cigar, bald-headed, with bad teeth); and The American Look (fashion designer Claire McCardell). Harlow Curtis, President of GM, was named Man of the Year. GM sold five million vehicles and became the first U.S. corporation to earn $1 billion in a single year.A copy of TIME in 1955 cost twenty cents. Today each weekly issue sells for five dollars. Read more about 1950s culture and TIME magazine in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS.

The 1910 Chicago Electrical Show was billed as the most elaborate exposition ever held, with “everything that’s new in light, heat and power for the home, office, store, factory and farm on display.” It was advertised as a “Veritable Fairyland of Electrical Wonders” with $40,000 spent on decorations (worth $950,000 today). Displays included a Wright airplane exhibited by the U.S. Government, wireless telegraphy, and telephony. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The San Diego Naval Base was commissioned in 1922 as U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego. It grew rapidly during its first years as a repair facility and torpedo & radio school. In 1931, then Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz assumed command and noted the “poor condition of decommissioned ships” in his report about the country’s readiness for war. During the Depression, the base survived with more than $2 million for dredging projects from the Public Works Administration (PWA). Then came WW II. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The Beatles television appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, was watched by an estimated 74 million viewers, half the U.S. population. Their send-off two days earlier at Heathrow airport was riotous, as was their arrival at the newly re-christened JFK airport, where 3,000 screaming fans greeted them. The youthful exuberance and snarky humor of the Fab Four was the perfect antidote for a country still reeling from President Kennedy’s assassination less than three months earlier. Read more about the Beatles and their U.S. debut in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, employees could not escape because managers locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. This was a common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks or pilfering material. Supervisors checked women’s purses on their way out each day, and even when they went to the bathroom. Read more about inhumane sweatshop conditions in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Remember when (really) “big” shoulders for women were fashionable in the 1980s, especially for those challenging the male-dominated corporate world? The trend was a revival of a style that flourished in the 1930s through the end of WWII. It began when Adrian Greenberg, costume designer for The Wizard of Oz, designed dresses with shoulder pads for MGM star Joan Crawford, who epitomized the hard-working and successful woman. Hollywood and fashion had a symbiotic relationship. Movie costumes influenced designers and the designer styles adopted by stars became popular with the general public. Read more about fashion trends and movie history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Songs from Broadway musicals boosted American spirits during the Great Depression. Cole Porter’s 1934 score for Anything Goes, starring Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney and William Gaxton as Billy Crockett, was a popular source. However, when the show was made into a movie in 1936, featuring Merman and Bing Crosby, Production Code censors nixed the saucy lyrics of the stage production. The only remaining numbers were “Anything Goes,” “I Get A Kick Out of You,” “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair,” and “You’re the Top.” Read more music history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Pentecostals are known for speaking in tongues, whether through Glossolalia (unintelligible utterances) or Xenoglossy (articulating a natural language previously unknown to the person). Pentecostalists also practice divine healing and believe in the gift of prophecy. Many mainstream religions dispute the Christian tenets of Pentecostalism, sometimes resulting in violent clashes. Read about religious tensions in America’s heartland 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).