Category: Learn History Through Fiction

Fashion trends of the 1930s were a response to the Depression. They included synthetic fabrics that could be more cheaply manufactured than using natural fibers (rayon instead of cotton, nylon stockings instead of silk); recycled burlap flour sacks; color and pattern to liven up otherwise dreary lives; and zippers which were less labor intensive to install than buttons or other fasteners. For the few remaining wealthy folks, winter vacations in the Mediterranean and the Bahamas allowed them to sport tans emphasized by sparkling white dinner jackets and shimmering ivory evening gowns. Read more about fashion trends across the decades in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

On 06/11/1957, the U.S. Air Force launched the first operational missile, the Atlas D, in San Diego. Atlas became a workhorse for the space program, sending John Glenn in Mercury 7 into space for the nation’s first manned orbital flight in 1962. Discover more about San Diego’s historic role in aviation in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

To facilitate and legalize antisemitism, Nazi Germany’s 1935 Nuremberg Laws classified people with four German grandparents as “German or kindred blood,” while those with three or four Jewish grandparents were classified as Jews. A person with one or two Jewish grandparents was a Mischling, a crossbreed, of “mixed blood.” Marriage, even sexual intercourse, was forbidden between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. The laws also stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbid their employment, education, and participation in civic and social life. To some extent, the Nuremberg laws were an attempt to return 20th century Germany Jews to the status they held before their 19th century emancipation. Read more about Nazi Germany in the lead-up to WWII in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

The lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling was filed by 13 parents on behalf of their 20 children in Topeka, Kansas. The named plaintiff, Oliver Brown, was a welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and an assistant pastor at his church. His daughter Linda, who lived 7 blocks from a white school, had to walk 6 blocks to ride a school bus to the black school a mile away. Read more about race relations in Topeka 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

“Racial hygiene” or “Aryan purity” laws of Nazi Germany decreed that people with hereditary and incurable diseases be sterilized or euthanized. The policies were adopted from eugenics, a popular theory in the U.S. Candidates, beginning with children and later extended to adults, were evaluated by German Genetic Health Courts. The policy was originally aimed at weeding out those with mental illnesses. It was then applied to physical disabilities, but carefully, since Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, had a congenital club foot. From 1933-1939, an estimated 360,000 Germans were sterilized. Euthanization was carried out by lethal injection, but later speeded up by the use of gas. Among those affected were midgets. Some, who escaped from Germany, subsequently appeared as Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Read more about Nazi Germany and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In Chicago’s 1900s meat-packing plants, children as young as three were used to clean out sausage-grinding machines. Some fell in; many lost fingers or worse. So did adults. No hairnets were required so heads got pulled into the machines when hair or beards got caught. But managers would not stop the line or slow production. Whatever fell in became part of the sausage. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard and Professor Marvel in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, was born Frank Wupperman, the youngest of six boys and five girls, in New York City in 1890. W.C. Fields was originally cast in the role but the studio got tired of haggling over his fee. Morgan had a distinctive and powerful voice and even “hidden” behind the screen, could elicit terror in pleading victims. Read more about the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Triangle Waist Company, site of the 1911 fire that killed 146 people, employed 500 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, who worked 11-14 hours a day on weekdays and 7-10 hours on Saturday. Women earned $6 to $7 per week and men up to $10. During the slow season, although employees worked the same number of hours, the owners deducted $2 a week from their pay. The busy season meant a seven-day week, and workers were told, “If you don’t come in Sunday, don’t come in Monday.” Read more about inhumane labor conditions 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The appearance of the Munchkins in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz has little to do with L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel on which the movie is based. In the book, Munchkins are described only as shorter than usual in stature and clad from top to toe in blue. The hairdos (for example, the bald heads and spit curls) and elaborate costumes (for example, the flowing blue robe and high hat of the Coroner, the Mayor’s green frock coat and plaid vest, the Lullaby League’s pink tutus, and the Lollipop Guild’s Tartan shirts and striped tights) are the invention of costume designer Adrian Greenberg and makeup artist Jack Dawn. Read more about the Munchkins and the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Women joining the labor force at the turn of the 19th century played a major role in turning the public tide in favor of women’s suffrage. Among them were women who worked for the circus where, unlike other fields, their pay was commensurate with that of male performers. In 1912, at the same time women staged a massive march in New York City to promote the 19th Amendment, the Barnum & Bailey’s Circus Women’s Equal Rights Society was founded. The circus was then the most popular form of entertainment in America which magnified the volume and reach of their voices. Read more about the fight for women’s suffrage in On the Shore (see NOVELS).