1910-1919: THE INDUSTRIALIZATION ERA


Timeline: Decade of development and destruction


1910

U.S. population 91,972,266 (up 21 percent from 1900)

Fort Wayne's population 63,933 (up from 45,115 in 1900)

Daily newspapers number highest ever, 2,600. The number was 2,500 in 1920. The era of muckraking

World population surpasses 1.5 billion

Worst medical catastrophe since the 14th Century plague as Spanish influenza sweeps the globe, killing 21 million (1 percent of the world population).

Central Catholic High School established

Feb. 6 -- Boy Scouts of America chartered in Washington, D.C.

May 18 -- Halley's Comet appears

1911

Air conditioning invented

German-American Trusts Company organized

March 11 -- Crawfordsville wins first Indiana high school state basketball championship tournament at Indiana University in Bloomington.

1912

George Harris, Stanford, sets world record in high jump at 6-7 with newly developed western roll technique.

Robert A. Gardner of Yale becomes first pole vaulter ever to go over 13 feet (13-1).

Jan. 6 -- New Mexico becomes 47th state

Feb. 14 -- Arizona becomes 48th state (not until 1959 that Alaska and Hawaii become states)

April 15 -- Titanic hits iceberg, sinks.

June 18 -- Theodore Roosevelt splits Republican Party at Republican National Convention in Chicago, starts Progressive Party.

July -- Formal dedication of Foster Park.

Oct. 4 -- Roosevelt shot in chest by fanatic in Milwaukee, gives speech anyway.

Nov. 5 -- Woodrow Wilson elected president, to replace Republican William Howard Taft. (Allen County casts 8,659 votes for Wilson, 4,246 for Roosevelt, 3,415 for Taft, 1,512 for Debs).

1913

Henry Ford introduces assembly line

Robert Frost publishes "A Boy's Will"

Panama Canal completed

Formica invented

Woolworth Building completed in New York City; at 792 feet, the tallest office building in the world.

Stainless steel is developed in England.

Feb. 25 -- 16th Amendment to the Constitution adopted (graduated income tax).

Wells Street under water
Wells Street under water
Here's a view of the high water on Wells Street on March 26, 1913.
March 23-27 -- Worst flood in Fort Wayne's history results in seven deaths.

May 31 -- 17th Amendment to the Constitution passed (popular election of senators).

1914

National total gross debt $1.188 billion (see 1919 debt)

First transcontinental telephone line completed.

Robert Goddard begins development of experimental rocket.

First red-green traffic light introduced in Cleveland.

May 7 -- Congress sends President Wilson a bill providing that the second Sunday in May be Mother's Day.

May 29 -- Edgar Lee Masters publishes his first poems, "Reedey's Mirror," Edgar Rice Burroughs publishes "Tarzan of the Apes," Robert Frost's "North of Boston" poems published abroad.

June 28 -- Austria's Archduke Ferdinand murdered in Sarajevo; Austria-Hungaria declares war five days later to begin World War I.

Aug. 1 -- Germany declares war on Russia.

Aug. 3 -- Germany declares war on France.

Aug. 23 -- Japan declares war on Germany.

Sept. 26 -- Federal Trade Commission established.

Oct. 15 -- Clayton Anti-trust Act passed by Congress.

1915

Einstein completes his theory of relativity

Ty Cobb sets major league record with 96 stolen bases (stands till Maury Wills breaks it in 1962).

1915 -- Central fields city's first high school football team.

1915 -- The Fort Wayne Friars bring professional football to Fort Wayne.

May 6 -- Babe Ruth hits his first career home run (as a pitcher for Boston, playing against the Yankees).

May 7 -- Lusitania sunk by German u-boat.

June 21 -- A miles-long parade of automobiles from Fort Wayne to New Haven marked the dedication of the Fort Wayne section of the Lincoln Highway.

July 6 -- 50,000 person give reception to Liberty Bell, which was drawn along a Pennsylvania Railway sidetrack on Murray Street while en route from Philadelphia to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.

Oct. 23 -- New Harmar school dedication ceremony attended by 10,000.

Nov. 25 -- Almost dormant KKK revived in Atlanta.

Dec. 10 -- 1 millionth Ford motorcar rolls down assembly line, same year "jitney" (nickel) auto rides offered, originating taxi cabs.

1916

Railroad mileage peaks at 254,000 -- highest ever, past or future

March 9 -- Pancho Villa attacks New Mexico.

June -- Celebration of 100th anniversary of Indiana's statehood.

June 10 -- Republicans nominate Charles Evans Hughes of New York for president and Indiana's Charles Fairbanks for vice-president at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Sept. 7 -- Workers Compensation Act enacted by Congress.

Nov. 7 -- Wilson wins second term as president. (Allen County casts 9,134 votes for Wilson, 10,082 for Charles Evans Hughes).

1917

U.S. acquires Virgin Islands

First Pulitzer Prizes given out by Columbia School of Journalism.

March 2 -- Jones Act makes Puerto Rico part of U.S. territory and their people U.S. citizens.

April 2 -- Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany; two days later the Senate concurs; on Good Friday the House follows.

May 18 -- Selective Service Act is passed by Congress.

Dec. 7 -- U.S. declares war on Austria-Hungaria.

1918

First three-color traffic light installed in New York City.

Sept. 26 -- Last major battle of World War I between the Argonne Forest and Mense.

Nov. 11 -- Germans sign armistice treaty.

1919

Babe Ruth sets major league home run record of 29 in one season (for Boston).

National debt rises to $26 billion from only $2 in 1917

Shortwave radio invented

1919 -- Fort Wayne Caseys professional basketball team formed.

Jan. 29 -- 18th Amendment to Constitution ratified (prohibition).

June 4 -- Proposal toadop 19th Amendment passed by Congress and goes to states for ratification (enfranchisement of women).

July 1 -- First daily air mail service established between Chicago and New York.

Sept. 25 -- Wilson suffers stroke on tour; regains control of his faculties and functions by Nov. 1 (but during the interim vice-president Thomas Marshall of Indiana did not take control).

Nov. 19 -- Senate refuses to ratify Versailles Treaty ending World War I.

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