Population: 92,407,000
Life Expectancy: Male 48.4 Female: 51.8
Average Salary $750 / year
The Ziegfeld girls earned $75/week.
Unemployed 2,150,000
National Debt: $1.15 billion
Union Membership: 2.1 million Strikes 1,204
Attendance: Movies 30 million per week
Lynchings: 76
Divorce: 1/1000
Vacation: 12 day cruise $60
Whiskey $3.50 / gallon, Milk $.32 / gallon
Speeds make automobile safety an issue
25,000 performers tour 4,000 U.S. theaters
Times were hard in the 1910s. Living in New York, winters was long and Carrier worked for a heating and air exhaust company where he only made a mere $10.00 a WEEK!
Question 1:
What problem led to Carrier inventing the air conditioner?
Cellophane 1911
The original “Mr. Cellophane” happened to invent this kitchen necessity by accident. Noticing a red wine spill had ruined a table cloth he decided to come up with a stain resistant tablecloth.
What component from cell walls was used to create cellophane?
Ecstasy 1912
Long before the drug craze of the 1960’s and 1970’s, ecstasy was developed. There are several myths as to the original reason it was developed but the most common was to act as a blood clotting agent or an appetite suppressant for war soldiers.
Question 3:
Where was ecstasy originally created?Time-Lapse Camera 1912
This isn’t the Pillsbury you think of when it comes to a fat rolly-dough boy. Pillsbury’s life revolved around photography. He created the panorama camera for large, wide pictures but he also invented a time-lapse camera.
Question 4:
Why did Pillsbury invent the time-lapse camera? What organization was he targeting his nature movie to?
Luxury was the most important thing to the White Star Line company. Passengers ranged from the wealthiest to the poorest people. The White Star Line spared no expense when it came to safety – so they said. The Titanic was meant to be “unsinkable,” which was the reason they only provided enough life boats for ½ of the passengers and crew. The life vests available were noting more than a few cork boards sewed into a heavy cotton apron.
Question 5:
What was the ratio of people saved to those lost on the Titanic?
The Zipper 1913
Several attempts had been made before 1913 at creating a mechanism that would “automatically close clothes.” Twenty years before the actual zipper was patented, there was a similar product debut.
Question 6:
Where was this similar product debut, who showed it, and what was the name of this product?
WWI 1914
Chemists had been hard at work for many years by the time World War I had erupted. Original use of tear gas proved to not work in cold temperatures. The next substance used would be more fatal. The introduction to poisonous gas or chlorine gas came next.
Question 7:
What were the effects of inhaling chlorine gas?
The first prototypes were developed at the start to World War I. It wasn’t until 1916 that tanks were actually used in the war. Those tanks proved to be useless as they generally broke down.
Question 8:
What invention from the 1900’s gave the idea to a Colonel in the British army to pass the invention idea on to Winston Churchill?
Theory of Relativity 1916
Find “Einstein’s Relativity”
In 1916 Einstein expanded his special theory to include the effect of gravitation on the shape of space and the flow of time. This theory, referred to as the General Theory of Relativity, proposed that matter causes space to curve.
Question 9:
Take a close look at the house in this webpage. Explain what happens to the house as you travel from left to right at:
- 80%
- 90%
- 99.9%
- 99%
- 99.9%
Influenza Epidemic 1918
100 years later people are still dying from the flu. In 1918 it was world wide and killed between 20-40 MILLION people. That is more than were killed in WWI.
Question 10:
What percent of the United States was infected ?
Facts taken from:
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade10.html
