Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476664838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
Police violence is not a new phenomenon. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, police officers in America assaulted or killed many ordinary citizens, often during improper detainments or arrests where no threat existed or no crime had been committed. Based on hundreds of newspaper accounts from 1869 through 1920, this history provides a chronological listing of interactions between police and unarmed citizens in which the citizens--some of them minors--were assaulted or killed. Police who committed such acts often lied to protect themselves, assisted by fellow officers and encouraging the media to demonize the victims. The author provides information on the prosecution and punishment of officers where available.
Author: Francesco Landolfi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000623483
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
This book aims to highlight the causes why the Prohibition Era led to an evolution of the New York mob from a rural, ethnic and small-scale to an urban, American and wide-scale crime. The temperance project, advocated by the WASP elite since the early nineteenth century, turned into prohibition only after the end of WWI with the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment. By considering the success that war prohibition made to the soldiers' psychophysical condition, Congress aimed to shift this political move even to civil society. So it was that the Italian, Irish and Jewish mobs took the chance to spread their bribe system to local politics due to the lucrative alcohol bootlegging. New York became the core of the national anti-prohibition, where the smuggling from Canada and Europe merged into the legendary Manhattan nightclubs and speakeasies. With the coming of the Great Depression, the Republican Party was aware about the failure of this political measure, leading to the making of a new corporate underworld. The book is addressed to historians of New York, historians of crime and historians of modern America as well as to an audience of readers interested in the history of the Prohibition Era.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147663808X
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
In the last third of the 1800s, America was struck by a bicycle craze. This trend massively impacted the lives of women, allowing them greater mobility and changing perceptions of women as weak or in need of chaperons. This book traces the history and development of the American bicycle, observing its critical role in the fight for gender equality. The bicycle radically changed the face of fashion, health and even morality and propriety in America. This thorough history traces the sweeping social advances made by women in relation to the development of the bicycle.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476676712
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
The electric vehicle seemed poised in 1900 to be a leader in automotive production. Clean, odorless, noiseless and mechanically simple, electrics rarely broke down and were easy to operate. An electric car could be started instantly from the driver's seat; no other machine could claim that advantage. But then it all went wrong. As this history details, the hope and confidence of 1900 collapsed and just two decades later electric cars were effectively dead. They had remained expensive even as gasoline cars saw dramatic price reductions, and the storage battery was an endless source of problems. An increasingly frantic public relations campaign of lies and deceptive advertising could not turn the tide.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147666904X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
When the need for telephone operators arose in the 1870s, the assumption was that they should all be male. Wages for adult men were too high, so boys were hired. They proved quick to argue with the subscribers, so females replaced them. Women were calmer, had reassuring voices and rarely talked back. Within a few years, telephone operators were all female and would remain so. The pay was low and working conditions harsh. The job often impaired their health, as they suffered abuse from subscribers in silence under pain of dismissal. Discipline was stern--dress codes were mandated, although they were never seen by the public. Most were young, domestic and anything but militant. Yet many joined unions and walked picket lines in response to the severely capitalistic, sexist system they worked under.
Author: George Beck
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476680221
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Widespread law enforcement or formal policing outside of cities appeared in the early 20th century around the same time the early film industry was developing--the two evolved in tandem, intersecting in meaningful ways. Much scholarship has focused on portrayals of the criminal in early American cinema, yet little has been written about depictions of the criminal's antagonist. This history examines how different on-screen representations shifted public perception of law enforcement--initially seen as a suspicious or intrusive institution, then as a power for the common good.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476694494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
This book recalls masking efforts in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. Masking the population as an ineffective response to disease by public health officials and political bureaucrats at various levels of jurisdiction reached its zenith in 2020. However, it began a century earlier during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919. In both cases, masking was not the first response made by the officials. In both cases, it was introduced as part of the second round of responses after the first round had failed. During 1918 the imposition of masking was done by legal mandate in some areas, by hectoring and whining on the part of officials in other areas, and by gentle and not so gentle public persuasion involving the use of "good" examples. Military members were mainly forced to don masks. Since there were bases, camps, and cantonments all over America as the war was ongoing, it was hoped an example would be set for the general public. Post office clerks who dealt with the public were often forced to wear masks; it was one of the few areas where the federal government had the power to impose masking. Some areas used masking almost not at all, such as the New England states. Other areas, such as the Pacific, forced masking on much of the population. Some public health officials did not subscribe to any of the imposed measures, such as Dr. Royal Copeland, the New York City Health Commissioner, and Dr. Rupert Blue, the United States Surgeon General.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476682860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
The early 20th century saw the founding of the National Security League, a nationalistic nonprofit organization committed to an expanded military, conscripted service and meritocracy. This book details its history, from its formation in December 1914 through 1922, at which point it was a spent force in decline. Founded by wealthy corporate lawyers based in New York City, it had secret backers in the capitalist class, who had two goals in mind. One was to profit immensely from the newly begun World War I. The other was to control the working classes in times of both war and peace. This agenda was presented to the public under the guise of preparedness, patriotism, and Americanization. Although the league was eventually found by Congress to have violated election spending limits, no sanctions of any kind were ever applied. This history details the secret machinations of an organization dedicated to solidifying the grip of the capitalist class over workers, all under the cover of American pride.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476694915
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
The first decade of the auto industry in America featured politicians and bureaucrats at all political levels trying to come to terms with a new form of locomotion. Rules and regulations had to be drafted, implemented, and then enforced. Working against them was a small but wealthy and powerful group that fought against regulations, tried to weaken those they could not block, or sought to write the rules themselves. This book details how the auto industry was imposed on society from the top down, unlike many new innovations that go through society from the bottom up.
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147664215X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
On a summer day in 1898, a family in Dover, Delaware, shared a box of chocolates they received in the mail from an anonymous sender. Within days, two of the seven family members were dead; the other five became ill but recovered. The search for the perpetrator soon moved from Delaware to California, where a suspect was quickly identified: Cordelia Botkin, lover of the husband of one of the poisoned women. This book chronicles the shoddy investigation that led to Botkin's indictment and the two sensational trials, adjudicated in the press, that found her guilty. National attention was drawn by the cross-country nature of the crime and the fact that the supposed perpetrator had never been in Delaware in her life. It was also a trial over what was viewed as the moral and sexual depravity of the two main participants, Botkin and Dunning (the husband), with most of that criticism directed at Botkin.
