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The First Monopoly is formed
Financier J. P. Morgan oversaw the formation of United States Steel, built from eight leading steel companies. Industrialization was built on steel, and one firm—the world’s first billion-dollar company—controlled the market. Monopoly had arrived.
-The American Yawp -
Roosevelt Administration Begins
Roosevelt, after winning headlines in the war, ran as vice president under McKinley and rose to the presidency after McKinley’s assassination by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Among his many interventions in American life, Roosevelt acted with vigor to expand the military by bolstering naval power. Roosevelt’s youthful energy and confrontational politics captivated the nation. Roosevelt pushed for antitrust legislation and regulations.
-The American Yawp -
The WTUL is Formed
An alliance of working-class and middle- and upper-class women organized the Women’s Trade Union League and campaigned for the vote alongside the National American American Suffrage Association. They viewed the vote as a way to further their economic interests and to foster a new sense of respect for working-class women. “What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist,” said Ruth Schneiderman, a WTUL leader, during a 1912 speech.
-The American Yawp -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan caught fire. The workers were trapped due to poor safety regulations. By the end of the fire, 71 workers were injured and 146 had died. The Triangle owners were brought up on manslaughter charges and acquitted after less than two hours of deliberation. This continued a trend of workers’ deaths being answered with little punishment of those responsible. But as such tragedies mounted, it became increasingly difficult to justify them.
-The American Yawp -
Hetch Hetchy Dam Project Approved
The tensions between preservation and conservation crystalized in the debate over a proposed dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in California. The location where the Tuolumne River ran through Hetch Hetchy was an ideal site for a reservoir. But the valley was located inside Yosemite National Park. Conservation won out. Congress approved the project in 1913. The dam was built and the valley flooded for the benefit of San Francisco residents.
-The American Yawp -
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Serbian Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian-Hungarian heirs to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Grand Duchess Sophie. Vengeful nationalist leaders believed the time had arrived to eliminate the rebellious ethnic Serbian threat. This is generally considered to be the major event that propelled the start of WWI.
-The American Yawp -
The sinking of the the RMS Lusitania
Unrestricted and surprise torpedo attacks from German submarines were deadly. Germans sank the RMS Lusitania. Over a hundred American lives were lost. The attack, coupled with other German attacks on American and British shipping, raised the ire of the public and stoked the desire for war in America.
-The American Yawp -
The US Enters WWI
The war heralded to the world the United States’ potential as a global military power, and, domestically, it advanced but then beat back American progressivism by unleashing vicious waves of repression. The war simultaneously stoked national pride and fueled disenchantments that burst Progressive Era hopes for the modern world. And it laid the groundwork for a global depression, a second world war, and an entire history of national, religious, and cultural conflict.
-The American Yawp