William Howard Taft, Twenty-seventh U.S. President
(1909-1913)
Food: Proctor & Gamble develops hydrogenated
vegetable shortening and calls it Crisco. Canned chili goes on
sale.
Anderson, Jean American Century Cookbook.
p 65
Photography:
Edward S. Curtis
(American Photographer of Native Americans 1899-1929)
Lewis W. Hine
(American Photographer of Child Labor in America 1908-1912)
Child Labor
In the late 1700's and early 1800's, power-driven machines replaced
hand labor for making most manufactured items. The factory owners found
a new source of cheap labor to run their machines — children. European
countries like Great Britain began making laws to shorten working hours
and raise the working age in the late 1800s. The United States
raised the working age to sixteen during school hours and fourteen during after school hours in
1938.
Technology:
The Men Who Built America (Standard
Oil and Ford Motor Company)
In 1911 Rockefeller (Standard Oil, a monopoly who believed in
crushing his competition is being sued by the U.S. government).
And Ford (Ford Company, an automanufacturer who believes in
making cars affordable through an assembly line process and
treating his workers well) is being sued by A.L.A.M. an automobile monopoly
who wants a royalty on every car Ford sells, which
would make cars unaffordable for the common man and essentially
shut Ford down.
Both Rockefeller and Ford were in federal court in 1911.
Rockefeller loses and "Standard Oil is broken up into 34 smaller
companies like Exxon, Mobile, and Chevron. The Age of Monopoly is over."
Ford wins his case and can manufacture cars without repercussion.
Rockefeller ends up with large amounts of stock in all the gasoline
companies that are spawned from his monopoly and he becomes the richest man
in the history of the world with a net worth of $660 billion in
2014 dollars. Rockefeller's gasoline fuels automobiles
and Carnegie's steel powered by JP Morgan's electricity provides the material for the cars. The Industrial revolution
creates a middle class with standardized work weeks and livable wages.
Henry Ford Model T Assembly Line
The Ford Motor Company is mass producing automobiles using an assembly
line process to make the Model T at an affordable price, $825 each.
He pays a livable wage of $5 per day to his workers and standardizes the
eight hour day five days a week. He believes in
competition and is the antithesis of monopolies.
-
The
New York Electric Exhibition introduces "electrified" chafing
dishes, skillets, grills, percolators, toasters, waffle irons.
Anderson, Jean
American Century Cookbook.
p 65won
Matches Invented
In 1910, the Diamond Match Company patented the first nonpoisonous match in the U.S., which used a safe chemical called sesquisulfide of phophorous.
United States President William H. Taft publicly asked Diamond Match to release their patent for the good of mankind. They did on January 28, 1911.