Life at the Turn of the Century
Bausum, Ann. Muckrakers: Investigative Journalism. National Geographic Society. 2007. ISBN-13: 9781426301377 1180L
Muckraking is not yellow journalism, and the book explains the difference. While muckraking has existed nearly as long as newspaper reporting, it really reached its heyday in the 1890s. Now, we call it investigative journalism. Muckrakers were not popular with everyone, but the readers of newspapers and magazines clamored for the truth to be told. McClure's intelligent reporter and editor, Lincoln Steffens, launched investigative journalism with his expose on government corruption and political bosses in St. Louis, Missouri. Jacob Riis wrote articles about the urban poor and the deplorable living conditions they faced. Ida B. Wells-Barnett exposed the lynching of African-Americans in the South. Ida M. Tarbell exposed the seedy business practices of John D. Rockefeller, the owner of the Standard Oil Company. She uncovered the underhanded ways that Rockefeller's company was obtaining small competitors or running them out of business. As a result of her investigation, the Rockefeller family had to hire their own writers to try to repair their damaged public image. Upton Sinclair wrote about the hardships of factory workers; he is best known for his expose of Chicago's meatpacking facilities. David Graham Phillips, wrote for Collier's about widespread corruption between corporations and U.S. senators. The introduction and the last chapter detail where investigative journalism has gone since the time of the muckrakers.
Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780152053109
Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original.
Haddix , Margaret Peterson. Uprising. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. 2007. ISBN-13: 9781416911715
Around her the workers were screaming out prayers and curses.... She herself was sobbing tearlessly.... Her only prayer was still, "I don't want to die." Oh, please, God, don't let me die, she thought. I've never even had a chance to live. Bella, newly arrived in New York from Italy, gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, along with hundreds of other immigrants, she works long hours at a grueling job under terrible conditions. Yetta, a coworker from Russia, has been crusading for a union, and when factory conditions worsen, she helps workers rise up in a strike. Wealthy Jane learns of the plight of the workers and becomes involved with their cause. Bella and Yetta are at work — and Jane is visiting the factory — on March 25, 1911, when a spark ignites some cloth and the building is engulfed in fire, leading to one of the worst workplace disasters ever. Margaret Peterson Haddix draws on extensive historical research to bring the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to tangible life through her thrilling story of Bella, Yetta, and Jane.
Hale, Marian. Dark Water Rising. Henry Holt and Co. 2006. ISBN-13: 9780805075854
A poignant coming-of-age novel set during the Galveston Storm of 1900. I looked south toward the gulf, trying to keep an eye on the stalking sea. Wild waves rose up like a great hand and wrenched loose the Pagoda’s long staircase, sending planks tumbling through the air. With horror I watched the end of one twin building sway and dip into the surf. I yelled at Josiah, but my words disappeared on the wind. I grabbed his arm, pointed, and we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, mouths gaping, watching the impossible. Like a wounded Goliath, the great bathhouse shuddered, folded in on its long legs, and collapsed into the sea. Galveston, Texas, may be the booming city of the twentieth century, but to Seth it is the end of a dream. He wants to be a carpenter like his father, but the family has moved so Seth can become a doctor. Just as things begin to look up for Seth, a storm warning is raised one sweltering afternoon. A north wind always brings change, but no one could have imagined anything like this.
Lowry, Lois. The Silent Boy. Random House Children's Books. 2005. ISBN-13: 9780440419808
This compassionately written novel chronicles a story set in the early 1900s, inspired by the period photographs that illustrate each of twenty chapters. Narrator Katy Thatcher's voice provides enchanting evidence of her developing cognition. Six-year-old Katy's precocious intelligence contrasts with her naïveté. Her doctor father explains science and medicine to his future-doctor daughter, giving her an advanced but credible medical vocabulary, while her linguistic errors and concrete thinking reveal her innocence. Katy sees Jacob, the silent boy, watching when she and her father come to cart away his sister Peggy to be their hired girl, and she becomes acquainted with him while with her father on a medical call. Jacob is revealed to be gentle and good with Katy as his kind, understanding, and curious friend. Peggy and Jacob's sister Nellie is the hired girl next door who falls for a young man of the house in a lopsided relationship. Katy's growth enables her to understand and explain Jacob's bizarre action but innocent intent in carrying Nellie's unwanted infant to leave it for Mrs. Thatcher, a woman whom he has judged a caring and nurturing mother. Lowry's latest achievement delivers complexity disguised as simplicity-providing depth through her child-narrator's eyes. Themes of birth and death weave throughout; period news and truths add substance, and town life is contrasted with country. Farm girls cease formal education when hired out, but town girls may study further. Farm girls understand maternity; Katy believes babies arrive in the garden. Overlaying this setting, touched in the head, nonverbal Jacob Stoltz appreciates sounds and communes with animals.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780375725609
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
Peck, Richard. Fair Weather. Penguin Group. 2002. ISBN-13: 9780142500347
Thirteen-year-old Rosie Beckett has never strayed further from her family's farm than a horse can pull a cart. Then a letter from her Aunt Euterpe arrives, and everything changes. It's 1893, the year of the World's Columbian Exposition-the "wonder of the age"-a.k.a. the Chicago World's Fair. Aunt Euterpe is inviting the Becketts to come for a visit and go to the fair! Award-winning author Richard Peck's fresh, realistic, and fun-filled writing truly brings the World's Fair-and Rosie and her family-to life.
Rinaldi, Ann. Brooklyn Rose. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2006. ISBN-13: 9780152055387
It's 1900, the dawn of a new century, and fifteen-year-old Rose Frampton is beginning a new life. She's left her family in South Carolina to live with her handsome and wealthy husband in Brooklyn, New York—a move that is both scary and exciting. As mistress of the large Victorian estate on Dorchester Road, she must learn to make decisions, establish her independence, and run an efficient household. These tasks are difficult enough without the added complication of barely knowing her husband. As romance blossoms and Rose begins to find her place, she discovers that strength of character does not come easily but is essential for happiness.
Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. HarperCollins Publishers. 2005. ISBN-13: 9780060736262 810L
A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900's, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity. His wife Katie scrubs floors to put food on the table and clothes on her children’s backs, instilling in them the values of being practical and planning ahead. When Johnny dies, leaving Katie pregnant, Francie, smart, pensive and hoping for something better, cannot believe that life can carry on as before. But with her own determination, and that of her mother behind her, Francie is able to move toward the future of her dreams, completing her education and heading off to college, always carrying the beloved Brooklyn of her childhood in her heart.
Muckraking is not yellow journalism, and the book explains the difference. While muckraking has existed nearly as long as newspaper reporting, it really reached its heyday in the 1890s. Now, we call it investigative journalism. Muckrakers were not popular with everyone, but the readers of newspapers and magazines clamored for the truth to be told. McClure's intelligent reporter and editor, Lincoln Steffens, launched investigative journalism with his expose on government corruption and political bosses in St. Louis, Missouri. Jacob Riis wrote articles about the urban poor and the deplorable living conditions they faced. Ida B. Wells-Barnett exposed the lynching of African-Americans in the South. Ida M. Tarbell exposed the seedy business practices of John D. Rockefeller, the owner of the Standard Oil Company. She uncovered the underhanded ways that Rockefeller's company was obtaining small competitors or running them out of business. As a result of her investigation, the Rockefeller family had to hire their own writers to try to repair their damaged public image. Upton Sinclair wrote about the hardships of factory workers; he is best known for his expose of Chicago's meatpacking facilities. David Graham Phillips, wrote for Collier's about widespread corruption between corporations and U.S. senators. The introduction and the last chapter detail where investigative journalism has gone since the time of the muckrakers.
Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780152053109
Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original.
Haddix , Margaret Peterson. Uprising. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. 2007. ISBN-13: 9781416911715
Around her the workers were screaming out prayers and curses.... She herself was sobbing tearlessly.... Her only prayer was still, "I don't want to die." Oh, please, God, don't let me die, she thought. I've never even had a chance to live. Bella, newly arrived in New York from Italy, gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, along with hundreds of other immigrants, she works long hours at a grueling job under terrible conditions. Yetta, a coworker from Russia, has been crusading for a union, and when factory conditions worsen, she helps workers rise up in a strike. Wealthy Jane learns of the plight of the workers and becomes involved with their cause. Bella and Yetta are at work — and Jane is visiting the factory — on March 25, 1911, when a spark ignites some cloth and the building is engulfed in fire, leading to one of the worst workplace disasters ever. Margaret Peterson Haddix draws on extensive historical research to bring the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to tangible life through her thrilling story of Bella, Yetta, and Jane.
Hale, Marian. Dark Water Rising. Henry Holt and Co. 2006. ISBN-13: 9780805075854
A poignant coming-of-age novel set during the Galveston Storm of 1900. I looked south toward the gulf, trying to keep an eye on the stalking sea. Wild waves rose up like a great hand and wrenched loose the Pagoda’s long staircase, sending planks tumbling through the air. With horror I watched the end of one twin building sway and dip into the surf. I yelled at Josiah, but my words disappeared on the wind. I grabbed his arm, pointed, and we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, mouths gaping, watching the impossible. Like a wounded Goliath, the great bathhouse shuddered, folded in on its long legs, and collapsed into the sea. Galveston, Texas, may be the booming city of the twentieth century, but to Seth it is the end of a dream. He wants to be a carpenter like his father, but the family has moved so Seth can become a doctor. Just as things begin to look up for Seth, a storm warning is raised one sweltering afternoon. A north wind always brings change, but no one could have imagined anything like this.
Lowry, Lois. The Silent Boy. Random House Children's Books. 2005. ISBN-13: 9780440419808
This compassionately written novel chronicles a story set in the early 1900s, inspired by the period photographs that illustrate each of twenty chapters. Narrator Katy Thatcher's voice provides enchanting evidence of her developing cognition. Six-year-old Katy's precocious intelligence contrasts with her naïveté. Her doctor father explains science and medicine to his future-doctor daughter, giving her an advanced but credible medical vocabulary, while her linguistic errors and concrete thinking reveal her innocence. Katy sees Jacob, the silent boy, watching when she and her father come to cart away his sister Peggy to be their hired girl, and she becomes acquainted with him while with her father on a medical call. Jacob is revealed to be gentle and good with Katy as his kind, understanding, and curious friend. Peggy and Jacob's sister Nellie is the hired girl next door who falls for a young man of the house in a lopsided relationship. Katy's growth enables her to understand and explain Jacob's bizarre action but innocent intent in carrying Nellie's unwanted infant to leave it for Mrs. Thatcher, a woman whom he has judged a caring and nurturing mother. Lowry's latest achievement delivers complexity disguised as simplicity-providing depth through her child-narrator's eyes. Themes of birth and death weave throughout; period news and truths add substance, and town life is contrasted with country. Farm girls cease formal education when hired out, but town girls may study further. Farm girls understand maternity; Katy believes babies arrive in the garden. Overlaying this setting, touched in the head, nonverbal Jacob Stoltz appreciates sounds and communes with animals.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780375725609
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
Peck, Richard. Fair Weather. Penguin Group. 2002. ISBN-13: 9780142500347
Thirteen-year-old Rosie Beckett has never strayed further from her family's farm than a horse can pull a cart. Then a letter from her Aunt Euterpe arrives, and everything changes. It's 1893, the year of the World's Columbian Exposition-the "wonder of the age"-a.k.a. the Chicago World's Fair. Aunt Euterpe is inviting the Becketts to come for a visit and go to the fair! Award-winning author Richard Peck's fresh, realistic, and fun-filled writing truly brings the World's Fair-and Rosie and her family-to life.
Rinaldi, Ann. Brooklyn Rose. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2006. ISBN-13: 9780152055387
It's 1900, the dawn of a new century, and fifteen-year-old Rose Frampton is beginning a new life. She's left her family in South Carolina to live with her handsome and wealthy husband in Brooklyn, New York—a move that is both scary and exciting. As mistress of the large Victorian estate on Dorchester Road, she must learn to make decisions, establish her independence, and run an efficient household. These tasks are difficult enough without the added complication of barely knowing her husband. As romance blossoms and Rose begins to find her place, she discovers that strength of character does not come easily but is essential for happiness.
Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. HarperCollins Publishers. 2005. ISBN-13: 9780060736262 810L
A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900's, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity. His wife Katie scrubs floors to put food on the table and clothes on her children’s backs, instilling in them the values of being practical and planning ahead. When Johnny dies, leaving Katie pregnant, Francie, smart, pensive and hoping for something better, cannot believe that life can carry on as before. But with her own determination, and that of her mother behind her, Francie is able to move toward the future of her dreams, completing her education and heading off to college, always carrying the beloved Brooklyn of her childhood in her heart.