100 years ago

[steven]

The New York State legislature at Albany enacts a workers' compensation insurance system that increases financial incentives for employers to improve workplace safety. Most employers have taken measures to make their factories safer, if only to avoid lawsuits and avoid attracting workers who would demand higher wages to work under dangerous conditions (but see Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911).

Fuller Brush Co. founder Arthur C. Fuller places advertisements in a national magazine for salesmen, offering to let agents sell his products for a $17 fee plus the cost of the brushes, and within a month has 260 men knocking on doors around the country (see 1906). He will incorporate the firm in 1913; it will have sales of nearly $12 million per year by 1920. A salesman at the Saturday Evening Post will coin the phrase "Fuller Brush Man" in 1922, and revenues will rise to $15 million by 1923 as A. C. Fuller builds a reputation for quality—and the nation's largest corps of independent door-to-door salesmen (see Stanley Home Products, 1931).

Glenn M. Curtiss in May flies from Albany to New York in 150 minutes to break the long-distance speed record and win a $10,000 prize put up by Joseph Pulitzer's New York World

Steel begins to replace wood in U.S. automobile bodies

The Flexner Report (Medical Education in the United States and Canada) shows that three out of four North American medical schools are inadequate and that only the Johns Hopkins school founded at Baltimore in 1893 is a match for the great medical schools of Europe. Funded by a $14,000 grant from the 8-year-old Carnegie Foundation, Louisville, Ky.-born physician Abraham Flexner, now 44, has inspected 155 medical schools. His findings spur a $600 million reform program in medical education, and they will lead to the closing of every women's medical college except Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia. The Flexner Report inspires Washington University president Robert S. (Somers) Brookings, 60, at St. Louis to embark on a program that will make his university's medical school second to none within 3 years; other U.S. universities are similarly motivated to elevate medical school standards.

Women account for nearly 40 percent of all U.S. college undergraduates, up from 32 percent in 1880

World heavyweight champion Jack Johnson knocks out former titleholder James J. Jeffries in the 25th round of a match held July 4 at Reno, Nevada.

The Boy Scouts of America is founded

The Camp Fire Girls of America is founded

Father's Day is observed for the first time June 19 at Spokane, Washington

Seventy percent of U.S. bread is baked at home, down from 80 percent in 1890

The U.S. population reaches 92 million with 13.5 million of it foreign-born. Just over half live in cities and towns of 2,500 or more, up from 21 percent in 1860

Booker T. Washington is the first African American to speak at the Rochester City Club.

Buffalo was the 10th largest city in the country according to the US census with a population of 423,715

air conditioning as it is known today was invented in Buffalo,NY.

[mikenold]

Nice post! When did we stop wanting to be the best!!