The Egg-Boiling Experiment
On Wednesday, December 2, 1942, Chicago’s weather turned frigid — ten degrees Fahrenheit and a howling wind. Underneath the unheated west stands of the...
The Dragon Lady Conquers America, Part 2
On Thursday morning, February 18, 1943, crowds of curious onlookers huddled together near Capitol Hill. Every ten feet on the road leading to the...
The Dragon Lady Conquers America, Part 1
Cornell Newton Shelton, known as C.N., stood freezing in the pre-dawn darkness of Chengtu, China. Shelton, an American bush pilot, preferred jockeying planes around...
Broadcasting from the Bottom of the World
A collapsible organ, a piano, and a man who could do “double tremolos on the harmonica.” If you guessed a 1930s evening by the...
Triple Teamed
World War Two on the home front produced some strange sights: teenagers driving old jalopies on their rims because of tire rationing, children pulling...
Sellin’ Apples
“When we started this thing at the beginning of National Apple Week we had no idea it would expand in this way,” said Joseph...
Santa’s List 1938
In the autumn of 1938, Kaufmann’s Department Store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, decided to survey their customers to see what gifts they really wanted for...
The Third Term
On the evening of July 16, 1940, Thomas D. (for Democrat) Garry sat sweating in front of a microphone in the basement of Chicago...
New Year’s Day 1929: Which Way the Future?
The huge crowd gathered in Times Square on December 31, 1928, did not know that the “New Era” of eternal good times, proclaimed by...