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Statistics from 1905:​

  • Average life expectancy for the U.S. was 47 years 

  • The maximum speed limit in most major cities was 10 mph

  • The average wage in the U.S. was $0.22 an hour

  • The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 a year

  • 95% of all U.S. births took place at home 

  • Sugar cost $0.04/lb, Eggs cost $0.14/dozen, Coffee cost $0.15/lb

  • Roughly 2 out of every 10 U.S. adults were illiterate 

  • It cost roughly $0.02 to mail a letter

  • On average a working adult saved between 1/4 to 1/2 of everything they made after living expenses

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Some Interesting Things Happening in African American Culture:

  • 1899 - Scott Joplin composes the Maple Leaf Rag introducing ragtime music to the United States

  • 1900 - U.S. census estimates %11.6 of Americans are black (roughly 8,833,944 people)

  • 1900 - The New Orleans Race Riot lasts from July 23-27 resulting in the death of 12 African Americans 

  • 1900 - The National Negro Business League is founded in Boston by Booker T. Washington

  • 1901 - Bert Williams and George Walker become the first African American recording artists

  • 1901 - Booker T. Washington becomes the first black American to dine at the white house. He was invited by President Roosevelt.

  • 1904 -Sigma Pi Phi is founded in Philadelphia by four wealthy African American college graduates

  • 1905 - Nashville African Americans boycott streetcars to protest racial segregation 

  • 1906 - The Atlanta Race Riot lasts from September 22-24 resulting in the death of ten African Americans

  • 1907 - Alain Locke of Philadelphia becomes the first African American Rhodes Scholar

  • 1909 -The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed in New York City

The Niagara Movement (1905-1909):

      The Niagara Movement was a civil right group

founded by W.E.B. Dubious and William Monroe

Trotter after they were denied housing at a hotel

in Buffalo New York. A group of 29 business

owners, teachers, and clergy met on the Canadian

side of Niagara Falls to draft a "Declaration of

Principles", the goal of which was to eradicate the

impression that "the Negro-American assents to 

inferiority, is submissive under oppression, [or] 

apologetic before insults". This group of people fought to bring about legal change in the face of crime, economic, religion, health, and education. By 1906 the movement had grown to include 170 members in 34 states and had made a definitive name for itself through their "powerful message to the entire country [of] their condemnation of racial discrimination and their call to end segregation".

      The Niagara Movement met annually until 1908 when a race riot broke out in Springfield Illinois, killing eight black Americans and resulting in over 2,000 black Americans to flee the city. This was the first northern race riot in four decades and caused members of the Niagara Movement to reexamine how they were fighting racial prejudice. From this examination the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed, many of the Niagara Movement members becoming founders of the NAACP (blackpast.org).

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New York:

     In 1895 Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn voted to join with Manhattan and form a five-borough Greater New York. "As a result, on December 31, 1897, New York City had an area of 60 square miles and a population of a little more than 2 million; on January 1, 1898, when the consolidation plan took effect, New York City had an area of 360 square miles and a population of about 3,350,000 people".

     In 1901 the Tenement House Act "cracked down on lax regulations, and set up the Tenement House Department to inspect and enforce new building standards" an example being that landlord were now required to "install at least one window per bedroom"(history.com). 

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