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Race Riots, Disasters, War and Politics. The Year was 1917. Looking at New Years Day 100 years ago.
A divisive President pushes international tensions, disasters take hundreds of lives while race riots rage across the country. It wasn’t 2017 — it was 1917 and the newspaper entries for New Year’s January 1 show a somber country anxious for a better year.
As Americans looked back at 1917 they faced conscription into the thick of World War I. President Woodrow Wilson began his second term and stirred up the biggest war build ever seen. 1917 also witnessed a host of man-made and natural disasters including a tornado in Illinois killing 100 people and a mine disaster in Montana killing 168. Race was also a dreadful topic of the year with riots in St. Louis and Houston killing dozens.
Here’s a look at New Year’s headlines from some of the big newspapers 100 years ago — January 1, 1918.
The New York Times had several editorials and this excerpt entitled: “The Happiest New Year?”
There was much less than usual last night of that strange, loud festivity, by which men, forgetting they are a year older, challenge the figure, and, careless of experience, hope and wish, as immemorial generations have wished and hoped, for a Happy New Year. Happiness in a world of mourning, after these years of mourning! In…
