President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote on May 11, 1935, “I hereby establish an agency within the Government to be known as the Rural Electrification Administration…to initiate, formulate, administer, and supervise a program of approved projects with respect to the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric energy in rural areas.” In 1935, only 10% of America’s …
My Country – John Peter Altgeld On June 26, 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned three men convicted in the Haymarket Square bombings. Chicago Labor Movement In 1886, Chicago suffered from poor working conditions. A movement began to introduce an eight-hour work day, which we all take for granted today. Although state and federal law …
My Country – Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act In the 1920s and 1930s, farmers accrued large amounts of debt. Farm prices feel as the industrial revolution increased manufacturing prices. Farmers found it impossible to pay off their mortgages. As we noted yesterday, historically, bankruptcy was used to liquidate the assets of a debtor, distribute the proceeds, …
My Country – J.S. Coxey Jacob Coxey was born April 16, 1854 in Selinsgrove, PA and raised in Danville, PA. At age 16, J.S. Coxey began to work as a water boy at the mill and worked his way up to a stationary engineer. Eventually he began working for his uncle’s scrap metal firm. In …