Kids take a history journey to 1912

By Sean Barron

Among other things, the children learned about others their age working full-time jobs.

YOUNGSTOWN — Many children probably take for granted the capabilities of their computers and MP3 players, but Erin and Jena Styka appreciated delving into a time when there weren’t even TVs or radios.

“It’s hard to believe kids had to work, and having to do that for your family would be hard,” said Jena, 13, referring to part of what she learned about life in the United States in 1912.

The two Austintown sisters and St. Joseph School pupils were among 10 children age 8 to 13 who participated in Saturday’s exhibit “1912” at the Youngstown Historical Center, 151 W. Wood St.

The two-hour event featured a variety of activities and research projects designed to give the kids a sense of what life was like during that time. It also featured a discussion about many of the trends in popular culture, government and the workplace.

Erin, 11, said she will likely remember the story she read depicting a large labor strike against numerous textile mills that began in January 1912. Violence that erupted during clashes between workers and the police and soldiers “was kind of scary,” she added.

That year, many immigrants were coming to Youngstown from Russia, southern and eastern Europe and elsewhere to find work in the iron and steel mills, despite having to endure low pay and dangerous work environments, noted Keith A. Mann, an education specialist with the center.

Many families had a piano for entertainment and listened to one-sided 78-rpm records that contained recordings by popular jazz figures such as Scott Joplin and Paul Whiteman, for example. They also had wireless telegraphs, which preceded radio by nearly a decade, Mann said, adding that the nation’s first commercial radio station, KDKA, debuted in 1920 in Pittsburgh.

A lot of people spent summer days enjoying baseball, which was the most popular sport, Mann said, adding that Ty Cobb and Cy Young were among its best-known players. Football was something of an elitist sport, and basketball “hadn’t caught on yet,” he continued.

“Football was something that was played at Ivy League schools,” Mann added.

Even though 1912 was part of the Progressive era, a 20-year period of general optimism that saw most people working toward making life better, several challenges remained. Those included no voting rights for women; discrimination against blacks, especially in the South; corruption in many state and local governments; and standard 12-hour workdays often accompanied by substandard working conditions, Mann noted.

Deplorable conditions, unregulated factories and unfair-labor practices led many cotton, wool and other textile workers in Lawrence, Mass., to strike in early 1912 against the mills, most of which were in cramped and unsafe tenements. About 50 percent of children between 14 and 18 in Lawrence had to quit school and work in the mills to support their families, Mann told his audience.

Nevertheless, he said, the strike led to workers’ receiving 25 percent pay raises, getting guaranteed 54-hour workweeks and being hired back. The walkout was unusual because most employees who walked off their jobs before the 1930s got nothing, Mann said.

The youngsters also conducted research Saturday by looking through newspapers from 1912 such as the Youngstown Telegram and Niles Daily News. Some were struck and amused by formal outfits as low as $5; one boy’s attention was on a coal-burning furnace going for $6.75 and a gas stove for $15.

They also had opportunities to play a board game about Titanic, as well as a handful of records from the 1910s. Some also found interest in looking through popular books of the time, which included “A Princess of Mars” and “Tarzan of the Apes,” both by Edgar Rice Burroughs; “Anne of Green Gables;” “Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and “Riders of the Purple Sage,” an epic about the American West by Zane Grey.

Mann said he wanted to give the young participants an in-depth appreciation of material he said isn’t covered in many curriculums, as well as a deeper look at concepts and ideas not often explored in some traditional history courses.

“I’d like the kids to take away what life was like 96 years ago,” he said. “I want them to take away an appreciation for the past. I think every child needs teachers who will encourage them to be lifelong learners ... and critical thinkers.”