What a Difference a Century Makes:  1914
War Comes to Europe

By:  M. Callahan

GOVERNMENT

President: Woodrow Wilson
Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall
Virginia Governor:  William Hodges Mann
Chief Justice Supreme Court:  Edward Douglass White
Speaker of the House:  Champ Clark (D-Missouri)
Congress:  63rd
VA Senators:  Charles A. Swanson & Thomas Martin
Governor of VA:  Wilbur Clarence Dan Daniel

BORN

• January 12 – Edward Gurney, United States Senator from Florida from 1969 till 1974. (died 1996)
• January 31 – Carey Loftin, actor and stuntman (died 1997)
• June 19 – Alan Cranston, United States Senator from California from 1969 till 1993. (died 2000)
• September 26 – Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne, fitness and dietary health trainer (died 2011)
• December 20 – Harry F. Byrd, Jr., United States Senator from Virginia from 1965 until1983.

DIED

• George Westinghouse-American entrepreneur
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sofie
• John Philip Holland, Irish developer of the submarine
• Richard Warren Sears, founder of Sears, Roebuck & Co.
• August Macke, German painter
• Ellen Louise Wilson, First Lady of the US (1st wife of Pres. Wilson)

HISTORICAL EVENTS

• Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie assassinated in Sarajevo by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip.
• World War I begins: Austria declares war on Serbia; Germany on Russia and France; Britain on Germany, the US declares neutrality.  August 4 – German troops invade neutral Belgium at 8:02 AM (local time).
• Panama Canal is officially opened after 10 years of construction.
• In his second big-screen appearance, Charlie Chaplin plays the Little Tramp, his most famous character.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes is published.
• Winsor McCay unleashes Gertie the Dinosaur, the first animated cartoon.
• Congress sets up Federal Trade Commission, passes Clayton Antitrust Act.
• U.S. Marines occupy Veracruz, Mexico, intervening in civil war to protect American interests.
• The world's first red and green traffic lights are installed in Cleveland.
• First scheduled airline flight from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida
• George Washington Carver begins experimenting with peanuts as a new cash crop for Southern farmers.
• Baseball legend Babe Ruth makes his major league debut with the Red Sox.
• Henry Ford sells 248,000 cars.
• The first everyday items made of stainless steel come into public circulation

COST OF COMMON CONSUMER GOODS

Federal spending: $0.73 billion
Consumer Price Index: 7.9
Unemployment: 7.9% up from 4.3 % in 1913
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02

Loaf of bread:  $0.05

Gallon of gasoline:  $0.36

One dozen eggs:  $0.27
Gallon of milk:  $0.17

Average Annual Wage:  $1,296.00

Cost of Average Automobile:  Ford Touring, $550; Runabout, $500; Town Car, $750
Federal Income Tax:  1%
Christmas Dinner at the Hotel Harrington $1.00 (11th and E Streets NW). The Hotel Harrington opened on March 1, 1914 and is owned by the same family today.

SPORTS

World Series:  Philadelphia A's v. NY Giants (4-1)

Stanley Cup:  Quebec Bulldogs

Wimbledon Women: Dorothea Chambers  

Wimbledon Men: Tony Wilding 

Kentucky Derby Champion:  Donerail

NCAA Football Champions:  Harvard (9-0-0)

Most Valuable Pitcher:  Awarded for the first time in 1913 to Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators

AWARDS 1914

• Nobel in Physics-Max von Laue (Germany), for discovery of diffraction of Roentgen rays passing through crystals
• Nobel in Chemistry-Theodore William Richards (US), for determining atomic weight of many chemical elements
• Physiology or Medicine: Robert Bárány (Austria), for work on physiology and pathology of the vestibular system
• Nobel in Literature-Not Awarded
• Nobel in Peace-Not Awarded

SPORTS
World Series:  Boston Braves d. Philadelphia A's (4-0)
Stanley Cup:  Toronto Blueshirts (NHA)
Wimbledon Women: Dorothea Chambers d. E. Larcombe (7-5 6-4)
Wimbledon Men: Norman Brookes d. T. Wilding (6-4 6-4 7-5)
Kentucky Derby Champion:  Old Rosebud
NCAA Football Champions:  Army (9-0-0)

1914 Washington
Businesses continue to thrive & expand, colleges are graduating more women, the suffragette movement is stronger than ever, European nations enter into yet, another war. 

Thompson 's Dairy
Thompson’s Dairy was founded in 1881 by John Thompson.  A dairy farmer by profession, Thompson would haul his milk into DC each and every day, and find a distributor.  Unfortunately, distributors were not always available, meaning thatThompson’s milk, labor, and profit would go to waste. 

Frustrated with this system, Thompson started his own business at 7th and L Streets, NW.  Here the milk was processed, bottled, and dispatched by multiple horse drawn wagons for deliveries all over Washington and adjacent municipalities.

By 1927, a new plant at 2012 11th Street NW, could handle 5,000 gallons of milk a day.  The footprint of the plant took up an entire city block and was know to set the highest Health Dept. standards.  It won numerous awards and offered incentives to dairy farmers to produce richer and cleaner milk. 

Julius Landsburgs Furniture Store
The Lansburgh Building has also been known as the Julius Lansburgh Furniture Company, and the Old Masonic Temple. This beautifully proportioned building was designed in the French Renaissance Revival style in 1867 by well regarded Adolf Cluss of Cluss & Kammerheuber. 

The Julius Lansburgh Furniture Company purchased the Old Masonic Temple in 1921, and gradually remodeled the interior by replacing the ground-floor facade with large plate-glass display windows and removing, or covering, much of the original cast-iron ornamentation to reduce maintenance costs.

Julius Landsburgh’s closed in 1970.  The building was due to be demolished nine years later, but was saved by preservationists.  The Gallup Organization took over much of the space in 2000 when it was largely restored. Currently, there is a McCormick and Schmick’s restaurant on the ground floor and the remainder is used for commercial space.

The Landsburgh is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is part of the Downtown Historic District.

Mother's Day is Declared a National Holiday in the USA
“The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia. She then began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States. Although she was successful in 1914, she was already disappointed with its commercialization by the 1920s. Jarvis' holiday was adopted by other countries, and it is now celebrated all over the world. In this tradition, each person offers a gift, card, or remembrance toward their mothers, grandmothers, and / or maternal figure on mother's day.”      Wikipedia

The Nurses of Georgetown
The Georgetown University Hospital Training School for Nurses was founded in 1903, and graduated their first class in 1906.  The school and hospital were staffed by Sisters of Saint Francis, whose motherhouse was in Glen Riddle, PA.  

“When the US entered World War I, the Army had a total of 4093 active duty nurses.  By the end of the war, 21,480 women served in the Army Nurses Corps rendering service beyond expectations at a time when women were not even allowed to vote.  Over 10,000 of these nurses were deployed overseas during the war.  Serving in France, England, and Italy, American nurses were considered to be among the finest in the world.  Although no US Army Nurses died as a direct result of enemy action, three were wounded by shellfire and 272 died of disease (primarily tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia).  Over the course of the war, a small number of nurses were decorated for bravery:  three received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest award; twenty-four were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal; sixty-nine received the British Royal Red Cross; twenty-eight were given the French Croix de Guerre; and two received the British Military Medal.”     (Army Heritage Center)

War is Declared

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, July  28, 1914
Russian mobilizes against Serbia, July  31, 1914

 

Germany declares war on Russia, Aug. 01, 1914

 

Germany declares war on France, Aug. 03, 1914

 

France declares war on Germany, Aug. 03, 1914

 

Germany declares war on Belgium, Aug. 04, 1914

 

Belgium declares war on Germany, Aug. 04, 1914

 

England declares war on Germany, Aug. 04, 1914

 

Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia, Aug. 06, 1914

 

US declares war on Germany, April 04, 1917

 

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1914 Washington

Photographs are from Wikipedia and the Library of Congress.