What occurs to you when you think of the year 1902?

Wikipedia occurs to me.

The only thing I know about 1902 is that Edward II was crowned king of the UK, although Queen Victoria actually died the year before.

Short lifespans
Electricity as a newfangled invention
Ditto telephones
Horse-drawn carriages in cities – and huge piles of manure
American xenophobia regarding southern and eastern Europeans – birth of Red Scare and bolshevik (and anti-bolshevik) movements
Early attempts at union formation in the US
Was the Model T introduced at about this time?
Early flight (amazing that the auto and airplane were introduced nearly simultaneously)

I think of my great grandmother who was 17 years old in 1902.
She lived to be 98 and died in 1983.
1885–1993 she SAW it all!
Cars, telephones, airplanes, radio, TV, medical advances, the moon landing.

She was a great woman!

Captain Scott was exploring Antarctica in the Discovery

Horse drawn carriages in cities.
Child labor.
Sepia photographs.

President Theodore Motherfucking Roosevelt.

What jumped into my head was the Wright Brothers airplane, except that when I checked the date, I was off a year. Their flight was in 1903.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard

“President Theodore Motherfucking Roosevelt.”

“1902 – The teddy bear was invented by Morris and Rose Michtom based on a cartoon of a bear saved by President Theodore Roosevelt.”

Max Weber

Germany was pressuring the US to acquire the territories we got from the Spanish in the Spanish American war.

The Spooner Act was passed setting in motion the US intervention on the side of the rebels in Panama against Columbia. This was done to Give control of the Panama Canal to US interests.

These are all great. Thanks for your help.

I read somewhere that J.C. Penney opened its first department store somewhere in the west.

I wonder if they had mail-order brides in their catalogues, like Sears?

You can look up the Register of Historic Places for 1902 to find out that certain famous buildings, such as the Flatiron Building in Manhattan were completed in 1902.

The first Automat opened in Philadephia in 1902.

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz was doing something pretty interesting in 1902.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s, Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles was written as a serial in 1901 and 1902.

Here is a Cookbook and Handy Hints Book for Women that was published in 1902. This site gives you a lot of info, without having to purchase the book, especially the section about cooking for invalids.

On This Page you can look at some actual restaurant menus from the time period, to see what kinds of foods people were eating. Unfortunately they do not have one for 1902, but there’s a bunch of them from 1901, which would still be accurate for your situation. Just scroll down to the year 1901 and click. Then choose a menu to look at, and you can enlarge it if you need to.

The Hanoi Exposition was held in 1902.

Picasso’s Blue Nude was painted in 1902 when he was in his blue period around 1901–1904

Jean Sibelius’s Second Symphony op. 43 was written in 1902, which you can listen to Here

So was Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler.

Here is a political cartoon of Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1902.

The Kalamazoo Stove Company opened in 1902.

Target stores, originally known as Dayton Dry Goods Store opened in 1902.

Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey was a popular song from 1902. Listen to it Here

Mont Pelee, in Martinique, erupted in April-May of that year, killing 30,000. The volcano is still active.

@Coloma Yes, I was going to say 1902, don’t think of much really, but my great Aunt Maude was born in 1880 and died at 96 in 1976 and I always think of her in the same way as you think about your great grandmother: she saw it all! She must have know Civil War veterans, she was an adult during the the Great War, WWI; the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, WWII, the boom years of the 50’s, the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the civil right movement and social upheaval of the 60’s, the assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK, Watergate… and all the amazing technological advances, from the wind of record player to radio to television and, including, most amazingly, the moon landing, all the things we take for granted, everything. It must have been amazing.

@lillycoyote

“She must have know Civil War veterans….”

I actually saw one of the last Civil War vets on TV when I was about 10 years old, but he was about 110, so I don’t remember how much of an interview he was able to give.

I figure that when your great aunt was about my age those vets were in their late 40’s, so there were probably thousands (millions?) of them around then, instead of 2 or three.

I never think personally about one special year in the past before my birthday – it is more a rememberance of days in history… like sept. 1st 1939… or such days… and I have not lived in that times… so… my brain can not remeber anything… only imaging the life and things that had happened in that time… non-existance… perhaps the same way I think about 2102…

I think of the “just befores” of hard times i.e. just before titanic disaster and just before world war 1 and just before San Fran earthquake.

I had completely forgotten about the Philippine Insurrection, which ended in 1902 after several years of conflict.

@CWOTUS And I had completely forgotten about the Coal Strike of 1902. These things happen. :-)

Just about all the things we take for granted in the workplace today, that our working conditions don’t lead us and our children, to an early death, are is in place, for the most part, because of the early struggles, the hard won battles, the blood, sweat and tears of America’s workers, of it’s unions. Something to at least think about, acknowledge and try to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving. This now ends the the annoying, lecturey, soapbox portion of our broadcast. :-)

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For some reason I think of my paternal grandfather. By 1902 he was already a man and I believe he was a teacher in an Anglican school. One of the regrets of my life is that I never got a chance to ask him if he heard about the events in Martinique while they were going on (the Mont Pelee eruption).