1907

Society

1907. Oklahoma is admitted to the Union as the 46th state.

1907. Austria institutes universal direct suffrage.

1907. Norway grants suffrage for women, June 14.

1907. New York City horsecars give way to motorbuses, but most urban transit is by electric trolley car, "el," and subway.

1907. The first long-distance motorcar rally begins June 10 as five cars leave Beijing for Paris.

1907. Bubonic plague kills 1.3 million in India.

1907. Rube Goldberg starts work with the New York Evening Journal to begin a career as cartoonist; he will often show elaborate machines he has devised to perform simple tasks and his ludicrous inventions will appear for nearly 60 years.

1907. Popular songs: "Glow Worm"; "On the Road to Mandelay"; "The Caissons Go Rolling Along."

1907. Australian long-distance swimmer Annette Kellerman, 22, is arrested for indecent exposure at Boston's Revere Beach where she has appeared in a skirtless one-piece bathing suit.

1907. The Hoover Vacuum Cleaner has its beginnings in an electric vacuum cleaner invented by J. Murray Spangler. U.S. industrialist W. H. Hoover will manufacture Spangler's machine.

1907. President Roosevelt signs a proclamation creating 16 million acres of new forests in the five states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, forests that cannot be cut for timber. Before the Roosevelt administration expires early in 1909, it will have set aside 132 million acres in forest reserves.

1907. Nearly 1.29 million immigrants enter the United States, a new record that will not be surpassed.

Literature

Cautionary Tales. Hilaire Belloc. British. 1907. Poetry. Mock-heroic verses about fearful fates of children who chew string, tell lies, bang doors, etc.

Chamber Music. James Joyce. Irish. 1907. Poetry. Love poems. Influence of Elizabethan poets and Yeats.

The Education of Henry Adams. Henry Adams. American. 1907. Autobiography. Uses himself as a model of modern man searching for coherence in a fragmented universe.

"The Last Leaf." O. Henry. American. 1907. Story. Sick woman decides to live until last leaf drops off wall of building she can see from her sickbed. It never drops. It was painted on the wall by a friendly artist. She recovers.

The Longest Journey. EM Forster. British. 1907. Novel. Notable for picture of intellectual and social life of Cambridge students.

Mother. Maksim Gorky. Russian. 1907. Novel. Marxist propaganda. Mother is regenerated as she involves herself in the revolutionary movement.

The Playboy of the Western World. John Millington Synge. Irish. 1907. Play. Son is lionized after he thinks he killed his bullying father. Feelings of townspeople reversed when he fights with him again. Fierce humor offended Irish patriots. "Playboy riots' at the Abbey Theatre.

The Secret Agent. Joseph Conrad. British. 1907. Novel. Agent persuades brother-in-law to blow up observatory. Blows himself up by accident. Agent's wife kills agent because of her brother's death, commits suicide. Anarchists.