Americans didn’t have a national anthem yet

“O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight”(Wikipedia)

Can you imagine a time when Americans didn’t proudly sing this anthem on every special occasion? Well, it turns out there was a time, namely one hundred years ago, when there was no official anthem. People favored several songs such as “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and “America the Beautiful.”, but it was not something nationwide.

It wasn’t until 1931 that “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem.

Child labor was not regulated by federal laws

It’s no secret that in the past, children were used for many works, often for long hours and in unsafe conditions. According to 1900 Census, around 2 million children with aged between 10 and 15 (sometimes even younger) had full-time jobs and worked in mines and factories. It sounds extremely harsh today but back then, it was something normal.

The first child labor laws were adopted in 1916 but they were quickly declared unconstitutional after only two years. It wasn’t until 1938 that the Fair Labor Standards Acts was passed and regulated working conditions, among which age and working hours.

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