Attention, Shoppers!
Many developments in the manufacturing, wholesale buying, distribution, and advertisement of merchandise helped create the success of the urban department store. Several technological innovations also contributed. Arrange these in chronological order (1=earliest, 6=latest):
First department store in America
First rapid transit railway in America
First skyscraper in America (building with a structural steel frame)
First passenger escalator
First passenger elevator
First catalog mail order business
1. The first American department store was, depending on one's precise definition of a department store, either A. T. Stewart's "Marble Palace" on East Broadway in New York City in 1846, or R. H. Macy's store at 6th Avenue and 14th Street in 1858, or the Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, established in 1868.
2. The first successful passenger elevator, constructed by Elisha Otis, was installed in 1857 in Eder V. Haughwout's five-story china emporium at 488 Broadway in New York City. This allowed buildings with more floors that could be easily accessed by customers.
3. The first rapid transit railway in the U.S. was the elevated train built in New York City starting in 1868. New York's subway opened in 1904. This allowed easy access to downtown locations for potential customers.
4. The first catalog mail order business was begun in 1872 in Chicago by Aaron Montgomery Ward.
5. The first building in the U.S. to use structural steel in its frame—the first "skyscraper"—was the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, at the corner of La Salle and Adams Streets, built in 1884. This innovation allowed behemoth multi-floor buildings in downtown real estate centers.
6. Escalators, first installed at a few elevated train platforms in New York City in 1900, soon appeared in several New York City department stores, including Macy's, and within a couple of years appeared in Philadelphia and Chicago department stores.
From about the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, the urban department store embodied America's highest ideal of retail shopping. It offered a variety of durable goods at various price levels in a single store.
By the beginning of the 19th century, customers at the largest department stores in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia could expect to enter, not just large "general stores," but expositions of the products of the world. In addition to making purchases, they could also receive various services and advice on merchandise and fashion. The customers could expect to be provided with doormen, taxicab service, waiting rooms for reading, writing, and telephoning, and assistance buying theater tickets, as well as full-service post offices that issued money orders and wrapped parcels, and railroad offices for making reservations, purchasing tickets, and checking luggage. Elsewhere in the building were hairdressers' shops and barber shops. Most department stores also had "style theaters" with fashion shows, as well as one or more tearooms, lunchrooms, or restaurants, and even a physician in attendance at the service of the customers.
- "Otis Improved Elevator," Scientific American, November 25, 1854, p. 85.
- "The Elevated Railway": "Proposed Railway Systems for New York," Appleton's Journal, June 25, 1870, p. 716.
- Detail of advertisement for the Boston Store (Chicago), illustrating their new escalator, Chicago Daily Tribune, December 10, 1905, p. H4.
Yes. The recommended practice was to dive into the water headfirst, despite the already-mentioned advice to avoid shocking or chilling the body. The objective was to insure that one's body temperature remain uniform, which it would not if the head were not immersed at the same moment as the rest of the body. This was done in order to prevent "the rushing of the blood to the head," the consequences of which ranged from "unpleasant sensations" to death. Persons who could not swim (and therefore would not be diving headfirst into the sea) were advised to at least wet their heads and chests before immersing their bodies, or to "crouch down and let themselves be covered by the first wave, as they would by an energetic douche," as one authority put it.
Yes. However, the authorities didn't advise this simply because of the danger of drowning if one were tired or exhausted. Rather, they advised it also because they believed it to be harmful if one "disturbed" the bodily functions, like respiration, circulation, and digestion, by throwing them out of their usual courses: "Persons coming to the seaside," wrote one such authority, "should wait about thirty-six hours before taking any baths, in order to undergo a process of acculturation as it were so as not to upset their conditions of circulation by their change of residence and by the baths at the same time." How all this was supposed to work was only vaguely articulated, but that did not dampen the enthusiasm of some authorities for invoking the rule: "As bathing is not without its dangers," wrote one of them, "we would warn all boys not to begin the practice too early in the season, or to repeat it too often daily. Many have found an early grave by overindulgence, while others have endured long years of suffering from the obscure effects of excessive bathing." 
Yes. This was regarded as undignified and immodest. One was expected to promenade and socialize on or adjacent to the beach (as opposed to being in the water) in one's ordinary clothing, not in one's bathing suit, especially in bathing suits that did not completely cover one's arms and lower legs. Fashion authorities recommended that ladies' bathing suits be made of material, like wool, that would not cling to them. Suits of muslin, for example, would display the intimate details of their bodily forms. Again, Americans were notoriously more lax about these rules than were Europeans. By 1890, newspaper humorists often joked about how scanty—by their standards—ladies' bathing suits had become. By then women's bathing suit fashions were being driven by their desire for uninhibited movement in the water, as well as by their desire to display their bodies to the gaze of admirers. 
a pushcart ice cream vendor in New York, in 1896, who also, perhaps, invented the ice cream sandwich by putting a slice of ice cream between waffle squares cut from a sheet. Other sources say the ice cream cone has its origins in the mists of history, but was first described in Mrs. Marshall's Cookery Book, whose author, Agnes Marshall, published it in London in 1888. Still others discern a woman licking an ice cream cone in an 1807 picturing fashionable customers eating at the Frascati café in Paris, although this is uncertain because cone-shaped ice cream bowls were not unknown at the time.
1. a. Mass Plays, such as the "flying wedge" pictured here (invented in 1892 by a Harvard fan), were tremendously brutal and were soon outlawed. The rules were changed in 1894 so that no more than 2 players could go in motion before the start of the play. Also, the ball carrier's teammates were forbidden to push or pull him. 
2. b. For a long time, goals scored more points than touchdowns. Touchdowns were more valuable as a means of getting a favorable placement for an unimpeded try at kicking a field goal. The defense would play in order to prevent a goal rather than defending against a touchdown, making the "dribble" a possible offensive strategy until it was made illegal in 1887. Note that the player holding the ball for the kicker (lying on the ground) in the illustration here had to keep the ball off the ground as the kicker prepared himself because as soon as the ball touched the ground, it was in play. 
3. b. This method of putting the ball in play (known as a "fair," as opposed to the play known as a "fair catch," described in the other possible answer), proved too unruly and prone to "slugging" as the players massed together near the sideline. It was eliminated by requiring the referee to bring the ball out from the sideline and place it in the middle of the field.
4. True. When tackling below the waist down to the knees was allowed in 1888, the defense was strengthened and the offense therefore needed to be bolstered by the rules to keep the game balanced. To do this, the teammates of the ball carrier were allowed to "interfere" with (that is, move and block) the opposing team with their bodies (but not their hands and arms—note the illegal use of hands by the blockers in the picture) even after the ball had been snapped. Because these offensive players were in front of the ball after it had been snapped, any movement by them had previously been disallowed as "offsides play." The rule meant that the ball carrier could now run behind his teammates (who would block for him), and not (as in rugby) in front of them, ready to pass the ball back when he was about to be tackled.
5. True. The forward pass was not legal until 1906. Until then, a "pass" always meant the ball carrier's passing backwards. The extensive 1906 rule changes aimed to reduce violence and injury on the field, which had become pronounced, especially in the clash at the line of scrimmage. The changes were meant to "open up" the play. Most notable among the changes was the increase in the number of yards the offense had to advance in a series of downs from 5 to 10, and the allowing of forward passes, which was meant to spread out the players more. Oddly, many football pundits, when the rule was changed and for some time afterwards, did not think the forward pass would be popular. This was partly because, at first, the new rule stipulated that if the pass was incomplete, the ball had to be turned over to the opposing side, and partly because no one had figured out how to throw an effective, spiraled forward pass. The shape of the ball then evolved to make passes easier, becoming a little smaller and more pointed. 
False. Moses Fleetwood Walker, an Oberlin College star, played for one season, in 1884, with the Toledo team of the American Association, before he was forced out the following year because of racism.
False. Robinson, although generally regarded as an excellent player, was not seen as even the best player on his team, the Kansas City Monarchs. Rickey signed him because of a combination of qualities--not only his proven and potential talent and skill at the game, but also his personal integrity and his likely strength (as Rickey saw it) at withstanding the abuse that Rickey thought Robinson would face on and off the field for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball.
Teenagers today play a central role in American culture and society. They exist not only as high school students, but as closely watched consumers and trendsetters. Yet in 1900, teenagers did not exist. There were young people in their teens, but there was no distinct teenage culture.
