America 250 Part Four: the 1900s

 [This is an ongoing Facebook project that I've decided to share here as well,

slightly revised and expanded, with additional photos and links.

Check back for updates through 4 July 2026.]

Early 1900s A new century, and the first to which most of us have actual, tangible connections, either through our own experiences, or for any youngsters reading this--mirabile dictu!--your parents'.

We were a nation on the move, dynamic and innovative. In 1903 the Wright Brothers made their first flight, and by 1914 commercial air travel had begun. Granted, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line only carried a single passenger and was just a twenty-some minute flight, but it was a start. Further south, America’s construction began on the Panama Canal in 1904, and it too began operations in 1914. In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T. Within a few years over a quarter of a million were coming off his assembly line annually.

So where were all these folks going? To “See America First,” as the slogan touted, coined by travel booster Fisher Sanford Harris in 1906. Trimmed down from its original "See Europe if you will, but see America first," the catchphrase appeared on countless maps and guidebooks, and was so successful it even inspired the title of Cole Porter’s first musical, in 1916, and a silent film comedy a few years later. It is still in use today.

from left, a travel brochure, jokebook, and Prohibition era movie poster.

There was so much to see! Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907, with Arizona and New Mexico completing the “Lower 48” in 1912. Our first National Park, Yellowstone, had been recognized as such in 1872, but it was not until 1916 that our National Park Service was established, President Wilson recognizing that our lands and national treasures belonged to us all, and should be protected.

Where were my ancestors during all this? One of my first cousins, 4x removed, Orrin Budd Hart was there. In 1904, he was one of the builders of the Great Stone Fireplace, in Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn. It is still remarkable, and was the inspiration for the fireplace at Walt Disney World’s Wilderness Lodge.

A vintage photo, and Hart's memorial at Mountain View Cemetery, Columbus MO.
memorial photo courtesy FindaGrave.

Moving on to direct ancestors, we already met my paternal grandparents in the last post. My maternal grandparents, Dana Earl Brown and Myrna Margaret Severin, were born in 1910 and 1907, in North and South Dakota respectively. They were a big influence on me; my love of travel is just one thing I got from them. I loved hearing their stories about visiting Kenya or Japan or Australia or England–and seeing what souvenirs they brought me, of course.

Grandpa Dana got the bug early. In 1931, just twenty-one years old, he and a friend took a Model T touring car–naturally–and headed west on a remarkable Road Trip, all the way to California. They rented an apartment briefly at the site of today’s Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, from which they could see the Hollywoodland sign. I think I got my love of movies from him as well.

Grandpa Dana is on the left.

A year later he was back in Minneapolis, and a year after that, he married my grandmother. Within two years the newlyweds headed west together–along with my newborn mother–for another grand adventure: uprooting and relocating to Oakland CA. Within a few years, both my grandmother’s sisters (Arletha and Gleva) and their spouses would move to the Bay Area as well, establishing our roots in California. You can read more about my grandparents' early lives here and here.

The Severins, circa 1913.
My grandmother is the girl seated on the right.
The boy seated on the left is their brother Delmar, who died shortly afterward.

Of course, not every voyage ends well; the Titanic sank in 1912. But Americans were undeterred. And we weren’t just travelling for pleasure. The Great Migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to the more accepting North, a trickle during the Reconstruction, began to surge in 1916. But in this era of optimism and possibility, let's end on a positive note. Join me in a chorus, won't you?

“Don’t leave America,
Just stick around the U.S.A.
Cheer for America

And get that grand old strain of Yankee Doodle
In your noodle;
Yell for America,

Altho’ your vocal cords may burst;
And if you ever take an outing,
Leave the station shouting:
‘See America First!’”

--Cole Porter

1917 & the 'Twenties We were seeing America first, jauntily touring in trains and planes and Model Ts throughout the newly-completed contiguous United States.

Then everything changed. In 1917 our attention turned abroad, with the US entering World War I, three years after it had begun. Not only was it the first world war, but also the first American conflict in which none of my direct ancestors served. That was more through luck than a lack of patriotism, though; my grandfathers were children, and my great-grandfathers were in their 30s and 40s. They still registered for the draft, however, and I’m glad they did. Draft forms are of particular interest to family historians, providing information not always found elsewhere, including details about their appearance, and even their signatures.

World War I Draft registration cards
for top: Clarence Edgar Brown, bottom: Alfred Nathaniel Burnett
Note the very different handwriting and penmanship.

The War's casualties abroad were in the millions, with destruction widespread across Europe. Ultimately, before war’s end there would be over 100,000 American fatalities as well, and many of those who did survive came back scarred physically and emotionally. Yanks returned disillusioned and aimless, questioning the values of their parents’ generation: many suffered from what, today, we call PTSD, but was then known by the newly-coined term “shell shock.” Is it any wonder that Gertrude Stein referred to this as the Lost Generation?

So, 1918. But as the “Great War” ended, another tragedy was just beginning: the Great Influenza Epidemic, also known as the “Spanish Flu,” called that by the ancestors, no doubt, of those who would later refer to another worldwide calamity as the “China Virus.” Anyway. To compound the tragedy, the influenza’s spread was in part exacerbated by the movement of troops in WWI. By the time the epidemic had run its course in late 1920, it had killed nearly fifty million people worldwide, including 700,000 Americans. Among the latter were two of my 2x great-grandparents, the previously mentioned Phillip Jacob Runser and his wife "Clara" Runser, née Caroline Clarissa Ketchum.

The Wisconsin State Journal, 10 Oct 1918
photo courtesy the Wisconsin State Journal Archives / Wisconsin Watch

(And if you are thinking you see fewer new names within each new post, you’re not wrong. As each generation comes closer to our own time, the fewer ancestors we have. Everyone has just eight great-grandparents; like myself, you might even have met some of yours. But going back to the era of my earliest post, when I wrote about my 11x great-grandparents? We each should have 8,192 of them! I say “should” because it is generally fewer, due to something called pedigree collapse, but I digress.) Great-grandma Runser's death, on 7 Feb 1920, was remembered later by her niece Viola Runser this way: Caroline died in the Spanish influenza epidemic two days after her daughter-in-law Minnie. There was no funeral as gatherings were forbidden, and there was no procession, only grandpa, Uncle Phil, Joseph, Robert [Caroline's sons], a sleigh & team with the caskets. I remember all of us standing looking out the window as they went by the house.

Clara Runser's grave marker. "Mother." 
Summit Cemetery, Foxboro WI. 

The 'Twenties were not exactly Roaring for my ancestors, but things did get better. Great-grandfather Erickson was out of the iron mines and working as a railroad foreman, reunited with his children. My paternal grandfather still lived on a farm, and was a guard on the Wadena [MN] high school football team; grandma was now living in Minneapolis and was a "Rose Maiden" (!) and member of the Civic Forum at North High School. My maternal grandparents' families were doing well too, able to move from their farmsteads to new homes that they owned. Remarkably, checking Google maps, I see those houses are both still standing.

Although no longer in the family, my maternal grandparents'
childhood homes as they exist today.
left, the Browns, in Minneapolis MN; right, the Severins, in Fargo ND.

I hope my grandparents enjoyed and appreciated that youthful period of their lives. A few years later, just as they each reached adulthood and independence, they would face yet another global catastrophe, when the 'Twenties ended with a crash. The Crash, in fact.

1930s "Why did people keep having babies during the Great Depression?”

“Because it was the only entertainment they could afford….” 

Meet the parents! My last two ancestors to introduce, chronologically speaking, are my Mom, Beverly Alane Brown, and Dad, Curtis Wayne Burnett, born in 1934 and 1938, although it would be ungentlemanly to say who was when. She was the oldest of two children, and despite being born in Minneapolis, always proudly claimed to be a California native, arguing that since she did not remember Minnesota it did not count. He was also born in Minneapolis, the middle child of three boys. Both his brothers served in the Navy then became doctors, but he did neither, making him the Jan Brady of the Burnett Bunch.

Yearbook pictures of my folks taken when she was 17 and he was 19.

Anyway. It is interesting to me that after countless generations of five or seven or even ten kids per household being the norm, my 20th century forebears thought much smaller. Although Grandpa Roy was one of eight, my other three grandparents each had just one or two siblings. My mother had only three cousins; by my generation, if everyone showed up for a holiday, there were just ten of us at the kids’ table. Of those ten, only half of us have children. Since both my sister and I are DINKS, I sometimes wonder about the legacy of my family research. Even my handful of cousins' few kids connect only to one side or other of my family tree.

Anyway. A little more about my folks. Despite the Depression, their 1930s were happy and comfortable, surrounded by extended families. My grandfathers both had steady work, as a postmaster and an office manager at a print shop, and by decade’s end went from renting to owning their first homes. Little Bev grew up in Oakland, entered baby beauty pageants, and kept bullies away from her younger brother. Dad grew up in Seattle, and the boys spent a lot of time doing outdoorsy stuff like boating, hiking, and fishing (hobbies they continued into adulthood), often with their grandfather, my gg, Alfred Nathaniel Burnett. (We saw his draft registration in the last post; he was the husband of Jennie Arleta Eaton, mentioned previously.)

Dad and his Grandpa Alfred sometime in the mid '50s. 
I believe the man on the right is Dad's cousin Stan.
[N.B. Be sure to label all your photos!]

While my parents’ families made the best of the Depression, many faced difficulties. In 1933, President Roosevelt, within his first hundred days in office, began the New Deal of relief, recovery, and reform. While its impact is still being debated today, in many ways it was a success. In 1935, the administration launched the “Second New Deal.” Many of its policies, including Social Security, the SEC and FDIC, and the Wagner Act are still with us today.

One of FDR’s alphabet agencies was the RA, or Resettlement Administration. It did not exist long, but its impact lasts until today. Literally. I am writing this in our house in Greenhills, one of three “Greenbelt” communities built under the aegis of the RA. The Greenbelt idea was one of many plans introduced by Columbia professor Rexford G Tugwell, one of Roosevelt’s "brain trust." Modelled after the English garden cities concept, the Greenbelt communities were a milestone of urban development. The idea was to create quasi-Utopian small towns with schools, businesses, and churches, all walkable, and each surrounded by a natural green space. These greenbelts were meant in part to prevent encroaching development. The Greenbelt towns were planned to be self-sufficient and run as a cooperative, an idea which created some controversy. So too was the fact that residents were screened first, for things like occupation, community involvement–and race.

left: a WPA poster touting the Greenbelt concept
right: one of the original plans for Greenhills

Ultimately, just three Greenbelt communities were completed, the eponymous Greenbelt MD in 1937, Greendale WI in 1938, and our village, Greenhills OH, also in 1938. Sadly, ours is the only one of the three whose greenbelt is intact, the other two succumbing to urban sprawl over the years. Greenhills was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2016. I went to the modest ceremony.

Another site in the National Register of Historic Places is Mt Rushmore, the best known--and certainly largest--work of artist Gutzon Borglum. Stephen and I made Mt Rushmore the centerpiece of one of our Road Trips in 2005. (It was glorious; ten states, fifteen National Park sites, a rodeo, Carhenge... but I digress.) Borglum championed "art that is real and American," and consequently most of his sculptures were patriotic and commemorative. Early in his career he did several pieces in Newark NJ (founded by my aforementioned 11gg Robert Treat, remember?) including the “First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark,” in 1916 and 1911's "Seated Lincoln." Borglum's massive sculpture in the Black Hills of South Dakota took fourteen years, with numerous cost overruns and setbacks. After his death in March 1941, Mt Rushmore was declared completed and was dedicated on 31 October. Perhaps it was for the best; less than six weeks later Pearl Harbor was attacked and America entered another war.

A detail from a page of our scrapbook for our "Rushmore Road Trip."
(Remember scrapbooks? Remember AOL?)
The picture was taken by a scary-looking biker we met who was attending the nearby Sturgis Rally
but was kind enough to lay on his back on the path to get the photo for us. 

WWII With the events of this war in living memory for some, and so-well documented, I need only mention a few family connections.

Once again, none of my direct ancestors saw battle, although they all registered for the draft of course, even my great-grandfather Jack Severin, who was sixty-four at the time! (There were multiple forms offered, based on the applicants’ age. Jack’s used the form “Men born on or after April 28, 1877 and on or before February 16, 1897.”) Interestingly, he perjured himself, giving his birthplace as Wilton, Iowa, although in fact he was born in what was then Prussia, AKA Germany at the time. Considering we were fighting Nazis–-and that he emigrated to Iowa when he was just two years old-–perhaps his little white lie is understandable.

Great-grandpa Jack's Draft Registration.

Anyway. My grandpa Dana did serve as a Purser for United Airlines in the South Pacific. Commercial airlines worked with the Air Force to support the War effort, most often handling troop or cargo transport to places like New Guinea and the Philippines, among others. A Purser was the highest civilian officer in the process and on the flights. I only learned about this period of his life after his death, and wish I had been able to ask him about it. On the homefront, Grandpa Dana was also a Civil Defense Warden in Oakland CA.

left: The only photo I have of Grandpa Dana in uniform. I don't know if my
Grandma Myrna is also wearing a uniform, or just a suit.
 I have never seen or heard anything about her serving.
right: Grandpa's Civil Defense Warden card; it was in his wallet until he died.  

Speaking of the Philippines, I did have one relative serve–and give his life fighting: one of my father’s uncles, Charles Victor Burnett. He was a member of the Signal Corps and perished in the Invasion of Luzon in 1945, along with almost eight-thousand of his peers. He was just thirty, and left a widow and young son. Tragically, that rout is nowhere near the top of the list of American battle fatalities.

RIP

And speaking of Oakland, my mother was just seven when we joined the War, and lived in Oakland. One of her earliest memories was that suddenly the family next door, including her best friend, were taken away. Gone. They were Japanese-Americans who had lived in the US for two generations, completely assimilated into the neighborhood and community. She could not understand it then, and remembered it always. They never reconnected, and despite her best efforts, Mom was not able to learn anything more about the family except that they were taken to Manzanar, a government internment camp. Ultimately, well over 100,000 people—two-thirds of whom were US citizens–were detained during the War.

Manzanar National Historic Site, 2003,
photo taken on one of our Road Trips

Although our side won, we cannot forget the lives lost in WWII, whether through battle casualty or otherwise.

The Post-war Years 1945 saw both the end of WWII and the beginning of our nuclear age. The Greatest Generation came into their own, with renewed optimism, peace and prosperity.

General Eisenhower, who had led the Allies at D-Day, was elected President in 1953, and just a few years later became the “Father of the Interstate System,” driving (so to speak) a huge increase in travel–and the economy. Babies were booming. Science and progress were venerated, and why not? The first color TV debuted in 1953, one of the most-feared diseases was all but eradicated in 1955 by the polio vaccine developed by Dr Jonas Salk, and NASA was founded in 1958. Is it any wonder that Disneyland opened in 1955?

Disneyland's parking lot, July 17 1955.

But then came the 1960s. Post-war euphoria was fading, and people began to take note of the world beyond their picket fences. Attention began to be paid to civil rights. The Women’s and environmental movements, although not new, came to the fore. Seismic cultural shifts occurred as the newly-coined Generation Gap grew ever wider. As Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin’.” Indeed.

On the bright side, both Stephen and I were born–four years apart, like my parents, after which all similarities end. Our folks both bought tract houses in newly developed neighborhoods carved out of farm land in Orange County CA, where we grew up in middle class splendor.

In the early 1960s my mother and grandfather became more active in civic affairs. Besides being an officer in local chapters of the Elks and Lions Clubs, my grandfather also served on several city commissions in Long Beach CA, including chairing one to get an Olympic pool built for the city, since razed. You can read more about it's history here. He even ran for City Council. He didn't win, but came in a close second.

The exterior of  Grandpa Dana's campaign mailer.
On the inside is the obligatory family group photo, including yours truly as a tot.

Mom acted as president of both the local Women’s Club and Friends of the Library. One of her pet projects was getting books that would have been discarded sent to schools abroad that wouldn't have had access to them otherwise.

Big hair, big heart.

Another cause hit closer to home. In 1965, the US sent troops to the Vietnam War. Over 50,000 of them never made it home. Hundreds of others were captured and held as prisoners of war, including the husband of my Mom's best friend since high school, Lindsay Miller. (She would later become my sister's namesake and godmother.) Her husband Ed had been a Marine fighter pilot during the Korean War, then served as an Intelligence Office Liaison to the NSA. Promoted to colonel, he was sent to Vietnam to act as a Commanding Officer and was shot down during one of his combat missions in 1967. My family did everything to help the Millers (their youngest son was named after my Grandfather in appreciation) and the troops. When POW bracelets were introduced to raise money and bring awareness to our POWs, my mom and I each wore one with Ed's name. I was even enlisted to help sell the bracelets (and US Savings Bonds) at my elementary school during lunch and recess.

The bracelets had the POWs name and date of capture on them.
They were meant to be worn until the POW--or their remains--were brought home to the US.
(Mine was given to the Millers upon his return; this photo was found online.)

In 1973, six years after his capture, Ed returned home--alive--during Operation Homecoming. I got to play hooky from school to watch the live footage of the soldiers’ arrivals, and I still vividly remember my Mom’s tears of joy when she saw Ed deplane. Sadly but not surprisingly, like so many other Vets and their families, things did not go well upon his return, but that is not my story to tell. You can read more about Ed's career here.

A happier story I can share involving a Vet is about my Mom’s brother, who enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. Growing up in southern California and already surfing, as his bio puts it:

he enlisted in the Navy after graduation, went to submarine school, and finished at the top of his class to ensure his pick of assignment, which was Hawaii.

Discharged two years later, he returned home and pursued his love of surfing–but now with a camera. Uncle Bruce’s first surf film, Slippery When Wet, came out in 1958, followed by another each year, culminating in 1966’s The Endless Summer. Although he later received an Academy Award nomination for On Any Sunday, it is The Endless Summer that ensured him a place in surf history, as well as the Smithsonian Institution, which has several pieces documenting his career, including the film’s iconic poster in the collection of the National Museum of American History.

Uncle Bruce filming while surfing, c 1964.

In 1974, the Watergate Scandal came to a head with Nixon’s resignation (which, coincidentally, came the day of my Mom’s big 40th birthday bash. If she hadn’t disliked Nixon already, this would have done it).

An unpopular war, an unpopular president, a country coming to grips with its many divisions and acknowledging its deep-rooted problems…. What to do? Celebrate the Bicentennial!

1976 to Y2K In 1976, the United States saluted its Bicentennial, mostly through a lot of patriotic consumer kitsch, and media nods like the “Bicentennial Minutes,” a series of portentous bumpers on CBS (although to be fair, it won an Emmy), and the animated Schoolhouse Rock spin-off “America Rock.” Remember “I’m Just a Bill”? Even Disney got into the act, with a retheming of their Carousel Theater at Disneyland into “America Sings,” a tribute to popular songs of several eras. (On a personal note, my friend Scott and I got to see its very last performance, on 10 April 1988.) “Goodbye goes the weasel!” 

Anyway. The US government itself didn’t didn’t have much involvement in the festivities beyond minting a few new coins and sending out a “Freedom Train” comprised of red, white, and blue locomotives pulling ten cars full of displays and memorabilia, a range of items from the original Louisiana Purchase document to a rock from the moon. The celebrations were mostly superficial–and white–but 1977 began a cultural juggernaut: the miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley’s novel, which offered another side of our nation’s history. The book was a best-seller and won a special Pulitzer Prize, and the series met with tremendous critical response–and ratings. The final episode still sits in Nielsen’s Top Ten most-watched telecasts of all time (excluding Super Bowls). It also kickstarted many people’s interest in finding out about their own roots, including me. A classroom project that year was for us to research our family trees. In those pre-internet days, I just asked my grandparents what they knew. I got an A, but when I began researching in earnest after my mother’s death many years later, I discovered that some of what my grandparents thought they knew was wrong, and very incomplete.

Among the errors: Conway is really Conley, Robert Joseph should be Philip Jacob,
and Jons Burnett of Pennsylvania is actually Nathaniel Burnett of Maine....

The late ‘70s and early ‘80s launched a lot of things that are still with us today; thankfully, disco, harvest gold appliances, and neon-hued clothing are not among their number. But the summer blockbuster has lived on (it’s hard to remember that movies like Jaws and Star Wars weren’t always cultural icons), as have PCs, although they are now more often in our pockets, not taking up half a desk. My eighties intersected with the broader American experience, of course. In 1980, I voted in my first presidential election, and participated in Hands Across America in 1986, one of numerous large-scale fundraisers following Live Aid and the ubiquitous “We Are the World” of the previous year. Despite the altruism in the air, there was also dread. The enormity of the AIDS crisis hung like a dark cloud as we began to lose friends and acquaintances.

Mementoes from the beginning and end of my 1980s.

I can’t leave the ‘80s without mentioning a story that, although not of national significance, was perhaps a harbinger of one aspect of our modern political situation. In 1989, the Mayor of the town where I grew up, in which my mother still lived, was arrested for soliciting a prostitute–who turned out to be an undercover cop. This occurred during a city council meeting, from which the mayor had excused himself in advance. Really. When word got out, the Mayor’s first story was that he was actually doing his duty as mayor by investigating this civic problem, albeit in a city twenty miles from ours. When that didn’t fly, he gave other excuses, always refusing to take accountability or step down. My Mom wasn’t having it. From her letter to the Los Angeles Times, 23 July 1989:
The citizens of Fountain Valley should not be represented by an elected official who willfully and knowingly violates the law while holding public office. The arrest and conviction of Mayor Fred Voss has cast a shadow on the entire community. If we allow this issue to be glossed over, it raises the very serious question of potential problems that may arise in the future. What eventually becomes an acceptable standard of conduct?

And another:

The arrest was not a case of the state interfering with the sexual activities of consenting adults. It was simply a case of a man explicitly expressing his sexual needs to a “prostitute” who happened to be an undercover policewoman. I certainly agree that Mayor Voss’ sex life is his own business, but his total lack of judgment and the publicity it has caused has made it the business of every citizen of Fountain Valley. He has violated the public trust that goes along with his elected office and for that reason alone he should resign his position as a member of the City Council.

When the shameless Mayor wouldn't resign and his cronies turned a blind eye, Mom and several of her friends took action, as good citizens do. As the Times reported, at the next City Council meeting Mom spoke up:

"To consider his actions simply as a mistake is an error in itself. The proper word is malfeasance, which is clearly defined as the misconduct of a public official. Although soliciting is classified as a misdemeanor, it is nonetheless a crime,” she said. Burnett and others said that if Voss did not resign, they would initiate a recall drive against him.

He wouldn't. Seven thousand petition signatures later, his recall was on the November ballot. By more than a 2 to 1 margin, Voss was out. Mom and the other "Mayor Slayers" were victorious. I can only imagine what they'd be up to today with all our modern indiscretions.

A small town sex scandal ended my 1980s, but in retrospect it was almost quaint. The ‘90s seemed characterized by continual violence. From the LA Riots in 1992, through the Waco Massacre, OJ Trial, Oklahoma City bombing and on to the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, the headlines and newscasts were a tragic, insistent drumbeat that was hard to ignore. Of course, the decade did bring some good–or at least good intentions. 1993’s implementation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was imperfect, but a start. The World Wide Web was introduced and by decade’s end was almost universally adopted. More personally, the best part of my ‘90s? I met Stephen in 1991 (although our paths had crossed twice before, but that is a tale for another time). 

As the ‘90s careened on, often dangerous and seemingly out of control, it was perfectly plausible that it would all come crashing down as we entered a new millennium. Due to expected computer software program glitches that came to be known as the millennium–or Y2K–bug, it was believed that everything from banks to airplanes would literally crash on New Year’s Eve 1999 as devices attempted to change from ‘99 to ‘00. No one knew what might happen, and a global panic ensued. But since you’re reading this, I don’t have to tell you how it turned out.