At the turn of the century many things were happening that would affect America in ways that would have never been expected. The 1900-1940 era would have truly been an exciting time to live in. Over these four decades Americans would face some of the most difficult, and demanding trials in America's history. These decades helped to firmly establish the American identity and without them America would be vastly different. When looking at how these four decades helped to establish the American identity one must look at the events, and the economy.The first year of the sparkling new decade would turn out to be a sad one for most Americans because on Sept. 6,1901, an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, shot president McKinley. McKinley was Speaking at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. when he received a gun shot wound that turned fatal on Sept. 14, 1901.( Grolier ) Although, this was a terrible way to start out the decade events in America were becoming so exciting and fast paced that the public soon overlooked the death of William McKinley.( Johnson, Deb ) The man that would follow in McKinley's footsteps was one of the most successful presidents in America's history. Theodore Roosevelt was truly a people's president. He fought the for the American people with exuberance, which gave the nation a president to be proud of. During the first The first decade of the 20th century the economy was very unpredictable. New industries such the auto and telephone began to spring up all across America.( Grolier ). Which of course helped to raise the nations economy, but there were still many economic scares in this decade. An example of this would be May 9, 1901 the largest single-day decline in the stock market since 1803 occurred, with some stocks dropping twenty points. Some factor that effected the economy of this decade was the fact that America was trying to break up the huge corporations know as trusts. These companies would operate monopoli...
