Ethel Pearson (1903 - 1983)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Ethel's lifetime.

In 1903, in the year that Ethel Pearson was born, the Ford Motor Company was incorporated in June after Henry Ford left another car company he founded in 1901 (which became the Cadillac Motor Company). He began Ford Motor Company with $28,000 in cash from twelve investors, two of whom (the Dodge brothers) later began their own car company. Henry Ford improved on assembly line techniques and has been so successful that his family still controls a very popular Ford line of cars and trucks.

In 1912, she was merely 9 years old when the Girl Scouts of the USA was started by Juliette Gordon Low with the help of Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts in Great Britain. She said after a meeting with Baden-Powell, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!" And she did.

In 1951, she was 48 years old when on April 5th, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (husband and wife) were sentenced to death for treason. They were executed on June 19th. American citizens, they were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Their two young sons were adopted by a high school teacher and his wife.

In 1960, when she was 57 years old, on May 1st, an American CIA U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Soviet Union. Powers ejected and survived but was captured. The U.S. claimed that the U-2 was a "weather plane" but Powers was convicted in the Soviet Union of espionage. He was released in 1962 after 1 year, 9 months and 10 days in prison.

In 1983, in the year of Ethel Pearson's passing, "crack" cocaine was developed in the Bahamas and spread to the United States. Previously, cocaine had been cut with other substances, diluting it. Crack was 80% pure and therefore was more addictive. It was also cheaper, making it more easily available to low income neighborhoods.