Jessie (Williams) Hulsey (1901 - 1920)

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

In 1901, in the year that Jessie (Williams) Hulsey was born, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. Chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896, had provided in his will for prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine, who have produced the most distinguished literary work of an idealist tendency, and who have contributed the most toward world peace. The winners in 1901 were: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for physics, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff for chemistry, Emil Adolf von Behring for physiology or medicine, Sully Prudhomme for literature, and Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy for peace.

In 1910, she was merely 9 years old when the Mann Act, also called the White-Slave Traffic Act, was signed into law. Its purpose was to make it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose". But the language was so broad that it was also applied to consensual sex between adults when wished.

In 1917, she was 16 years old when Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari was convicted and executed as a German spy. Since Mata Hari, born Margaretha Geertruida "Margreet" MacLeod, was a citizen of the Netherlands (which remained neutral in World War 1), she could travel freely in Europe. Her travels (and her romantic entanglements) raised suspicion and she was arrested by the French and found guilty. There is still controversy about her guilt although her name has become synonymous with a seductive female spy.

In 1920, in the year of Jessie (Williams) Hulsey's passing, the National Football League, first called the American Professional Football Association, was created. College football was more popular than pro football and rising player salaries were bankrupting league owners. In response, owners created the NFL, using the pro baseball association as a model. Eleven teams were formed: the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, Dayton Triangles, Decatur Staleys, Hammond Pros, Massillon Tigers, Muncie Flyers, Racine Cardinals, Rochester Jeffersons and Rock Island Independents.