John Walter Schwartz (1877 - 1912)

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

In 1877, in the year that John Walter Schwartz was born, on July 14th, strikes and resulting riots began at the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. A sympathy strike and rioting began in Pittsburgh and a worker's rebellion began in St. Louis, then spread to other cities. 100 people were killed before the strikes ended when President Rutherford B. Hayes sent federal troops to each of the cities involved.

In 1880, when he was just 3 years old, on August 26th, P. T. Barnum and James A. Bailey signed a contract in Bridgeport, CT, creating the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Twenty-seven years later, the Barnum and Bailey would merge with another circus, Ringling Brothers.

In 1894, he was 17 years old when on April 21st, a coal miners' strike closed mines throughout the central United States. The Panic of 1893, and the resulting depression, hit coal miners hard and the miners only struck for 8 weeks - they couldn't afford to live without their wages any longer.

In 1905, at the age of 28 years old, John was alive when the Niagara Falls conference was held in Fort Erie, Ontario. Led by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, a group of African-American men met in opposition to racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Booker T. Washington had been calling for policies of accommodation and conciliation and these two men, along with the others who attended the conference, felt that this was accomplishing nothing. The group was the precursor to the NAACP.

In 1912, in the year of John Walter Schwartz's passing, in October, former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot, but not killed, while campaigning for another term as President with the newly created Bull Moose (Progressive) Party. John Schrank was a Bavarian-born saloon-keeper from New York who had been stalking Roosevelt when he shot him just before a campaign speech. Shot in the chest (and showing the audience his bloody shirt), Roosevelt went on to give a 55 to 90 minute talk (reports vary on the length) before being treated for the injury. After 8 days in the hospital, Roosevelt went back on the campaign trail.