Minnie Cartee (1890 - 1978)

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

In 1890, in the year that Minnie Cartee was born, on January 2nd, Alice Sanger became the first female staffer to work in the White House. She was hired as a stenographer and, as such, took dictation.

In 1923, she was 33 years old when Harlem's Cotton Club opened in New York City. Owned by a bootlegger and gangster, it was a 700 seat speakeasy that catered to a "white only" clientele. But most of the entertainers were African-American and featured some of the best entertainers of the time such as Lena Horne, the Nicholas Brothers, Ethel Waters, and Cab Calloway.

In 1958, at the age of 68 years old, Minnie was alive when on January 31st, Explorer I, the United States' answer to Sputnik I (and 2,) was launched. America had entered the Space Race. The first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, it remained in orbit until 1970.

In 1960, by the time she was 70 years old, on September 26th, the first televised debate for a Presidential campaign in the United States - Kennedy vs Nixon - was held. Seventy million people watched the debate on TV. The debate pre-empted the very popular Andy Griffith Show.

In 1978, in the year of Minnie Cartee's passing, on July 25th, Louise Brown, the first "test-tube baby", was born at Oldham Hospital in London. Louise was conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization), a controversial and experimental procedure at the time.