Nettie Faithful (1882 - 1969)

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

In 1882, in the year that Nettie Faithful was born, on September 4th, the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in the U.S. - at 255-257 Pearl Street - was flipped by Thomas Edison. It lit one square mile of lower Manhattan and was powered by coal. The "electrical age" had begun.

In 1902, Nettie was 20 years old when the modern air conditioner was invented by Willis H. Carrier. The company that he worked for needed to find a way to control humidity and by solving this problem, Carrier created a system that could be used for cooling the rooms of a house. The Sun Belt thanks him!

In 1925, at the age of 43 years old, Nettie was alive when in July, the Scopes Trial - often called the Scopes Monkey Trial - took place, prosecuting a substitute teacher for teaching evolution in school. Tennessee had enacted a law that said it was "unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school". William Jennings Bryan headed the prosecution and Clarence Darrow headed the defense. The teacher was found guilty and fined $100. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee upheld the law but overturned the guilty verdict.

In 1957, when she was 75 years old, on October 4th, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first man made earth-orbiting satellite - and triggered the Space Race. Sputnik I was only 23 inches in diameter and had no tracking equipment, only 4 antennas, but it had a big impact.

In 1969, in the year of Nettie Faithful's passing, in August, a previously planned small concert turned into a (free) more than 400,000 strong gathering of attendees and bands at Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York - now called Woodstock. Just some of the 32 acts: Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe, Santana, The Band, and Sly and the Family Stone.