Wilfred Cawthorn (1889 - 1916)

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

In 1889, in the year that Wilfred Cawthorn was born, on April 22nd, at "high noon," about 50,000 people took off to claim open lands in the Land Rush of 1889. Called the "Unassigned Lands," part or all of 6 counties in Oklahoma were up for grabs. By the end of the day, Oklahoma City and Guthrie were created - each with about 10,000 inhabitants.

In 1896, at the age of only 7 years old, Wilfred was alive when on January 4th, Utah became the 45th state in the United States. After the LDS Church banned polygamy in 1890, Utah's application for statehood became acceptable to Congress and the Utah Territory became Utah..

In 1897, when he was just 8 years old, on September 21st, editor and publisher Francis P. Church responded to a letter to the editor from Virginia O'Hanlon, 8 years old. Virginia's father had told her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." So she wrote to the Sun, asking if there was a Santa Claus. Church responded with the now famous editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".

In 1906, at the age of 17 years old, Wilfred was alive when Finland became the first European country to give women the vote and to allow them to run for political office. (Women in Australia and New Zealand already had that right but couldn't run for office.) Although Finland belonged to the Russian Empire, there was great unrest and the Tsar wanted to broker a quick peace. As a part of the brokered peace, women got the vote.

In 1916, in the year of Wilfred Cawthorn's passing, visiting nurse Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. at 46 Amboy St. in Brooklyn New York. Ten days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested for "violating laws against giving out birth control information" which was defined as obscenity. The clinic was not handing out birth control - just information about sex and birth control methods. (The Comstock law categorized information about abortion, family planning, and contraception as “obscene”.) The clinics and organizations that Sanger established later evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.