History

The year is 1900. The world is a different place than the one we know today. William McKinley is the 25th President of the United States. The main forms of transportation are the railroad and the horse. Trips from California to Europe take more than a week. Coal and coal oil are the primary sources of fuel and light. News and communications are received via telegraph and newspapers, and the fountain pen and ball point pen are still to come. The telephone, phonograph, automobile and electric lights are recent inventions. There are no televisions, highways, airplanes, radios, antibiotics, plastics, electronic calculators or computers. The first modern Olympics have just been held in Athens and the only modern professional sports teams were playing baseball in the National League. The newly formed Dow Jones stock average is at 70 and contemporary figures of the day include Enrico Caruso, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, H.G. Wells, Pierre Renoir, Queen Victoria, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. There are only 83 elements in the Periodic table and most laboratory products are produced in Europe. The source in the U.S. for some of these products is the newly formed Arthur H. Thomas Company.