#progressive era

Between 1890 and 1910, Americans declared these things were the work of Satan: ⚡ Electricity ("the Unrestrained Demon") 🚲 Women on bicycles ("the Devil's Chariot") 📸 Kodak cameras (photographers were "Kodak Fiends") 🍦 Ice cream sodas ("training wheels for alcoholism") ☎️ Telephones ("the instrument of the Devil") 🚗 Automobiles ("Devil Wagons") 🎵 Ragtime music ("the Ragtime Evil") 💃 The waltz (the "ante-room to hell") Doctors invented "Bicycle Face." States banned ice cream sodas on Sundays. Someone stretched steel cables across roads to stop cars. People went to prison under the Mann Act for interracial relationships. None of these things destroyed society. Each was simply change that made people uncomfortable—especially when it gave freedom to women, young people, or racial minorities. This is only the first twenty years.