A survey of major changes in American life and ideas during the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on economic expansion and its influence on the American standard of living, thinking, and citizenship.

Based on the Los Angeles Times series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this is a timeless story of families torn apart. When Enrique was five, his mother, too poor to feed her children, left Honduras to work in the United States. The move allowed her to send money back home so Enrique could eat better and go to school past the third grade. She promised she would return quickly, but she struggled in America. Without her, he became lonely and troubled....

"The 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, meant to herald the twentieth century, went tragically, spectacularly, awry. In 1901, Buffalo, New York, the eighth biggest city in America, wanted to launch the new century with the Pan American Exposition. It would showcase the Western hemisphere and bring millions of people to western New York. With Niagara Falls as a drawing card and with stunning colors and electric lights, promoters believed it would...