Searching Through Reference Books

See what I learned while browsing through the Reference Stacks :

1) Can the membership of the KKK be measured?
The only information I can find is that “in the 1920s, the Klan’s Membership was estimated to be between 3 and 5 million paid subscribers.”

2) How many African-Americans were lynched before the passage of the Civil Rights Act?
White mobs are known to have lynched 3,386 African Americans during the period between Reconstruction and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Source : Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, eds. Thousand Oaks, California, Sage, 2005.

1) Who was the first Jew to run for U.S. President?
According to the book, there hasn’t been a Jew running for U.S. President. Joe Lieberman is the first Jew to run for U.S. Vice President on Al Gore’s ticket in 2000.

2) When was the minimum wage established? How much was it?
1938; 25¢/hr.

Source : The New York Public Library American History Desk Reference. 2^nd ed. New York, Stonesong Press/Hyperion, 2003.

1) What is the general reaction to the stereotype that men who do musical theatre are gay?
Theatre is a melting pot, full of all different kinds of people. Those kinds of people are sure to include homosexuals. The authors of American Musical Theatre have, for decades, been dominantly males. Some prominent authors were openly homosexual or bisexual : Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Harvey Fierstein.

2) When was AIDS first linked with homosexuality?
June 1981 in the Center for Disease Control’s publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source : Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America. Marc Stein, ed. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons/Gale Group, 2004.

1) Can the Federal Government create laws on any subject?
“The legislative authority of the Federal government in any subject area must be founded on a grant of power expressed in the Federal Constitution.” However, the Supreme Court will interpret the Constitution in whatever way they want it, depending on the circumstances.

2) Does a person own the water on his property, just because he owns the land on which the water is running?
Not necessarily. The laws differ from state to state. There are two systems of water law followed in the United States: riparian rights and appropriative rights. Under riparian law, the landowner does not own the water flowing over his land, but he does have rights to the water. Appropriative rights grant priority in the use of water to those who first put the water to productive use.

Source : The U.S. Legal System. Dennis Campbell and Winifred Hepperle, eds. Boston, Martinus Nijoff Publishers, 1983.