I don't have any examples specific to your time frame, but do for the idea that interest in our ancestors is a modern phenomena: It's not.

The Romans showed great interest in Greek history. Our best sources for Alexander the Great are the Roman historians Arrian (Greek born during Roman rule), Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. We consider these men primary sources for Alexander, even though they lived hundreds of years after him, because we know they saw primary sources at the various libraries in Antiquity, namely in Alexandria (For example, we know that Arrian used Xenophon's account for the basis of his research/version and Plutarch used the work of Lysippus, Alexander's favorite sculptor). These men clearly had interest in the people that lived hundreds of years before them as evidenced by their research and writing dozens of combined books on Alexander.

Some other examples: Mohammed Akensus (1800s)was a Moroccan historian that wrote about a sultan that lived about 100 years before him(1700s).

Nestor the Chronicler was a Russian monk that wrote about Russian history during his time (mid-1000s) and well before his time (800s or so).

The Chinese historian Liu Zhiji even wrote a historiography of Chinese history in the 700s that examined official Chinese dynastic history all the way back to 200BC. So even 1300 years ago people were interested in the history of history!

There are many other examples that I'm sure my fellow colleagues can name for you. The point is, humanity has always been interested in their not-so-immediate ancestors to varying degrees throughout known history.

Sources: The various works of said authors

Lintong Qu - "Encyclopedia of China"

"Akansus - Encyclopedia of Islam"

EDIT: Frak me, 100 years ago was 1917 and, of course, we have plenty of examples from around that time period. I associated "100 years ago" with the 1800s [facepalm] Some examples include:

Frederick Jackson Turner - Sectional Thesis written in the 1920s and 30s related historical trends back to at least Jacksonian Democracy.

George Bancroft - His "History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent" was written throughout the mid-1800s and went back to discovery of the Americas, but mainly concentrated on colonial America. (Hey, I remembered an 1800s guy).

Winston Churchill - He started his "History of the English-Speaking Peoples" in 1937, which went all the way back to the Roman invasion of Britain.

Angie Debo - She received her degree in History in 1918 and soon thereafter was writing Native American History going as far back as the Five Civilized Tribes.

B.H. Liddell Hart - His first book, in 1926, was about Scipio Africanus and comparing the Roman general to Napoleon.

Anyway, the answer is still yes, people 100 years ago were just as interested in history as we are today.