It is undeniable that the history portrayed by Doctorow in Ragtime has its elements of fiction. But Doctorow writes the book so that some of what he made up has an element of plausibility. This is especially true towards the start of the book where he would add small details to show that the events he was talking about happened but nobody else knew about them. This creates this bubble in history where something could have happened, but as far as we know didn't. But the bubble only remains if you don't look farther into what Doctorow is writing about. If you do, there are small details that can disprove it. An example of this is the strange scene in the prison between Harry Houdini and Harry Thaw. At the end of the scene, Doctorow writes, "Houdini was to tell no one of this strange confrontation". Of course, if you look into it Thaw was in a different prison than the one Houdini escaped from. However, if you didn't look it up you have to consider the fact that it might have happened.
Throughout the beginning of the book, Doctorow continues to hide his fake events in bubbles in the past. Another example is the meeting between Ford and Morgan and the secret society no one else knew about. However, as the book progresses, Doctorow does less and less to make it seem like the events are true. This starts around the time of Coalhouse's retaliation for the vandalism of his car. In fact, after the bombing and attack on the second firehouse, Doctorow does the exact opposite of what he was doing before. Instead of having very few individuals know what happened, all of America knows. He writes, "The story of Coalhouse's second attack made the front page of every newspaper in the country". Of course, this raises the question of why Doctorow would specifically write it so that it shows that everyone would have known about it. I think that it is so he can show just how easily events that are thought to be incredibly famous at the time can so easily be forgotten over time. And at the same time how easy it is to write a fictional story that can just seem like forgotten history.
