Documents in Year 1920                     

Links of Interest:

• America's Founding Primary Source Documents:

1920 - Amendment XIX in the Bill of Rights - Voting rights for women

• William Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-eighth U.S. President

(1913-1921)

• U.S. Census Overview 1920

• U.S. Census Fast Facts 1920

• Population: 106 million

Source: Foundations of American Education, Sixth Edition page 156 / L. Dean Webb, Arlene Metha. Published by Pearson Education. 2010

• Statehood

48 Continental United States of America, see 1959 for next state

• 19th Amendment

Women gain the right to vote.

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• Education: Higher (College)

"In 1901 the first free-standing public junior college, Joliet (Illinois) Junior College, was established. By the early 1920s, the concept of the junior college was well established."

• Education: Training Teachers

"Theory and Practice of Teaching or The Motives and Methods of Good School Keeping, by David P. Page, published in 1847, became the standard text in teacher education" in what were called normal schools. "Admission to most normal schools required an elementary education and was free to residents of the state" and lasted for two years.  By 1865 more than 50 normal schools were in operation and by 1900 a reported 350 normal schools were operating in 45 states."  By 1900 normal schools also started training secondary teachers and admission required high school completion and the normal school program extended to three years.  By the 1920s the normal school program extended to 4 years and were being called state teachers' colleges." 

Source: Foundations of American Education, Sixth Edition page 156, 160 / L. Dean Webb, Arlene Metha. Published by Pearson Education. 2010 see 1925 for next event...

• Entertainment:
  KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, becomes the first radio station to offer regular broadcasts on November 2, 1920.

Frisbee Invented

Yale students invent the Frisbee, tossing pie plates from the Frisbie Pie Company to each other and calling “Frisbie!” to warn passersby. The spelling was changed when Wham-O began mass-producing the saucers.

• Food: Italian immigrants in California begin growing and popularizing broccoli (known since Thomas Jefferson's day, it had been enjoyed mainly by a privileged few). Wonder Bread hits the market (in Indianapolis, Indiana). Breakstone packages cream cheese for mass distribution.
  Anderson, Jean American Century Cookbook. p 109

• Photography:

  Edward S. Curtis

(American Photographer of Native Americans 1899-1929)

• Technology:

"The economic growth (tenfold) of the United States during this period (post-Civil War to pre-World War I), was even more profound than the population growth (fourfold). This was a period of rapid growth for the railroads and other transportation and communication industries. The expansion of the railroads brought an end to the frontier and linked all parts of the nation, as did an ever-expanding network of telephone lines. At the same time, the trans-Atlantic cable and transworld shipping linked America with other nations. The expansion in the industry opened up new markets for the growing agricultural and manufacturing industries. By 1920 the United States had become the largest manufacturing nation in the world." Business leaders who helped bring about the growth were often called "robber barons," because of their abuses of workers (including children) "in factories, unsafe and unsanitary working conditions... industrial accidents and poverty-ridden slums".

Source: Foundations of American Education, Sixth Edition page 156 / L. Dean Webb, Arlene Metha. Published by Pearson Education. 2010