Chronology

Full chronology version

1900

Over 5,000 students were now enrolled in the universities of Harvard, Yale, and John Hopkins

1900

The Association of American Universities was formed to promote high standards among colleges

1900

The first telephone designed for the home is introduced

1900

A fifth of all U.S. women are wage earners. Nearly 30% of all working women are domestics-others work on farms, as teachers, or in factories.

1900

Carrie Nation leads a group of women in an anti-liquor campaign

1900

GDP has reached over $350 billion

1900

Ragtime jazz becomes popular

1900

Theodore Dreiser’s naturalistic novel Sister Carrieis recalled by the publisher and not reissued for twelve years

1900

Frank Baum writes The Wizard of Oz

1901

Annual teacher pay during this decade was $325 a year

1901

President McKinley is assassinated at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo on September 6. Theodore Roosevelt, Mc Kinley's vice president, is sworn in as President.

1902

A study shows that 42% of women admitted to mental health institutions were well educated compared to only 16% of men. This fuels arguments against women's higher education.

1902

Owen Wister publishes The Virginian, a novel romanticizing cowboy life in Wyoming. It introduces the strong, silent hero and the climactic "showdown" to the growing myth of the American West.

1903

Orville Wright flies 120 feet in 12 seconds in the first heavier-than-air machine at Kittyhawk, North Carolina

1903

The first journey in an automobile between San Francisco and New York City takes 52 days

1903

National Women's Trade Union League of America founded

1903

The Department of Commerce and Labor is created by an Act of Congress

1903

An eleven-minute Edison film by Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery, is shown in theaters. It is hailed as the first full-length commercial motion picture.

1903

During this decade bilingual education for the children of German immigrants was mandated by the city of Cincinnati, Ohio after demands by the immigrant German population

1904

The Lake Placid Conference on homemaking forms the basis for the American Home Economics Association

1904

National Child Labor Committee is formed

1904

Roosevelt wins the presidential election by 2.5 million votes

1905

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is published

1905

The Niagra Movement is organized by intellectuals and activists demanding abolition of all laws resulting in racial discrimination

1906

The construction of the Panama Canal begins

1907

Elinor Glyn publishes her romantic novel Three Weekswhich is banned in Boston

1907

First public showing of a color motion picture with sound

1907

By Presidential order the U.S. excludes Japanese labourers from entering the country

1908

The electric iron and toaster are invented

1908

William Howard Taft is Roosevelt’s chosen successor and wins the presidency

1908

Henry Ford introduces the Model T for $850. It is only available in black.

1909

W.E.B. DuBois founds the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

1909

Bakelite, an early form of plastic, is patented

1909

Charlotte Perkins Gilman founds the feminist magazine The Forerunner, famous for writings on women's issues, ethics, and labour

1909

The first wireless message is sent from New York to Chicago

1910

The Boy Scouts of America are established in Washington by William D. Boyce. The Girl Scouts follow two years later.

1910

The first electric washing machine is introduced

1910

Approximately 8 million women now work outside the home

1910

Suffragists bring a petition with 500,000 names to Congress

1910

The White Slave Traffic Act (The Mann Act) is passed, outlawing the transportation of women across state lines for 'immoral purposes'

1910

Director D. W. Griffith is sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troop. They start filming on a vacant lot in Downtown Los Angeles.

1910

It is now illegal to admit criminals, paupers, anarchists and diseased persons into the U.S. Some countries have been scouring jails and asylums and officially sending the inmates over to the U.S.

1911

The first U.S. transcontinental flight takes place

1911

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized

1911

An estimated 8 million immigrants arrive in the United States

1912

Maria Montessori creates the Montessori method for teaching disadvantaged children reading and self care

1912

Theodore Roosevelt survives an assassination attempt

1912

Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson is elected President in a landslide victory

1912

The U.S. Public Health Service is established

1912

A Magazine of Verseis founded and becomes a major stimulus for American poetry

1912

The White Slave Traffic Act (The Mann Act) is passed in this decade, outlawing the transportation of women across state lines for 'immoral purposes'

1913

The Panama Canal opens

1913

Ford Motor Company sets up assembly-line mass production in Detroit

1913

Refrigerators are invented

1913

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organise the Congressional Union

1913

Members participate in hunger strikes and picket the White House to publicise the suffrage cause

1913

The first modern bra is designed

1913

Many movie-makers head west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. In Los Angeles, California, the studios and Hollywood grow.

1914

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) is formed in New York City

1914

President Woodrow Wilson declares the second Sunday in May "Mother's Day" and makes it a national holiday

1914

The Ludlow massacre in Colorado gives rise to demonstrations across the country. 66 people are killed.

1914

The Nestor Company opens the first film studio in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles

1915

The metal lipstick container is invented, allowing the mass production and purchase of lipsticks

1915

The invention of the farm tractor helps transform farming into a business

1915

Margaret Sander is jailed for supporting birth control

1915

Theda Bara, known as "The Vamp", becomes a star in A Fool There Was

1915

D.W.Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation incites bitter protests because of its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and lurid racism

1916

20% of public high schools now offered courses in home economics or domestic science

1916

Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives

1916

The first birth control clinic opens in Brooklyn

1916

The Congressional Union is renamed the National Woman's Party

1916

Woodrow Wilson is reelected on the slogan ‘He kept us out of the war’

1916

The first supermarkets featuring self-service and checkout counters open

1917

The first Pulitzer prizes are given out by the Columbia School of Journalism

1917

Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany. The U.S. enters World War I on April 2; In October American troops arrive in France, the first of 2 million to do so by the end of the war.

1918

President Wilson proposes ‘Fourteen Points’ for peace in the world

1919

The proposal to adopt the 19th Amendment to enfranchise American women, is passed by Congress and goes to the States for ratification

1919

Coco Chanel introduces the chemise dress, made without a corset

1919

Prohibition Act becomes law and goes into effect on January 16th 1920

1920

Women gain the right to vote

1920

Ethelda Bleibtrey is the first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in the modern Olympic Games

1920

The U.S. Department of Labor establishes a Woman's Bureau

1920

Warren G. Harding is elected President

1920

The Nineteenth Amendment is adopted and woman's suffrage becomes part of the United States Constitution

1920

The first commercial radio station begins operation - KDKA in Pennsylvania

1920

37 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. since 1840