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Henry Ford
Henry Ford (1863–1947) was one of America's greatest businessmen, the founder of Ford Motor Company and the man largely responsible for initiating the era of mass-consumption and mass-production in the American economy. Ford's innovative business practices, including standardization, the assembly line, and high wages for workers, revolutionized American industry. Ford also became one of America's most prominent citizens in the early-20th century. -
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Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) was the 29th President of the United States. A personable, conservative senator from Ohio, Harding won the presidential election of 1920 in a landslide by promising a "return to normalcy" after World War I. -
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Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) was a self-made millionaire in the mining industry, a very successful Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928, and a very unsuccessful president of the U.S. from 1929 to 1933. His term saw the onset of the Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash just a few months after he took office. -
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D.W. Griffith
D.W. Griffith (1875–1948) was an important movie director of the early-20th century and one of the founders of the Hollywood film industry. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation—which depicted Ku Klux Klansmen as triumphant heroes—was one of the most important films in American history. A runaway box office success, it proved the viability of the Hollywood feature film as a commercial product. -
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Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) was the nation's most important birth control advocate in the early-20th century. At a time when basic information about sex, sexuality, and even anatomy was often outlawed as obscene, Sanger worked to educate women about the reproductive process to allow them to choose when and whether to bear children. She was convinced that society couldn't evolve unless people practiced family planning, especially among the poor. -
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Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) was an American novelist and playwright, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. During the 1920s, Lewis' works Main Street and Babbitt, skewered what he saw as the mindless consumption and conformity of middle-class American society in an age of affluence. -
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Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) was the most popular Black nationalist leader of the early-20th century, and the founder of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). A Jamaican immigrant, Garvey rose to prominence as a soapbox orator in Harlem, New York. By the 1920s, the charismatic Garvey's UNIA claimed more than four million members, and crowds of more than 25,000 people packed into Madison Square Garden to hear Garvey speak of racial redemption and repatriation to Africa. -
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Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an African-American writer, best known for the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. During the 1920s, Hurston was one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of Black cultural vitality that sprang up in the African-American enclave of Harlem, New York. -
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Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth (1895–1948) was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, a fearsome power hitter whose home run records stood for decades. Ruth's feats on the diamond—and his garrulous charisma off of it—helped to transform baseball from a game to a major force in the modern entertainment industry. -
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was a prominent American writer of the "Lost Generation," the author of novels including This Side of Paradise, Tender is the Night, and—most famously—The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald achieved huge fame and success by his mid-20s, and later struggled to live up to the expectations he'd created for his own work. He died of alcoholism at the age of 44. -
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Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) was an African-American poet, novelist, and playwright. He remains beloved especially for his poetry, and is considered one of America's greatest poets. -
Prohibition begins.
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution becomes official. Alcoholic beverages can no longer be made, sold, or transported in the United States. -
Women in the U.S. can vote
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution becomes official. Women age twenty-one years and older now have the right to vote. -
Calvin Coolidge takes over.
President Warren Harding dies. Vice-President Calvin Coolidge becomes President. Coolidge will run for re-election in 1924 and will become the 30th President of the United States. -
A big year for cars and radios
Ford Motor Company makes its 10 millionth Model T car. About 2.5 million radios are now in use in the United States with over 500 broadcast stations -
Let's do the Charleston
Made famous in a 1923 New York play, the Charleston has become a dance craze in the U.S., and now becomes a sensation in Europe. Women who dance the Charleston are known as "Flappers." -
first liquid-fuel rocket fires.
Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket in Massachusetts. He will be called the Father of Modern Rocket Propulsion. -
Lindbergh flies alone.
Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. The flight takes 33.5 hours. -
The movies talk!
The Jazz Singer becomes the first full-length motion picture with sound and songs. Movies will now be known as "talkies." -
Walt Disney speaks for Mickey Mouse.
Walt Disney releases Steamboat Willie, his first cartoon with synchronized sound. Mickey is voiced by Disney himself. -
New York Stock Exchange fails.
Overconfidence causes people to pour their savings into the stock market to try to earn quick money. But when prices start to fall, panic begins and the market loses millions of shares as people try to recover their money. Many lose everything they have. Starting with a boom and ending with a bust, the 1920s was a catalyst for many changes soon to affect the world.