The Year 1925

If you look at the grand sweep of human history, there are centuries where seemingly little happens and then there are decades where centuries happen. The first 25 years of the 20th century was one of the most intense periods of change in history. Empires fell, social norms were overturned, science and technology made radical advances and the world experienced its greatest war ever. Learn more about the world in the year 1925 and how much it changed since 1900 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Hello, I'm Matt. And I'm McKinley. We have the father-son duo behind history dispatches. The daily podcast that uncovers the weird, obscure and fantastic tales from the past. From lobotomies to the Library of Alexandria. To London's killer fog and America's missing nukes. We've got bandits and battles. Plus, Queen Victoria's royal rat catcher. And the Great Emu War. And the only time French, German and American soldiers fought alongside each other in World War II. Subscribe to history dispatches wherever you like to listen. I'm David Remnick, host of the New Yorker Radio Hour. There's nothing like finding a story you can really sink into that lets you tune out the noise and focus on what matters. In print or here on the podcast, the New Yorker brings you thoughtfulness and depth and even humor that you can't find anywhere else. So please join me every week for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. Since episode 1500 of this podcast, I've been covering how much the world has changed every century. In the 19th century, I did an episode every 50 years. However, now that we've made it to the 20th century, we can't cover the entire century in one or even two episodes. In fact, I could launch a whole new podcast and have enough content for thousands of episodes just covering the history of the 20th century. I'm going to try to provide a high-level overview of what happened between 1900 and 1925, but this is going to be a bit different than previous episodes. Rather than doing a trip around the world, I'm going to focus more on social, technical and political changes. And the reasons for this are simple. Africa, Oceania, the Caribbean, and much of Asia were not the focus of change during this period. European powers still colonized these areas as they did in 1900. That isn't to say nothing happened, but they will come to the forefront later in the century. Many events that were taking place, such as independence movements, didn't come to fruition until after the Second World War. In China, the Qing dynasty fell after the 1911 Revolution, which ended over 2,000 years of imperial rule. In 1912, Sun Yat-sen briefly became the provisional president of the new Republic of China, but real power soon passed to military strongman Yuan Shikai, who tried to make himself emperor before dying in 1916. His death plunged China into the warlord era, which is where it was in 1925. Japan was on the rise and had become a world power. It had defeated Russia in 1905 and annexed Korea in 1910. Japan joined the Allies in World War I and seized German possessions in the Pacific and China during the war. Australia and New Zealand came into their own as countries. Australia was granted dominion status in 1901 and New Zealand in 1907. Their national identities were forged during the war, especially during the Battle of Gallipoli. Economically, prior to the start of World War I, the world was on the gold standard. The entire world was trading in gold-backed currencies, with every currency representing just a different amount of gold. This period before the war was known as the "Belle Epoche." It was a period of relative peace and prosperity in Europe. Prior to the war, one of the most popular art movements was Art Nouveau. It was characterized by flowing organic lines and decorative motifs inspired by nature, blending fine arts, architecture, and design into a unified style. Other art movements such as cubism were in their early stages. In music, new styles such as atonality were being developed by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg. Other music like jazz and reg time were also growing in popularity. Assembly lines were being implemented in various industries, most notably in the automotive industry where it was pioneered by Henry Ford. In the sciences, there was a revolution taking place with the theories of relativity and in quantum mechanics. The takeaway is that before the onset of the First World War, there was already a great deal of change under foot. However, the war changed everything. I'm not going to belabor the specifics of the war as I've covered those in many previous episodes and I'll be covering even more in future episodes. However, the war was the spark that resulted in massive changes in society, art, geopolitics, international relations, and much more. Let's start with the political shifts. Perhaps the biggest one to come directly out of the war was the Russian Revolution. Communists successfully revolted against Tsarist Russia, ended the Russian Empire, pulled the country out of the war, and established the world's first communist state. This would have repercussions that would last for the rest of the century. Russia was not the only country that saw radical political changes in the aftermath of the war. Italy was left with economic hardships, high unemployment, social unrest, and a sense of betrayal over unmet territorial promises, creating disillusionment that allowed Benito Mussolini and his fascist movement to rise to power in 1922. In Germany, the Weimar Republic faced deep instability. Its democracy was weak, extremist movements on both the right and the left were active, and the population was bitter over the Treaty of Versailles which imposed harsh reparations and territorial losses. Economically, the country had endured hyperinflation in 1923, wiping out savings, and destroying economic confidence. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the end of World War I in 1918, breaking into separate nations – Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Other territories joined Italy, Romania, and Poland. By 1925, Austria and Hungary were small, weakened republics facing economic hardship, political instability, and resentment over lost land and status. The war also saw the end of what was once one of the most powerful empires on Earth – the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire collapsed after its defeat in World War I, leading to Allied occupation and the loss of its Arab lands and mandates. Following the Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, and by 1925, the old empire was gone, replaced by a secular, modernizing Turkish state, while former Ottoman territories became colonies or new nations under European control. The map of the Middle East was completely redrawn as the Ottoman Empire was dismantled. Britain gained mandates over Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan, while France received Syria and Lebanon under the League of Nations system. Arabia was fragmented into separate kingdoms and tribal regions, with Ibn Saud unifying much of the Arabian Peninsula by the mid-1920s. In 1922, Ireland achieved a level of independence from Britain after centuries of struggle with the creation of the Irish Free State. By 1925, the League of Nations was active but limited in power. Headquartered in Geneva, it helped settle minor border disputes and oversaw mandates from the former empires, yet it lacked the participation of major powers like the United States and faced challenges enforcing its decisions. The United States, which was not impacted by the war nearly as much as other belligerent countries, was cementing its place as the world's strongest economy. America was in the midst of a decade that became known as the roaring 20s. The country was experiencing a post-war economic boom which had dramatically increased prosperity in the country. Much of the improvement in living standards came from the adoption of technologies, many of which existed in 1900 but weren't widespread. If you looked at a street in New York City in 1900, there might have been one automobile for every ten horses. By 1925, that ratio had reversed and the number of horses was decreasing rapidly. By 1925, electricity had spread widely across urban America, powering homes, factories and the growing use of appliances and lighting. But only about half of US households, mostly in cities, were connected to the grid, while rural areas remained largely without electrical service for another decade. In 1925, consumers used electricity mainly for lighting, which replaced gas and oil lamps, and increasingly for household appliances, such as electric irons, fans, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and radios. In cities, electricity also powered refrigeration in streetcars. Electrification also saw the rise of mass media. The motion picture industry was fully established in 1925, centered in Hollywood. It was still in the middle of its silent age. The top box office films of 1925 were The Big Parade, Ben Hur, The Freshman, The Gold Rush and The Phantom of the Opera. Perhaps even more important than motion pictures was radio. Radio evolved from experimental wireless telegraphy into mass broadcasting between 1900 and 1925. After the war, RCA was formed in 1919 to commercialize radio. Regular public broadcasting began in 1920 with stations like KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This was followed by a surge of licensed stations from 1922 onward. The first paid advertisements in WEAF in 1922 and the creation of local program networks. By 1925, millions of receivers were in use, and radio had become a household medium for news, sports and entertainment. Alongside electricity, telephone adoption exploded. The United States grew from roughly a million-plus telephones around 1900 to well over 15 million by the mid-1920s, giving it the world's highest penetration. Northern Europe, especially Sweden and Denmark, reached relatively high per capita rates as well. As with electricity, telephone adoption in rural areas still lagged significantly behind. Another thing that existed in 1925 that didn't exist in 1900 was airplanes. In 1903, the Wright Brothers proved that powered-controlled flight was possible. By 1909, Joseph Blair-Yo crossed the English Channel, and in 1919 the first non-stop transatlantic flight by John Alcock and Arthur Brown flew from Newfoundland to Ireland. The war rapidly advanced airplane design. Biplanes still dominated at this point, but all metal cantilevered designs led by German Junker aircraft pointed to the future. Say for cockpits, better instruments such as gyroscopic turn indicators and more dependable engines made longer flights feasible. In addition to technology, there were also major changes to medicine and healthcare. Improvements came from cleaner water, sewage systems, pasteurization, small pox and dip theory of vaccinations, better birthing practices, and public health campaigns. Nutrition and housing improved for many city dwellers, and basic medical technologies like insulin arrived in the 1920s. By 1925, the world was well on its way to increasing life expectancy, which would continue throughout the century. Large life expectancy at birth rose modestly worldwide, from the low 30s around 1900 to the mid 30s by the mid 1920s. Western Europe and the United States saw larger gains. The United States moved from roughly 47 years around 1900 to the high 50s by the late 1920s, while many Western European countries climbed into the mid 50s to low 60s. This had huge implications for global population levels. Despite the massive loss of life during the First World War, global population levels rose dramatically between 1900 and 1925. Global population rose from roughly 1.6 to 1.7 billion in 1900 to about 1.9 to 2 billion in 1925, an increase of 20 to 25 percent. Growth was fastest in Europe and North America due to falling mortality rates and in parts of Asia due to higher birth rates. The other driving force behind this was urbanization. Between 1900 and 1925, urbanization accelerated sharply as industrialization, transportation, and new technologies drew millions from rural areas into cities. In 1900, most of the world's population was still rural, but by 1925, major countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany had urban majorities. Factories, offices, and electrical infrastructure created steady urban jobs, while trolleys, highways, and automobiles expanded city limits into suburbs. Cities became centers of consumer life, filled with electricity, radio, theaters, and department stores, making a major social shift from agrarian to industrial urban living. All of these changes also resulted in major societal changes. Women's roles transformed dramatically. Women had gained the right to vote in the United States in 1920, Britain partially in 1918, and in many other countries. The new woman or flapper embodied these new freedoms. Shorter skirts, bobbed hair, smoking, drinking in public, and greater independence would have scandalized society just 25 years earlier. Modernism had become the artistic language of the age. The lost generation wrote about alienation in Paris and beyond. Jazz and dance halls defined the nightlife of major cities. The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 in Germany, promoted new approaches to design and architecture. And surrealism was organized as a movement in 1924. In the United States, the Harlem Renaissance was flourishing. Art Deco had largely replaced Art Nouveau as the dominant artistic style in public design. Mass media helped create some of the first true sports celebrities. In 1921, the first sporting event, a boxing match, was broadcast on the radio. Babe Ruth had become one of the biggest celebrities in the United States and no small part due to radio and newsreels. And in 1919, of course, the sports world changed forever when the Green Bay Packers were founded by Curly Lambeau. I've always felt that if I could go back in time, one of the eras I'd like to visit the most would be the 1920s. The 20s may have been the peak delta in terms of overall societal and technical change in world history. The period from 1900 to 1925 saw more change than the world had seen over centuries. Yet despite all the change, the world would once again be totally different just 25 years later in 1950. The executive producer of everything everywhere daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show around Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast. And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read in the show.