New Decade, New Goals, and Anniversaries

2020! We have entered into a new decade and it feels like a clean slate. What will happen in the next ten years? How will we change in the next ten years and what will we accomplish? I find it interesting to ponder these questions.

In 2019, I am most proud of the amount of traveling I did. I traveled overseas to Europe for the first time and was able to experience much of the history I read about first hand. I traveled to the west coast of the United States for the first time as well. I already have booked a trip to Scotland with a friend for 2020 and hope to explore even more! The cover photo is a picture of me taken in Zurich, Switzerland.

Returning to the present, I am proud of the work I did on the historynavigator blog in 2019. My goal was to become more consistent and create a post every month. Though I missed two months (one of those months was consumed with my travels to Europe and the other was just laziness), I was still more consistent than 2018. This year I hope to do better and make all 12 months. It is definitely difficult to find the time to do the research and even just figure out topics with work, life, and changes happening. This year, I want to make time to think of these things in advance and start my reading in advance. Is there any topics that you would be interested in me researching ?

During my research for topics this month, I looked into what was turning 100 years old this year and how the world has changed since the previous ’20s. It is very interesting to see how the world has changed.

August 18,1920 is an important date in American history as this was the day the 19th amendment was finally passed. This amendment granted women the right to vote in elections. Protesters had been fighting for this right for a century. 1848 is the date that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott started the Seneca Falls Convention and created a national movement for women’s suffrage, but prior to that date there had been separate local movements ran by women and allies. Without these strong women, we may not have the rights we enjoy today and they should not be taken for granted. I hope to write more about this story as the anniversary draws closer.

January 16, 1920 the League of Nations was formed. After the destruction of World War I, it was proposed by President Wilson (in his “Fourteen Points”) that an organization should be created to assist in negotiating and solving conflicts before they dissolved into warfare. 48 nations had joined by this time (it is interesting that despite this being Wilson’s idea, the United States never joined). As we know today, the League was not a success and World War II happened anyway. The League was weak and could not enforce its own mandates. Yet, I think it was important because of the steps it took to bring the world closer and to try and solve conflicts in a different way. It was a precursor to today’s United Nations.

I knew about the previous two anniversaries, but this next one I had no idea about. I think it is extremely interesting that 1920 was the birth of mass media. Radio did exist prior to the 1920s, but it was not popular with the public. Those who used it were engineers, the military, and those who made it a hobby. The average person did not see its usefulness and thought the novelty would die out. This changed when on November 2, 1920 the radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the results of the 1920 presidential election.  Listeners could hear live that Republican senator Warren G. Harding had beat the Democrat candidate, Governor James M. Cox in a landslide victory. They did not have to wait for their newspapers to come out the next day. After this broadcast, radio was no longer a “novelty”. Within four years, 600 commercial radio stations were formed nationwide. Radio sales exploded as everyone had to have one in their homes. With the creation of mass media, music, news, sports, celebrities, stories, etc could be transmitted to all parts of the nation. Everyone in the nation could be on the same page and share in the same things. Living in the 2020s, I could not imagine a world where information was not at your fingertips. This was revolutionary.

A bit of local history to add on to the previous paragraph, it was actually in August of 1920 that WWJ in Detroit, Michigan formed. It was the first government licensed radio station (different from commercial) and is believed to be the first radio station to broadcast news. They would not receive their commercial license until 1921. KDKA holds the honor of the first commercially licensed station. WWJ was not the first mass media example as it was listened to by a limited local audience, but it is still very interesting that another part of history began in Detroit.

I am keeping this one short and sweet while I prepare for more material! If there are any requests I am happy to look into them. I am looking forward to this new clean slate and for another year with historynavigator blog!

 

Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/league-of-nations

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65436/10-world-shaping-events-happened-1920

A Brief History Of WWJ

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt20ra.html

https://ethw.org/Milestones:Westinghouse_Radio_Station_KDKA,_1920

https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/19th-amendment-1