1900 History, Trivia, and Fun Facts
Quick Facts from 1900
Top Ten Baby Names of 1900
Girls: Mary, Helen, Anna, Margaret, Ruth, Elizabeth, Florence, Ethel, Emma, Marie Boys: John, William, James, George, Charles, Robert, Joseph, Frank, Edward, Walter
The Stars
In 1900, “movie stars” did not exist. The dominant entertainers were vaudeville performers, opera singers, and theatrical actors. The most famous performers in America were vaudeville comedian W.C. Fields, soprano Lillian Russell, and magician Harry Houdini — all touring the country in stage shows.
The Quotes
“23 Skidoo!” — The most popular slang expression of the era, meaning approximately “get out of here” or enthusiastic approval — origin still disputed
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” — Mark Twain, in a letter to a reporter in 1897, still widely quoted in 1900
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott, whose works remained enormously popular in 1900
“Good to the last drop.” — Maxwell House Coffee advertising slogan, 1900 — allegedly coined when President Theodore Roosevelt tasted a cup and offered the compliment, though this attribution is disputed
The Academy Awards, Time Magazine, Miss America
None of these existed in 1900. The Academy Awards began in 1929. Time magazine launched in 1923. The Miss America pageant started in 1921.
We Lost in 1900
Oscar Wilde, playwright and author of The Importance of Being Earnest, died November 30, age 46, in Paris, of cerebral meningitis following ear surgery. He had been released from prison in 1897 after serving two years for “gross indecency.” His last reported words: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” The wallpaper remained.
John Ruskin, English art critic and social thinker, died January 20, at the age of 80
Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, died on August 25, at the age of 55, after years of severe mental illness
Casey Jones (John Luther Jones), railroad engineer, died April 30, age 36, when he slowed his passenger train enough at a collision with stalled freight cars that he was the only fatality. He became a folk hero, commemorated in a song written by his engine wiper
Wallace Saunders. Gottlieb Daimler, co-inventor of the automobile, died on March 6 at the age of 65
Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage, died June 5, at age 28, from tuberculosis in Germany.
Max Müller, a German-British Orientalist scholar, died on October 28 at the age of 76
America in 1900 — The Context
America in 1900 was a nation at an extraordinary threshold. The West was won. The frontier — the great fact of 300 years of American history — was no more. The continent was settled from coast to coast. The United States was now the world’s largest steel producer, its largest agricultural producer, and its most powerful industrial economy. In 1898, the Spanish-American War had made it an imperial power with territories in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. LOC
What it was not yet was a modern country in the way we understand the term. There were 13,000 automobiles in the U.S., 76 million people, and a national debt of $1 billion. The average father earned $9.60 a week. School was not mandatory, and children aged eight and nine earned $2 a week for 10-hour days in factories.
A fast steamer could reach Europe in nine days. A woman doctor was a freak. Los Angeles had a population of 100,000. A lamplighter climbed a ladder to illuminate the streets with gas. Boston had the only subway. New York had a 23-story skyscraper.
For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms — just barely, and the shift was accelerating. Immigrants were arriving at a rate of over 400,000 per year. The cities they were filling — New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh — were crowded, electrifying, and often dangerous. The gap between the robber baron industrialists and the factory workers was as wide as any in American history.
The Galveston Hurricane
On September 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall at Galveston, Texas, at approximately 6 p.m. with winds of 145 mph. Galveston was a barrier island with a maximum elevation of 8.7 feet above sea level. The storm surge reached 15 feet.
An estimated 8,000 people died — roughly one-third of the city’s entire population. Another 10,000 were left homeless. 3,600 homes were destroyed. Galveston had been the fourth-largest port in the United States and was competing with Houston as Texas’s commercial capital. After 1900, it never recovered that position. Houston did — partly because its location on higher ground made it safer.
The Galveston hurricane remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history. The death toll exceeds that of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, and Hurricane Katrina combined.
In response, Galveston built a 17-foot seawall, completed in 1904 — one of the great engineering achievements of the early 20th century — and raised the entire city’s grade by pumping sand beneath it. It works. No hurricane since has killed more than a handful of people in Galveston.
Pop Culture Facts and History
America at the turn of the century was experiencing the birth of mass popular culture. Americans could read the same magazines and novels, go to the same movies, and buy the same brands of food, toys, and cars. They drank out of Dixie cups, took pictures with their new Brownie cameras, and drank Coke. This homogenization of culture was new — in the 19th century, entertainment was local; now it was national. Pop-culture.us
The Eastman Kodak Brownie camera, introduced in 1900 at $1.00, put photography in the hands of ordinary Americans for the first time. Photographs had previously required professional equipment, chemical knowledge, and significant expense. The Brownie required none of these. Amateur photography was born.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published on May 17, 1900, with illustrations by W.W. Denslow. It was an immediate bestseller, went through multiple printings in its first year, and spawned a successful Broadway musical adaptation in 1902. The story of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion — and their journey to see the Wizard — has never gone out of print.
The Michelin Guide was founded in 1900 by brothers André and Édouard Michelin, who ran the Michelin tire company in France. Their reasoning was straightforward: more drivers meant more tire sales. They printed a guide to hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and mechanics for French motorists. The Michelin Stars restaurant rating system — which can make or break a chef’s career — grew from this promotional gimmick into the most prestigious dining honor in the world.
Vaudeville was the dominant form of entertainment in America in 1900. The typical vaudeville program featured 8-15 acts: singers, comedians, acrobats, trained animals, magicians, and novelty performers. A ticket cost 10-25 cents. Major vaudeville circuits — the Keith-Albee circuit on the East Coast, the Orpheum circuit in the West — booked performers into theaters in every major American city. By 1900, vaudeville employed more performers than any other entertainment industry. It would be replaced by film within two decades.
Harry Houdini was touring the country as a vaudeville escape artist in 1900, performing handcuff escapes and straitjacket acts that baffled audiences. He was 26 years old and had not yet become famous — that would come in 1903 when he escaped from Scotland Yard’s handcuffs in London. His real name was Erik Weisz; he had been born in Budapest.
Buster Keaton made his first stage appearance in 1900 at age 5, joining his parents’ vaudeville act at the Wonderland Theater in Wilmington, Delaware. He was billed as “The Human Mop” — his father would swing him around by the ear and throw him at the scenery. He learned to fall without injury in ways that would define his film career.
Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in November 1899, with the date 1900 on the title page. It sold 351 copies in its first six years. Freud later said it was the most important book he wrote. He may have been right, it defined how the 20th century understood the human mind.
Cocaine was removed from the recipe for Coca-Cola in 1900, having been a mild ingredient since the drink’s invention in 1886. The caffeine stayed. Sales were not noticeably affected.
The first national auto show in the United States was held November 3-10, 1900, at Madison Square Garden in New York, organized by the newly established Automobile Club of America. Approximately 15,000 people attended. Automobiles on display included early models from Packard, Peerless, and Franklin. There were roughly 13,000 cars in the entire United States at the time.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longabaugh — robbed Union Pacific Train No. 3 at Tipton, Wyoming, on August 29, 1900, taking $45,000 from the express car. It was their third train robbery in two years. They fled to South America in 1901 and were reportedly killed in Bolivia in 1908, though the exact circumstances remain disputed.
The Boxer Rebellion in China — a violent uprising against foreign influence led by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists — reached its peak in 1900 when rebels besieged the International Legations in Beijing for 55 days. An Eight-Nation Alliance army broke the siege in August. China was forced to pay 450 million silver taels in reparations — more than the Chinese government’s annual tax revenue.
Max Planck presented his quantum theory on October 19, 1900, proposing that energy is emitted and absorbed in discrete packets, or quanta, rather than continuously. This single paper is generally considered the birth of quantum physics — the framework underlying all modern electronics, lasers, and much of chemistry. Planck himself considered the idea provisional and hoped classical physics could eventually explain it. It could not.
Marie and Pierre Curie isolated radium in 1900, building on their 1898 discovery of the element. The isolation process took four years and processed tons of uranium ore. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 — the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. She died in 1934 from aplastic anemia, almost certainly caused by decades of unprotected radiation exposure.
The Paris Exposition Universelle — World’s Fair — ran from April 14 to November 12, 1900, attracting 48 million visitors. It featured the first diesel engine demonstration by Rudolf Diesel, the first talking films, the debut of escalators, and the first Olympic Games held in conjunction with a World’s Fair. The Paris Métro opened the same year. It was the largest World’s Fair in history at that point.
Guglielmo Marconi received British Patent #7,777 for wireless radio in 1900. The following year he transmitted the first transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland. Radio as a public medium was two decades away, but the technology that would create it was here.
Nikola Tesla received a patent for “wireless transmission of electrical power” in 1900. He was attempting to build a global wireless electricity transmission system — the Wardenclyffe Tower project — that his financial backer, J.P. Morgan, ultimately refused to fund. Tesla died poor. His work on alternating current powers the modern world.
The Davis Cup international tennis competition was founded in 1900 by Dwight F. Davis, a Harvard student and later U.S. Secretary of War. Davis himself played in the first competition, helping the United States defeat the British Isles. The trophy is the original silver bowl he commissioned for $1,000.
The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900, funded by the 1895 will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who had invented dynamite and spent his later years troubled by its destructive uses. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, the year Nobel died in 1896, not having seen the foundation he envisioned come to fruition. Peace, Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Literature were the original categories.
One in twelve American marriages ended in divorce in 1900. There were more than 1.3 million telephones in the United States. By the end of the decade, three-quarters of the American population would visit a movie theater every week. The pace of change was accelerating faster than most people could keep track of.
The first workplace smoking ban in recorded American history was issued by Willis L. Moore, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, in 1900: “The smoking of cigarettes in the offices of the Weather Bureau is hereby prohibited. Officials will rigidly enforce this order, and will also include in their reports information about those of their assistants who smoke cigarettes outside of office hours.” The employees ignored it.
The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was founded in New York in 1900, 11 years before the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire would make its need undeniable.
The first book of U.S. postage stamps went on sale in 1900, available in packs of 12, 24, and 48 two-cent stamps. Previously, stamps had been sold individually.
RCA Victor’s famous logo — the terrier Nipper listening to a gramophone horn with the caption “His Master’s Voice” — was registered as a trademark in 1900. Francis Barraud had painted his brother’s dog listening to a cylinder phonograph, then repainted the machine as a gramophone after the Victor company bought the image. Nipper became one of the most recognizable advertising icons of the 20th century.
The Katzenjammer Kids comic strip — created by German-American artist Rudolph Dirks in 1897 — was in its third year of national syndication in 1900 and was the most widely read comic strip in America. It remains the longest-running comic strip in history.
Harvey Firestone founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, in 1900, initially selling tires made by other manufacturers. He began manufacturing his own tires three years later. His friendship with Henry Ford would help make the automobile affordable to ordinary Americans.
The Habits
Reading the Sears Roebuck catalog, the “Wish Book,” which rural Americans treated as nearly as essential as the Bible; attending vaudeville; playing parlor games; and watching the automobiles go by at their startling new speed of 12 mph.
Christmas Gifts and Firsts of 1900
Brownie camera ($1.00), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book, stereoscopes and view cards, board games, and Cracker Jack
Nobel Prize Winners
(The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900, but the first prizes were awarded in 1901)
The Nobel Prize did not exist in 1900. The foundation was approved by King Oscar II of Sweden based on Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will. First awards: 1901.
Popular and Best-Selling Books of 1900
To Have and to Hold — Mary Johnston
Red Pottage — Mary Cholmondeley
Unleavened Bread — Robert Grant
The Reign of Law — James Lane Allen
Eben Holden — Irving Bacheller
Janice Meredith — Paul Leicester Ford
Richard Carvel — Winston Churchill (the American novelist)
When Knighthood Was in Flower — Charles Major
Alice of Old Vincennes — Maurice Thompson
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum
Sister Carrie — Theodore Dreiser
The Interpretation of Dreams — Sigmund Freud
Lord Jim — Joseph Conrad
Broadway in 1900
Florodora opened on November 12, 1900, featuring the famous “Florodora Sextet” — six chorus girls paired with six male suitors. It became the biggest Broadway hit of its era, running 553 performances. The six women of the Sextet became celebrities. All six married millionaires were within a few years of the show’s run.
Best Film Oscar Winner
The Academy Awards did not exist until 1929. There is no Oscar winner for 1900. Films in 1900 were 1-3 minutes long, shown in vaudeville venues and penny arcades.
Top “Movies” of 1900
(All very short films — most under 3 minutes)
What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City — Edison Manufacturing
Photographing a Female Crook — Edison Manufacturing
The Mystic Swing — Edison Manufacturing
A Wringing Good Joke — Edison Manufacturing
The Enchanted Drawing — Edison Manufacturing (among the earliest examples of animation)
The most technically significant short film of 1900 was A Wringing Good Joke, and the series of trick films produced by Georges Méliès in France demonstrated that film could create impossible visual effects through editing and double exposure. Méliès would produce A Trip to the Moon in 1902.
Most Popular Entertainment of 1900
Vaudeville was the dominant mass entertainment form. The phonograph — invented by Edison in 1877 — was becoming a fixture in middle-class homes. Ragtime music was sweeping the country. Baseball was the national pastime. Circuses visited every town of any size. The Sears catalog was as close as most rural Americans got to a shopping mall.
The nickelodeon — the storefront movie theater that would democratize film — did not yet exist; the first opened in Pittsburgh in 1905. But the films being made in 1900 were already drawing audiences in vaudeville venues, penny arcades, and church halls.
1900 Most Popular Songs
(Popularity tracked by sheet music sales — no formal recordings chart existed)
A Bird in a Gilded Cage — various artists (sold over 2 million copies of sheet music)
Tell Me Pretty Maiden — from Florodora
Goodbye Dolly Gray — military song from the Spanish-American War, still popular
Because — Guy d’Hardelot
Mandy Lee — various artists
Sweet Adeline (You’re the Flower of My Heart) — Richard Gerard and Harry Armstrong
Ma Ragtime Baby — Fred Stone Creole Belles — various ragtime artists
Ragtime was the dominant popular music form of 1900 — syncopated, rhythmically complex, energetic. Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag (1899) had become the first sheet music to sell a million copies. The music was almost entirely created by Black musicians and was viewed with moral alarm by much of white mainstream culture.
1900 United States Census
Total U.S. Population: 76,212,168
New York, NY — 3,437,202
Chicago, IL — 1,698,575
Philadelphia, PA — 1,293,697
St. Louis, MO — 575,238
Boston, MA — 560,892
Baltimore, MD — 508,957
Cleveland, OH — 391,768
Buffalo, NY — 352,387
San Francisco, CA — 342,782
Cincinnati, OH — 325,902
In 1900, Los Angeles was not in the top 10, with a population of approximately 102,000, ranking 36th. Within 50 years, it would rank 4th.
Sports Champions of 1900
National League Baseball: Brooklyn Superbas (the American League did not yet exist as a major league — it began play in 1901) Stanley Cup: Montreal Shamrocks U.S. Open Golf: Harry Vardon U.S. Open Tennis — Men: Malcolm Whitman | Women: Myrtle McAteer Wimbledon — Men: Reginald Doherty | Women: Blanche Hillyard NCAA Football: Yale Kentucky Derby: Lieutenant Gibson Boston Marathon: John “Jack” Caffery — 2:39:44
Olympic Note: The 1900 Paris Olympics were held concurrently with the World’s Fair from May to October. They were so poorly organized that many athletes did not know they were competing in the Olympics — they thought they were entering World’s Fair competitions. Tug of War was an Olympic event. The United States won the most gold medals.
FAQs: 1900 History, Facts, and Trivia
Q: What was the deadliest natural disaster in American history?
A: The Galveston Hurricane of September 8, 1900, killed an estimated 8,000 people when a 15-foot storm surge overwhelmed the barrier island city of Galveston, Texas. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, surpassing Hurricane Katrina, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and all other events combined.
Q: What famous children’s book was published in 1900?
A: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, published May 17, 1900, with illustrations by W.W. Denslow. It was an immediate bestseller and has never gone out of print.
Q: What camera put photography in ordinary hands in 1900?
A: The Eastman Kodak Brownie, priced at $1.00, was introduced in 1900. It required no chemical knowledge, no professional equipment, and no significant expense. Amateur photography was born.
Q: What scientific theory published in 1900 changed physics forever?
A: Max Planck’s quantum theory, presented October 19, 1900, proposed that energy is emitted in discrete packets called quanta. It became the foundation of all modern quantum physics and the electronics that followed.
Q: What famous outlaws were active in 1900?
A: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed Union Pacific Train No. 3 at Tipton, Wyoming, in August 1900, taking $45,000. They fled to South America in 1901 and were reportedly killed in Bolivia in 1908.
Q: What was the dominant entertainment form in 1900?
A: Vaudeville — live variety shows featuring singers, comedians, acrobats, and novelty acts, performed in theaters across the country. A ticket cost 10-25 cents. Film existed but was shown in vaudeville venues as novelty acts, not yet in dedicated theaters.
Q: When was the Nobel Prize established?
A: The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 based on Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will. The first prizes were awarded in 1901, not 1900.
Q: What famous restaurant guide started in 1900?
A: The Michelin Guide, founded by tire company owners André and Édouard Michelin to encourage French motorists to drive more — and thereby wear out more tires. The Michelin Stars restaurant rating system grew from this promotional brochure into the most prestigious dining honor in the world.
Q: What is the population of the U.S. in 1900?
A: The 1900 Census counted 76,212,168 people — including U.S. territories. It was the first census to count the population of Hawaii and Puerto Rico following the Spanish-American War.
Q: What was daily life like for ordinary Americans in 1900?
A: Hard, short, and entirely local. The average father earned $9.60 per week. Children as young as 8 worked 10-hour days in factories. Life expectancy was 46 for men, 48 for women. There was no Social Security, no unemployment insurance, no mandatory schooling in most states, and no minimum wage. One in twelve marriages ended in divorce. The Sears catalog was how rural Americans shopped. Electricity, telephones, and indoor plumbing were available in cities but rare in the countryside.
More 1900 History and Trivia Resources
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that opened in 1900
1900 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
1900 Census
Fact Monster
Wikipedia 1900