Media History Project
mediahst@umn.edu

1900-1909

  • 1900: The Oxford English Dictionary letters “A” to “H” are published.
  • 1900: Visitors to Paris Exposition fascinated by huge Muliplex Grand Graphophone.
  • 1900: U.S. has 2,150 daily newspapers, 478 tri- or semi-weeklies, 14,717 weeklies.
  • 1900: French coin a new word: télévision.
  • 1900: The Dentsu ad agency is founded in Japan.
  • 1900: American country music grows from English, Scottish, Irish ballad roots.
  • 1900: Artist Homer Winslow, On a Lee Shore.
  • 1900: English handwriting experts establish the art of calligraphy.
  • 1900: Theodore Dreiser’s novel, Sister Carrie, shocks public morality.
  • 1900: Rodin completes The Thinker.
  • 1900: Swedish playwright Johan Strindberg, The Dance of Death.
  • 1900: Lyman Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first of Oz book series.
  • 1900: Kodak’s $1 Brownie puts photography in almost everyone’s reach.
  • 1900: Michael Pupin’s loading coil reduces telephone voice distortion.
  • 1900: Estimated 1,800 magazines are being published in the United States.
  • 1900: Total newspaper circulation in U.S. passes 15 million daily.
  • 1900: 562 cities in U.S. have more than one daily newspaper; New York City has 29.
  • 1900: In Paris, the Guide Michelin.
  • 1900: Much of Europe and Japan begin to make movies.
  • 1900: Phonograph cylinders continue to outsell discs by wide margin.
  • 1900: Phonograph records add paper labels.
  • 1900: Eldridge Johnson produces double-sided phonograph records.
  • 1900: In London, the Daily Express.
  • 1900: Giacomo Puccini composes Tosca.
  • 1900: Joseph Conrad’s novel, Lord Jim.
  • 1900: University of Wisconsin experiments with radio transmissions.
  • 1900: On Broadway, Floradora introduces what will become the chorus line.
  • 1900: Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.
  • 1900: Start of modern music era.
  • 1900: Max Planck introduces quantum theory hypothesis.
  • 1900: Chekhov’s play, Uncle Vanya.
  • 1900: Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi coins the term “television.”
  • 1900: Henri Matisse begins the Fauvist movement in painting.
  • 1900: In Finland, the tone poem Finlandia, composed by Jean Sibelius.
  • 1900: First overseas phone call, from Key West to Havana.
  • 1901: High school graduates face something new: College Board entrance exams.
  • 1901: Andrew Carnegie begins to build public libraries across the U.S.
  • 1901: Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, an Irish orphan traveling through India.
  • 1901: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington.
  • 1901: Oliver Heaviside’s theory of ionosphere leads Marconi to Atlantic signaling.
  • 1901: “Red Label” records of classical music go on sale, first in Russia.
  • 1901: At the Moscow Art Theater, Stanislavsky introduces his acting method.
  • 1901: Communication improves when the hearing aid is patented.
  • 1901: In Germany, Karl Braun discovers that a crystal can detect radio waves.
  • 1901: Pablo Picasso begins his “blue period.”
  • 1901: Serge Rachmaninoff composes the Second Piano Concerto.
  • 1901: First electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer.
  • 1901: Thomas Mann achieves fame with first novel, Buddenbrooks.
  • 1901: First Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Sully Prudhomme, France.
  • 1901: In Newfoundland, Marconi receives a radio signal—the letter “s”—from England.
  • 1902: Germany’s Zeiss invents the four-element Tessar camera lens.
  • 1902: Etched zinc photoengravings.
  • 1902: Reginald Fessenden builds a radio wave detector.
  • 1902: William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, study of human nature.
  • 1902: In France, magician George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon tells fantasy in film.
  • 1902: Los Angeles theater succeeds by showing movies only, no vaudeville.
  • 1902: Nobel Prize in Literature: historian Christian Mommsen, Germany.
  • 1902: Muckraking begins with a Lincoln Steffens article in McClure’s Magazine.
  • 1902: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles.
  • 1902: Images can be transferred by photoelectric scanning.
  • 1902: Claude Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande brings impressionism to music.
  • 1902: Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a play of hope and human flaws.
  • 1902: Maxim Gorky’s novel, The Lower Depths.
  • 1902: London Daily Mirror now illustrates only with photographs, not drawings.
  • 1902: Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove contrasts European, American societies.
  • 1902: Oldest extant Biblical writing acquired: Ten Commandments on papyrus.
  • 1902: U.S. Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships.
  • 1902: Film can be developed in a machine without a darkroom.
  • 1902: Germany’s Arthur Korn displays photoelectric (non-contact) fax system.
  • 1902: Alfred Stieglitz publishes Camera Work to promote photography as art.
  • 1902: Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for children.
  • 1902: Vivaphone, Chronophone, and Kinetophone synchronize sound and film.
  • 1902: Edward Elgar composes Pomp and Circumstance.
  • 1902: Unable to find publisher, Beatrix Potter self-publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
  • 1902: French novelist André Gide establishes reputation with The Immoralist.
  • 1902: Transpacific telephone cable connects Canada and Australia.
  • 1902: In Europe, 10-inch “Red Seal” records feature tenor Enrico Caruso.
  • 1902: Owen Wister, The Virginian. “When you call me that, smile!”
  • 1903: Pacific Cable completed. Message circles the globe in 12 minutes.
  • 1903: An entire Verdi opera is recorded on 40 single-side disks.
  • 1903: Henry James, The Ambassadors, serialized in magazine, then published as book.
  • 1903: Jack London, The Call of the Wild, one of his most popular adventure books.
  • 1903: The Story of My Life by the remarkable Helen Keller, blind and deaf.
  • 1903: The Life of an American Fireman begins narrative documentary film .
  • 1903: Victor Herbert’s operetta, Babes in Toyland.
  • 1903: Russian scientist K. Tsiolkovsky publishes theory of rocket propulsion.
  • 1903: Technical improvements in radio, telegraph, phonograph, movies, and printing.
  • 1903: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Martinus Bjørnson, Norway.
  • 1903: W.E.B. Du Bois writes The Souls of Black Folks, his best known work.
  • 1903: Arnold Schönberg’s symphonic tone poem, Pelleas und Melisande.
  • 1903: Cheap crayons are mass produced in the United States.
  • 1903: Patent issued in Germany for a miniature camera to be carried by a pigeon.
  • 1903: The Great Train Robbery introduces editing, creates demand for fiction movies.
  • 1904: E.F. Alexanderson’s huge alternator adds distance to radio signals.
  • 1904: Ambrose Fleming invents the diode tube, improves radio communication.
  • 1904: Offset lithography becomes a commercial reality.
  • 1904: The comic book.
  • 1904: Panchromatic film, sensitive to all visible colors.
  • 1904: Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, another of more than 50 books.
  • 1904: Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities exposes municipal corruption.
  • 1904: “Muckraker” Ida Tarbell’s exposé, History of the Standard Oil Company.
  • 1904: Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly.
  • 1904: Cabbages and Kings, the first collection of O. Henry’s short stories.
  • 1904: Lewis Hine shocks with photographs of America’s immigrants, child labor.
  • 1904: Advertising discovers hard-sell.
  • 1904: Photograph is sent by telegraph wire.
  • 1904: Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, arguably his best novel.
  • 1904: Nobel Prize in Literature: Frédéric Mistral, France; José Echegaray, Spain.
  • 1904: Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.brings modern realism to the stage.
  • 1904: The telephone answering machine.
  • 1904: G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, one of his early novels.
  • 1904: In Austria, music is transmitted by radio.
  • 1905: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen open photo art gallery in New York City.
  • 1905: In Berlin, Isadora Duncan opens the first school of modern dance.
  • 1905: German lyric poet Erich Maria Rilke achieves fames with Das Stundenbuch.
  • 1905: In Pittsburgh the Nickelodeon movie theater opens; concept grows fast.
  • 1905: In Vienna, Franz Lehar’s operetta, The Merry Widow.
  • 1905: 2.2 million telephones in Bell system.
  • 1905: George Bernard Shaw’s play, Man and Superman.
  • 1905: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, challenges Marx.
  • 1905: Photography, printing, and post combine in the year’s fad, picture postcards.
  • 1905: Painesville, Ohio, phone company transmits music recital to 1,000 listeners.
  • 1905: In France, Pathé colors black and white films by machine.
  • 1905: In New Zealand, the postage meter is introduced.
  • 1905: New York police close Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession after one showing.
  • 1905: Popular actors used to advertise a product, Murad Cigarettes.
  • 1905: George Santayana begins philosophical writing with The Life of Reason.
  • 1905: Nobel Prize in Literature: novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland.
  • 1905: A small advance that holds: the fountain pen adds a pocket clip.
  • 1905: Publication of Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: E=MC2.
  • 1905: Richard Strauss shocking opera, Salome, presents the dance of the seven veils.
  • 1905: Bus timetables are printed.
  • 1906: Phonograph records may be 6 2/3”, 7”, 8”, 10”, 11” 12”, 13 3/4”, or 14” wide.
  • 1906: In Chicago, the jukebox, playing flat records, is invented.
  • 1906: The Victrola turns the phonograph into furniture.
  • 1906: German inventor Alfred Korn telegraphs pictures.
  • 1906: International Radiotelegraph Union is founded.
  • 1906: Uncle Remus and Br’er Rabbit, book of short stories by Joel Chandler Harris.
  • 1906: Motion picture screen aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1 accepted as international standard.
  • 1906: Maxim Gorky’s novel The Mother awakens revolutionary feelings in Russians.
  • 1906: In Britain, new process colors books cheaply.
  • 1906: 50-cent hardcover potboilers published in series for young adults.
  • 1906: Kinemacolor movie process enjoys some success.
  • 1906: Lee De Forest’s three-element vacuum tube, the audion, puts voices on the air.
  • 1906: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Giosuè Carducci, Italy.
  • 1906: In Michigan, yellow pages advertise business listings.
  • 1906: 75.000 subscribers cancel The Ladies Home Journal over VD articles.
  • 1906: Dunwoody and Pickard build a crystal-and-cat’s-whisker radio.
  • 1906: Phonograph records become thinner, less scratchy.
  • 1906: International agreement on radio is hammered out in Berlin.
  • 1906: An animated cartoon film is produced, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces.
  • 1906: Jack London continues adventure novel successes with White Fang.
  • 1906: Fessenden plays violin over radio and talks to startled ship wireless operators.
  • 1906: An experimental sound-on-film motion picture.
  • 1906: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposes filthy, dangerous meat packing industry.
  • 1907: Bell and Howell develop a film projection system.
  • 1907: Multiple-reel movies are produced.
  • 1907: A photograph is transmitted by wire across France.
  • 1907: Dialogue titles are added to silent films.
  • 1907: Chicago enacts first movie censorship law. Other cities, states will follow.
  • 1907: Pure Food and Drug Act passed after exposé in Collier’s magazine article.
  • 1907: Franz Kafka’s first writing; most will be published after his death in 1924.
  • 1907: Lumière brothers invent still color photography process.
  • 1907: De Forest broadcasts music from phonograph records.
  • 1907: Marconi starts transatlantic radio service with Ireland to Newfoundland leg.
  • 1907: A photocopier is marketed.
  • 1907: Ziegfeld Follies musical stage shows; will run to 1931.
  • 1907: Canadian Robert Service publishes verse like “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
  • 1907: Irish playwright John Synge, The Playboy of the Western World.
  • 1907: Irving Berlin publishes the first of more than 800 tunes.
  • 1907: Movies figure out how to do slow motion.
  • 1907: U.S. cavalry tests wired mobile phone; horse’s flank provides the ground.
  • 1907: A daily newspaper comic strip: “Mr. Mutt” in San Francisco Chronicle.
  • 1907: Commercial fax system for photos operates between Paris, London, and Berlin.
  • 1907: George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara satirizes unbridled capitalism.
  • 1907: Christmas stamps are sold to raise money for tuberculosis research.
  • 1907: In Russia, Boris Rosing develops theory of electronic television.
  • 1907: Florenz Ziegfield sets Broadway ablaze with first annual Follies.
  • 1907: Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
  • 1908: A trust, the Motion Picture Patents Co., is set up to control U.S. movie making.
  • 1908: Nobel Prize in Literature: philosopher Rudolf Eucken, Germany.
  • 1908: In France, Gabriel Lippmann improves color photography, wins Nobel Prize.
  • 1908: The Christian Science Monitor begins publication.
  • 1908: With Schönberg and Ives, atonality influences classical musical composition.
  • 1908: Safety film replaces highly flammable cellulose nitrate base for stills.
  • 1908: Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows introduces Toad and companions.
  • 1908: Artist Gustav Klimt, The Kiss.
  • 1908: Gideon Society votes to place Bibles in all hotel rooms.
  • 1908: D.W. Griffith starts to introduce variety in movie film composition.
  • 1908: Lucy Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, life on Prince Edward Island.
  • 1909: In Paris, Serge Diaghelev begins modern ballet with the Ballets Russes.
  • 1909: Sergei Rachmaninov composes Piano Concerto No. 3 for American tour.
  • 1909: Tschaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite is recorded and packaged, the first album.
  • 1909: Radio distress signal saves 1,700 lives after ships collide.
  • 1909: In France, Charles Pathé creates the newsreel.
  • 1909: The New York Times publishes the first movie review.
  • 1909: In San Jose, California, Charles “Doc” Herrold starts a radio station.
  • 1909: Isaac Albéniz composes Iberia for piano.
  • 1909: First woman to win Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerlöf, Sweden.
  • 1909: Marconi and Braun share Nobel Prize in Physics for wireless development.
  • 1909: First broadcast talk; the subject: women’s suffrage.
  • 1909: Major revision of the U.S. Copyright Act protects authors, composers.
  • 1909: Founding of McGraw-Hill, book publishers.
  • 1909: Mann Act passed after “Daughters of the Poor” published in McClure’s.
  • 1909: Protestant churches create National Board of Censorship for movies.