Ninety Years On: All New People, 1919

Now we're getting to the year where there's almost no one still left alive from. My grandmother (Catherine Currier), born in 1914, still lives, but the number of people born before 1919 is dwindling month by month. We're almost all new people now, to paraphrase Anne Lamott. And just wait until 2109 rolls around!

What have we learned from 1919? Women still couldn't vote in most places in the USA. The 19th Amendment was beginning to circulate around the states, and was first ratified in Illinois and Michigan. By the end of 1919, twenty-two states had voted for it and by 1920, women over twenty-one could vote. As of 2009, women in the USA can still vote, but in Saudi Arabia, women still cannot. Have we learned that women can vote without the sky falling down?


1919, here come both the radio and radio airwaves. Ideas for mobile radios, car radios, things more or less like mobile phones. At the time, people could connect by fixed telegraph and telephone, and follow sports and other entertainment events more easily. What have we learned from 1919? People love new technology!



The Palmer Raids. US Government forces with the assistance of local authorities rounded up thousands of people in a combination of xenophobia, racism and sheer stupidity. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were deported, among others. What have we learned since 1919's Palmer Raids? As a society, virtually nothing. But there is a long legacy of free speech advocacy that persists. To connect the dots, check out Chris Finan's From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (2007).

In 1919, things were even worse in Germany. Freikorps brutes roamed around Berlin, killing Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and other leftists. And in Italy, Benito Mussolini organized for an eventual fascist takeover.



The Treaty of Versailles. What have we learned from this legacy of 1919? Vindictive peace treaties backfire. Better to try and rise above local hatreds and land grabs. How this connects ninety years later? Check out David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (2001+)

The League of Nations was formed. Only as good as its constituent member leadership allowed it to be, much like its eventual replacement, the United Nations.


Almost every conflict in the Middle East has roots that begin or pass through 1919. We collectively seem to have forgotten how large a role the British Empire played at the time. British forces perpetrated the Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar) Massacre in India, an event that helped propel India toward eventual independence after the Second World War. British policymakers had their hands in Persia, Iraq, Kuwait, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and just about anywhere they could, including much of Africa and South Asia.

In Afghanistan at the time, Amanullah Khan became Amir (and later Shah) of Afghanistan (by abetting the assassination of his own father); Afghanistan was declared independent from the British Empire.

Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) landed in what is now Turkey, beginning to push out Greeks and their Western Allies. Armenians were forced to choose between extermination by Turks or being annexed by the Soviet Union. The Republic of Armenia was (re-)established after the breakup of the Soviet Empire, in 1991.



What else from 1919? The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 finally ran its course. Edsel Ford took over Ford Motor Company from Henry. The Black Sox baseball scandal. Teddy Roosevelt died at sixty, having survived an assassination attempt in 1912. A series of strikes and riots across the US and worldwide. Pancho Villa raided near the US border (again) as the Mexican Revolution began to unwind. US troops (again) crossed into Mexico. The Grand Canyon was made a national park. Prohibition began!

Pop music began reflecting changes in the world: Fred Van Eps, "Since Katy the Waitress (became an Aviatress)," Nora Bayes, "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" and "Prohibition Blues." And the beat goes on . . .

Today's Rune: Defense.