The Year 1924

The years seems to pass by in excessive rapidity, and it seems unbelievable that the year 1924 arrived a century ago.

The year 1924 began on a Tuesday, and was a year of many groundbreaking events in the United States and the rest of the world.

When Warren Harding died unexpectedly in August 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge suddenly found himself as President of the United States. He quietly took the oath of office at his parents’ farmhouse in Plymouth, Vermont. His father, John Coolidge, a licensed notary, administered the oath to his son.

The following year, 1924, was an election year. Coolidge faced two opponents: John W. Davis, a South Carolina member of the House of Representatives, who had also served as ambassador to Great Britain, and Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin. Davis ran on the Democratic ticket, with segregation as his mantra; LaFollette, who had also served as Wisconsin’s governor, was running on the Progressive Party ticket. There had been concerns that the voting would be too close to call with the third candidate, and a runoff was expected. None of the concerns materialized, and Coolidge was successfully elected. Charles Dawes, the son of Union soldier and Gettysburg veteran Rufus Dawes, was elected as Vice President.

The political landscape in 1924 was not a pleasant one for Coolidge, as his predecessor had allowed some members of his Cabinet to use political office for private gain. The most notorious of the scandals was the Teapot Dome Scandal, which made headlines through much of the year. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, had taken bribes and allowed the sale of private government land in Wyoming and parts of California to private oil companies. Since the land had been for use by the U.S. Navy, the Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, also resigned in disgrace. President Coolidge wisely distanced himself from the scandal, and was easily elected.

Known as “Silent Cal”, Coolidge was a circumspect man, the perfect specimen of a New England native. He was hardworking, growing up on a farm – which his father still inhabited in 1924. During the summer, Coolidge revisited his childhood home with his wife and some of the nation’s most famous men – among them were the inventor Thomas Edison and the automobile manufacturer Henry Ford. During the visit, Coolidge presented Henry Ford with an old wooden bucket. The bucket had been hand-turned by his grandfather in 1799; the President had used it as a boy to obtain maple sap from his father’s farm. He presented the pail to Ford for the magnate to place in his museum in Michigan. ¹

Throughout the globe, there was much unrest and significant national changes. The nation of Greece dethroned their king, George II, and elected its first prime minister – becoming a republic. In Persia, a similar situation occurred by the ousting of their Shah. Throughout Europe the socialist parties gained traction. Benito Mussolini was elected in Italy by a sizable majority. In Germany, Adolf Hitler’s Socialist party gained many seats in their parliament, although Hitler was sent to prison for his attempt to overthrow the government in a failed coup in 1923. His prison term was set for five years, but he was imprisoned just over seven months, from May to December in 1924. While a prisoner, Hitler wrote his infamous book Mein Kampf.

Communist Russia had overtaken surrounding nations in Eastern Europe the previous year, and called its new conglomeration the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic, or USSR. In 1924, the rest of the world was somewhat divided as to its recognition. Great Britain, Canada, and China were among the first to officially recognize the enormous country. The United States was not among the first to do so.

In the U.S., the Statue of Liberty was declared a national monument. The FBI was established, with J. Edgar Hoover as its first director. That same year, Congress passed a controversial law that strictly limited immigration to the country, as the influx of migrants overwhelmed the borders. For a time, Ellis Island was completely closed, and only those with family in the country were permitted access.  

In 1924, insecticides were used to eliminate pests on crops. Silent films were becoming increasingly popular. Among the most successful were The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille, The Thief of Baghdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith’s saga America. Over two and a half million homes had a radio for entertainment and news broadcasts.

That same year the Ford Motor Company produced its ten millionth car, and the most famous man in America was the comedian Will Rogers.

That same year, the game Bingo was introduced.  

Although Mark Twain had passed away in 1911, in 1924 his autobiography was published. Poet Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for literature that year with an eclectic collection of poetry, entitled, A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes.

In Wyoming, Nellie Taylor Ross became the nation’s first female governor.

In New York City, the first Macy’s Parade was held. It was originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade. A few years later, the name was changed to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade continues annually on Thanksgiving Day and is broadcast nationally.

In 1924 the first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France.

Throughout the early 1920s, there were several attempts to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, in Nepal. British mountaineer George Mallory was a pioneer in the attempt, and was present at three official expeditions by Great Britain to reach the summit. In the summer of 1924, Mallory perished while on the slope near the summit.

Not far from Nepal, civil war broke out in China. In the nearby Gobi Desert, located in northern China and southern Mongolia, several Mesozoic era fossils of dinosaurs, including entire skeletal remains and skulls, were discovered.

Dwight D. Eisenhower remained in Panama, supervising and guarding the Panama Canal with his mentor, General Fox Conner. The year 1924 would be Ike’s last full year on duty in Central America.

 Among those who were born in the year 1924 were many future leaders and celebrities. Some of them were future Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, future Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Margaret Truman – the daughter of President Harry Truman, Baseball great Gil Hodges, famed designer Gloria Vanderbilt, and actors Marlon Brando, Carroll O’Connor, and Lauren Bacall.

 In addition to the ill-fated George Mallory, who died on the slopes near the summit of Mount Everest, others who passed away in 1924 included former President Woodrow Wilson (who had been ill for many years), statesman Henry Cabot Lodge, and Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. The city of St. Petersburg in Russia was renamed Leningrad in his honor (it has since been changed back). His tomb in Moscow’s Red Square reaches its centennial in May.

The Roaring Twenties was the sobriquet of the decade of the 1920s, and with the year 1924, the booming economy and a quiet man in the White House, the famed decade was in full swing.

It would end abruptly and not on a positive note a few years later with the Great Depression, by which the following decade would be known.

Sources: Eisenhower, Dwight D. At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends. Washington, DC: Eastern Acorn Press, 1967 (reprint, 1981). The Gettysburg Times, 30 August, 1924. The Gettysburg Times, 5 November, 1924. Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 484-486. Whitney, David C. and Robin Vaughn Whitney. The American Presidents. New York: Doubleday Books, 1993, pp. 254, 294, 381, 431.

End Notes:  

1. The Gettysburg Times, 30 Aug., 1924, p. 5.