In 1925, New York became the most populous city in the world. Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated as the 30th president of the United States, and Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming and Ma Ferguson of Texas became the first female Governors. However, despite positive changes for American women in Washington D.C., the capital was also the site that year for a march for 30,000 supporters of the Ku Klux Klan. In Tennessee and Texas, a law that only allowed creation to be taught in schools culminated with the famous arrest and trial of John T. Scopes for teaching evolution.
In Europe, the Treaty of Locarno encompassed a series of agreements between European nations with the aim of guaranteeing peace. But while Germany sought to move forward by signing trade agreements with former foes including the Netherlands and Russia, the Nazi movement was growing, with the formation of the SS (Schutzstaffel), and the publishing of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.
While the merger of several protestant sects resulted in the United Church of Canada, the merger of several German chemical companies resulted in the IG Farben corporation. Walter Chrysler, the ‘automaker’ (a new portmanteau for 1925) founded his car-making corporation in Detroit, Michigan.
Firsts in 1925 include a patent for water-skis, the first Motel opened in California, and the first transmission of images and sound (television) was achieved by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird – he called it radiovision. The latest foods in 1925 included the candy bar ‘Mr. Goodbar’, and the Mexican beer brand ‘Corona’.
The first in-flight film was shown, although there is no record of what film that was. Some of the most popular Feature films for 1925 include: The Gold Rush with Charlie Chaplin; the Russian classic Battleship Potemkin; and the earliest filmed versions of The Phantom of the Opera, The Wizard of Oz, and Ben-Hur.
Literary successes of the year include the publishing of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil. George Bernard Shaw was awarded a Nobel prize for Literature, Edna Ferber won the Pulitzer for her novel So Big, and the New Yorker magazine went into print.
The Art scene was vibrant in 1925: The Bauhaus moved from Weimar to a building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius; the first Surrealist art exhibition opened in Paris; and the Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industrial Modernes held in Paris celebrated ‘modernism’ (a new word in 1925), that was redubbed ‘Art Deco’ in 1966.
Hit songs of the year included: Sweet Georgia Brown; St. Louis Blues; Tea for Two; If you Knew Susie Like I Know Susie; Yes Sir, That’s My Baby; and the Charleston. Although jazz was dominating the hit parade, the washboard was a new instrument being featured in country music that was growing in popularity. A program called Barn Dance was first broadcast from Nashville, Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry on station WSM.
Other new words coined in 1925 include: skint (broke), jitters (nervous), nag (annoying scolder), speedway (track for motor vehicles), buddy (pal), rave (theater review), Whoops (accidental exclamation), schizoid (mentally scattered), junk (narcotics), hot (stolen), 'show’ (third place in a horse race), ‘gimp’ (lame), ‘set’ (musical session), and ‘crossword’ (before 1925 they were called a ‘word-cross’).
New phrases in 1925 include: ‘Blind date’, ‘parking ticket’, ‘show-biz’, ‘You can say that again’, ‘nothing to it’, ‘steal the show’, and ‘drug store cowboy’ (someone who dresses like a cowboy but never worked as one). ‘Right on’, and ‘daddy-o’ emerged as hip slang in the jazz community, and new job titles included ‘travel-agent’, ‘publicist’, and ‘cosmetologist’.
Tennis stars Rene Lacoste, who won the French men’s tennis Championship and Wimbledon title, and Bill Tilden, who won the US men’s tennis championship, both contributed to sportswear - Rene Lacoste was famous for his alligator logo emblazoned jacket in the 1920s which became the logo on a polo shirt style launched in 1933, and Bill Tilden popularized the classic white V-neck sweater that became a standard for preppy men and tennis wear.
Sears Roebuck opened their first retail store in Chicago. New terms in fashion emerged in 1925 – a ‘pullover’ was a sweater style, a ‘girdle’ now referred to a corset with elastic panels, and the ‘zipper’ was the latest trade name for a slide fastener closure.
Fashion was looser - for women, fashions had become tubular - shapeless through the torso with a dropped waist that was often highlighted at the hips by a low riding belt, bows, or pockets on a dress, or by a button on a coat. Hems were rising to the top of the calf, and hats were becoming close-fitting, most often brimless, cloche styles. For men, laced shoes were worn for most occasions instead of boots, although spats were sometimes worn for a dressier look. Jackets and pant legs, as seen in these two pages from The Canadian department store Simpsons 1925 Spring/Summer catalogue, were relaxing, avoiding the skinny trousers of the previous decade:
