Step into the time machine and set the dial to 1900. Let’s discover what took place in culture, art, design, cinema, fashion and photography in 1900, as a new century full of hope and curiosity begins. It’s all just a little bit of history in the year 1900.
history
View of the moving walkway at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition
- Launch of worldwide Open Door Policy to promote trading with and non-interference in China.
- An outbreak of bubonic plague in Sydney, Australia.
- Women in Germany demand the right to participate in university entrance exams.
- British Labour Party and the US Socialist Party formed.
- Hawaii becomes official US territory.
- The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act passes through British Parliament: first Prime Minister Edmund Barton is selected.
- London epidemic of influenza.
- The Paris World Exhibition takes place 14th April – 12th November and showcases an electric train.
- Nikolai Tesla patents wireless transmission of electrical power.
- The opening of the Gare D’Orsay, Paris – the world’s first electrified urban rail terminal.
- Footbinding of girls’ feet is officially made illegal in China.
- The Boer wars continue.
- The first electric bus begins operating in New York City. The last horse-drawn streetcar is retired from service in Boston as electric public transport takes over.
- A moving stairway invention by Charles Seeberger is patented as an ‘escalator’.
- The first zeppelin flight takes place in Germany.
- The Second Modern Olympic Games opens in Paris on 14th May (it is a part of the Paris World Exhibition). Women participate for the first time.
design
The Exposition Universelle (Paris World Exhibition) opens on 14th April. The Pavilion of Art Nouveau showcases the peak of achievements in the new design. A showcase of jewellery by René Lalique is popular. The Electricity Palace is lit with electric bulbs and has the first-ever moving walkway at 2 miles long.
In Paris, Le Métropolitain underground transport system (first line) opens on July 19 during the Paris World Exhibition. Station entrances are designed by Hector Guimard. Their style popularises Art Nouveau.
Gaston Redon becomes the official architect of the rebuilding and expansion of the Louvre, Paris. Work takes place 1900 – 1905 to create the Museum of Decorative Arts.
The Société des Artistes Décorateurs is founded to create new standards for design and production in France.
Antoni Gaudí begins work on designing Park Güell in Barcelona.
Six female graduates from the Art Insitute of Chicago launch the Kalo Shop near Chicago, USA. Clara Barck, Bertha Hall, Rose Dolese, Grace Gerow, Ruth Raymond, and Bessie McNeal. It sells Art Nouveau jewellery and textiles and employs many female silversmiths, named ‘Kalo girls’.
cinema
At the Paris World Exhibition, the Lumière brothers present the Cinematograph: films are projected on the widest ever screens (75mm) in a 25 minute programme. Also the Phono-Cinema-Theatre by Henri de France Lioret and Clément-Maurice Gratioulet claims to be the first film to be synchronised with sound.
The screening of the first-ever Sherlock Holmes film. Sherlock Holmes Baffled is a 30 second one-reel film. Directed by Arthur Marvin. Watch it here
James Stuart Blackton produces the first-ever stop motion animation, The Enchanted Drawing.
photography
Eastman Kodak Company launches the first Box Brownie portable camera. It costs $1, making photography more affordable to many. A total eclipse of the sun this year (near Mexico) becomes the most photographed event ever so far.
art
The Vienna Secession exhibitions in Austria. A show of Japanese art and works by Klimt, Signac, Degas, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Four. Klimt’s painting Philosophy (for Vienna University ceiling) is considered scandalous. Mackintosh’s work (considered decadent by the British) is celebrated.
A 19-year-old Pablo Picasso arrives in Paris. He lives and paints in Montmartre until 1907.
Impressionist Claude Monet begins painting the Houses of Parliament series in London, UK.
Maurice de Vlaminck meets André Derain. Although both pianists, they decide to share an art studio in Chatou, near Paris. Maurice paints landscapes and André paints Sur le Zinc (At the Bar) and L’homme a la Pipe (Man With a Pipe).
fashion
In Europe: hats and furs are IN. Puffy sleeves are OUT. For men, suits with a tapered trouser leg and hats are required for day and evening wear.
Hair continues to follow the Gibson Girl ideal.
The corsets that create an S-shaped silhouette for women are still predominant but the chest is not so big. That’s what this French cartoon is all about…
Pinterest gallery of 1900 fashion
Theatre
Controversial play Sapho opens on Broadway, New York. It becomes infamous for controversial depictions of gender and sex. The play is shut down while an indecency trial takes place. It reopens a few months later after the organisers are acquitted.
Puccini’s Tosca premieres in Rome, Italy.
US dancer Loie Fuller impresses at the Paris World Exhibition.
WC Fields becomes a vaudeville star in the USA at age 20. He goes on to tour Europe.
Scotland’s Harry Lauder debuts in London after winning a talent contest.
American actress Maude Adams first appears on stage dressed as a male (Napoleon II) in Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon, adapted in English by Louis Parker. She goes on to find great success with her popular cross-dressing performances.
Books
photo: New York Public Library
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington is first published as a serial in The Outlook, a New York newspaper. The autobiography tells of his personal experience as a slave and his struggle to get an education and become an influential teacher and public speaker.
Mark Twain returns to the USA after living in Europe for almost a decade.
Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams.
Oscar Wilde dies in Paris at Hôtel d’Alsace in Rue des BeauxArts.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum is first published. The first edition sells out in two weeks.
Music
The port of New Orleans is over-run with a surplus of military band instruments following the end of the Spanish-American war.
Finlandia by Jean Sibelius premières in Helsinki.
The release of Scott Joplin and Arthur Marshall’s first collaboration Swipesy, listen below…
step into the gallery…
This 1900 time travel itinerary is added to as time goes by. Please do leave a comment below if you think something is missing from our journey to the year 1900.
