In 1920, "Whispering" topped the charts, Way Down East packed theaters, a stamp cost 2¢, the average home went for about $6,296.
🎵 Top songs of 1920
"Whispering" — Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
"Swanee" — Al Jolson
"Dardanella" — Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra
🎬 In theaters
Way Down East
The Mark of Zorro
Why Change Your Wife?
What things cost in 1920
$0.30
Gallon of gas
2¢
Postage stamp
$0.15
Movie ticket
$0.65
Gallon of milk
$6,296
Average home
$525
New car
$1,400
Household income
A $0.30 gallon of gas in 1920 has the buying power of roughly $5.00 today. A 2¢ stamp works out to about 34¢, a 15¢ movie ticket to about $2.50, and that 65¢ gallon of milk to nearly $11.
The biggest moments of 1920
Prohibition took effect in January 1920, outlawing the sale of alcoholic beverages across the United States.
Pittsburgh's KDKA made history in November with the first commercial radio broadcast, announcing presidential election returns.
Babe Ruth joined the New York Yankees and smashed a then-record 54 home runs in his first season in pinstripes.
Rube Foster founded the Negro National League in February 1920, giving Black baseball stars their own organized major league.
The mighty racehorse Man o' War won all 11 of his starts in 1920, including a match race against Sir Barton, and retired a national hero.
The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans lived in cities and towns than on farms.
Toys, TV & trends of 1920
Families huddled around homemade crystal radio sets with headphones, straining to catch the first faint broadcasts.
Raggedy Ann dolls, Lionel electric trains, and Erector sets topped children's wish lists that Christmas.
Johnson & Johnson introduced the Band-Aid adhesive bandage, soon a fixture in every family medicine cabinet.
Player pianos pumped out the hits in parlors everywhere — you pedaled, the paper roll did the playing, and the whole family sang along.
Lincoln Logs and tin wind-up toys shared shelf space with checkers and jackstraws on rainy-day afternoons.
Fashionable young folks were just starting to call wonderful things "the bee's knees" — flapper slang was being invented in real time.
The music scene
Popular music still traveled mostly on sheet music, piano rolls, and thick 78-rpm discs recorded acoustically — singers literally shouted into a big metal horn. Paul Whiteman's double-sided disc pairing "Whispering" with "The Japanese Sandman" became one of the first records to sell over a million copies. Just as importantly, Mamie Smith recorded "Crazy Blues" in August 1920 — the first blues record by a Black vocalist — and its runaway sales opened the record business to blues and jazz artists.
At the movies
Movies were silent, but moviegoing was anything but quiet: theaters supplied live pianists, organists, or even full orchestras. Hollywood's royal wedding came in March 1920 when Mary Pickford married Douglas Fairbanks, and their Beverly Hills estate "Pickfair" became the most famous address in America. In Way Down East, Lillian Gish really did film on the ice floes of a frozen river, an ordeal that left her hand permanently affected.
Cartoons kids loved
Felix the Cat shorts from the Pat Sullivan studio
Koko the Clown in the Out of the Inkwell series
Mutt and Jeff animated shorts
Cartoons in 1920 were hand-inked, silent shorts shown before the feature, and nearly all of them were drawn in New York rather than Hollywood. Animators cranked out a new short every few weeks, and gag-a-second visual humor ruled because there was no sound — every joke had to land through the drawings alone.
The world in 1920
World population: about 1.9 billion
U.S. President: Woodrow Wilson
The League of Nations held its first meetings, and American women won the right to vote with the 19th Amendment.
The Summer Olympics in war-scarred Antwerp, Belgium, introduced the five-ring Olympic flag and the athletes' oath.
Mahatma Gandhi launched his nationwide non-cooperation movement, urging Indians to peacefully boycott British institutions.
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed in August, formally dismantling the centuries-old Ottoman Empire after World War I.
1920 birthday questions
How old is someone born in 1920?
Someone born in 1920 turns 106 in 2026 (105 if their birthday has not come round yet).
What was the number one song in 1920?
"Whispering" by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra was among the biggest hits of 1920.
What movie came out in 1920?
Way Down East was one of the films packing theaters in 1920.
How much did gas cost in 1920?
A gallon of gas ran about $0.30 in 1920, and a postage stamp cost 2¢.
How much did a house cost in 1920?
The average home went for roughly $6,296 in 1920, against a typical household income of about $1,400.