2. 1900- An Overview
• Queen Victoria is still on the throne
• Motor car has made its first appearance of the road
• Technical advances
• 1903 Wright Brothers biplane
• Birth of radio signals
• End of the Boer War
• Suffragettes
• Sigmund Freud
• Rise in cinema
• Models
• Canned Food
3. World War 1- Overview
• Began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918
• Mainly set off by the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria
• More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million
Europeans were mobilised.
• Rationing on the home front (parcels sent to troops)
• Medical knowledge broadened
• Distinction between fighters and bombers were established
• By the end of the war, four major imperial powers—
the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
empires—ceased to exist
• Spanish flu killed more than had died during the war
• Idea of the atomic bomb was in the mind of scientists.
4. Aeronautical technology
• After WWI, aeronautical technology had advanced majorly
• Pilots could land their aircraft at an airport or air station
• They could do aerobatics in their ‘bus’
• The commercial possibilities of flying began to be exploited,
with terms like airmail, airbus and airline coming into
language
• First became acquainted with cockpits and undercarriages
with test pilots and automatic pilots.
5. Motor Cars
• The commercial development of the private motor car had to
take a back seat during the war years.
• Terminology of motorism expanded far more slowly than it
had in the previous decade.
• The convertible appeared complete with hubcaps and the
sound of the klaxon was heard for the first time.
• Traffic arrangements developed, with one-way streets, traffic
signals (ignored by jaywalkers), and parks for leaving your
vehicle, however the traffic jam appeared.
6. 1910s- An Overview
• Disaster of Titanic
• Convulsed by 4 years of World War 1
• German technology; gas attack, machine guns, gas masks
• Development of planes
• World of science; Einstein, Curie
• Freudian Terminology; eroticism, denial, persona, psyche etc.
• Development for Radio in entertainment
• Dance crazes; bunny hug, shimmy, tango
• Fashion from the front line
7. The disaster of Titanic
• Departed Southampton 10 April 1912
• The RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time it entered
service.
• She carried 2224 passengers and crew
• She hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm
• “Women and children first” called to the lifeboats
• There were not enough lifeboats to carry everyone on board
• Titanic only carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—slightly
more than half of the number on board, and one-third her total
capacity.
• By 2:20 am she broke apart and foundered with well over one
thousand people still on board
• An estimated 705 survivors
8. Science
• Scientists were unlocking secrets of the atom, probing the
foundations of life, developing new materials.
• Electronic and half-life and radioactive decaying entered the
language, as did adrenaline and antibody, clone and genetics.
• The transforming material of the 20th century, plastic, made
its first appearance, initially in the form of Bakelite.
• The stratosphere was named and the potentiality of solar
power and wind power examined.
• Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
9. Public entertainment
• Development of radio was put on hold for WWI
• New terms like; cats whiskers, crystal receiver, and static
would be familiar when it got underway.
• In absence the invention of the crossword puzzle.
• By far the most popular form of entertainment was the
cinema.
• The movies all being silent, before “talkies” became present.
• Additionally they would be able to watch a newsreel, a topical
or a cartoon.
• Terms like director and script-writer became familiar as did
location, scenario, pan and studio.
10. Fashion and art
• From the front line introduced the trench coat, but at home it
was the era of the hobble skirt, split skirt and the liberty
bodice.
• The scarf became a head-covering (necessary for motor cars)
• Visual arts, defining the 20th century term abstract made its
way forward.
• The avant-garde proclaimed the arrival of Cubism and
Fauvism post-impressionism and vorticism.