1900: Carrie Clinton Lane Chapman Catt was the most famous woman suffrage leader in history. Though born in Wisconsin, she grew up near Charles City, graduated from Iowa State College, and taught school in Mason City. Her long service as President of the NWSA was of record length, and after the 19th amendment was ratified, she founded the League of Women Voters. Her girlhood home near Charles City is being restored by the National 19th Amendment Society.

1901: Albert Baird Cummins was known as a "progressive" governor, and also as a national leader of the Progressive wing of the Republican party, when he became a U. S. Senator.

1901: The clubs started by Jessie Field in the rural school she taught in Page County served as the prototype for the boys' and girls' 4H clubs. Later, as superintendent of schools for Page County she furthered the movement, although she actually called these groups the 3H clubs. The 4H club emblem was designed in Clarion, Wright County, Iowa. Field chose the words represented by 4H as Head, Heart, Hand, and Home, but home was later changed to Health. The Nodaway Valley Historical Society in Clarinda has in interesting exhibit devoted to Jessie Field Shambaugh, including a video produced by her granddaughter. The Goldenrod School is preserved on the grounds of the museum. For additional information, please see The Palimpsest, Volume 62, # 4 (July/August 1981).

1902: The Extension Department at Iowa State College was extremely important in improving the life of farm families in Iowa. Better farming methods, improved methods for farm wives in food preservation, and many other skills were taught by the extension "agents" through their offices in each county.

1905: The first automobile accident casualty was just a forecast of things to come. By the second decade of the 20th century one of the major movements in Iowa was to surface the roads for the new vehicles, the automobile, to travel on in all weather. Automobiles broke the physical isolation of the farms and small towns, and were also the leading cause of the decline of businesses in small towns, after people could drive to larger towns for shopping.

1908: Allison holds the record for length of service by an Iowan in Congress. His last election was also the first time senators were elected by popular vote, instead of by the legislature.

1910: This is the first federal census in Iowa's history to show a decline in population. There were no further declines until the census of 1990.

1911: The tune for "The Song of Iowa" is the same as for "Maryland, My Maryland", both taken from the German Christmas song "O Tannenbaum", which translates as "Oh Christmas Tree". Many people think that the "Iowa Corn Song" is the state song, but it is not and never has been.

1912: Rural health came to be recognized as an issue that needed attention. This is still one of the tenets of the medical school at the University of Iowa, and the problem of finding doctors to serve in small towns in Iowa is an ongoing problem.

1913: Keokuk Dam is the first hydro-electric dam to be constructed on the Mississippi River. It was the beginning of the lock-and-dam system that maintains a constantly navigable channel in the river.

1917: Camp Dodge served as the major training center for African-American officers during World War I.

1917: Merle Hay was arguably the first American soldier killed in combat in World

War I. He was one of three soldiers killed simultaneously in France by a shell explosion. There is a monument for him in the cemetery at Glidden, which includes a replication in stone of the Ding Darling cartoon showing Uncle Same wading back across the Atlantic Ocean bearing the dead body of Hay.

1918: Marian Crandell, a teacher of French at St. Katharine's School in Davenport, volunteered by service with the French Canteen service. She was killed in the war zone by an exploding shell, the first American woman to die in the combat zone during World War I. There is an historical marker in her honor on the grounds of the former Annie Wittenmyer Home in Davenport.

1918: Governor Harding issued a proclamation which forbid the use of any language but English in public gatherings of 2 or more people. This was nicknamed the "Babel Proclamation", and in speeches, the governor consistently referred to the "American" language. This was spurred by the war against Germany, but misuse by County Councils of Defense led to much persecution of innocent people. People who spoke Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Czech were hurt as well as those who spoke German. Elderly women in Scott County were jailed for speaking German over the telephone. A Lutheran pastor was jailed for preaching part of a funeral service for a soldier killed in the war in Swedish because the young man's grandparents did not speak English. Governor Harding even made the point in a public speech that God did not hear prayers that were spoken in any language but English. There was no restitution after for war for any of those unjustly prosecuted and persecuted during the war on the basis of this

proclamation, which was enforced as law, even though it was not a law.

1918: The Farm Bureau was formed to rival the Farmers' Union, which many people feared might be subversive. It grew to become a major voice for farmers in Iowa, and a major political force in the state.

1919: Radio changed the lives of Iowans by bringing news, culture, and entertainment into their homes. Iowa was early served by both commercial and public radio stations, and the two stations in Shenandoah, KFNF and KMA, became nationally famous for their programming, particularly the radio homemakers.

1920: Air mail was a refinement of the communications system of the day. Iowa was on the first transcontinental air mail route.

1922: Following ratification of the 19th amendment, women not only voted, but they ran for office as well. May Francis was the first woman elected to a statewide office in Iowa.

1926: Pioneer Hi-Bred International was the first major company to commercially market hybrid seed corn. This revolutionized the corn yields per acre in Iowa, and led to Iowa's position as provider of food to the world.

1928: Herbert Hoover is the first person born in Iowa to be elected President of the United States. His birthplace in West Branch is preserved as a museum by the National Park Service, and his Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch is operated by the National Archives. Hoover and his wife are buried on the site.

1928: Carolyn Pendray was the first woman elected to either house of the Iowa legislature, and she was elected to the House in 1928 and the Senate in 1932.

1932: Viola Babcock Miller, as Secretary of State, was responsible for the founding of the Iowa Highway Patrol, one of the first such agencies in the nation.

1932: The Farmers' Holiday Association was in response to the suffering of farmers during the depression of the 1920s and 1930s. Its goal was to reduce production and marketing, and thereby increase prices. Efforts were made to convince farmers to withhold products, sometimes by persuasion and sometimes by force. The New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt and his Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace of Iowa, used some of the same goals to end the agricultural depression after 1933.

1936: This year is remembered as probably the worst in Iowa history for bad weather. The summer was unusually hot and dry, and the winter was unusually cold and there was heavy snow. These conditions brought about much misery, particularly on the farms, which suffered bad crops because of the summer weather and isolation because of the winter weather.

1937: While a professor at Iowa State College, Atanasoff and a graduate student did the experimental work that laid the foundations for the modern computer industry.

1941: Entry into World War II ended the agricultural depression and Iowa, and led to unparalleled prosperity for farmers.

1942: Women were first accepted into military service in the WAACs, and the first training center for them was in Des Moines. Oveta Culp Hobby was the first director of the WAAC at Ft. Des Moines in WWII appointed with a relative rank of major (women in the WAAC did not initially receive the same rank titles as men) on May 14, 1942. She was the wife of a Texas governor and had been a newspaper editor before the war.

1942: The death of the 5 Sullivan brothers was the greatest single casualty disaster for one family in the entire war. Because of this incident the already existing rule against brothers serving in the same unit was always thereafter enforced.

1946: John Mott won the Nobel Prize for his work with the international YMCA.

1948: Wallace's campaign for president was unsuccessful. He joined James Baird Weaver as another Iowans who ran for president as a candidate of a 3rd party. It was during this election that Weaver's record for 3rd party popular and electoral votes was broken, because of Wallace and the Progressive Party and the candidacy of J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina with the Dixiecrat Party.

1950: Television revolutionized the communications industry, as radio had done 30 years before. Iowa was served by TV from the first.

1955: The NFO was founded to combat the age-old problem of low priced for farmers and a market system that was out of their control. Persuasion and violence were used, as had been true of the Farmers' Holiday Movement of the 1930s. The NFO was founded by Orin Lee Staley in Corning, Iowa and the headquarters was there for many years. The NFO and the Farm Bureau were rivals for membership by farmers.

1958: Dr. Van Allen, as a professor of astronomy and space science at the University of Iowa, led the nation in experiments involving the "space race".

1970: Borlaug won the Nobel Prize for this work in promoting the "Green

Revolution". He developed strains of disease-resistant wheat in Mexico and India, and increased the food supply in third-world countries. Borlaug was born on a farm near Protivin. His boyhood home is now being restored as a science center and museum.

1976: The Iowa caucuses change the form and substance of the choice of presidential candidates. Because of these caucuses candidates of all political parties descend on Iowa early in each presidential election year, and are dwarfed by the hordes of media personnel who descend on Iowa to cover the caucuses. In recent years other states have tried to maneuver into earlier dates, but these efforts have - so far - failed. Iowa has never been so prominent in the national media news reports than they are every four years now.

1986: Justice Neuman became the first woman to serve on the Iowa Supreme Court.

1986: Lieutenant Governor Zimmerman was the first woman to hold this executive office in Iowa.

1989: "Iowa: Eye To I" is a class through Iowa Wesleyan College. It involves immersement in things and people "Iowan", and includes lectures on general subjects, and bus travel to little-known places throughout the state. More than an Iowa history class, it includes involvement with the geological, the archaeological, the architectural factors and exposes the students to the food, the dance, the music, the art, and the natural features of the state.

1990: Attorney General Campbell was the first woman to hold this executive office in Iowa.

1993: The floods of 1993 affected every part of Iowa, and were disastrous in all cases. Previous efforts at flood control, including dams, dikes, levees, and similar engineering devices were ineffective in holding back the raging waters of all of the major and minor rivers and creeks in Iowa.

1995: Through clerical oversight, the law adopting Iowa's flag was never officially enrolled. When this became known, the legislature quickly remedied the oversight.

1999: Upon completing his 4th four-year term in office, Terry Branstad holds the record for most years as Iowa's governor, 16, breaking the former record held by his immediate predecessor, Robert Ray, 14 years. It was during the administration of Governor Ray that the term lengths were changed from 2 years to 4 years, although the first two governors of the State of Iowa also served 4 year terms.

1891: Grant Wood is Iowa's most famous artist. As founder of the Art Colony at Stone City, supervisor of the W.P.A. art program in Iowa, and professor of art at the University of Iowa, he left a lasting legacy of so-called "Regional" art.

1892: Weaver polled more popular and electoral votes in this election than any other third party candidate in history, until 1948.

1892: Froelich's invention of the gasoline-powered tractor revolutionized the farm machinery industry. The Hart-Parr company of Charles City became a leader in the production of tractors, and life on the farm was never the same.

1893: The Pomeroy tornado was one of the most destructive in Iowa's history. For more information see The Iowan, Volume 12 (Summer 1964), and The Palimpsest, Volume 40 (1959).

1893: The famous composer Dvorak was in the United States as head of a music institute in New York. He was homesick and his secretary, Josef Kovarek, suggested that a vacation in Spillville, a Bohemian (Czech) settlement in Iowa would be a welcome change. Dvorak enjoyed his 3 months in Iowa, and while he did not (as legend holds) compose the "New World Symphony" there, he did compose a string quintet and the "American String Quartet". He also played the organ in St. Wenceslaus Church each morning for mass. There is a small museum devoted to Dvorak in Spillville today, housed in the same building as the more famous Bily Brothers Clocks.

1894: The Iowa Bystander became known as one of the leading African-American oriented newspapers in the midwest. From its base in Des Moines it exerted much influence over African-Americans throughout Iowa. It was published for many decades.

1896: The Rural Free Delivery Act broke the communications isolation of the farm. Now farmers received mail daily and were in regular and constant touch with the rest of the world. They received and mailed letters daily, instead of having to wait until the weekly trip to town. With the RFD came the mail order catalog, and the products that could be ordered through these "wish books" helped to level the differences between people who lived on farms and people who lived in towns. Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Montgomery Ward, the two leading mail order catalog firms in Iowa, provided almost every product that could be purchased anywhere.

1897: Consolidated schools spelled the beginning of the end for the one-room rural schools, and the independent districts. Because of the excellence of Iowa's educational system, the literacy rate in this state rose to be the highest in the nation, hovering around 99.5%.

1897: James Wilson served as Secretary of Agriculture under three presidents, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. This record service of 16 years in the cabinet is a record. He was called "Tama Jim Wilson" because when he served in the Iowa legislature there was another James Wilson from Fairfield, nicknamed "Jefferson Jim Wilson", in each case after the name of the county each represented.

1899: Henderson's election as Speaker of the House is a manifestation of the political power of Iowans at the turn of the century. Senator William Boyd Allison was recognized as one of the four most powerful senators in Congress, two Iowans served in the cabinet, and major committees of the House and Senate were chair by Iowans. President Theodore Roosevelt once remarked that when he wanted legislation passed, he had to "ask Iowa".