Happy Birthday Audrey Rose!

1922 -- The year of Mimi

I think it's interesting to know what was going on in the world the year you or a person you love was born. Mimi has a lot to say about how the stock market crash of '29 affected her childhood and although I know she probably never see this blog, this entry is all about her birth year.

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Events of 1922

January 11 - First successful insulin treatment of diabetes

January 24 - Christian K. Nelson patents the Eskimo Pie

February 2 - Ulysses by James Joyce is published in Paris on his fortieth birthday by Sylvia Beach

February 5 - DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first issue of Reader's Digest
Editor's note: ironically, this has always been a bathroom reading staple at my grandparent's house

February 8 - President of the United States, Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House

February 27 - A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States

March 11 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay for sedition

April 13 - State of Massachusetts opens all public offices to women

May 5 - In The Bronx, construction begins on Yankee Stadium

June 28 - The Irish Civil War begins

October 31 - Benito Mussolini becomes the youngest Premier in the history of Italy

November 14 - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom. 2LO became the first radio station in the United Kingdom

Also in 1922: the Irish Free State was proclaimed; Sinn Fein formed the Irish Republican Army; King Tut's tomb was unearthed; Emily Post's "Etiquette" made its first appearance and Vegemite was invented by Australian Fred Walker

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Other important 1922 births

January 17 - Betty White, American television actress ("Golden Girls")

February 18 - Helen Gurley Brown, American editor and publisher (Cosmopolitan)

March 12 - Jack Kerouac, American author (d. 1969)

March 20 - Carl Reiner, American film director, producer, actor, and comedian

April 22 - Charles Mingus, American musician (d. 1979)

June 10 - Judy Garland, American singer and actress (d. 1969)

September 8 - Sid Caesar, American actor and comedian

November 11 - Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist

November 26 - Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist (d. 2000) ("Peanuts" creator)

December 22 - Barbara Billingsley, American actress (best known as June Cleaver on
"Leave it to Beaver")

December 28 - Stan Lee, American comics creator (Spiderman creator)

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Major hit of 1922:

Leon Rappolo's Tiger Rag. The acclaimed clarinetist Leon Rappolo was heard to great advantage on the jazz staple "Tiger Rag," as recorded by the groundbreaking New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

Editor's note: We used to play this song in my high school marching band, being that our mascot is the Tigers.

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Key music figures of the decade:

Sidney Bechet was the first master jazz musician to take up what previously often had been dismissed as a novelty instrument, the saxophone. Bechet helped propel jazz in more individualistic personality- and solo-driven directions.

In this last point, Bechet was joined by a young Louis Armstrong, who was to become one of the major forces in the development of jazz. Armstrong was an extraordinary improviser, capable of creating endless variations on a single melody.

Arguably, Bix Beiderbecke was both the first white and the first non-New Orleanian to make major original contributions to the development of jazz with his legato phrasing, bringing the influence of classical romanticism to jazz.

Young pianist and bandleader Duke Ellington first came to national attention in the late 1920s with his tight band making many recordings and radio broadcasts. Ellington's importance would grow in the coming decades.

Setting the pace for the jazz revolution: Two disparate, but important, inventions of the second half of the nineteenth century quietly had set the stage for jazz to capture the spotlight in American popular music by the 1920s. George Pullman's invention of the sleeping car in 1864 brought a new level of luxury and comfort to the nation's railways; and Thomas Edison's invention, in 1877, of the phonograph record made quality music accessible to virtually everyone.