Emma Bischoff ‘21, Staff Writer
As Immaculata University reaches its 100-year anniversary in 2020, it is time to reminisce about a few things that will be sharing the university’s anniversary
During the 1920s, a time of prosperity for America, there were a lot of innovations that people today have become so accustomed to that it is unusual to think of a time before their invention. In 1920 specifically, at the same time that Immaculata University was opening its doors, the 19th Amendment was being ratified, America was sending out its first commercial radio broadcast, and along came the invention of Band-Aids, handheld hair dryers, and a four-way three color traffic light.
After fighting for well over seventy years for the right to vote, women finally received their reward and the 19th Amendment was passed by Congress in June of 1919 and ratified in August of 1920. Women had been fighting for their right to vote in America, working hard in jobs during World War I, and in the post-war society they were able to finally achieve it under President Woodrow Wilson. Immaculata was opening its doors to women for education in a country that was giving rights to women they had never known before.
In 1920, Band Aids were invented, along with the first four-way three color traffic light and the first handheld hairdryer. To think that just a year before these items were unavailable, nonexistent, just waiting for someone to invent, is nearly unimaginable. A Band-Aid, such a simple little piece of hardware, was not invented until the year that Immaculata opened, by Earle Dickinson, only because his wife kept getting minor cuts and scrapes while doing household chores. Immaculata was giving education to women for them to be prepared to go out into the world and see these great inventions, while giving them the knowledge to build a greater future for themselves.
For the 1920 election between Warren G. Harding and James S. Cox, the American nation’s first commercial radio broadcast was sent out to announce the winner of the election on the radio station, KDKA in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It was meant to show that instead of reading about who the winner was the next day in the newspaper, Americans could tune in with their neighbors and know what was happening in real time. This was a concept that revolutionized the world, real time news would become the wave of the future through radio, then television, and now through our phones.
Immaculata University has weathered one-hundred years of change to not only the campus and the buildings, but through its student base and history as well. Now, Immaculata has adapted new ideas and implemented change in a positive way, allowing for new invention just as the world was changing all around it at its formal opening in 1920.
