The textbook From Colony to World Power was written less than two decades after the end of the 1920s, and almost exclusively focuses on political history. In the aftermath of World War II, the isolationist and nationalist movements that grew exponentially during the 1920s were relevant to public discourse once again. This is reflected in how frequently the textbook discusses the League of Nations, and the chaos of European politics after World War I. From an educational perspective in 1947, it would have seemed exceptionally important to teach students of American history that the country had been entangled in international war once before, and had come out the other side without the economic or physical destruction that was wrought upon the old world.

This focus on drawing a continuous historical line between World War I and World War II allows the textbook to avoid covering cultural and demographic developments during the 1920s, which were not considered important to educational narratives in 1947. It is only in a post-Civil Rights Movement world in which authors began to dedicate space to the activities of minority communities during the early 20th century. As noted by David J. Goldberg, topics such as the Harlem Renaissance and rural-urban migration are thoroughly discussed in books from the 1970s and 1990s, whereas American literature from the 1920s receives historical praise as soon as the 1930s.¹

From the perspective of the 2004 edition of The American Pageant, the 1920s is a time period where the very makeup of American society was radically changed. Regardless of the geopolitical storm that was brewing in the interwar era, new patterns of migration and evolving concepts of the government’s role in the daily lives of citizens fundamentally redefined the nation’s identity. The book also covers negative aspects of this time period with more earnestness. The KKK, anti-radicalism, and religious intolerance all have their own section within the chapter on the 1920s, and are directly juxtaposed with discussions of economic prosperity.² Also, concepts such as the rise of consumerism and the modern corporation are placed in the larger political and economic context of the decade. In the textbook from 1947 these aspects of 1920s American society are mentioned, but are not treated with as much historical significance as in 2004. These broader cultural trends had not yet been thoroughly analyzed in 1947, and in many ways were still developing.

By the 21st century, historians and textbook authors had constructed a new canon of what aspects of society were integral to American history, and this new ideological framework rebalanced political and cultural topics. Goldberg notes this shifting focus to more holistic representations of the United States during the 1920s, and writes that the new framework creates “a fuller and more well-rounded portrait of a society where class, ethnic, racial, regional, political, and cultural divisions remained quite sharp.”³ As the function and focus of American history is reshaped by subsequent social climates, the significance of the 1920s will undoubtedly fluctuate accordingly in textbooks.

1. David J. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives,” OAH Magazine of History 21, no. 3 (July 2007): 10. ︎
2. Thomas A. Bailey, David Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen, The American Pageant (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 783-784. ︎
3. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s,” 7. ︎

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

The Shanghai Massacre of April 12, 1927, is an event that embodies the sheer chaos of political party rivalries in China during the 1920s and the potency of anti-communist ideologies around the globe. On this day, right-wing forces within the Chinese Nationalist Party gathered up and executed any known members of the Chinese Communist Party and anyone associated with the left-wing faction of the nationalists who supported an alliance with the Communist Party. As part of the much larger conflict between nationalist reformers and radical revolutionaries that consumed China for nearly the entire first half of the 20th century, the massacre marks a crucial turning point. After this violent suppression of Communist leaders and other political dissenters in major cities such as Shanghai, the Chinese Communist Party was fundamentally weakened, and the Chinese Nationalist Party was divided into those who condoned the violence and those who still favored diplomacy.

In a global context, depictions of the Shanghai Massacre in newspapers throughout Europe and the United States (or the mere lack of depictions) reflect how communism as a political concept conjured vastly different fears and anxieties depending on the preexisting cultural climate of a region. Both geographical proximity to the newly formed Soviet Union and an underlying social turmoil in regard to the government’s role in public life shaped the clash between Communists and non-Communists in China into a bloody struggle for political control. Although Western media during the 1920s was in a frenzy about the existential threat posed by the spread of communism, these fears did not take into account the violent oppression that encouraged even the average Chinese citizen to embrace revolution of any kind.

The story of how an internal divide began brewing amongst Chinese nationalists, and how the Chinese Communist Party was initially formed, comprises countless political decisions in both China and the Soviet Union throughout the early 1920s. The first such event that specifically set the stage for the violent spring of 1927 was the contact between Russian Comintern agent Hendrik Sneevliet and Republic of China founder Sun Yat-sen in December of 1921.¹ Yat-sen had been instrumental in overthrowing the Qing dynasty a decade earlier, and Sneevliet viewed him as the perfect candidate for helping communism catch on in China. As the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Yat-sen recognized the newly formed Chinese Communist Party as a legitimate political party and pursued a diplomatic alliance. This combination of Communists and those in the nationalist party who supported their political existence became known as the “First United Front.”²

While Sneevliet’s influence upon the formation of the First United Front is obviously impossible to quantify, the Soviet Union’s geopolitical game plan was soon impacted by preexisting rivalries between Chinese nationalist leaders. In June of 1922, one of the most influential military leaders within the Nationalist Party, Chen Jiongming, renounced Yat-sen’s authority and forced him to withdraw from Guangzhou and flee to Shanghai.³ Although Sun Yat-sen ultimately returned to Guangzhou with support from the Communist Party, it had become clear that not everyone shared his willingness to include Communists in contemporary Chinese society. As Yat-sen continued his push towards unifying China under one nationalist government, he faced heavy resistance not just from local warlords but from dissenting officials within his own party. After his death from cancer in 1925 left an empty place at the top of the Nationalist Party, this power struggle intensified dramatically.

On the right-wing side of the Nationalist Party and in command of the National Revolutionary Army was Chiang Kai-shek: a hardened military commander with his sights set on political and ideological domination. On the left-wing side of the party was a prominent politician and poet, Wang Jingwei, who embraced collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviets. As these two factions battled for control of their party, Kai-shek was continuing Yat-sen’s military campaign to conquer Northern China. Unable to counter his use of the military, Communist-supported leaders asserted that the Central Executive Committee held ultimate power over the nationalist government. On March 10, 1927, the Committee met without Kai-shek and resolved to strip him of his power, citing his dismissal of their authority and anti-Communist sentiments.⁴

Infuriated by this move to curtail his power, Chiang Kai-shek redirected his military campaign through Northern China towards Shanghai and planned to take the city as a display of his personal authority. However, in late March Communist-led workers assumed control of Shanghai, and other Nationalist generals were withholding their attacks out of fear of foreign intervention from the Soviet Union. Upon first arriving at the city and observing the strength of assembled Communist forces, Kai-shek did not pursue immediate military action but rather began forging secret alliances with anti-Communist warlords and other Nationalist leaders who favored the right-wing faction.⁵

Meanwhile, Wang Jingwei of the leftist faction had been reassured by both local Nationalist leaders in Shanghai and Soviet officials that with their support, Kai-shek would be unable to take the city.⁶ Unaware of the pending threat of Chiang Kai-shek’s secret network of supporters, pro-Communist organizations proceeded with multiple public strikes and demonstrations on April 12. Nationalist forces seized this moment and engaged in a widespread purge of anyone who was visibly associated with leftist ideology. Even unarmed people who were merely seen demonstrating in the streets were arrested, if not killed for suspected Communist ties. Over the next two months, all Communist cells operating within Shanghai and in other cities where Kai-shek was able to encourage allies to assist with the purge were exposed and crushed. Striking workers, many of whom only opposed the practices of singular companies, were either executed or imprisoned for their associations with the Chinese Communist Party.

Political leaders from both the Communist Party and the leftist faction of the Nationalist Party were hunted down and brought to the same fate. This forced politicians who had been actively engaged in diplomatic negotiations with other leaders of the Nationalist government to flee for friendly provinces in the South, where Kai-shek’s Northern Campaign had no local implications. Some of the local warlords who supported the purge were even more violent and aggressive with the individuals they rounded up. In Kwangtung, Governor Li Chi-shen’s forces gathered approximately 2,000 suspected opponents of right-wing nationalism and had many of them shot publicly.⁷

This violent suppression of Communists across various major cities in China cemented a political divide within the country’s population and leaders. Left-leaning individuals who may have supported some type of alliance between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party were now painfully aware that such collaboration would never be possible, given the standard of confrontation Chiang Kai-shek set in April of 1927. If they chose to relinquish all ties to Chinese nationalism, they would be seen as traitors by the country’s largest military force and would have few other options besides joining the unprepared and under-funded Communist Party. If they chose to ally with the right-wing branch of the Nationalist Party, they would essentially be at the whim of constant scrutiny and suspicion. From within the party, there was no longer any hope of reaching agreements with political minorities, even those that could facilitate an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Chiang Kai-shek’s drastic and destructive action against Communist groups and their allies essentially ensured the length and scope of the subsequent Chinese Civil War. Nationalists were internally divided by the sheer intensity of the anti-Communist violence, and the Communist Party itself now carried with it a story that elicited sympathy from all other political factions. Between the polarization of the Chinese public and the Soviet Union’s obvious support for the Communist Party, the imminent civil war would not be another simple crushing of dissenters. It would be an extenuating violent conflict, lasting from 1927, in the aftermath of the Shanghai Massacre, until the Communist Party’s eventual conquering of nearly the entire country in 1949. Although a 21st-century perspective on history seems to paint the Chinese Communist Party as a massive political and military force with a very blatant agenda, the bloodshed of the April 12th massacre was part of a much larger sequence of events that brought Communists the internal cohesion and popular support needed to amass more power. Perhaps presciently, Kalfred Dip Lum wrote in 1927 that Chinese Nationalist leaders “have started something which they cannot control.”⁸

Significance

The purging of Communist leaders and supporters by the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1927 serves as a grim reminder of the intensity of anti-communist ideology during the 1920s and the stark discrepancies in how this sentiment impacted different regions of the world. Compared to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which occurred the same year, the Shanghai Massacre represents an entirely different tier of chaos and destruction. Yet due to isolationist attitudes, the violent clash between Communists and Nationalists in China was treated as generally irrelevant throughout the Western world.

In many cases, newspapers in the United States did not even mention that the political factions being suppressed were in fact communist. One Illinois paper referred to the events of April 12th as nationalist troops fighting to disarm “Guerilla gunmen.”⁹ With most American readers struggling to picture what Shanghai even looked like, media outlets had completely free reign over the context in which they placed the violence of the Shanghai Massacre. During a decade when major business interests in the United States would do anything to bar communist ideology from catching any foothold in the public consciousness, the press naturally hesitated from expressing sympathy for communist communities. Publishing more accurate accounts of the Shanghai Massacre would expose American audiences to a situation in which nationalists were violently attempting to crush all forms of political dissent, with no consideration of the Chinese public’s best interests.

The massacre marked the beginning of a ferocious push by Chinese nationalists to eliminate dissent of any kind and highlighted the dangers of organizing widespread initiatives for governmental reform. In the context of Chinese history, it set the stage for a bloody conflict between the Communist and Nationalist parties, which would last for many decades. Placed in a global context, the violence in China serves as a reminder that Europe was not the only setting of destructive ideological conflict during the early 20th century.

Particularly in the United States, changing patterns of immigration and the formation of the Soviet Union sparked a Red Scare during the 1920s. This was largely sustained by wealthy, white Protestants, who were desperate to maintain their political and social authority at a time when American isolationism and the internal culture of the country itself were undergoing fundamental evolutions. While this manifested as an “overwhelming insistence upon conformity,”¹⁰ in the United States, there is no comparison to the violent suppression of Communists in China. Therefore, events such as the Shanghai Massacre paint a very different picture of global anti-communist attitudes during the 1920s than the stories constructed by American businessmen who merely feared losing their fortunes to public ownership.

While historian Lynn Dumenil explains that in the U.S., “The agendas of the business community, voluntary associations, politicians, and the press helped persuade a susceptible public that the Bolshevik menace was a serious one,”¹¹ the Communist Party was by no means a media phantom in China. Influenced by the geographical proximity of the Soviet Union combined with countless cultural factors, communism was able to gain traction in China that was simply not achievable in the United States. Therefore, conservatives within the Nationalist Party, such as Chiang Kai-shek, plunged the country into war in an effort to resist the same revolutionary change that Americans feared.

Although the conflict between new ideologies and strict nationalism embodied the decade of the 1920s in both countries, the sheer differences in scope of that conflict created drastically different legacies of anti-communist sentiment. As Dumenil notes, the Red Scare in the United States was fueled by a broader resistance to social change, which ultimately ebbed and flowed in relevance depending on contemporary economic conditions.¹² However, for interwar China, the clash between Nationalists and Communists set the stage for an extenuating military conflict that would last until 1949 and shape the course of Asian history throughout the entire century. Ultimately, the Red Scare of the 1920s in the United States was largely minimized in history by later clashes with communism, which developed from the aftermath of events like the Shanghai Massacre in China.

Citations

Footnotes

1. David P. Barrett, “The Role of Hu Hanmin in the ‘First United Front’: 1922-27,” The China Quarterly, no. 89 (March 1982): 35. ︎
2. Ibid., 34. ︎
3. Ibid., 36. ︎
4. F. Gilbert Chan and Thomas H. Etzold, China in the 1920s: Nationalism and Revolution (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 147-149. ︎
5. Ibid., 150-151. ︎
6. Ibid., 153. ︎
7. Ibid., 157. ︎
8. Kalfred Dip Lum, “Chinese Civil War and Foreign Relations,” News Bulletin (Institute of Pacific Relations) (February 1927): 20. ︎
9. International News Service, “Chinese Nationalists in Frantic Efforts to Strengthen Position; China in a Ferment,” Waukegan News-Sun, April 12, 1927, p. 16. ︎
10. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 218. ︎
11. Ibid., 221. ︎
12. Ibid., 225. ︎

Bibliography

• Featured image: “Communists being rounded up in one of the purges.” April 1927. Accessed May 6, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Communist_purge.jpg.
• Barrett, David P. “The Role of Hu Hanmin in the ‘First United Front’: 1922-27.” The China Quarterly, no. 89 (1982): 34-64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/653620.
• Chan, F. Gilbert, and Etzold, Thomas H., eds. China in the 1920s: Nationalism and Revolution. New Viewpoints, 1976.
• Chang, Kuo-t’ao. The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party. University Press of Kansas, 1971.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. Hill and Wang, 1995.
• International News Service. “Chinese Nationalists in Frantic Efforts to Strengthen Position: China in a Ferment.” Waukegan News-Sun, April 12, 1927, p. 16.
• Lum, Kalfred Dip. “Chinese Civil War and Foreign Relations.” News Bulletin (Institute of Pacific Relations), (1927): 19-22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2485490.
• Wilbur, C. Martin. The Nationalist Revolution in China: 1923–1928. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

More Resources

• Coble, Parks M. The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937. Harvard University Press, 1986.
• Isaacs, Harold R. The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution. Stanford University Press, 1938.
• Thornton, Richard C. China, the Struggle for Power, 1917-1972. Indiana University Press, 1973.

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

The massacre marked the beginning of a ferocious push by Chinese nationalists to eliminate dissent of any kind, and highlighted the dangers of organizing widespread initiatives for governmental reform. In the context of Chinese history, it set the stage for a bloody conflict between the Communist and Nationalist parties, which would last for many decades. Placed in a global context, the violence in China serves as a reminder that Europe was not the only setting of destructive ideological conflict during the early 20th century.

Particularly in the United States, changing patterns of immigration and the formation of the Soviet Union sparked a Red Scare during the 1920s. This was largely sustained by wealthy, white Protestants, who were desperate to maintain their political and social authority at a time when American isolationism and the internal culture of the country itself were undergoing fundamental evolutions. While this manifested in an “overwhelming insistence upon conformity,”¹ in the United States, there is no comparison to the violent suppression of communists in China. Therefore events such as the Shanghai Massacre paint a very different picture of global anti-communist attitudes during the 1920s, than the stories constructed by American businessmen who merely feared losing their fortunes to public ownership.

While Lynn Dumenil explains that in the U.S., “The agendas of the business community, voluntary associations, politicians, and the press helped persuade a susceptible public that the Bolshevik menace was a serious one,”² the Communist Party was by no means a media phantom in China. Influenced by geographical proximity of the Soviet Union combined with countless cultural factors, communism was able to gain traction in China that was simply not achievable in the United States. Therefore conservatives within the Nationalist Party such as Chiang Kai-shek plunged the country into war in an effort to resist the same revolutionary change that Americans feared.

While the conflict between new ideologies and strict nationalism embodied the decade of the 1920s in both countries, the sheer differences in scope of that conflict created drastically different legacies of anti-communist sentiment. As Dumenil notes, the Red Scare in the United States was fueled by a broader resistance to social change, which ultimately ebbed and flowed in relevance depending on contemporary economic conditions.³ However for interwar China, the clash between nationalists and communists set the stage for an extenuating military conflict that would last until 1949, and shape the course of Asian history throughout the entire century. Ultimately, the Red Scare of the 1920s in the United States was largely minimized in history by later clashes with communism, which developed from the aftermath of events like the Shanghai Massacre in China.

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 218. ︎
2. Ibid., 221. ︎
3. Ibid., 225. ︎

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

Even though the theory of relativity was not considered proven by the scientific community at the time of the 1922 Nobel Prize, it was the theory which catapulted the name “Albert Einstein” into headlines and conversations across the world. Considering that it quite literally uprooted the principles by which humanity had come to understand the universe, relativity did not serve to further the professionalization of science as an industry, and Einstein himself was deemed a subversive figure. His mainstream reputation was further weakened by biases against his German heritage and Jewish upbringing. In the social environment of the United States during the 1920s, Einstein became perhaps the first celebrity scientist, not for awards such as the Nobel Prize, but for his comical persona, outlandish appearance, and unbelievable theories. Just as Dumenil characterizes famous athletes of the time as “consumption idols,”² Einstein’s popularity did not stem from growing public acceptance of a scientific revolution, but rather from the increased scope of the entertainment market.

Both the competing forces of public and private power, and the role of celebrities in developing popular consumer culture place Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize squarely within the dichotomy of the 1920s. While his more commonly accepted theories were impactful enough to earn global recognition by a prestigious academic organization, his seemingly ludicrous perspective on fundamental principles of space and time caused him to be depicted as a mere caricature of a scientist by the media of the decade. Thus the 1920s can be identified as a time where science and technology paved the way for reshaping humanity’s understanding of the world, while longstanding social norms and a general resistance to change kept a skeptical eye upon anyone considered overtly revolutionary. Albert Einstein may have never burnt a president’s speech outside of the White House like Alice Paul, and certain was never jailed and executed for a crime he may not have committed such as in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, but his fame and radicalism nonetheless highlight the underlying cultural arc of the 1920s.

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 22-23. ︎
2. Ibid, 78. ︎

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics marked a major turning point for the field of theoretical physics, and in society’s broader struggle to accept increasingly complex scientific discoveries. This event also corresponds with a point in time when Einstein’s reputation in the media was finally being backed by the approval of an organization with global prestige. Thus the impact of the prize upon his fame highlights how science’s place in the public sphere was evolving dramatically during the interwar period. The decade of the 1920s is generally known as a time when traditional outlooks grappled with developments in culture and technology, and Einstein’s experiences with fame and recognition reflect an analogous conflict. From the perspective of the Nobel Committee, which had dismissed his name in the nominations for over a decade, this story reveals the challenge of maintaining authority over the entire academic field, in an age where headlines were gravitating towards entertainment above all else. Immersed in his own personal struggle to justify his controversial theories to both public and private audiences alike, Albert Einstein’s reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics sheds light on the trials and tribulations that come with being the modern world’s first celebrity scientist.

Beginning in the first few years of the 20th century, Albert Einstein made a name for himself as a thinker who would not be bound by classical schools of thought, or by the discouragement of mainstream academic institutions. In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Switzerland, he published a paper on the photoelectric effect, which would become his gateway into relevance in the scientific community, and ultimately the justification for his reception of the Nobel Prize.¹ This paper built upon the work of Einstein’s contemporaries, but added new theories to the mix that would eventually pave the way for technological developments ranging from X-rays to digital camera sensors. His studying of the photoelectric effect was directly cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the awarding of the Nobel Prize not only because it was an exceptionally topical discovery given the expansion of electricity and electrical machinery around the turn of the century, but also because it was far less controversial than his most notable work: the theory of general relativity.²

General relativity, which was first published in May of 1916, stands on par with scientific discoveries such as the debunking of a geocentric understanding of the solar system, or the first analysis of DNA in terms of how much it uprooted scientists’ comprehension of the world. Einstein had proposed such a fundamental shift in perspective that many other physicists were forced to conclude that either much of their own work was irrelevant, or that Einstein himself was merely an extraordinarily imaginative lunatic. Given the resulting uproar from the scientific community, the theory of general relativity posed a tremendous problem to the Nobel Committee and other well-established academic institutions, and to the general public as a whole.

In the world of the early 1920s, physics was not seen as a malleable field to be drastically and sporadically reshaped by the ideas of one lone thinker, it was part of a stable canon of academia, which was only to be gradually developed over time by approved experts. When observations of a solar eclipse in 1919 ultimately proved Einstein’s theories to be accurate, hordes of prestigious scientists were shockingly forced to reevaluate their authority, and the press brought the spectacle to the masses. In the proverbial “blink” of a solar eye, audiences all over the world were reading about how the theories of a largely unknown theoretical physicist had left Western civilization’s most trusted minds in disarray and confusion.

Newspapers were utterly incapable of explaining the machinations of the theory to their readers, yet felt so pressured to assert that humanity’s scientific knowledge had not collapsed completely. One subheading from Pennsylvania even reads, “Men of Science More or Less Agog… Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to Be, but Nobody Need Worry.”³ General relativity’s dramatic confirmation and incalculable impact upon intellectual communities created a swirl of public awareness around the name Albert Einstein, which would cement him as one of the only celebrity scientists of the time, and draw increased pressure for a Nobel Prize. However, the committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences remained wary about recognizing someone who had so consistently failed to play by the rules of academic progress.

Between 1910 and his eventual reception of the Nobel Prize for 1921, Einstein was nominated by multiple fellow scientists every year except for 1911 and 1915, with many nominations mentioning both his pragmatic work on the photoelectric effect and his theoretical work on relativity. Although public audiences and leaders of mainstream academic institutions were skeptical of general relativity and the evidence of the 1919 eclipse, individuals who had experience proposing seemingly outlandish concepts in scientific fields often rallied behind Einstein, and celebrated the undeniable brilliance of his ideas. By the beginning of the 1920s, many such scientists were even writing letters to the Nobel Committee in support of Einstein’s contributions to the field of physics. While some argued that his earlier work alone should justify a Nobel Prize regardless of whether or not general relativity had been reliably proven, others went as far as to argue that even his more recent, radical work had already been essentially proven, and should thus be recognized as a revolutionary scientific achievement. In support of Einstein for the 1920 Nobel Prize, the prominent Danish physicist Niels Bohr stated that Einstein’s work, and specifically relativity were, “…advances of decisive significance for the development of research in physics.”⁴

Despite the increased support and respect from countless influential voices, the Nobel Committee repeatedly commissioned additional reports on the merit of general relativity, which deemed it undeserving of a Nobel Prize over and over again. One explanation for this polarization within the scientific community is that many of Einstein’s supporters were also theoretical physicists, and therefore had been more directly exposed to his earlier work, and were fundamentally more accustomed to experimental, imaginative theories. The Nobel Committee on the other hand, appointed people like Allvar Gullstrand to make the aforementioned reports on the reputability of relativity, although Gullstrand had made his name in ophthalmology and medicine. When his report on Einstein’s theory was published in conjunction with his considerations of the various Nobel Prize candidates in 1921, it was the first time Gullstrand had ever technically written on relativity.⁵

Particularly in 1921, these specially commissioned reports were a hindrance to Einstein’s reception of the prize. While Gullstrand claimed that general relativity was too controversial and untested to be credited with a Nobel Prize, his fellow Nobel Committee member Svante Arrhenius reported that Einstein’s earlier work on the photoelectric effect was not radical enough to be recognized on the global stage. Arrhenius had been tasked with informing the committee on whether or not Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect alone could be justification for a Nobel Prize, but was personally of the opinion that the 1921 award should be given to an “experimentalist.”⁶ Caught between the clear internal conflict of the Nobel Committee, both Einstein and the entire scientific community was robbed of commendation that year, with no prize in physics being awarded in 1921.

In 1922, Einstein was obviously nominated once more, and the letters from other scientists flooded in again. However, 1918 Nobel laureate and well-known physicist of the time Max K. Planck took the extra step beyond writing a recommendation letter, and provided the committee with a plan that accorded Einstein proper recognition, while not dismissing the skepticisms of the past years. Planck proposed retroactively giving the 1921 prize to Einstein, and awarding the 1922 prize to Niels Bohr, who had also been nominated multiple times in recent cycles. Again the Nobel Committee conducted additional reports on the merit and scientific significance of both the photoelectric effect and general relativity, and while Gullstrand held fast to his doubtful conclusions, it was not enough to overtake the pressing evidence that Einstein deserved the prize even without taking relativity into account. On November 10, 1922, Albert Einstein was informed of his reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, in a note that specifically stated that it was in recognition of his work on the photoelectric effect and not on general relativity.⁷ In true “Einstein” fashion, he and his wife were halfway around the globe, visiting Japan when the Nobel Prize presentation ceremony occurred.⁸

Significance

The dichotomy between Albert Einstein’s rise to fame during the early 20th century and the Nobel Committee’s hesitance to award him the Nobel Prize in Physics is emblematic of the widespread conflict of that time between institutionalized knowledge and the common experience. World War I exposed how unabated technological development could just as quickly break civilization down as it could build it up in the first place, and from this phenomena, science and technology became sequestered to an isolated component of society. Whereas the intellectual discoveries that culminated in the invention of electric lights had swiftly altered nearly every corner of the industrialized world, the publishing of general relativity had absolutely no significance to the average person’s life. Yet the scientific community was utterly besides themselves, struggling to rectify how ideas so seemingly outlandish actually redefined their understanding of the mechanics of the universe overnight.

Science may have become more broadly integrated into the public consciousness during the 1920s, but this did not mean that it was becoming more accessible as a field, or even any more practical. Newspapers of the decade loved painting Einstein as the controversial free-spirit of academia precisely because his theories could not be understood or applied to the day-to-day realities of life. Theoretical physics was beginning to explore such otherworldly zones of knowledge, to the point where Einstein’s public persona resembled a mad scientist from a fictional tale, who had been pulled out of literature and dropped into the actual scientific community. Mainstream academic institutions were undoubtedly angered by this, as longstanding conventions dictated that research and discovery was most successful when it was clearly aimed at societal progress. However Einstein himself accepted that his place in the public consciousness, and perhaps also milestones of recognition such as the Nobel Prize, would never fully encapsulate the passion that kept him engaged in his own work. Rather his status as a well-known intellectual during the 1920s bound him to contemporary thinkers by, as Lynn Dumenil phrases it, “their shared consciousness of modern times and their role as interpreters of their culture.”⁹ With a task as daunting as interpreting quantum mechanics and relativity to mainstream audiences and reporters, it is no surprise that Einstein developed into the whimsical, imaginative presence that he is remembered for to this day.

The publicity surrounding Albert Einstein after his reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics also exposed him to an emerging component of fame: the oversimplification and misinterpretation of one’s identity.¹⁰ Since newspapers could not spend columns upon columns explaining mathematical proofs of the theories that had won him the prize, they instead searched for controversy under any rock which could be turned over. This is already obvious in relation to the 1919 eclipse which was claimed to have proven general relativity, for papers immediately covered debates between frustrated scientists, without even being able to explain what was being debated. This type of press continued to become increasingly personal for Einstein throughout the twenties, as his background as a German-born Swiss citizen, who had become widely popular in England and America since roughly the end of World War I, entangled him in the web of geopolitics. Einstein himself was tremendously aware of the media’s ability to influence his public image since he gained global notoriety, stating that:

“…today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire, the description will be reversed and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English.”

“Einstein on the Palestine University,” The Denver Jewish News, May 11, 1921, p. 1.

Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was a monumental event both for the field of theoretical physics, and for the role of science in popular culture during the early 20th century. Throughout all the turmoil between his supporters and conservative skeptics within the Nobel Committee, the eventual achievement signified a prestigious academic institution’s recognition that they could not forever maintain authority over who became an ambassador of intellectualism. Einstein’s subsequent fame in that role was shaped by the developing celebrity culture of the 1920s, but also serves as an example of someone who did not let fame dictate their work. Nobel Prizes and newspaper headlines alike, what mattered was the sense of discovery and imagination that is still associated with the name: “Einstein.”

Citations

Footnotes

1. Jennifer Ouellette, “Einstein and the Photoelectric Effect,” American Physical Association News, January 1, 2005. ︎
2. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 358. ︎
3. “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants,” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, 7. ︎
4. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 363. ︎
5. Ibid, 363. ︎
6. Ibid, 363-364. ︎
7. Ibid, 364. ︎
8. Jerry Adler, “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. ︎
9. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 149. ︎
10. Ibid, 77-78. ︎

Bibliography

• Featured Image: Karnell, Anders Wilhelm. Einstein speaks in Gothenburg, Sweden 1923. July 11, 1923. Accessed March 16, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_foto.gif.
• Adler, Jerry. “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/albert-einstein-visited-japan-180968737/.
• “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants.” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, p. 7.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
• Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
• Missner, Marshall. “Why Einstein Became Famous in America.” Social Studies of Science 15, no. 2 (May 1985): 267-291. https://www.jstor.org/stable/285389.
• Ouellette, Jennifer. “Einstein and The Photoelectric Effect.” American Physical Society News, January 1, 2005.
• Pais, Abraham. “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize: Why did the Nobel Committee for Physics wait so long before giving Einstein the Prize, and why did they not award it for relativity?” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (Summer 1982): 358-365. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27851543.
• The Nobel Prize Organization. “Nomination Archive: Albert Einstein.” Accessed March 17, 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=2728.
• Wazeck, Milena. “Marginalization processes in science: The controversy about the theory of relativity in the 1920s.” Social Studies of Science 43, no. 2 (April 2013): 163-190. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43284178.

More Resources

• Arora, Jagdish Krishanlal. The Nobel Prize and Its Global Influence. Independently Published, 2025.
• Elton, Lewis. “Einstein, General Relativity, and the German Press, 1919-1920.” Isis 77, no. 1 (March 1986): 95-103. https://www.jstor.org/stable/232505.
• Greene, Brian. “Why He Matters.” Scientific American 313, no. 3 (September 2015): 34-37.
• Pais, Abraham. “Knowledge and Belief: The Impact of Einstein’s Relativity Theory.” American Scientist 76, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 154-158. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27855069.

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

In this limbo there exists a decade where culture and entertainment stretched their wings, while politics and the quest for military dominance tried desperately to catch their breaths. Communication technologies such as radio broadcasts and rudimentary motion pictures became integrated into the public sphere, thus allowing previously unseen aspects of society to be shared across not only the urban/rural divide, but also across continents. This led to the creation of leisure culture, at least amongst individuals who had successfully ridden the waves of the industrial revolution and war bond payouts into economic stability. Affluent communities and an emerging profession class supported an enlarged entertainment market, which actually helped art forms typically associated with disadvantaged populations, such as jazz, gain substantial footing and relevance. Ultimately, many of my preconceptions about the 1920s revolve around this dichotomy between excessive, aimless wealth, and blossoming exposure for lesser acknowledged aspects of culture, which had long been deemed irrelevant to national identities.

The images that immediately come up on Google for “the 1920s” definitely corroborate a boom in the entertainment industry, while also highlighting the domestic political context through events like prohibition and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The sheer number of people depicted in the photos signifies that the decade is broadly remembered for developments that affected individuals, and not amorphous national identities or geopolitical ideologies. However, one caveat to that can be seen in the countless images of American flags being strung around cars, street posts, dance halls, and other public settings. While my first impressions were largely guided by an understanding of global history throughout the first half of the 20th century, zooming into the United States points to the genesis of the country’s cultural identity. From jazz clubs to anti-communist rallies, to the first “movie stars,” the decade witnessed the popularization of much of what would go on to define America on the global stage.

One through line that I see amongst all the images of luxurious ballrooms, steadfast picket lines, and unique modes of transportation is a struggle to make peace with the pace of a modernizing world. After the rush of the industrial revolution and the horror of World War I, humanity was uncertain, if not utterly fearful of where technological advances and global political integration would lead. Immersed in this gentle unease I find my current understanding of the decade, and numerous informative parallels to our own contemporary, “Roaring Twenties.”

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.