Year 1820 Fun Facts, Trivia, and Historical Events

This quick read presents a collection of fun facts, trivia, and historical events from the year 1820. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, historic firsts, famous birthdays, retail prices, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. President of the United States: James Monroe (DR-Virginia)
2. Vice President: Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-New York)
3. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: John Marshall (Virginia)
4. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Henry Clay (DR-Kentucky)—Until October 28
5. Speaker of the House of Representatives: John W. Taylor (DR-New York)—Starting November 15
6. In 1820, the 16th U.S. Congress was in session. Both chambers—the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives—had a Democratic-Republican majority.
7. Unemployment rate: A precise unemployment rate for 1820 does not exist. However, in the aftermath of the Panic of 1819, there was a sharp rise in unemployment across the United States. For example, an estimated 50,000 people in major U.S. cities—including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and New Orleans—were either unemployed or sporadically employed.
8. Inflation rate: -7.87%
9. Consumer price index (CPI): 11.700
10. $100.00 in 1820 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2,770.27 today, “representing an increase of $2,670.27 over the past 206 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 1.63% per year between 1820 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 2,670.27%. This means that today's prices are 27.70 times as high as average prices since 1820, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. A dollar today only buys 3.610% of what it could buy back then.” In other words, the U.S. dollar has lost about 96% of its value since 1820.
11. American companies and brands established in 1820 included the Heritage Restoration and Design Studio and the Rose Law Firm.
12. In 1820, about 75% of Americans were involved in agriculture, compared to an estimated 90% in 1800. Back then, most farms had enough land to feed one family, which was about 10 acres.
13. Farming practices in the U.S. varied by region. For example, the Northeast focused on “diversified agriculture” to support growing urban areas like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. On the other hand, the South “experienced a boom in cotton production fueled by the cotton gin and slave labor.”
14. The U.S. population in 1820 was 9,638,453, of which 1,538,022 were slaves.
15. The 10 most populated states were New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Maryland.
16. The five least populated states in descending order were Alabama, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Delaware, and Illinois.
17. According to 1820 U.S. Census data, the five states with the highest number of slaves were Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. On the other hand, the five states with no enslaved individuals were Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Vermont.
18. The 15 most populated U.S. cities were New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Charleston (South Carolina), Northern Liberties (a neighborhood in North Philadelphia), Southwark (a neighborhood in South Philadelphia), Washington, DC, Salem (Massachusetts), Albany (New York), Richmond (Virginia), Providence (Rhode Island), Cincinnati, and Portland (Maine). (Just so you know, Northern Liberties and Southwark both became part of the City of Philadelphia in 1854.)
19. In 1820, there were 23 U.S. states. In order of admission to the Union, they were Delaware (1787), Pennsylvania (1787), New Jersey (1787), Georgia (1788), Connecticut (1788), Massachusetts (1788), Maryland (1788), South Carolina (1788), New Hampshire (1788), Virginia (1788), New York (1788), North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), and Maine (1820).
20. During 1820, the United States was in the midst of the Panic of 1819, a major economic crisis that lasted until 1823. During the financial downturn, the growth in commerce that followed the War of 1812 ended, agricultural prices dropped, numerous banks failed, mortgages were foreclosed, and unemployment rose nationwide. Multiple factors contributed to the panic, including the role played by the Second Bank of the United States, which began to “aggressively” call in loans and “demand repayment in gold and silver, causing further instability among state banks that had relied on issuing banknotes.”
21. On January 27, Russian explorers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev were likely the first human beings to sight the continent of Antarctica. They were soon followed by British Royal Navy officer Edward Bransfield (January 30) and American explorer, ship captain, and seal hunter Nathaniel Palmer (November 17 or 18).
22. On February 1, Jean Étienne de Boré, a Creole French planter who invented the sugar granulating process, passed away.
23. On March 3, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, which “was federal legislation that maintained the Congressional balance between slave and free states by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It also prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30′ parallel.”
24. On March 6, President Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise into law.
25. On March 15, Maine became the 23rd U.S. state.
26. On April 20, Congress passed the Land Act of 1820, which reduced the price of land in the Northwest Territory and the Missouri Territory to $1.25 per acre, down from $2.00. It also reduced the minimum purchase size from 160 acres to 80, which required a total cash payment of $100.00. Hence, land was made more affordable for American settlers in “the West,” which included Ohio and Indiana at the time.
27. On April 21, Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted identified electromagnetism, “one of the four fundamental forces of nature.” In simple terms, electromagnetism is “the interaction between electric charges and the electric and magnetic fields they generate, essentially showing that electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin.”
28. On May 3, Congress established the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, “to give agricultural interests a dedicated, permanent voice in Congress.”
29. On May 12, Florence Nightingale, a British nurse and social reformer, was born. She founded modern nursing and is often referred to as “The Lady with the Lamp.”
30. On August 2, John Tyndall, an Irish physicist and mathematician, was born. He is remembered for explaining why the sky is blue. The discovery, “known as the Tyndall effect, proves the sky’s blue colour results from the scattering of the sun’s rays by molecules in the atmosphere.”
31. On August 14, the first eye hospital in the United States, the New York Eye Infirmary, opened in New York City.
32. On September 26, Daniel Boone, an American frontiersman who is forever associated with the exploration of Kentucky, passed away in Missouri.
33. On December 3, James Monroe was reelected as the president of the United States without a major opponent.
34. On December 20, Missouri passed a law imposing a $1.00 annual tax on unmarried men between the ages of 21 and 50. The tax was intended to increase the population, encourage marriage, and raise revenue.
35. In 1820, popular baby names for boys were Arthur, Benjamin, Eli, George, Henry, James, John, Joseph, Thomas, and William. Popular baby names for girls were Ada, Alice, Amelia, Charlotte, Clara, Cora, Elizabeth, Emma, Jane, and Lucy.
36. In terms of religious affiliation, an estimated 98% of Americans were Protestant, and major Protestant denominations included Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. There were also around 200,000 Roman Catholics living in the United States. Large numbers of Catholics lived in Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York City, and Philadelphia. Early Roman Catholic settlers were primarily from France, Germany, and Ireland, and often immigrated to the United States to escape political and economic unrest in Europe.
37. Key fiction works published during 1820 included James Fenimore Cooper’s Precaution, Louisa Stanhope’s The Crusaders, Regina Marie Roche’s The Munster Cottage Boy, Sir Walter Scott’s The Monastery, and Thomas Gaspey’s Forty Years Ago.
38. Key poems published during 1820 were John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s To a Skylark, and Robert Burns’ The Songs of Robert Burns.
39. Key dramatic works for the year included Charles Edward Walker’s Wallace and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.
40. Famous people born in 1820 included Alexander Cartwright (a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Baseball Club during the 1840s), Anna Sewell (children’s author), Ann Brontë (author), Florence Nightingale (nurse and activist), George Frederick Root (composer), Harriet Tubman (civil rights leader), Harry Hays (American Civil War hero), Jenny Lind (opera singer), Susan B. Anthony (activist), and William Loftus (geologist).
41. Notable people who died in 1820 included Benjamin West (painter), Daniel Boone (explorer), and Joseph Banks (explorer).
42. In 1820 as well, the words “bibliophile,” “boiler room,” “civil marriage,” “close shave,” “double-jointed,” “double negative,” “every which way,” “fair shake,” “knickerbocker,” “ladyfinger,” “police force,” “police station,” “Rip Van Winkle,” “St. Agnes’ Eve,” “season ticket,” “sick leave,” “soda fountain,” “stethoscope,” “sword of Damocles,” and “waterproofing” all appeared in print for the first time.
43. 12½ bushels of apples: $1.56
44. 14 pounds of honey: $1.75
45. 53 pounds of rye flour: $1.06
46. Five pounds of veal: 30 cents
47. One barrel of cider: $2.00
48. One bushel and one peck of rye: 62 cents
49. One bushel of potatoes: 40 cents
50. One dozen tacks: 12½ cents
51. One week’s board: 50 cents
52. Three bushels of corn: $1.50
53. Wages for seven days of haying: $3.50
54. Wages for splitting 80 rails: 50 cents
55. Wages for two days of mowing: $1.00

References:

1. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-timeline-1811.html
2. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1820.html
3. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/deceased/1820.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1820_in_literature
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1820_in_the_United_States
6. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1820
7. https://www.infoplease.com/history/world/1800-1899-ad-world-history
8. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1820
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_date_of_admission_to_the_Union
10. https://www.in2013dollars.com/inflation-rate-in-1820
11. https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1820?amount=1
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1820_United_States_census

Disclaimer: In writing and editing this article, Gregory DeVictor has made every effort to ensure historical accuracy and not to mislead his audience. In addition, the contents of this article, including text, graphics, and captions, are for general informational purposes only.

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor