In 1922 Charles Atlas (born Angelos Sicilano) was named "America's Most Perfectly Developed Man" in a Madison Square Garden physical culture exhibition, launching his popular mail-order body-building course.

In 1920 Mary Ritter Beard, a suffrage activist and pioneering historian of women, published A Short History of the Labor Movement. Her later works included On Understanding Women (1931), and Women As a Force in History (1946).

Gertrude Bonnin, a Native American who preferred the Indian name Zitkala-Sa — , worked tirelessly for Indian rights. In 1921, after she moved to Washington, D.C., she conducted a survey of conditions of Native Americans for the Indian Welfare Commission and thereafter worked for years for improvements in health and education and for the conservation of Indian lands.

In 1922 seventeen-year-old Clara Bow, who, during the 1920s, became a major star of films and was dubbed the "It Girl," won a fan-magazine contest for...