Astrology in the United States

In the United States, a surge of interest in astrology took place between 1900 through 1949. A popular astrologer based in New York City named Evangeline Adams helped feed the public's thirst for astrology readings. A court case involving Adams, who was arrested and charged with illegal fortune-telling in 1914 – was later dismissed when Adams correctly read the horoscope of the judge's son with only a birthdate. Her acquittal set an American precedent that if astrologers practiced in a professional manner they were not guilty of any wrong-doing.

The hunger for astrology in the earliest years of the 20th century by such astrologers as Alan Leo, Sepharial (also known as Walter Gorn Old), "Paul Cheisnard" and Charles Carter, among others, further led the surge of interest in astrology by wide distribution of astrological journals, text, papers, and textbooks of astrology throughout the United States.

In the period between 1920 and 1940 the popular media fed the public interest in astrology. Publishers realized that millions of readers were interested in astrological forecasts and the interest grew ever more intense with the advent of America's entry into the First World War. The war heightened interest in astrology. Journalists began to write articles based on character descriptions and astrological "forecasts" were published in newspapers based on the one and only factor known to the public: the month and day of birth, as taken from the position of the Sun when a person is born. The result of this practice led to modern-day publishing of Sun-Sign astrology columns and expanded to some astrological books and magazines in later decades of the 20th century.