The early years of U.S. Navy aircraft carrier operations and aircraft:
The first carrier, the USS Langley was converted from an auxiliary ship and was small and slow but provided valuable experience in operating airplanes from a ship at sea. The next two were converted battle cruisers that had been laid down, then cancelled well before completion; the USS Lexington and USS Saratoga were the largest carriers in the world when commissioned in the 1920s.
Thye 1920s were a period of experimentation: What kind of aircraft would be most effective? How many could be accommodated on the carrier? Initial planning was for three types of carrier aircraft: torpedo bombers to attack an enemy fleet, scouts to search for enemy ships and fighters to protect the fleet against enemy air attack. Not until about 1930 were the aircraft strong enough to undertake dive bombing -- an almost vertical dive with a 500- or 1,000-lb bomb with a high-G pullout at low level after dropping the bomb.
The Old Guard battleship admirals saw aircraft as useful for scouting and observation, i.e, finding the enemy fleet and then spotting the fall of shells and correcting the aim of battleship guns. The aviators soon realized that the carrier and its aircraft were a potent weapon on their own.
The first carrier aircraft were flimsy and crude by later standards. At first, Boeing dominated the Navy fighter market, although Curtiss produced some fighters as well. By the 1930s, Grumman fighters became the standard, partly due to retractable landing gear. By the mid/late-1930s, it became clear that monoplanes were the future; the first Navy monoplane fighter was the Brewster F2A Buffalo.
The other main type was the torpedo bomber. Douglas, Curtiss and then Martin dominated the biplane torpedo bombers. By the late 1930s, the Douglas TBD Devastator monoplane replaced earlier types.
Rounding out the early air groups were scouting planes and Vought dominated this type.
The first dive bomber was the Martin BM, which could double as a scouting airplane. Later dive bombers were designated scout bombers, reflecting their dual purpose.
Here's a brief video of landing operations on the Langley:
This era is also known as the "yellow wing" period, as the aircraft had yellow upper wing surfaces; they also had very colorful markings with tail colors indicating which aircraft carrier they were assigned to and engine cowling and fuselage stripes indicating squadrons.
Two of the aircraft in service pre-WW2 saw action in early combat and were slaughtered: The F2A monoplane fighter and the TBD monoplane torpedo bomber did not fare well in early operations. Fortunately, better airplanes were coming soon.