Download The 1920s: A New Culture

THE 1920S:
A NEW CULTURE
A New Culture
• 1920 Census: more than half of
the American population lived in
urban areas
• Culture of cities based on popular
tastes, morals, and habits
increasingly at odds with strict
religious and moral codes of rural
America
The Jazz Age
• Youth expressed their rebellion by
listening and dancing to jazz music
• Jazz became a symbol of the “new”
and “modern” culture of the cities
• The advent of phonographs and the
radio made this new style of music
available to everyone
The Radio
•
The popularity of jazz was due in large
part to the radio
•
First commercial station went on air in
1920
• By 1930, 800 stations broadcasted to
over 10 million radios
•
The creation of CBS and NBC provided
networks of stations that allowed
people from coast to coast to listen to
the same programs
The Movie Industry
•
The movie industry became big business in
the 1920s
•
Instead of politicians, the popular heroes
and role models of the decade became
movie stars and celebrities
•
The introduction of pictures with sounds
(“talkies”) took the movie industry to new
heights
•
By 1929, over 80 million tickets were sold
each week
Popular Heroes
•
In this era, Americans looked up more to
movie stars and sports celebrities than
political leaders
•
•
The most celebrated person of the decade
was Charles Lindbergh
•
•
Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe
Famous for flying nonstop across the
Atlantic from Long Island to Paris
Lindbergh’s return home was larger than
the welcome given to returning WWI
soldiers
Gender Roles & The Family
•
Passage of the 19th Amendment did not change women’s status or U.S. politics as
much as had been anticipated
•
Women who did vote just followed the voting patterns of their husbands or fathers
•
Most women were still expected to spend their lives as homemakers and women
• New labor-saving appliances like the vacuum and electric washer only reinforced this
concept
•
Employed women were still limited to certain categories of jobs (clerks, teachers,
nurses, domestic work) and received lower wages than men
A Revolution in Morals
•
Most significant change among American
youths was their revolt against sexual
taboos
•
Premarital sex was seen as one of the
inventions of the modern era
•
Movies, novels, automobiles, and new
dances all encouraged greater promiscuity
•
Advocates of birth control gained greater
acceptance in the 1920s
A Revolution in Morals
•
A special fashion called the flapper look set
young women apart from the older
generation
•
Young women shocked their elders by
wearing dresses hemmed at the knee,
wearing bobbed haircuts, smoking
cigarettes, and driving cars
•
Many young women began focusing more
on their careers before getting married
A Revolution in Morals
• The 19th Amendment gave
women more of a voice to
demand changes in divorce laws
• Made it easier to escape abusive
or incompatible husbands
• Liberalized divorce laws resulted
in one in six marriages ending in
divorce by 1930
• Up from one in eight in 1920
Literature of the 1920s
•
Two major themes in 1920s literature:
•
•
Scorning religion as hypocritical
Condemning sacrifices of WWI as a fraud
perpetrated by money interests
•
Writers and poets expressed
disillusionment with ideals of earlier time
and the materialism of the consumer
culture in the 1920s
•
These writers were known as the “lost
generation”
Art and Architecture
•
Fusion of art and technology created a new style of architecture
•
Art Deco style captured modernist simplification of forms while using machine age materials
•
Painters imitated architectural styles
•
•
Explored the loneliness and isolation of urban life; celebrated the rural people and scenes of the
heartland
On the stage, Jewish immigrants played a major role in the development of some of the
greatest American musicals
The Harlem Renaissance
•
By 1930: 20% of African Americans lived in the North
•
The largest African American community developed in Harlem, New York
• Approximately 200,000 people by 1930
•
Harlem became famous in the 1920s for its concentration of talented actors, artists,
musicians, and writers
•
Their artistic achievements during this period became known as the “Harlem
Renaissance”
The Harlem RenaissancePoets & Musicians
•
Leading poets included Countee Cullen,
Langston Hughes, Claude McKay
•
Most Renaissance poets commented on
African American heritage
•
Renaissance poetry expressed a wide
range of emotions
• Bitterness and resentment to joy and
hope
The Harlem RenaissancePoets & Musicians
•
Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and
Louis Armstrong were so popular that the
1920s was often referred to as the Jazz
Age
•
Blues signer Bessie Smith and
multitalented actor and singer Paul
Robeson were other important figures
•
Most Renaissance artists often found
themselves playing to segregated
audiences
Marcus Garvey & The UNIA
•
Garvey was a charismatic immigrant from Jamaica
•
Adopted ideas of black pride and nationalism
•
Established an organization for black separatism, selfsufficiency, and a back-to-Africa movement
•
Garvey’s investment practices got him convicted of
fraud, jailed, and eventually deported from the U.S.
•
Civil rights leaders mostly disagreed with Garvey’s
back-to-Africa idea but endorsed his emphasis on
racial pride and nationalism