LIFE IN THE TWENTIES

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LIFE IN THE TWENTIES
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FUNDAMENTALISM VS. SCIENCE

• Fundamentalism grew in reaction to new modern
  values
• Promoted temperance, strict interpretation of
  Bible and

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PROHIBITION

• 18th Amendment developed in response to
  temperance movt.
• Alcoholism declined.
• Alcohol related deaths declined.
• But ended in 1933- repealed with 21st Amendment.

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SPEAKEASIES, BOOTLEGGERS AND ORGANIZED CRIME

• Bootleggers sold alcohol to speakeasies and
  individuals, often part of criminal gangs
• Criminal gangs branched out to seize control of
• Gambling establishments
• Prostitution
• Protection

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THE NEW WOMEN

• More worked but still faced discrimination
• Marriage increasingly became about love
• Flappers became a symbol of women who rebelled
  against convention

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EDUCATION

• Expanded due to immigration, prosperity and need
  for educated workers
• Increased funding
• Broader focus

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ENTERTAINMENT

• Many Americans had bigger paychecks to pay for
  leisure activities.
• Decreased work hours meant more free time for
• Sports
• Games and Pastimes
• Vacations

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ERA OF WONDERFUL NONSENSE
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MASS MEDIA

• Improved technology and education, growing
  leisure time, and sensational stories helped
  create mass national media
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Radio

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Advertising
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RADIO

• 1920- KDKA Pittsburgh starts radio broadcasts.
• 1929- 800 stations are reaching 10 million people
• 1923-1930- 60 of Americans purchase a radio

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MOVIES

• Prior to the 1920, movie theaters (nickelodeons)
  attracted working-class and immigrants.
• By the 1920s, theaters become move lavish
• Led to growing importance of celebrities

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TALKIES

• Before the 1920s, films were silent
• First talking movie aired in 1927- The Jazz Singer

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FILM SUBJECTS

• Film reflected new ways as well as remaining
  traditional norms

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LITERATURE

• 1920s were rich in literature
• Focused on modern issues of the time

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ART

• Movts. included art deco, realism, surrealism,
  dadaism, expressionism, and Harlem Renaissance

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Max Webers The Fisherman (1919)
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Georgia OKeeffes Radiator Building- Night (1927)
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Georgia OKeefes Two Calla Lilies on Pink (1928)
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Louis Lozowicks Tanks 1
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Edward Hoppers Chop Suey (1929)
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THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

• A flowering of black art, music, literature and
  intellectualism
• Black is beautiful

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WHEN THE NEGRO WAS IN VOGUE

• The 1920s were the years of Manhattans black
  Renaissance
• White people began to come to Harlem in droves.
  For several years they packed the expensive
  Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never
  there because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club
  for gangsters and monied whitesNor did ordinary
  Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward
  Harlem after sundown, flooding little cabarets
  and bars where formerly only colored people
  laughed and sang, and where now the strangers
  were given the best ringside tables to sit and
  stare at the Negro customers- like amusing
  animals in a zoo.
• The Negroes said We cant go downtown and sit
  and stare in your clubs. You wont even let us in
  your clubs. But they didnt say it too loud- for
  Negroes are practically never rude to white
  people
• It was a period when, at almost every Harlem
  upper-crust dance party, one would be introduced
  to various distinguished white celebrities there
  as guests. It was a period when almost any Harlem
  Negro of any social importance at all would be
  likely to say casuallyAs I said to George-,
  referring to George GershwinIt was a period when
  Charleston preachers opened up shouting churches
  as sideshows for white tourists. It was a period
  when at least one charming colored chorus girl,
  amber enough to pass for a Latin American, was
  living in a penthouse, with all her bills paid by
  a gentleman whose name was bankers magic on Wall
  Street. It was a period when every season there
  was at least one hit play on Broadway acted by a
  Negro cast. And when books by Negro authors were
  being published with much greater frequency and
  much more publicity than ever before or since in
  history. It was a period when white writers wrote
  about Negroes more successfully (commercially
  speaking) than Negroes did about themselves. It
  was the period (God helps us!) when Ethel
  Barrymore appeared inn blackface in Scarlet
  Sister Mary! It was a period when the Negro was
  in vogue.
• - from Langston Hughes, The Big Sea An
  Autobiography (New York Hill Wang, 1940)

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Aaron Douglass Sahdji (1925) and Gods
Tombstones (1926)
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Palmer C. Haydens Bal Jeunesse (1927)
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Archibald Motleys Cocktails (1926)
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THE JAZZ AGE

• Jazz blended ragtime and blues
• Americans buy 100 million phonograph records in
  1927
• Many visited jazz nightclubs too

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HARLEM RENAISSANCE WRITERS
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Did You Know?

• The peanut butter and jelly sandwich became
  famous in 1922.
• The first Miss America contest was held on
  September 8, 1921.
• Mickey Mouse first debuted in 1928 in Steamboat
  Willie
• The average salary was 1,324 and a dozen eggs
  cost 44, the average house cost 7,809, the
  average car cost 265 and a gallon of gas cost
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