Postwar Social Changes

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Postwar Social Changes

• Chapter 13
• Section 1

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Society and Culture

• As a reaction to WWI, society and culture in the
  USA and elsewhere underwent rapid changes
• During the 1920s, new technologies helped create
  a mass culture and to connect people around the
  world
• American culture was characterized by a greater
  freedom and willingness to experiment

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Jazz AgeWomen Liberation

• One symbol of this new age was jazz
• Another symbol was the liberated young woman
  called the flapper, a woman who rejected old ways
  in favor of new freedoms
• Labor-saving devices freed women from household
  chores
• In this new era of emancipation, women pursued
  careers

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Louis ArmstrongA Well Known Jazz Musician
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The term flapper in the 1920s referred to a "new
breed" of young women who wore short skirts,
bobbed their hair, listened to what was then
considered unconventional music and flaunted
their disdain for what was then considered
"decent" behavior. The flappers were seen as
brash in their time for wearing excessive makeup,
drinking hard liquor, treating sex in a more
casual manner, smoking cigarettes, driving
automobiles, and otherwise flouting conventional
social and sexual norms.
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ProhibitionSpeakeasies

• Not everyone approved of the freer lifestyle of
  the Jazz Age
• For example, Prohibition (period of banned
  drinking, manufacturing, and selling of alcohol)
  was meant to keep people from the negative
  effects of drinking
• Instead, it brought about organized crime and
  speakeasies (illegal bars where patrons had to
  speak and drink easy or softly to avoid being
  heard by the authorities)

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Prohibition
Prohibition In the United States (19201933) was
the era during which the United States
Constitution outlawed the manufacture, transport,
and sale of alcoholic beverages. The term also
refers to legal prohibitions against alcohol
imposed by its various states, and the
surrounding social-political movements advocating
the passage of prohibition. Selling,
manufacturing, or transporting (including
importing and exporting) alcohol for beverage
purposes was prohibited by the Eighteenth
Amendment.
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Prohibition
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Speakeasy
A speakeasy was an establishment that was used
for selling and drinking alcoholic beverages
during the period of United States history known
as Prohibition (1920-1933, longer in some
states), when the sale, manufacture, and
transportation of alcohol was illegal. The term
comes from a patron's manner of ordering alcohol
without raising suspicion a bartender would
tell a patron to be quiet and "speak easy".
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Literature

• New literature reflected a powerful disgust with
  war
• To some postwar writers, the way symbolized the
  moral breakdown of Western civilization
• Other writers experimented with stream of
  consciousness a writer presents a characters
  random thoughts and feelings without imposing any
  logic or order
• Some notable authors of this period include T.S.
  Eliot, James Joyce, and Langston Hughes

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Harlem Renaissance

• In the cultural movement called the Harlem
  Renaissance, African American artists and writers
  expressed pride in their culture and explored
  their experiences in their work (a cultural
  awakening)

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Christian Fundamentalism

• Christian fundamentalism support traditional
  Christian ideas about Jesus and believe that all
  of the events described in the bible are
  literally true
• Fundamentalist preachers traveled around the USA
  and held spiritual revival meetings
• The radio was used to spread fundamentalist
  teachings in the early 1900s
• Some people, however, did not believe that the
  events in the bible are literally true

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Scopes Trial

• A biology teacher, John Scopes, was placed on
  trial for teaching evolution in his classroom
  instead of creationism in 1925 in violation of a
  Tennessee law
• Scopes was found guilty in this famous trial (aka
  The Scopes Monkey Trial)
• The Scopes Trial showed the strength of Christian
  fundamentalism sweeping across the country
• The case was thus seen as both a theological
  (religious) contest and a trial on the veracity
  of modern science regarding the
  creation-evolution controversy

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The Scopes Trial
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Scientific Discoveries

• New scientific discoveries challenged long-held
  ideas
• Marie Curie and others found that atoms of
  certain elements spontaneously release charged
  particles
• Albert Einstein argued that measurements of space
  and time are not absolute
• Italian physicist Enrico Fermi discovered atomic
  fission
• Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming discovered
  penicillin in 1928, a nontoxic mold that killed
  bacteria to treat infections and diseases

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Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)
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Albert Einstein
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Scientific Discoveries

• Sigmund Freud pioneered psychoanalysis, a method
  of studying how the mind works and treating
  mental illness

Dr. Sigmund Freud
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Western Artists

• In the early 1900s, many Western artists rejected
  traditional styles that tried to reproduce the
  real world
• For example, Vasily Kandinskys work was called
  abstract
• It was composed of only of lines, colors, and
  shapessometimes with no recognizable subject

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In his own words, "Composition VII" was the
most complex piece he ever painted (Kandinsky
1913)
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Composition X. For the background of his last
great composition, painted during WWII, Kandinsky
selected black, the colour of death. (Kandinsky
1939)
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Western Artists

• Dada artists rejected tradition and believed that
  there was no sense or truth in the world
• Another movement, surrealism, tried to portray
  the workings of the unconscious mind
• In architecture, Bauhaus buildings based on form
  and function featured glass, steel, and concrete,
  but little ornamentation

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Surrealism
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Dada

• Dada thought that reason and logic had led people
  into the horrors of war (World War I), so the
  only route to salvation was to reject logic and
  embrace anarchy and irrationality
• If the world was so logical and rational, how can
  it be that the world became involved in such a
  destructive, terrible war?

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Bauhaus Architecture
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Powerpoint Questions

• 1. What term was given that banned the
  manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol?
• 2. What were women called who challenged
  traditional norms of behavior and sought new
  freedoms in society?
• 3. Shhhh.dont speak so loud in herespeak and
  drink softly.because you are in a ________
• 4. a method of studying how the mind works and
  treating mental illness is called ___________.
• 5. Bacterial infections were reduced by the
  discovery of _______________.

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Powerpoint Questions

• 6. Identify the cultural movement that expressed
  pride in the African-American community.
• 7. What did Marie Curie discover?
• 8. What did Dada artists reject and believe about
  the world?
• 9. How would you describe abstract art?
• 10. Which new popular musical style emerged in
  the post-World War I era?

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The End