Why do you think we call the decade of the 1920’s “The Roaring Twenties”? Make a list of all you know about this time period…include in your list events, products, and trends that became popular in the 1920s.

MODEL T FLAPPER SHORT DRESSES BOBBED HAIR MOVIES/RADIO POST WAR LABOR

TENSIONS SPEAKEASIES PROHIBITION JAZZ THE GREAT MIGRATION MASS CULTURE

SCOPES TRIAL RECREATION HARLEM RENAISSANCE CONSUMERISM POST WAR FARM

PROBLEMS IMMIGRATION

DISCRIMINATION RED SCARE KU KLUX KLAN SACCO & VANZETTI LEOPOLD AND LOEB

The Roaring 20’s – Areas of Study Government Business Fundamentalism vs. Modernism New Mass Culture

Government A return to “Normalcy”

No new Progressive reforms Pro-Business (“The Business of America is Business” –Coolidge) Smaller Government Republican control of executive and legislative branches

Corruption in Government Teapot Dome Scandal rocked the White

House Presidents of the 1920’s

Harding, Coolidge and Hoover

Business Booming: Everyone and their mother

seemed to be making money. Consumer Revolution: many new products

for consumers to buy.

"

“ I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."

– Henry Ford

After World War I people in the US were feeling happy to be alive and at peace - a period of optimism and excitement developed in the United States… First shopping mall was built First fast food chain - A&W Root Beer Stands Appliances were all the rage—radios,

washing machines, telephones, cars Companies spent $1.5 billion on

advertising in 1927 alone! Ford built his automobile empire (the 15

millionth Model T rolled off the assembly line in May, 1927)

People began to buy on credit

The Economy of the Late 1920s General feeling that

“Everybody ought to be rich,” so no help for minorities, poor, immigrants…progressive era over.

200 large companies controlled 49% of all American industry

2% of population controlled 60% of the wealth

Factory wages up, but unions in decline

Farm prices fell after WWI because of overproduction; farmers not able to repay their wartime expansion debts

Income Distribution, 19291

5

29

65

$10,000 and Over $5,000-$9,999

$2,000-$4,999 $1,999 and under

Tradition vs. Modernism

The Cultural struggle between Traditionalism and Modernism Traditionalism : “The way we have always done it”

Associated with fundamentalist religion, anti-immigrant sentiment, racism, country life, and conservative social and cultural ways

Modernism: “Out with the old, in with the new”

Associated with science, consumerism, art deco, the Jazz Age, the Flapper, the Charleston, Youth rebellion (especially against sexual taboos), radio and sports as entertainment, city life

ENTRY # 37Changing Gender RolesContrast the women in these two drawings. Take

a few minutes to write down as many differences as you can. When I tell you, share what you have written with the person next to you.

Victorian Woman Jazz Age Woman

New Mass Culture

Because of the new technology of Radio and movies all Americans began to watch and listen to the same things: mass culture.

Entertainment included the creation of new heroes like baseball player Babe Ruth and football player Jim Thorpe. Hollywood and the movie business

made going to the movies a national habit -

Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplain, Louise

Brooks were big box office draws.

The Harlem Renaissance showcased African-American culture in music, art, literature, & poetry – became popular with both whites and blacks. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes were big names of the Harlem Renaissance

Modernism of the 20’s and into the 40’s introduced more abstract features into the art of the time. Images were meant to represent an emotion or a subject matter, rather than just recording an image (that is what photography is for!). Realism in art depicted the world at the time and commented on the struggles of modern, industrial society.

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. He often depicted the loneliness of industrial life.

Nighthawks

Gas Station

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city.

Brooklyn Bridge, by Joseph Stella

More Joseph Stella pieces

By-Products Plant Factory Buildings

Georgia O’Keefe

Saints, Warriors, Tigers, Lovers, Flowers, Art

Blue and Green Music

Often referred to as the writers of the “Lost Generation”, the writers of the 1920’s reflected a general disillusionment of the conservative Victorian Era and commented on the modern society of their day.

Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms), and Sinclair Lewis (Main Street) wrote about the Jazz Age, Post-war disillusionment and small-town life, respectively.