The Jazz Age
(of The Roaring 20s)
AP English Lit. & Comp.
Roaring 20s (Jazz Age)
• The "Roaring Twenties," or Jazz Age, ushered in an
exciting era of prosperity after World War I.
• It was a time of extremes in America.
▫ Many Americans enjoyed greater opportunities for
material wealth.
▫ Others, including immigrants and minority groups,
experienced poverty and misery.
▫ In the big cities, flappers—women with short hair,
short skirts, powdered knees and makeup—came to
symbolize modern freedom.
▫ At the same time, hate groups, such as the Ku Klux
Klan, represented the worst of American culture.
The Jazz Age (Roaring 20s)
• When reading American literature from the
1920s, it's important to keep in mind the cultural
extremes of the decade.
• The literature of this era reflects both the new
sense of hope and the sense of desperation
Americans experienced at the time.
Personal Freedom & Social Change
• As a result of America's new-found affluence
following World War I, the pursuit of pleasure
became a focus of many Americans.
• However, Americans with more traditional
values—often those living in small towns—
maintained an ethic of hard work, social
conformity, and respectability. These Americans
were outraged by the cultural change they saw in
the big cities.
Social & Cultural Change
• This growing sense of outrage contributed to the
strength of the Prohibition movement in the years
leading up to the 1920s.
• The eighteenth amendment to the U.S.
Constitution—forbidding the manufacture,
transport, or sale of liquor—was ratified in 1919.
• Ironically, the amendment contributed to further
upheaval by creating a market for legally made and
transported alcohol. This market was eagerly served
by organized crime, which began to flourish during
this era.
Social & Cultural Change
• In the 1920s, automobiles changed the cultural
landscape. Henry Ford's development of
assembly-line production made cars cheap
enough for most Americans to buy.
• Americans became more and more dependent
on cars. As a result the automobile industry
created millions of jobs in highway construction
and automobile plants.
• For many, owning a car became a symbol of
freedom and prosperity.
Social & Cultural Change
• In addition to automobiles, Americans began buying
large consumer appliances, including washing
machines, refrigerators, electric irons, and stoves.
• These purchases transformed the household. Tasks,
such as laundry or cooking, could be completed
much faster with the new appliances. Women of the
era were no longer confined to the home.
• Post-war prosperity also led to a relaxation of sexual
norms for women. Fashionable young women,
known as flappers, shocked contemporary society
with their short hairdos and knee-length skirts.
Social & Cultural Change - Women
• Women in the 1920s flew in the face of what society
thought they should be; many openly smoked, drank,
and swore.
• At the same time, more American women worked
outside the home and went to college than at any other
time in the country's history.
• Many male writers of the time, including Ernest
Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot,
interpreted the so-called "New Woman" as a sign of
social breakdown.
• In The Great Gatsby, for example, Fitzgerald portrays
the character Daisy as an irresponsible woman,
corrupted by wealth and the immorality of society.
The American Dream
• As a result of their newfound prosperity, many
Americans began to aspire to a certain quality of
life that had previously been unattainable.
• These aspirations may be summed up as the
American dream.
• Though there isn't a single definition of the
American dream, in the 1920s it mainly meant
achieving happiness through material gains.
The American Dream
• The dream suggested that if you worked hard
enough, you'd be rewarded with financial
success, including a house and a car.
• Though this was certainly true for some,
prosperity was unattainable for much of the
population; Blacks, immigrants, and rural
Whites were among those for whom the
American dream remained tantalizingly out of
reach.
The American Dream
• Mass production was the engine that drove the
American dream, and it had both a good and a bad
side.
▫ On the good side, it contributed to a healthy economy
and a wealthy society.
▫ On the bad side, many claimed that assembly-line
production turned individuals into robots. Assembly
lines sped up work, but also increased the pressure on
workers to go faster and faster.
▫ T.S. Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land portrays
humans of this era as zombie-like creatures.
“Americanism”
• For some, the American dream meant cultural and
racial homogeneity.
• Many Americans favored isolationism - the desire to
stay out of affairs of other nations.
▫ In part, isolationism was a reaction to America's
involvement in World War I.
▫ However, it was also fueled by anti-immigrant
hostility.
• Many Americans supported "100 percent
Americanism" during this time.
▫ As a result, the government passed several quota acts
in the 1920s to limit immigration of non-whites and
immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Race & Culture Conflicts
• Mainstream America's fear of immigrants came to a
head in the famous Sacco-Vanzetti Case.
▫ Following a murder and payroll robbery at a shoe
factory, eyewitnesses claimed that Italians were
responsible.
▫ Police arrested two Italian-born men known for their
radical anarchist activism, Sacco and Venzetti.
▫ They were convicted on flimsy evidence and sentenced
to death.
▫ The Judge in the case referred to the defendants off
the record as "those damned anarchists."
▫ Their trial and subsequent execution in 1927 spurred
international protests.
Race & Culture Conflicts
• Anti-Semitism, was also prevalent at this time.
▫ Anti-Semitism is discriminatory speech or behavior directed
against Jews.
• Jews were discriminated against in housing and employment.
▫ Colleges and medical schools had quotas restricting the
admission of Jews. The man responsible for the assembly-line
production of cars, Henry Ford Sr., was one of those responsible
for promoting anti-Semitic views.
▫ He published the four-volume work, The International Jew: the
World's Foremost Problem, in 1918. He argued that powerhungry Jews were trying to take over the world through economic
control.
▫ After several years of protests by prominent Jewish groups, Ford
finally apologized in 1927.
Race & Culture Conflicts
• In this climate of suspicion of anyone outside the
mainstream, the racist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan,
regained national prominence in the 1920s.
▫ In 1920, the group had about 2000 members. By 1923,
that number had skyrocketed to several million.
▫ The group targeted Catholics in the West and Midwest,
Jews in the East, African Americans in the South, and
immigrants everywhere.
▫ The Klan claimed these groups posed a threat to
American purity and terrorized them with acts of
violence.
Film
• Arts and literature flourished in the 1920s as people
had more leisure time to fill with activities.
• Silent movies were incredibly popular, as were the
Hollywood scandals promoted by the rapid growth
of tabloid newspapers and magazines.
▫ Eighty percent of Americans went to the silent movies
each week to watch performances by Charlie Chaplin,
Rudolph Valentino, and Mary Pickford.
• In 1927, the movies experienced a revolutionary
change. Al Jolson ushered in this new era by
proclaiming, "you ain't heard nothing yet" in the
first motion picture with sound, The Jazz Singer.
Music
• As the name of this era suggests, jazz was the dominant music
of the time.
• Jazz was a fusion of the European classical tradition and
African American music, and first emerged in New Orleans.
▫ Jazz quickly spread to large northern cities including Chicago and
New York. The music was nothing less than a revolution in sound
that challenged traditional conceptions of what music should be.
• Although many in the 1920s were scandalized by jazz, it was
considered quite fashionable among listeners of all races.
▫ White listeners often journeyed to Harlem jazz clubs to hear this
new form of music.
▫ Jazz composers and performers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington, Bessie Smith, and Jelly Role Morton were wildly
successful.
Harlem Renaissance
• In addition to being a mecca for jazz lovers, Harlem
was also a magnet for talented African American
writers and artists.
• In the 1920s, many Black artists wanted to
rediscover black folk culture and integrate it into
their work.
• This desire to create art that was uniquely African
American was the driving force behind the
movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
▫ Writers such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes,
Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen wrote about
the experience of Black people in America during this
time.
Langston Hughes
• One of the most famous authors from the Harlem
Renaissance, Langston Hughes incorporated the rhythms of
black music into his poetry.
• His poems most often borrowed their rhythms from jazz
music and his themes often concerned of racial protest.
• Unlike Jane Tumor and Countee Cullen who worked with
purely literary forms Hughes wanted to capture the oral
traditions of Black culture in his writing.
• His first book of poetry-The Weary Blues published in 1926
was quite popular. His novel-Not Without Laughter published
in 1930 secured his reputation as an artist.
• Hughes was also an activist for Black causes and was well
known as a journalist, playwrite, screenplay writer and poet.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Among White writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald is the
author most often associated with the 1920s.
• Fitzgerald's novels often dealt with the effect
America's materialistic culture had on people.
▫ For example, his classic novel The Great Gatsby
tells the story of a man who realizes his dream of
material success, only to become disillusioned
with the empty life he's created for himself.
Earnest Hemingway
• Ernest Hemingway, a close friend of Fitzgerald's,
also wrote about disillusionment and betrayal in
his novels and short stories.
• Wounded in the World War I while working in
the ambulance corp, Hemingway found it
difficult to readjust after returning home.
• Hemingway became an international celebrity
after the publication of his first novel, The Sun
Also Rises, in 1926.
Women
• Women writers also had a voice during the jazz age.
• Nella Larsen, one of the most important writers of the
Harlem Renaissance, addressed the theme of how the
American dream applied to African Americans.
▫ She explored the line between African American culture
and white culture in the 1920s, and wrote about the
phenomenon of light-skinned African Americans who
"passed" for white.
• Jewish writer Anzia Yezerskia also explored the
American dream—and how it related to the immigrant
experience.
▫ Her short stories and novels dealt with Jewish assimilation
in America, including gender and cultural conflicts faced by
traditional European families new to America.
Summary
• When reading American literature from the 1920s,
it's important to keep in mind the extremes
characterizing this era.
▫ Great prosperity for some, poverty and misery for
others.
▫ Prohibition, organized crime.
▫ Isolationism, “Americanism”, and Racism
• More leisure time for music (Jazz) and films.
• African American artists flourished in the Harlem
Renaissance.
• The development of the idea of the American Dream