Intro to the 1920s
Where in history is the 20’s
located
1918 – World War I ends
1919-1929 – The Roaring Twenties
Oct. 29, 1929 – The start of the
Great Depression
The roaring twenties are
remembered as a time of great
technological advancement,
prosperity and social change.
What happened in the
Twenties?
 1920 – The 19th Amendment give women the right to vote and
prohibits the sale of alcohol (not the consumption)
 1924 – The Scopes Trial begins and would later convict John T.
Scopes of teaching Darwin’s evolutionary theory.
 1927 – The Jazz Singer is the first talking motion picture
 1927 – Charles Lindbergh makes the first non-stop transatlantic
flight in history
 1928 – Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse makes his first appearance in
Steamboat Willie
 1929 – In Chicago, Illinois gangsters working for Al Capone kill
seven rivals in an act known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
 1929 – Postwar prosperity ends in the 1929 Stock Market Crash to
bring about the Great Depression.
What is the 1920s?
 The popular image of the 1920s, as a decade of
prosperity and riotous living and of bootleggers and
gangsters, flappers and hot jazz, flagpole sitters, and
marathon dancers, is indelibly etched in the American
psyche
 The decade witnessed a titanic struggle between an
old and a new America. Immigration, race, alcohol,
evolution, gender politics, and sexual morality--all
became major cultural battlefields during the 1920s.
 The 1920s was a decade of profound social changes.
The most obvious signs of change were the rise of a
consumer-oriented economy and of mass
entertainment, which helped to bring about a
"revolution in morals and manners." Sexual mores,
gender roles, hair styles, and dress all changed
profoundly during the 1920s
Can you spot the differences in these two
photos?
Victorian woman in mid 19th
century
Flapper in the roaring 20’s
Changes in the 1920’s
 The 1920s was a change from the strict moral and
social codes of the Victorian age.
 Women, especially, gained more freedom and
independence than ever before.
 Many women moved out on their own for the first time
into big cities, made their own living and rode around
in cars with boys without a chaperone.
 Many Victorian parents were shocked and appalled
by their children’s fashions and interests. They struggled
to understand and accept the changes.
 They had the same worries and concerns as parents
today. In fact they blamed much of the problem on
movies, books and magazines.
The Flapper
 This girl would have been known in the
1920s as a flapper.
 Flapper – initially described the sort of
teenage girl whose gawky frame and
posture were “supposed to need a
certain type of clothing – long, straight
lines to cover her awkwardness – and
the stores advertised these gowns as
‘flapper-dresses.’ “
 Webster’s Dictionary defined the flapper
as “A young girl, esp. one somewhat
daring in conduct, speech and dress.”
 By the early 1920s the term flapper
described a very notorious type of
woman who bobbed her hair, smoked
cigarettes, drank gin, sported short skirts,
and passed her evenings in steamy jazz
clubs where she danced in a shockingly
immodest fashion with a revolving cast
of male suitors.
Several characters in the Great
Gatsby are flappers.Jordan Baker, a
famous golfer
and friend of
Daisy’s, is a
flapper as well.
Daisy Buchanan is Nick
Carraway’s cousin and
although she is married she is still
Myrtle Wilson is a
wannabe –
flapper. She
doesn’t have the
money or means
to be the real
thing.
Prohibition
 Led by the Anti-Saloon League and the
Women's Christian Temperance Union, the
dry forces had triumphed by linking
Prohibition to a variety of Progressive era
social causes
 The wording of the 18th Amendment
banned the manufacture and sale (but not
the possession, consumption, or
transportation) of "intoxicating liquors.”
 Prohibition failed because it was
unenforceable.
 During prohibition people found ways
around the law by going to speakeasies
(underground night clubs that served
liquor) or by making their own
(moonshine).
 In 1927, there were an estimated 30,000
illegal speakeasies--twice the number of
legal bars before Prohibition. Many people
made beer and wine at home. It was
relatively easy finding a doctor to sign a
prescription for medicinal whiskey sold at
drugstores.
Organized Crime
 Prohibition likely led to
sharp increase of
organized crime
 Successful bootleggers
made millions
 Crime bosses like Al
Capone or the fictional
Meyer Wolfsheim held
power and were called
“untouchables.”
Race becomes a major issue
 Although race is not mentioned
directly in the Great Gatsby. The
character Tom Buchanan,
Daisy’s husband, is considered a
racist. He makes several
comments throughout the book
about people’s race.
 In the 1920’s race issues began
to escalate as the Great
Migration occurred. African
Americans began to move
North and into major cities. Their
culture helped to bring about
the jazz age and much of the
music and dancing during the
area.
Al Jolson dressed in
“blackface” to portray
African-American jazz artists
Consumer Economy
 Keeping up with the Jones was
started in the 1920s.
 The growth of exciting new
opportunities to buy cars,
appliances, and stylish clothing
made the country's cultural
conflicts seem less significant.
 Americans in the 1920s were the
first to wear ready-made, exactsize clothing. They were the first to
play electric phonographs, to use
electric vacuum cleaners, to
listen to commercial radio
broadcasts, and to drink fresh
orange juice year round.
Automobiles create a new culture
 The cost of a new Ford was reduced to just $290. This amount
was less than three months wages for an average American
worker; it made cars affordable for the average family.
 Alfred Sloan creator of GM was convinced that Americans were
willing to pay extra for luxury and prestige. He advertised his cars
as symbols of wealth and status.. He set up the nation's first
national consumer credit agency in 1919 to make his cars
affordable.
 Cars revolutionized the American way of life.
 Enthusiasts claimed that the automobile promoted family togetherness
through evening rides, picnics, and weekend excursions.
 Critics decried squabbles between parents and teenagers over use of
the automobile and an apparent decline in church attendance
resulting from Sunday outings.
 Worst of all, charged critics, automobiles gave young people freedom
and privacy, serving as "portable bedrooms" that couples could take
anywhere.
Media - Music
 The blues craze erupted in 1920
when a black singer named
Mamie Smith released a
recording called "Crazy Blues."
The record became a
sensation, selling 75,000 copies
in a month and a million copies
in seven months.
 "Hillbilly" music broke into mass
culture in 1923 when a Georgia
singer named "Fiddlin' John"
Carson sold 500,000 copies of
his recordings. Another country
artist, Vernon Dalhart, sold 7
million copies of a recording of
"The Wreck of Old 97.”
Media - Sports
 Spectator sports attracted vast
audiences in the 1920s.
 Baseball drew even bigger crowds
than football. The decade began,
however, with the sport mired in
scandal.
 But baseball soon regained its
popularity, thanks to George
Herman ("Babe") Ruth, the sport's
undisputed superstar.
Media - Literature
 Few decades have produced as many great works of art, music,
or literature as the 1920s. At the decade's beginning, American
culture stood in Europe's shadow. By the decade's end,
Americans were leaders in the struggle to liberate the arts from
older canons of taste, form, and style.
 It was during the 1920s that Eugene O'Neill, the country's most
talented dramatist, wrote his greatest plays, and that authors
William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and
Thomas Wolfe published their first novels.
 American poets of the 1920s, such as Hart Crane, E. E.
Cummings, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent
Millay, and Wallace Stevens, experimented with new styles of
punctuation, rhyme, and form.
 Likewise, artists like Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, and
Joseph Stella challenged the dominant realist tradition in
American art and pioneered non-representational and
expressionist art forms.
F. Scott, Zelda and Scotty Fitzgerald
were all icons in the 1920s
The Crash of 1929
On October 29,
1929, The New York
Stock Exchange
took a massive
tumble, ending the
Roaring 20’s and
beginning the
Great Depression
of the 1930’s