The Roaring 20’s
1920’s - Culture
Harlem Renaissance
 Harlem – world’s largest
black urban community
 In 1920’s became the focal
point of intellectual,
cultural, and artistic Black
community.
 Focused on what it meant
to be Black in America and
express a new pride in
African American
experience.
 Jazz and Blues became
popular music genres.
 Writers: Langston Hughes
Claude McKay
 Musicians: Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Bessie Smith
Josephine Baker
I, Too
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1552
I too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well, And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed~~
I too, am America.
Langston Hughes
Tin Pan Alley
 The collection of New York City
music publishers and




songwriters who dominated the
popular music of the U.S.
First time music was available
for home entertainment.
Famous musicians included
Scott Joplin, George Gershwin,
Cole Porter
Music was also used in
vaudeville shows
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=iKDORuUk1y0
Lost Generation
 Group of writers in the 1920’s who
https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=suEbG
3vMm2U
shared the belief that they were
lost in a greedy, materialist world
that lacked moral values, and who
often chose to flee to Europe
(Paris) because they found it more
intellectually stimulating.
 People who were disconnected
from the countries values
 Famous authors include, Ernest
Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and F. Scott
Fitzgerald
PROHIBITION – Speakeasies & Bootlegging
 A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is a club that
illegally sells alcoholic beverages.
 These clubs became popular in the United States during Prohibition
 During Prohibition, the sale, manufacture, and bootlegging
(transportation) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the
United States.
The Stork Club, a famous speakeasy in New York City
CRIME INCREASES during Prohibition
 Inevitably most of the liquor traffic fell into the hands
of gangsters, whose names we still know today.
Alphonse "Scarface Al" Capone of Chicago was only
the most notorious.
 AL CAPONE MUGSHOT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHroRBdbV1U
Women’s Roles
 Women participated in organized
campaigns for suffrage and
prohibition
 Francis Willard and Susan B. Anthony
 Benefited from increase free time
afforded to them by modern
conveniences like electricity and
appliances (vacuums,
refrigerators, washing machines,
and toasters).
 Took jobs vacated by men in WWI
 Doctors, Bankers, Lawyers,
Prohibition Officers, Social Workers,
Hairdressers
FLAPPERS
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=ddv0sLJI
1ro&feature=related
 Young unmarried women
 Smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, wore make-up, and had
shorter hair and hemlines
 Women felt more in control – hair and hemlines became
shorter.
Jazz Music
 JAZZ extremely popular in speakeasies
 New Orleans home of JAZZ
 Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCDOr6au_H8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iJdXWY7JRo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM
Radio
 Radio --- the “wireless”
By 1930, more than 12 million families
owned a radio
 KDKA first commercial radio
station---opened in Pittsburgh, 1920
 Provided instant news,
entertainment, and
advertisements
 http://www.best-
otr.com/mp3/WC_Fields.19xx.x
x.xx_The_Temperance_Lecture
.mp3
Literature- reflected pessimism
of materialistic American culture
 F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great
Gatsby
 Illustrated materialism & lack of
human concern
 Claude McKay – Harlem
Shadows
 About the racism in our culture
 T. S. Eliot – poet
 Ernest Hemingway – poet
Georgia O’Keefe - Artist
 Contrary to many artist of the
1920s, O’Keefe painted natural
objects, such as flowers, animal
bones, and landscapes.
FILM
 1927 --- first “talkie” - “The Jazz
Singer”
 Starring Al Jolson
 Charlie Chaplin – most popular film star of
1920’s
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjarLbD9r3
0
 Walt Disney – Mickey Mouse debuted in
1928
 Mickey’s first movie – Steam Boat Willie
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgg
hnQF6E4