Postwar Social Change
Section 1
Society in the 1920’s
We’re Starting to Roar!
• Life expectancy up
• Medical advances
• Stock market “get rich quick”
• Unemployment < 4%
• Real wages up 40% since 1914
“OLD CULTURE”
Emphasized
Production
Character
Scarcity
Religion
Idealized the Past
Local Culture
Substance
“NEW CULTURE”
Emphasized
Consumption
Personality
Abundance
Science
Looked to the Future
Mass Culture
Image
Women’s Changing Role:
• Joined the workforce
– Employers still weary about hiring a
woman for a professional position. If they
married or got pregnant they were expected
to leave their job.
• Able to vote
– 19th Amendment
– Not exercised by all women
• Women in Politics
- Lobbied successfully for SheppardTowner Act, welfare concerned with
women and children’s health issues
- ERA failed first time through (1923)
- Women won seats in the House and
also became Governors.
The Flapper!!!
• In the 1920s, a new woman was
born. She smoked, drank,
danced, and voted. She cut her
hair, wore make-up.
Demographic changes
• Rural -Urban Split
–Farmers became economically stressed
–Industry & commercial groups on the
rise
–People left the countryside for the city.
–City values differed from rural values
* Growth of suburbs:
-cities expanded to meet the need of
their growing population:
“el trains” buses
*African American’s on the move:
- passed Jim Crow Laws
- migrated to the North for better
job opportunities
- faced white hatred
• Other Migration
–Congress placed limits on
migration from: Southern and
Eastern Europe, China, and Japan.
–Mexican’s and Canadians filled
the labor shortages
–barrio’s developed
American Heroes in the 1920’s
American’s became fascinated
with icons from every aspect of
American life. The became the
role models of the time
Lucky Lindy
• Charles
Lindbergh
• 1st transatlantic
flight
• Spirit of St.
Louis
Amelia Earhart
• First solo flight
across Atlantic
• 1937 Disappeared
trying to fly around
the world
• Jack Dempsey
• Heavyweight
champion
• Jim Thorpe
• Olympian
• Babe Ruth
• Hazel
Wightman
• Olympic
Tennis.