UNIT 5
CHAPTER 20 – POSTWAR SOCIAL CHANGE
CHAPTER 21 – POLITICS AND PROSPERITY
THE ROARIN 20’s
OBJECTIVES
• CORE OBJECTIVE: Explain the social, political,
and economic impacts on the United States
after World War I.
• Objective 5.2: How did mass media, jazz, and
literature affect American life in the 1920’s?
• THEME:
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED
STATES
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George Washington; Federalist (1788)
John Adams; Federalist (1796)
Thomas Jefferson (1800)
James Madison (1808)
James Monroe (1816)
John Quincy Adams (1824)
Andrew Jackson; Democrat (1828)
Martin Van Buren; Democrat (1836)
William Henry Harrison; Whig (1840)
John Tyler; Whig (1841)
James K. Polk; Democrat (1844)
Zachary Taylor; Whig (1848)
Millard Fillmore; Whig (1850)
Franklin Pierce; Democrat (1852)
James Buchanan; Democrat (1856)
Abraham Lincoln; Republican (1860)
Andrew Johnson; Democrat (1865)
Ulysses S. Grant; Republican (1868)
Rutherford B. Hayes; Republican (1876)
James Garfield; Republican (1880)
#21 - …
Chester A. Arthur; Republican (1881)
Grover Cleveland; Democrat (1884)
Benjamin Harrison; Republican (1888)
Grover Cleveland; Democrat (1892)
William McKinley; Republican (1896)
Theodore Roosevelt; Republican
(1901)
William Howard Taft; Republican
(1908)
Woodrow Wilson; Democrat (1912)
Warren G. Harding; Republican
(1920)
Calvin Coolidge; Republican (1923)
Herbert Hoover; Republican (1928)
America: Pathways to the Present
Chapter 20: Postwar Social Change (1920–1929)
Section 1: Society in the 1920s
Section 2: Mass Media and the Jazz Age
Section 3: Cultural Conflicts
CHAPTER 20 SECTION 2
MASS MEDIA AND THE
JAZZ AGE
THE MASS MEDIA
• Mass Media, methods for communicating with
large numbers of people, helped form a
common American popular culture during the
1920’s.
• The popularity of motion pictures grew
throughout the 1920s; “talkies,” or movies with
sound, were introduced in 1927.
• Newspapers grew in both size and circulation.
• Tabloids, compact papers which replaced serious
news with entertainment, became popular.
• Magazines also became widely read.
SILENT FILM!
• Charlie Chaplin
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpjEyBKSfJQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp3uGJu-kIE
• Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMW51SLFX8&list=P
L124468B90E7A43EC
THE JAZZ AGE
• Jazz, a style of music that grew out of the African
American music of the South, became highly popular
during the 1920’s.
• Harlem, a district in Manhattan, New York, became a center of
jazz music.
• A purely American creation, relied on traditional themes from
southern communities and improvisation.
• Spread throughout America and be adopted by white musicians
and audiences.
The Jazz Age is a period in the
1920’s when jazz and dance
became popular
The spread of jazz was encouraged by
the introduction of large-scale radio
broadcasts in 1922
THE CHARLESTON
• Flappers and others heard jazz in clubs and dance
halls; the Charleston, considered by some to be a wild
and reckless dance, embodied the Jazz Age.
THE LOST GENERATION
Gertrude Stein remarked to Ernest
Hemingway that he and other
American writers were all a “Lost
Generation”
• Writers who disconnected from
their country and its values.
Soon, this term was taken up
by the flappers as well.
• Nickname given to a group of American writers
after World War I.
• Critical of American society for it’s WWI values
and materialism
• Disillusioned by the society and politics of the
1920s.
THE LOST GENERATION
BACKGROUND
• Flocked to Paris or
Greenwich Village, NY
to live cheaply and
create.
• Wanted to “escape
the conspiracy
against the
individual.”
THE LOST GENERATION
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
• From Minnesota,
attended Princeton, and
served in World War I.
• The Great Gatsby, 1925.
• Most famous work of
Fitzgerald, described the
life a modern millionaire
as being coarse,
unscrupulous, and in
love with another man’s
wife.
• Wastes his money on
parties and women.
THE LOST GENERATION
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A FAREWELL TO ARMS
• Considered one of the greatest
American novels ever.
• Discussed the confusion and
horrors of World War I.
• Summed up in the following
passage: “I was embarrassed by
the words sacred, glorious, and
sacrifice…We had…read them, on
proclamations, now for a long
time, and I had seen nothing
sacred, and the things that were
glorious had no glory and the
sacrifices were like the
stockyards in Chicago, if nothing
was done with the meat except to
bury it….Abstract words such as
glory, honor, courage were
obscene.”
THE HARLEM
RENAISSANCE
• In addition to being a center of jazz, Harlem emerged as an overall
cultural center for African Americans.
• An African American literary awakening took
place in Harlem in the 1920s that was known as
the Harlem Renaissance.
• Why Harlem?
• Largest African American city
in the world, would become the
cultural capital of African
Americans, as well as a place
for Whites to flock to
experience jazz and other
forms of African-American
culture.
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
IMPACT OF GHETTO LIFE
• Even though life was hard, it
did produce some
advantages.
• Enabled African-Americans to
elect representatives of their
own by having one solid
voting block.
• Stimulated self-confidence,
offering economic opportunity,
political rights, and freedom.
• A “black world” where AfricanAmericans could act like
themselves and develop their
own culture.
WHAT DID THEY WRITE ABOUT?
• Expressed a range of
emotions from bitterness to
joy and hope.
• Expressing the joys and
challenges of being
African American
• Writers such as James
Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale
Hurston, and Langston
Hughes enriched African
American culture as well as
American culture as a whole.
MASS MEDIA AND THE
JAZZ AGE—ASSESSMENT
Which of these best describes how the growth of mass media
affected American culture?
(A) It allowed local cultural traditions to flourish.
(B) It made learning the Charleston easier.
(C) It spread the work of Lost Generation writers.
(D) It helped create a common American popular culture.
What was the Harlem Renaissance?
(A) A style of jazz music
(B) An African American literary awakening
(C) An increase in the popularity of newspapers and
magazines
(D) A type of jazz club found in Harlem
MASS MEDIA AND THE
JAZZ AGE—ASSESSMENT
Which of these best describes how the growth of mass media
affected American culture?
(A) It allowed local cultural traditions to flourish.
(B) It made learning the Charleston easier.
(C) It spread the work of Lost Generation writers.
(D) It helped create a common American popular culture.
What was the Harlem Renaissance?
(A) A style of jazz music
(B) An African American literary awakening
(C) An increase in the popularity of newspapers and
magazines
(D) A type of jazz club found in Harlem