Name________________________________ Date____________ Periods: _____ Day: _______
United States History & Government 11
The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties: Social and Technological Changes
In the 1920’s, there were many technological and social changes occurring. A new kind of
woman was emerging: the flapper. She wore new clothing styles, bobbed her hair and drove fast
cars. “Is the ‘old-fashioned girl’, with all she stands for in sweetness, modesty and innocence, in
danger of becoming extinct?” wondered one magazine in 1921.
The invention of radio and movies, along with newspapers, created heroes and heroines
known across the country. Some of the best loved heroes of the 1920s were athletes, and the
most popular was Babe Ruth. But the greatest hero of the decade was an aviator named Charles
Lindbergh. Also during the 1920’s, a new type of music called jazz was developed by brilliant and
young musicians like Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington. This new form of music
swept the U.S. and spread quickly around the world.
The development of jazz, and a movement of black writers like Langston Hughes
celebrating their African American heritage while protesting prejudice and racism led to the Harlem
Renaissance in New York.
1. Why do you think so many young people enjoyed the changes of the 1920’s?______________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
2. Based on the above reading, complete the webs below.
People
that
changed
the
1920's
Inventions
that
changed
the 1920's
People
How did this person affect
change in the 1920’s?
Flappers
Langston Hughes
Louis Armstrong
Charles Lindbergh
Babe Ruth
Inventions
Automobile
Radio
Motion Pictures (movies)
Jazz
How did this invention affect
change in the 1920’s?
THE FLAPPER
Flappers were young women who rebelled against traditional ways of thinking
and acting. Flappers wore "kiss proof" lipstick and a lot of heavy makeup with
beaded necklaces and bracelets. They liked to cut their hair into "boyish" bobs,
often dyeing it jet-black. Flapper dresses were straight and loose, leaving the
arms bare and dropping the waistline to the hips.
To many older Americans, the way flappers behaved was even more shocking
than the way they looked. Flappers went to jazz clubs at night where they danced
all night, smoked cigarettes long holders, and dated. They rode bicycles and
drove cars. They drank bootleg alcohol openly in speak easies, a defiant act in the
period of Prohibition. Only a few young women were flappers. Still, they set a
style for others. Slowly, older women began to cut their hair and war makeup
and shorter skirts. For many Americans, the bold fashions pioneered by the
flappers symbolized a new sense of freedom.
THE AUTOMOBILE
By the late 1920s, the automobile had firmly established itself as
the newest and most popular method of road transport.
The rapidly growing automobile industry led by
Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company
produced new and better models every year
for the insatiable public demand. Increased
wages and lower cost vehicles through mass
production made cars increasingly affordable,
although 3 out of 4 cars were bought on
installment plans.
Roads that had been designed for horse
transport began to deteriorate under the
steadily increasing load of traffic. In 1906 local
governments supplied 96 percent of the road funding. In 1927 the State governments
supplied about 37 percent, the Federal Government 10 percent, and the local
governments 53 percent. Roads (including wooden roads) had to be redesigned and
rebuilt to accommodate the automobile, new road rules had to be introduced,
standardized road signs erected, and methods of controlling traffic (like traffic lights)
implemented in densely populated areas.
Vehicles required much higher road clearances than modern cars due to the poor state
of roads and tracks, hence the large diameter skinny tires of the day which were
effective at cutting through mud to reach more solid ground.
The car enabled people to travel much further than foot or horse had permitted.
Touring vacations became popular, but motorists had to plan carefully as there were
often long distances between petrol stations and breakdowns were fairly common.
Tourist parks (Motels) and other facilities sprang up to service the needs of traveling
motorists. Petrol station chains cashed in on the trend by supplying maps that
highlighted their business locations, and then sold travelers food and drink as well as
petrol and oil.
THE RADIO
The radio enabled listeners to experience an event as it happened. Rather than read about Lindbergh
meeting President Coolidge after his flight to Paris, people witnessed it with their ears and
imaginations. The radio, which knew no geographic boundaries, drew people together as never before.
Soon, people wanted more of everything—music, talk, advice, drama. They wanted bigger and more
powerful sets, and they wanted greater sound fidelity. By the end of 1923, an estimated 400,000
households had a radio, a jump from 60,000 just the year before. Overnight, it seemed, everyone
went into broadcasting: newspapers, banks, public utilities, department stores, universities and
colleges, cities and towns, pharmacies, creameries, and hospitals, among others.
In the beginning people’s awe at hearing sounds through the air was so great they would listen to
almost anything. The broadcasters decided to give them a mix of culture, education, information, and
some entertainment. Typical of the programming were the offerings of station WJZ, which began
regular broadcasting in New York at 3:00 PM on May 16, 1923:
3:00 Violet Pearch, pianist
3:30 Things to tell the Housewife about cooking meat
3:45 Elsa Rieffin, soprano
4:00 Home—Its Equipment, by Ada Swan
4:15 Rinaldo Sidoli, violinist
4:30 Ballad of Reading Gaol, part 1, by Mrs. Marion Leland
5:00 Ballad of Reading Gaol, part 2, by Mrs. Marion Leland
5:15 Rinaldo Sidoli, violinist
5:30 Rea Stelle, contralto
6:00 Peter’s Adventures, by Florence Vincent
7:30 Frederick Taggart, baritone
8:15 Lecture by W. F. Hickernell
8:45 Salvation Army band concert
9:15 Viola K. Miller, soprano
9:30 Salvation Army Band,Male Chorus
10:00 Concert
So it went day after day. That year WJY, another New York station, would present 98 baritone solos, 6
baseball games, 5 boxing bouts, 67 church services, 7 football games, 10 harmonica solos, 74 organ
concerts, 340 soprano recitals, 40 plays, 723 talks and lectures, and 205 bedtime stories.
MOTION PICTURES (MOVIES)
The film industry really bloomed in the 1920’s. The movies of this time were being made at the
first 20 Hollywood studios. The films of the 1920's were in major demand during this era. Most
of the productions were all silent but theaters were packed every night.
"The Big Five" movie studies consisted of Warner Brothers Pictures, MGM, RKO (Radio-KeithOrpheum) Pictures, Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount), and Fox Film Corporation. Three
smaller, minor studios were dubbed "The Little Three". Universal Pictures, United Artists, and
Columbia Pictures.
In 1916 there were 21,000 movie theaters in the United States. The number of people who
attended movies doubled in the last half of the 1920s. Movies in the 1920s were seen to be as
influential as television is today. In 1928 a series of 12 studies were made on the impact of
movies on children. These studies noted the “influence of the screen upon manners, dress, codes
and matters of romance.” Movies definitely had the potential and did influence and effect the
way people acted and thought.
One of the greatest comedians of all times was Charlie Chaplin. He was most famous for his
participation in comedic silent films at this time.
JAZZ
Born in New Orleans, jazz combined West African rhythms, African American work songs
and spirituals, and European harmonies. Jazz also had roots in the ragtime rhythms of
composers like Scott Joplin. Jazz quickly spread from New Orleans to Chicago, Kansas City,
and the African American section of New York known as Harlem.
By the mid-1920s, jazz was being played in dance halls and roadhouses and speakeasies all
over the country. White musicians also began to adopt the new style. Before long, the
popularity of jazz spread to Europe as well.
Many older Americans worried that jazz and the new dances that accompanied it were a bad
influence on the nation’s young people. Despite their complaints, jazz continued to grow
more popular.
LANGSTON HUGHES: POET OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Probably the best known poet of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. He
published his first poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, soon after graduating from high
school. The poem connected the experiences of black Americans living along the
Mississippi River with those of ancient Africans living along the Nile and Niger rivers. Like
other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes encouraged African Americans to be proud
of their heritage.
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
In other poems, Hughes protested racism and acts of violence against African Americans. In
addition to his poems, Hughes wrote plays, short stories, and essays about the black
experience. One of Hughes’ most famous poems is titled “I, too.”
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.
Louis Armstrong: The Father of Jazz
Louis Armstrong, the Great Satchmo, was one of the brilliant young African
American musicians who helped create jazz. Armstrong learned to play the
trumpet in the New Orleans orphanage where he grew up. Armstrong had the
ability to take a simple melody and experiment with the notes and the rhythm.
This allowed listeners to hear many different versions of the basic tune.
In the 1920s, Armstrong performed with a number of different musical groups, and
began to revolutionize the jazz world with his
introduction of the extended solo. Prior to his
arrival, jazz music was played either in highly
orchestrated arrangements or in a more loosely
structured "Dixieland"-type ensemble in which no
one musician soloed for any extended period.
Musicians everywhere soon began to imitate his
style, and Armstrong himself became a star
attraction. His popularity was phenomenal, and
throughout the 1920s he was one of the most
sought-after musicians in both New York and
Chicago. Armstrong's HOT FIVE and HOT SEVEN
recordings remain to this day some of the best
loved of the time.
Scat singing is vocalizing either wordlessly or with nonsense words and syllables
(e.g. "Skiddo bop bap") as employed by jazz singers who create the equivalent of
an instrumental solo using only the
voice. Also it is a type of voice
instrumental. A frequently repeated
legend alleges that Louis Armstrong
invented scat singing on the spot
when he dropped the lyric sheet
while singing during his recording of
"Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The story is
false and Armstrong himself made no
such claim. However, the record
"Heebie Jeebies" and subsequent
Armstrong recordings introduced scat
singing to a wider audience and did much to popularize the style. Armstrong was
an innovative singer who experimented with all kinds of sound and improvised with
his voice as well as on his instrument. In one famous example, Armstrong scatted a
passage on "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas"—he sings "I've done forgot the
words!" in the middle of recording before taking off in scat.
CHARLES LINDBERGH
Arguably the greatest hero of the 1920s was Charles A. Lindbergh, also known as Lucky Lindy. On a gray
morning in May 1927, he took off from an airport in New York to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean—
alone.
For more than 33 hours, Lindbergh piloted his tiny single-engine airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, over the
stormy Atlantic. He carried no map, no parachute, and no radio. At last, he landed in Paris, France. The
cheering crowd carried him across the airfield. Lucky Lindy returned to the U.S. as the hero of the decade.
He said “I’ve broken the world’s distance record for a non-stop airplane flight…The Spirit of St. Louis is a
wonderful plane. It’s like a living creature, gliding along smoothly, happily as though a successful flight
means as much to it as to me, as though we shared our experiences together, each feeling beauty, life and
death….each dependent on the other’s loyalty. We have made this flight across the ocean, not I or it.”
Lindbergh Does It! To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours;
Flies 1,000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet;
Cheering French Carry Him Off Field
New York Times, May 21, 1927
Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis
from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted
later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he
headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck
to navigate toward Ireland. The flight had captured the imagination of the American public
like few events in history. Citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the
flight. When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly
anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le
Bourget Field to greet him. When he landed, less than 34 hours after his departure from New
York, Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
BABE RUTH
“The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
Some of the best-loved heroes of the 1920s were athletes. Baseball was America’s
real passion. The most popular player of the 1920s was Babe Ruth. He became
the star of the New York Yankees. Fans flocked
to see the “Sultan of Swat” hit home runs. The
60 home runs he hit in one season (1927) set a
record that lasted more than 30 years. His
lifetime record of 714 home runs was not broken
until 1974.
Up until “The Great Bambino”, baseball had been
dominated by pitchers, a game of defense that
was most satisfying when the score was low;
after him, it was all offense, a hitter’s game that
was at its most thrilling when someone (usually
Ruth) but a bat to leather and delivered a
souvenir to the fans sitting behind the outfield
fence.
In 1920, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold
Ruth to the New York Yankees. The transaction
spawned the Curse of the Bambino. Over his
next 15 seasons in New York, Ruth led the
league or placed in the top ten in batting
average, slugging percentage, runs, total bases,
home runs, RBI, and walks several times. Ruth
hit 60 home runs in 1927. It stood as the single
season home run record for 34 years.
The people who saw the “Sultan of Swat” hit a
home run in the 1920s felt as special as people
from later generations watching a rocket launch.