Chapter 21: The Roaring Life of the 1920s
Read pages 638 to 665. Answer the questions.
Section 1: Changing Ways of Life
1. Why was Billie Sunday convinced that the end of alcohol would cure the problems of poverty and the
slum?
2. Why did the rural to urban migration accelerate dramatically during the 1920s?
3. How large had cities grown?
4. What was appealing about everyday urban life say in a place like Chicago?
5. What was the 18th Amendment?
6. Who pushed for the passage of Prohibition laws?
7. Why did it fail so miserably?
8. What were speakeasies?
9. Who are bootleggers?
10. How did the illegal alcohol industry boost organized crime?
11. Why did only 19% of Americans support Prohibition?
12. What is fundamentalism?
13. Why was this widely popular in the South and theWest?
14. Who was Clarence Darrow?
15. What has at stake during the Scopes Trial?
16. What was the final outcome?
17. What do events such as Prohibition and the Scopes Trial reveal about American culture?
Section 2: The Twenties Woman
1. What did Zelda Sayre reveal to her husband?
2. In what way were the 1920s the perfect time for women to assert their independence?
3. Who were flappers?
4. What activities did women in engage in that were unacceptable in the past?
5. Why was casual dating a big breakthrough for women?
6. What is a double standard?
7. What new roles in the workplace were available to women?
8. How did 10 million working women change the status of women forever?
9. What kind of discrimination did women face in the workplace?
10. What did Margaret Sanger found in 1916?
11. How did women respond to the changing structure of the Amereican family?
12. How did moms of the 1920s handle rebellious teens?
Section 3: Education and Popular Culture
1. Why did 50 million people listen to the radio on Sept 22, 1927?
2. What was the impact of improved public schools?
3. How did the rise in college enrollments help America?
4. How did government pay for the cost of public education?
5. Why did mass media magazines and newspapers overpower the small town newspapers?
6. In what way did radio create a shared national experience?
7. How much did Americans spend on entertainment in 1929?
8. Who were some of the popular culture figures that dominated the headlines?
9. Why were Americans obsessed with Charles Lindbergh?
10. What was the major contribution of Irving Berlin and George Gershwyn?
11. What contributions did F. Scott Fitzgerald make to the field of literature?
12. Why is Ernest Hemingway a revered author?
13. Why were the Lost Generation writers cynical, bitter, and down on humanity?
Section 4: The Harlem Renaissance
1. How did Zora Neale Hurston achieve literary greatness?
2. What was the Great Migration?
3. How did this transform neighborhoods like Harlem?
4. Who was James Weldon Johnson?
5. What did Marcus Garvey advocate?
6. Why was Langston Hughes one of the greatest poets of all time?
7. Who was Paul Robeson?
8. How did Louis Armstrong transform jazz forever?
9. Why is Duke Ellington a true American genius?
10. What made Bessie Smith one of the wealthiest blues singer ever?
11. What led to the end of the Harlem Renaissance?