Station #1: The Harlem Renaissance
While the Lost Generation of white writers questioned materialistic American culture, African
American writers began to express their own identity and a rising anger at Northern racism. Harlem, a
section of New York City bustling with nightclubs and alive with blues and jazz, lured African
American and white intellectuals. The African American literary and artistic movement that resulted
became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Alain Locke was a professor of literature at Howard
University, a graduate of Harvard, and the first African American Rhodes scholar. Locke urged his
fellow African Americans to create a new literature. In The New Negro, Locke wrote that the younger
generation of African Americans is “vibrant with a new psychology… the new spirit is awake in the
masses.” Inspired by Locke, writers like Langston Hughes and Claude McKay spoke out in the
strongest voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes, a gifted poet, was one of the first African
American writers to use jazz and blues themes and rhythms in his poetry. Hughes argued that what was
truly worth expressing would be found in the culture of the poorest African American people: “If white
people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful.”
Many other talented African American men and women launched their writing careers during this
exciting period, and most focused on the inequalities between African Americans and whites. Artists
proclaimed that African Americans would not accept second-class citizenship in any area of life.
Harlem Renaissance artists:
Langston Hughes
Alain Locke
Aaron Douglas
Harlem Renaissance Poetry
Dream Deferred
I, Too
What happens to a dream
deferred?
I, too, sing America.
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
- Langston Hughes, 19
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.
Harlem Renaissance Art
William H. Johnson (1882-1962)
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979)
Station #3: 1920’s Film
"The advent of American talking movies is beyond comparison the fastest and most amazing
revolution in the whole history of industrial revolutions." --Fortune Magazine, October, 1930
Intro to 1920’s Film
Teenagers entered the hushed theater as though it were
the palace it looked like. Furniture, statues, and rugs from
all over the world filled the lobby. One couple stopped in
surprise as they caught sight of themselves in the huge
mirrors that covered every wall. For just a moment, they
thought they had become their favorite movie stars. Like
guests at a grand ball, the girl and her date got ready to
ascend the marble staircase. Inside the huge auditorium
with its painted ceiling, the couple rested back in their
plush seats. Fans blowing over ice cooled the summer air.
The movie started!
More that any other entertainment, movies defined and helped create American culture in the 1920s.
Glamorous settings like the movie house described above showed that many Americans in the 1920s
had newfound leisure as well as the wealth to enjoy it. By the millions, Americas were now
discovering the pleasures of movies, sports, live music, dancing, radio, newspapers and magazines.
At the movies, Americans escaped to a different world, both on and off the screen. The movies – silent,
until The Jazz Singer in 1927 – spoke powerfully to their audiences. A Saturday Evening Post ad
encouraged Americans to “Go to a movie and let yourself go.” Each week, Americans of all ages, but
especially high school and college students, paid $0.5-$0.10 for a few hours of escape.
Because every seat in the movie palace cost exactly the same admission price, going to the movies
helped level the differences among Americans. A team of white-gloved ushers treated modest workers
with the same courtesy they showed to rich businesspeople. Even more important, because many of the
major movie studios had chains of outlets, people in New York were now watching exactly the same
stories as people watched in California. The movies quickly became more popular than regional forms
of entertainment.
Rudolph Valentino
Seated in the dark, audiences could easily imagine themselves on
the screen. Americans also relished reading about the stars’
private lives in gossip columns by Louella Parsons and Hedda
Hopper. And thus, celebrities were born! The major movie
studios hired publicity departments to make up and publicize
stories that kept fans attached to their stars’ loves, marriages, and
divorces. When the romantic leading man Rudolph Valentino
died at age 31 in 1926, nearly 30,000 tearful women attended his
funeral. Through the fans’ identification with stars, movies
transformed Americans’ tastes and behaviors. When movie stars
appeared in a new dress style or hairstyle, millions of women
suddenly began to demand the same look.
Some people worried that the movies promoted immoral behavior. The ads for a movie called Flaming
Youth, for example, promised “neckers, petters, white kisses, red kisses, pleasure-mad daughters,
sensation-craving mothers, the truth – bold, naked, sensational.” In 1922, the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors Association tacked a moral message onto the end of each movie. Yet, the movies
themselves stayed as suggestive as ever.
Silent Films: 1894-1927
In the early 1920’s, films were silent with no synchronized recorded sounds or spoken
dialogue. In silent films, the dialogue was transmitted through muted gestures, mime, dancing, or title
cards. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but
because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the
late 1920s with the introduction of the Vitaphone system. After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927,
“talkies” (movies with sound) became more and more commonplace. Within a decade, popular
widespread production of silent films had ceased.
Left: Scene from
the 1921 Four
Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, one of
the highestgrossing silent
films in history.
Right: The Iconic
clock scene from
the 1921 silent
film, Safety Last!
One of the most famous silent
film actors was Charlie
Chaplin, who used comedy
mixed with visual performance
like miming, slapstick, and
dance. After the invention of
“talkies,” Chaplin successfully
transitioned to major motion
pictures. It was rare for actors
to be successful in both silent
films and talkies, but Chaplin
excelled. Another actress who
made the transition was Greta
Garbo. She was one of the most
popular stars of the 1920’s and
her romantic life became the
subject of gossip and tabloids.
When talkies became popular,
she had to take extensive voice
lessons to decrease her Swedish
accent. In total, Garbo appeared
in 27 films and received four
Oscar nominations.
Appearance of “Talkies”: 1927
Until the late 1920's, motion pictures were silent except for the musical accompaniment provided by
theatre owners in the form of live orchestras. Up to this point, movies had enjoyed a wide degree of
popularity, but they still remained a secondary form of entertainment, largely due to their lack of
sound. As evidence of this fact, many silent films were originally used as "chasers" in the more
popular vaudeville shows.
All of this changed in 1926 when Warner Brothers, in conjunction with Western Electric, introduced a
new sound-on-disc system. In this system, sound effects and music were recorded on a wax record
that would later be synchronized with the film projector. In order to exhibit this new technology,
Warner Brothers released “Don Juan,” the first motion picture to have a pre-recorded score and
synchronized sound effects. Although "Don Juan" proved to be a box-office hit, many movie studios
still refused to adapt to talking picture technology, believing that "talkies" would never replace silent
pictures. However, the premiere of "The Jazz Singer" in October of 1927 changed these opinions, and
in doing so, changed the history of motion pictures forever.
"The Jazz Singer" triggered the talking-picture revolution. Based on Alfred Cohn's story "The Day of
Atonement," and Samson Raphaelson's popular Broadway play of the same name, the film starred Al
Jolson as a Jewish boy who attempts to become a Broadway star. The film depicts the fictional story of
Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing
popular tunes in a bar, he is punished by his father, which prompts Jakie to run away from home. Some
years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer. He attempts to build
a career as an entertainer but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands
of his home and heritage. Since early jazz music was stereotypically reserved for African Americans,
the main character uses blackface throughout the film.
Mary (May McAvoy) and Jack,
preparing for the first blackface
scene
The function and meaning of blackface in the film is intimately
involved with Jack's own Jewish heritage and his desire to make
his mark in mass American culture—much as the ethnically
Jewish Jolson and the Warner brothers were doing themselves.
Jack Robin "compounds both tradition and stardom. The Warner
Brothers thesis is that, really to succeed, a man must first
acknowledge his ethnic self," argues W. T. Lhamon. "[T]he
whole film builds toward the blacking-up scene at the dress
rehearsal. Jack Robin needs the blackface mask as the agency of
his compounded identity. Blackface will hold all the identities
together without freezing them in a singular relationship or
replacing their parts." More than 70 examples of blackface were
used in films between 1927-1953.
Even though "The Jazz Singer" was not the first film to use sound, it proved to be the first one to use
spoken dialogue as part of the dramatic action. The combination of Jolson, America's most popular
singer, and the new medium of sound helped to produce a profit of $3.5 million, causing Warner Bros.
to begin its rule as one of Hollywood’s top studios. When Warner Bros follow-up sound films, such as
“The Lights of New York” also became box-office hits, the rest of Hollywood switched to sound with
startling speed, hoping to adapt to the new technology. A year after its release, Hollywood recognized
the importance of "The Jazz Singer" with regard to motion picture history by honoring the film with a
special Academy Award.
While the introduction of sound greatly benefitted the motion picture industry, talking pictures proved
to be disastrous for vaudeville . Vaudeville performances could not compete with the technology of the
talkies and many of its actors were unable to adapt to the format of sound motion pictures. Talking
films also hurt the careers of the many orchestra musicians who provided the live score to many of the
original silent movies. The speech and voices of certain actors also proved to be a difficult hurdle for
many studios to overcome. This problem particularly plagued foreign actors whose accents were
thought to disrupt the American idiom.
Sound also influenced the behavior of movie patrons. During the silent film era, it was considered
acceptable to talk while the movies played. Because people were allowed to voice their responses to
the film, a common bond was forged among the audience when many patrons expressed a shared
reply. With talking pictures, however, audiences concentrated on hearing the movie, rather than those
seated around them, leading many patrons to look down upon talking while the movie was playing. As
Robert Sklar said in his book Movie Made America, "talking audiences for silent pictures became a
silent audience for talking pictures" (53).
Throughout the silent movie era, many conservative members of the American middle class
campaigned for the censorship of many films. These campaigns suffered an enormous blow due to the
introduction of talking pictures for two reasons. One, it was now much harder to tamper with the film
disks due to the new technology of talking pictures. Secondly, civil libertarians were now ready to
debate whether talking pictures were protected by the First Amendment. Finally, because sound came
from outside industries, it linked the motion picture industry to other businesses, setting up long term
and lucrative partnerships. For example, for many of its films, Warner Bros. attained their sound
system from Western Electric, a financial enterprise that greatly benefitted both companies.
In 1916 there were 21,000 movie theatres in the United States. The number of people who attended
movies doubled in the last half of the 1920’s. Movies in the 1920’s and 1930’s 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 affect the way people acted and
thought.
Station #7: 1920’s Heroes
With the growing popularity of media, radio, advertising, and magazines, heroes began to emerge in
the 1920’s. These heroes personified American values and were idolized in 1920’s culture.
Charles Lindbergh
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.
Lindbergh's feat gained him immediate, international fame. The press named him "Lucky
Lindy" and the "Lone Eagle." Americans and Europeans idolized the shy, slim young man and
showered him with honors.
At the request of the U.S. government, Lindbergh flew to various Latin-American countries in
December 1927 as a symbol of American good will. While in Mexico, he met Anne Spencer Morrow,
the daughter of Dwight W. Morrow, the American ambassador there. Lindbergh married Anne Morrow
in 1929. He taught her to fly, and they went on many flying expeditions together throughout the world,
charting new routes for various airlines. Anne Morrow Lindbergh also became famous for her poetry
and other writings.
While in Europe, Lindbergh was invited by the governments of France and Germany to tour the
aircraft industries of their countries. Lindbergh was especially impressed with the highly advanced
aircraft industry of Nazi Germany. In 1938, Hermann Goering, a high Nazi official, presented
Lindbergh with a German medal of honor. Lindbergh's acceptance of the medal caused an outcry in the
United States among critics of Nazism.
Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe (28 May 1888 – 28 March 1953[1]) was an American athlete.
Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the
pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also
played professional baseball and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he was paid
for playing two seasons of minor league baseball before competing in the games, thus violating the
amateur status rules.
Thorpe was Native American Indian and European American. Raised in the Sac and Fox nation in
Oklahoma, he was named Wa-Tho-Huk, roughly translated as "Bright Path". He played on several AllAmerican Indian teams throughout his career, and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with
a team composed entirely of Native Americans.
In 1950 Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the
Associated Press (AP). In 1999 he was ranked third on the AP list of top athletes of the 20th century.
His professional sports career ended in the years of the Great Depression, and Thorpe struggled to earn
a living. He worked several odd jobs, struggled with alcoholism, and lived out the last years of his life
in failing health and poverty. In 1983, thirty years after his death, the International Olympic
Commission (IOC) restored his Olympic medals to his name.
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948), also popularly known as "Babe", "The
Bambino", and "The Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–
1935. Ruth is one of the greatest sports heroes of American culture[1] and the most celebrated player in
American baseball history. He has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various
surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger
than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties".He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season
(1927), a record which stood for 34 years until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of
714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for 39 years, until broken by Hank Aaron in
1974.
In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1969, he
was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of
professional baseball. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth Number 1 on the list of "Baseball's 100
Greatest Players." In 1999, baseball fans named Ruth to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
According to ESPN, he was the first true American sports celebrity superstar whose fame transcended
baseball. Beyond his statistics, Ruth completely changed baseball itself. The popularity of the game
exploded in the 1920s, largely due to him.
Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle. Even
though he died more than 60 years ago, his name is still one of the most famous in American sports.
In 1946, he began experiencing severe pain over his left eye. In November 1946, a visit to French
Hospital in New York revealed Ruth had a malignant tumor in his neck that had encircled his left
carotid artery. He received post-operative radiation therapy. Before leaving the hospital in February
1947, he lost approximately 80 pounds (35 kg). On August 16, the day after Frick's visit, Babe Ruth
died at age 53 due to pneumonia. An autopsy showed the cancer Ruth died from that began in the nose
and mouth and spread widely throughout his body after. His body lay in repose in Yankee Stadium
Gertrude Ederle
Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1905 – November 30, 2003) was an American competitive
swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
Gertrude was the daughter of a German immigrant who ran a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue in
Manhattan. She was known as Trudy as a youth; her father gave her permission to bob her hair if she
expressed an interest in swimming. She was known as the Queen of the Waves.
At the 1924 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a part of the US 400-meter freestyle relay
team and bronze medals for finishing third in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races.
Her famous cross-channel swim began at Cap Gris-Nez in France at 07:05 on the morning of August 6,
1926. Fourteen hours and 30 minutes later, she came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, England. Her record
stood until Florence Chadwick swam the channel in 1950 in 13 hours and 20 minutes.
Ederle had poor hearing since childhood due to measles, and by the 1940s she was completely deaf.
She spent the rest of her life teaching swimming to deaf children. She died on November 30, 2003 in
Wyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 98 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New
York
Dempsey and Carpentier
Called the "battle of the century" by boxing enthusiasts, the fight between Jack Dempsey and
Frenchman Georges Carpentier at Boyle's Thirty Acres was an extravaganza that introduced sports as
leisure for the masses at the beginning of the 1920s. The eight-sided arena, costing $325,000, was
300,000 square feet and was built in two months by 600 carpenters and 400 workers using 2,250,000
feet of lumber and 60 tons of nails. The attendees paid between five dollars and fifty cents for general
admission and up to fifty dollars for ringside seats.
According to some boxing experts, the two fighters were mismatched. Dempsey, known as the
"Manassa Mauler" became the heavyweight champion in 1919 when he defeated Jess Williard, the
"Great White Hope" in Toledo, Ohio. But he was "labeled as draft dodger" during World War I.
Dempsey applied for a domestic exemption to support his family, was granted 4A status, and
continued to fight during the war. Carpentier, or the "Orchid Man," was hailed as a popular war hero
having served in the air force; he received the Croix de Guerre from the French government and was
referred to as "handsome, urbane, slender, and debonair.” He had defeated Joe Beckett, the British
heavyweight champion in London in 1919. Rickard offered Carpentier $200,000 to Dempsey's
$300,000 for the boxing event-- considerable sums for the time--as well an equal share of twenty-five
percent of the film profits.
The "battle of the century" is also celebrated as the first sports event broadcast on the radio, the new
mass communications medium of the decade. Rickard wanted the event broadcast to advance
prizefighting in the post-war popular culture. To accommodate the radio cast, a wooden makeshift
room was constructed under the stands.
When Carpentier entered the eighteen-foot square ring for the main event, he was greeted by the
playing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Angered by the loud cheering for Carpentier,
Dempsey and his opponent did not shake hands, but the pugilists shook hands with Mayor Hague and
Governor Edwards when they entered the ring. The bell rang for the start of the fight at 3:16 PM,
Dempsey knocked Carpentier unconscious one minute and sixteen seconds into the fourth round, and
referee Harry Ertle from Jersey City ended the bout at 3:27 PM.
Station #8: The Lost Generation
During the 1920’s some prominent American writers and artists moved to Europe, partly because they
felt the U.S. was the “enemy of the artist, of the man who cannot produce something tangible when the
five o’clock whistle blows.” The expatriates also felt that it was cheaper to live in Europe than it was to
stay at home.
The dollar was especially strong in Paris where writers Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and F.
Scott Fitzgerald took up residence in the 1920’s. Gertrude Stein made bold experiments with language
in her plays, operas, and books. She also gave the literary era its name when she told her friend
Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.”
Ernest Hemingway set most of his novels in Europe and portrayed the ruined innocence of his postwar
generation. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s earliest novels and stories were set in the U.S. where he wrote about
daring college students. The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 and considered Fitzgerald’s greatest
work, explored the empty lives of Americans with too much money.
Many of the most significant writers of the 1920’s never left the U.S. or left only for brief periods.
Like the expatriates, American writers who stayed home took up their pens to expose what they
considered shallow and money-centered culture of their nation.
Gertrude Stein
Ernest Hemmingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald