The Roaring Twenties
Chapter 25, Section 3
The Roaring Twenties
• What fads and fashions became popular
during the 1920s?
• How did a new group of writers and the new
jazz music affect American culture?
• What was the Harlem Renaissance?
• What heroes were celebrated during the
1920s?
During the 1920s, fads caught on, then quickly disappeared. A
fad is an activity or fashion that is taken up with great passion
for a short time.
• Flagpole sitting—young
people would perch on top
of flagpoles for hours, or
even days.
• Marathon dances—couples
danced for hundreds of
hours at a time to see who
could last the longest.
• Crossword puzzles and
mah-jongg became popular.
• Dance crazes—the most
popular new dance was
probably the Charleston,
originating among African
Americans in Charleston,
South Carolina.
• Flappers were young women
who rebelled against
traditional ways. They wore
their hair bobbed or cut
short. They shocked people
with their short dresses and
bright red lipstick.
• To many Americans, the way
flappers behaved was even
more shocking than how
they looked. They smoked
cigarettes in public, drank
bootleg alcohol, and drove
fast cars.
• Only a few young women
were flappers. Still, older
women began to cut their
hair and wear makeup and
shorter skirts, too. Flappers
symbolized a new sense of
freedom.
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Born in New Orleans, jazz
combined West African
rhythms, African American
work songs and spirituals, and
European harmonies. It also
had roots in ragtime.
Louis Armstrong was one of
the musicians who helped
create jazz. Others included
“Jelly Roll” Morton and singer
Bessie Smith.
Jazz spread from New Orleans
to Chicago, Kansas City, and
the African American section
of New York—Harlem. White
musicians, such as Bix
Beiderbecke, also began to
play jazz.
Today, jazz is recognized as an
original art form developed by
African Americans. It is
considered one of the most
important cultural
contributions of the United
States.
Many writers were horrified by their experiences in World War I. They criticized
Americans for caring too much about money and fun. Some were so unhappy with life
in the United States, they moved to Paris, France. They lived as expatriates, people who
leave their own country to live in a foreign land.
Ernest Hemingway
• wrote A Farewell to Arms and
The Sun Also Rises.
• one of the most popular
writers of the 1920s
F. Scott Fitzgerald
• wrote The Great Gatsby.
• examined the lives of wealthy
young people who attended
endless parties but could not
find happiness
Sinclair Lewis
• wrote Babbitt and Main Street.
• presented small-town
Americans as dull and narrowminded. His attitude reflected
that of many city dwellers
Edna St. Vincent Millay
•popular poet.
• expressed the frantic
pace of the 1920s in her
verse
Eugene O’Neill
• revolutionized the
American theater with his
powerful, realistic dramas.
• used experimental
methods to expose the
inner thoughts of tortured
young people
In the 1920s, large numbers of African American musicians, artists, and
writers settled in Harlem, in New York City. This gathering led to the
Harlem Renaissance, a rebirth of African American culture. Young black
writers celebrated their heritage and protested prejudice and racism.
Langston Hughes
•published his first poem, “The
Negro Speaks of Rivers,” soon
after graduating from high school.
• became the best-known poet of
the Harlem Renaissance.
• encouraged African Americans to
be proud of their heritage. He
protested racism and violence
against African Americans.
• wrote poems, plays, short stories,
and essays