Culture in the
1920’s
1920’s Culture
• Decade of conflict
▫ Consumption of goods
▫ Women’s roles
▫ New styles
▫ Urban vs. Rural
▫ Nativism
▫ Prohibition
▫ Civil Rights
Consumption of goods
• New Inventions
▫ Electric irons, vacuums, phonograph,
electric sewing machine, washing
machine, refrigerator
▫ RADIO
 1st Radio station (KDKA – Pittsburgh)
broadcast in 1920
 CBS, NBC networks
Consumption of goods
• The Automobile
▫ 1921 – 1.5 million sold
▫ 1929 – 5 million sold
▫ 1908 – $1000
▫ 1929 – $295
• Ripple effect on other industries
• Increase in road construction
Consumption of goods
• The Automobile
• Model T most
popular
▫ Difficult to operate
▫ Henry Ford, “You
can have it in any
color you want, so
long as it’s black.”
▫ Competition from
General Motors
forced Ford to
make changes
Consumption of goods
• Advertising
▫ Becomes $2.6
billion/year business
• Becomes
psychological concept
▫ Convince consumers
need for product
Women’s Roles
• Style – Flapper
▫ Showing more flesh
▫ Bobbed hair
▫ More makeup
▫ Loose fitting dress
• Double standard
Women’s Roles
• Education
▫ More women going to college
• Work
▫ Women move toward professional
jobs (teaching, nursing, etc.)
▫ Paid less, less upward movement
▫ Seen as “temporary”; real job at home
Women’s Roles
• Family
▫ Birth rates lowered (birth-control
information)
▫ More family time
▫ household chores easier
Women’s Roles
New Styles
• Music – Jazz
▫ Began in New Orleans
▫ Rooted in African-American music
▫ Free flowing structure
▫ Migrated north with blacks
 Cotton Club in Harlem
▫ Louis Armstrong
▫ African-American culture becomes
mainstream
New Styles
• Movies
▫ Silent pictures since early 1900’s
▫ First “talking” picture – 1927
▫ Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer"
New Styles
• Other Mass Media
▫ Magazines (Time)
▫ Tabloid newspapers
▫ 40% homes owned radio
▫ Market research for advertising
• Role of education
▫ Four times attending high school
▫ Need for management
▫ Child labor laws
▫ Emergence of the “modern” high school
New Styles
• Sports and recreation
▫ City parks
▫ Public pools
▫ Recreation sports (tennis, golf)
• Spectator sports
▫ Baseball
▫ Boxing
▫ College football
• Creates “heroes”
Heroes
• Babe Ruth
• “Sultan of Swat”
• Held single
season and
career homerun
record for many
years
Heroes
• Josh Gibson
• The “black Babe
Ruth”
• Negro Leagues
Heroes
• Jack Dempsey
• The “Manassa
Mauler”
• Heavyweight
champion
Heroes
• Red Grange
• The “Galloping
Ghost”
• All-American
running back
• Led growth of
the NFL
Heroes
• Helen WillsMoody
• Won Wimbledon
eight times
• Won the U.S.
Open seven times
• Won the French
Open four times
Heroes
• Bill Tilden
• “Big Bill”
• Number one
ranked for seven
straight years
Heroes
• Bobby Jones
• Won the “Grand
Slam” in 1930
• Remained an
amateur his
entire career
Heroes
• Gertrude Ederle
• 1924 Olympian
• First woman to
swim the English
Channel in 1926
• Beat the men’s
record by two
hours
Heroes
• Charlie Chaplin
• “The Tramp”
Heroes
• Rudolph
Valentino
• The “Latin Lover”
• Died of
complications
from appendicitis
in 1926
Heroes
• Clara Bow
• The first “sex
symbol”
Heroes
• Louis Armstrong
• “Satchmo”
• Jazz musician
Heroes
• Charles Lindbergh
• First solo flight
across the Atlantic
(New York to
Paris)
• Spirit of St. Louis
• http://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=uIUL_qUJUOo
What is happening to
America culturally?
Cultural Conflicts
Decade of Conflict
• Urban vs. Rural
▫ 1920 Census – over 50% urban (first time)
• Rural America
▫ Very conservative
▫ Religious
▫ Close knit
▫ Many (especially young) left for city
• The city provided
▫ new ideas
▫ new popular culture (sports, nightclubs, etc.)
▫ vices (gambling, drinking, casual courtship)
▫ judgment based on accomplishment not values/name
▫ fast paced lifestyle
▫ loneliness
Decade of Conflict
Decade of Conflict
• Nativism
▫ Goal: limit “new” immigrants
▫ radicalism (socialism, etc.) due to
immigrants
• Three immigration limitations
Decade of Conflict
• 1921 Emergency Act
▫ Limit immigration to 3 million
• 1924 National Origins Act
▫ Limit 2% immigration based on 1890
Census
▫ Why 1890?
▫ Favored Northern/Western Europe
▫ Discriminated against Southern/Eastern
Europe
▫ Still no Chinese/Japanese immigration
▫ 164,000 total immigrants
Decade of Conflict
• 1929
▫ Reduced immigrants to 150,000
• Latin American immigration
▫ Still unlimited
▫ Increased
▫ Mexico = 1 million (1900-1930)
▫ 1917 – Puerto Ricans get citizenship
• Anti-Semitism grew
Decade of Conflict
• Rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan
▫ Spread to North and West
▫ Became multi-bigoted
 Anti-black
 Anti-Catholic
 Anti-Jew
 Anti-immigrant
▫ WASPS
 White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Decade of Conflict
• Klan’s popularity
helped by
▫ The Birth of a
Nation
▫ Wilson segregated
government
facilities
Decade of Conflict
• Membership
▫ 1920 – 4 million
▫ 1924 – 6 million
▫ 1930 – 30,000
• What happened?
▫ 1925 – Indiana
Grand Wizard
D.C. Stephenson
convicted of rape
and second degree
murder
Decade of Conflict
• Oregon and the Klan
▫ Strong Klan state
▫ Walter Pierce won 1923
Governor’s race with
Klan support
▫ Largest margin in
Oregon history
• Strongest in rural areas
Decade of Conflict
• Prohibition
▫ 18th Amendment
▫ The Volstead Act
▫ January, 1920
• Prohibited
manufacture, sale,
transportation, and
consumption of
alcoholic beverages
• 1,550 men were
paid to enforce the
Volstead Act
Decade of Conflict
• Supporters
▫ Protestants (antialcohol)
▫ Anti-Saloon League
▫ Woman’s Christian
Temperance Union
▫ South and Western
United States (mostly
Protestant and rural)
• Drinking was sin, or
results lead to sin
Decade of Conflict
• Anti-Prohibitionists
• immigrants (alcohol
part of cultures)
• city dwellers (have
fun)
Decade of Conflict
• Problems
▫ enforcement
▫ Speakeasies
▫ Moonshine,
bathtub gin
▫ organized crime
Decade of Conflict
• Religion
• Growth of
Fundamentalism
▫ All information from the
Bible
▫ Rejected scientific theory
▫ Evolution vs. Creationism
▫ Scopes “Monkey” trial
Decade of Conflict
• Scopes “Monkey” trial
▫ 1925 Tennessee state
law: evolution illegal
▫ Scopes violated it;
arrested
▫ Defended by Clarence
Darrow
▫ Prosecuted by
William Jennings
Bryan
Decade of Conflict
• Scopes “Monkey” trial
▫ Turning point:
Darrow calls Bryan as
witness
▫ Scopes found guilty;
fined $100
▫ Never paid fine
▫ Overturned by higher
court
Decade of Conflict
• Civil Rights
▫ W.E.B. DuBois
▫ Demanded racial
equality
▫ Worked through the
NAACP
▫ Became more radical
politically
Decade of Conflict
• Civil Rights
▫ Marcus Garvey
▫ Universal Negro
Improvement
Association
▫ “Back to Africa”
movement
▫ Jailed for mail
fraud in 1925
▫ Released from jail
in 1927
▫ Deported to
Jamaica
Literary Movements
• Harlem Renaissance
▫ Racial pride
▫ Cultural identity
▫ Theme: What it’s
like to be black in
white America
• Prominent writers
▫ Langston Hughes
▫ Zora Neale Hurston
▫ Countee Cullen
▫ Jean Toomer
Literary Movements
• The “Lost Generation”
▫ White writers
▫ Disillusioned with
America, consumerism,
horrors of WWI
▫ Many left for Europe
(Paris)
• Prominent writers
▫ F. Scott Fitzgerald
▫ Ernest Hemingway
▫ T.S. Eliot
The Great Gatsby
• Book written F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Shows shallowness of people in the 1920’s
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Lifestyle (5:30 to 11:16)
Gatsby’s parties (30:30 to 42:00)
Gatsby’s funeral (2:15.30 to 2:18)
Nick sums up the 20’s (2:18 to 2:21.30)