Today’s Warm-Up: Compare and contrast
to the two photos below.
Image 1
Image 2
The Roaring 20’s
The Decade that Roared…
• The 1920s is considered one of the
wildest periods in American history
• WWI was over – society rejoiced!
• Americans roared to the wail of jazz,
laughter of carefree youth, and the
hum of American industry
Beneath the Surface…
• Beneath the surface, this era was
more complex and filled with
conflict
• Americans grappled with important
questions about race, immigration,
religion, alcohol, women, wealth,
and poverty
As the War Ended . . .
• Spanish influenza epidemic hits!
–Most deadly for 20-40 year olds
• Eventually killed 20-50 million
worldwide
– (By contrast, WWI killed about 15 million people)
Philadelphia – October 1918
Emergency hospital at Camp Funston
in Fort Riley, KS (1918)
Over 50 Thousand!
Mortality (Death) Rates from
1900 to 2000.
Changes for African Americans
• Great Migration = Blacks moved
north to take advantage of
booming wartime industry
• Black ghettoes began to form, i.e.
Harlem
Prohibition Enforced
• 18th Amendment took effect on January
16, 1920 and made the manufacture,
sale, and transport of liquor, beer, and
wine illegal.
Prohibition Creates Unintended
Consequences…
• Limited supply and growing demand
for liquor created a golden
opportunity for crooks
• Many Americans turned to
bootleggers - suppliers of illegal
alcohol.
• Speakeasies – illegal, underground
bars
Organized Crime
• The profit from selling
illegal liquor helped
lead to the rise of
organized crime.
• As rival groups fought
for control in cities,
gang wars & murders
became common.
Homicide Rate dramatically rises, then peaks in 1933 –
the year prohibition ends!
HOMICIDE
11
1
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
One of the most notorious criminals of this time
was Al “Scarface” Capone, a gangster who
rose to the top of Chicago’s organized crime
network.
Lawlessness, Violence, and Corruption
Increase…
• Many Americans began to believe
prohibition caused more harm than
good.
• In 1933, the states ratified the
Twenty-First Amendment which
repealed prohibition
Women Move Toward Greater Equality
• Some of the most significant changes of the
1920s occurred in the lives of women
– 19th Amendment granted women the right to
vote
– Expanded educational and job opportunities
• With wider opportunities and greater
incomes, women (esp. young women)
rebelled against old customs
Women Rebel Against Old Customs
• Women began to cut their into
short “bobs” and wore makeup
–Lipstick, blush, and eye shadow
were no longer signs of an
“immoral” woman
Women in 1900
•
•
•
•
Long hair
Long sleeves
Long dresses
Shapely corset
Women in 1920s
•
•
•
•
Short hair
Short sleeves
Short dresses
No corsets!
The Flapper Image
A type of bold, fun-loving
young woman, came to
symbolize a revolution
in manners and morals
that took place in the
1920s.
Flappers
• Flappers challenged
conventions of dress,
hairstyle, and behavior.
• Many Americans
disapproved of flappers’
free manners as well as the
departure from traditional
morals that they
represented.
Family Patterns Began to Change
• Number of divorces per year more than doubled
between 1914 & 1929
• Margaret Sanger coined the term “birth control”
and opened the country’s first family planning
clinic (arrested and jailed)
– Distributing birth control info was illegal in every
state, but Sanger was dedicated to altering those laws
– Founded what became the nation’s leading family
planning organization – Planned Parenthood
Federation of America
Mass Media Shape American Popular
Culture
• Popular culture is the
culture of ordinary people
and includes their music,
art, literature, and
entertainment
• Shaped by industries that
spread info and ideas,
especially mass media –
means of communication
that reaches a large
audience
Print Media Bring Popular Culture to a
National Audience
• During the 1920s, the amount
of print material expanded
enormously
• Americans were buying more
than 200 million copies a year of
popular national magazines
–
–
–
–
Saturday Evening Post
Ladies’ Home Journal
Reader’s Digest
Time
• As newspaper and magazine
circulation increased, more and
more people read the same
stories, events, ideas, and
fashions
Radio Gives Popular Culture a Voice
•
Radio unified the
nation - featured news,
sports, ads, soaps, &
other shows
•
•
•
First radio broadcast was
KDKA in Pittsburgh
National Broadcasting Co.
1st national network
Some shows like Amos ‘n
Andy became so popular that
people refused to answer
their phones during the
weekly broadcast
Motion Pictures Create Movie Stars
and Fans
•
After WWI, people
flocked to movie
theaters to escape the
problems of postwar
recession
Movies promoted
common values and
created trends
•
–
•
In 1929, weekly
attendance rose from
50 million to 90 million
– ticket sales rose from
$301 million to $721
million!
1st sound film – 1927
Automobiles Reshape American Life
• By making cars
affordable, automaker
Henry Ford changed the
way Americans lived
– Made travel to faraway
places more enjoyable
– Stimulated growth of
suburbs
– Ended the isolation of
farmers
– Created shopping centers
– Criminals used drive-bys
– Changed leisure activities
– Shaped sexual behavior in
the young
“Tin Lizzy” was the most
popular model
Americans Begin to Buy Now, Pay Later
• In the past, most Americans thought it was shameful to
borrow money to buy consumer goods
• By the 1920s, such thrift became old fashioned
• Expansion of credit made it possible to buy now, pay
later
• Growth of installment buying allowed buyers to make
a down payment then pay back the loan in monthly
installments (i.e. car payments)
• Buying on credit was so easy that many Americans
began to think the good times would go on forever…
The Roaring Twenties
Visual Summary
• Using pictures, magazine clippings, or
drawings, create a visual collage showing how
the popular trends of the 1920s have
influenced your life today. Use at least five
trends from the chapter. For each, write a
sentence or two that compares the 1920s
trend with a similar trend from today.
New Trends Shaped Popular Culture in
the 1920s
Mass Media
Section 28.4
Trend: Consumerism
(Section 28.2 – pg. 354-355)
•THEN: New advertisements were
created to increase demand for all
sorts of new products
•People started to use credit so they
could buy now, pay later
•NOW: Credit card companies are
huge! Businesses will pay millions
for advertisements – especially for a
Superbowl commercial
Women’s Rights
Section 28.5
The Jazz Age
Section 28.6