The Roaring Life of the 1920s

Changing Ways of Life

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Rural and Urban Differences

•The 1920 census showed that for the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural areas

Rural and Urban Differences•Cities were places of change

and excitement•Rural areas remained

conservative and traditional•Urban culture was based on

popular tastes, morals and habits of mass consumption that were increasingly at odds with the strict religious and moral codes of rural America

Rural and Urban Differences•City dwellers drank, read

about new scientific discoveries and debated social ideas

•Small town dwellers were shocked by the behavior in the cities and frightened of so many people who were strangers

Prohibition

•The prohibitionists had been fighting to end liquor since the early 1800s

• In Jan 1920, the 18th Amendment outlawed the buying, selling, making and using alcohol

Prohibition

•This did not mean that Americans stopped drinking

•Speakeasies, bars who served patrons who knew the secret code, opened

•Other made homemade liquor, bathtub gin.

•Some were deadly concoctions

Bootleggers

•Others found that they could make a lot of money by providing illegal liquor to speakeasies

•Al Capone was one of many gangsters who smuggled liquor from Canada to Chicago

•He was arrested only for tax evasion

Prohibition

•A secret knock or word allowed entrance into liquor clubs

• If police arrived, they would leave through a secret exit

Twenty-three skidoo

Prohibition

•Different mobs fought over territory

•Gun battles ensued

• Ironically, 81% of America opposed Prohibition

Science and Religion

•Dominant social and political issues of the 1920s expressed sharp divisions in US society between young and old; urban modernists and rural fundamentalists; prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists; nativists and foreign born

Science and Religion

•The Protestant movement in rural areas was fundamentalism

•Fundamentalists believe in the literal meaning of every word in the Bible

•Numerous preachers took to the road and radio to preach the “good book”

Religion•While there were always

rifts between the individual religions, the 1920s saw rifts between Protestants– Modernism– Fundamentalism– Revivalists on the radio

Religion - Modernism•Large numbers of Protestants

changed their views of religion because of the changing roles of women, the Social Gospel, and scientific knowledge

•They took an historical and critical view of the Bible

•They believed evolution did not conflict with creationism

Religion – Fundamentalism •Preachers in rural areas taught

every word of the Bible as literal fact

•Fundamentalists believed that God created the universe in 7 days and Genesis explained the origin of life

•They believed that liberals caused the moral decay of society

Religion – Revivalists

•Revivalists in the past traveled the region to spread their word

•Now they used the radio– Billy Sunday – attacked

drinking, gambling and dancing– Aimee Semple McPherson –

condemned communism and jazz

Religion – Revivalists •Sunday was a

professional baseball player until he found religion

•He gave up the sport and spend the rest of his life opposing alcohol

Religion – Revivalists •McPherson – using the

automobile and radio, her flock totaled 2 million

•She is remembered more for the scandal, than her religious convictions

•She disappeared in 1926 and then claimed she was kidnapped

Religion – Revivalists •Her radio producer

disappeared at the same time and she was sighted at a resort in Mexico

•When she returned, she was more popular than ever

•She was widowed once and divorced twice

Science - Evolution •Charles Darwin’s

book, Origin of the Species” taught people about evolution among plants and animals

•That idea carried over to human evolution

Science - Evolution •Some states, like TN, made

it illegal to teach evolution because it was anti-religious teachings

•High school biology teacher, John Scopes, was arrested before he could teach his planned lesson on evolution

Scopes Trial •Scopes was

defended by Clarence Darrow, a famous trial lawyer from Chicago

•The prosecutor was William Jennings Bryan, a devout fundamentalist John Scopes

Scopes Trial •Darrow put the Bible on trial

and called Bryan as an expert on the Bible

•Bryan looked old- fashioned, feeble and naïve

•Darrow was sophisticated and smooth

• Darrow Bryan

Scopes Trial •Darrow asked about the age

of earth•Bryan replied that he was

more interested in the rock of ages than the age of rocks

•He believed that creation occurred in 4004 BC

John Scopes

Scopes Trial •When asked if the world was

created in 7 24-hour days, Bryan admitted that there may be some flexibility in the actual 24 hour time period

•Scopes was found guilty and fined $100

The Roaring Life of the

1920s

The 20s Woman

Young Women in the 20s •The emancipated

woman arrived in the 1920s

•They cut their hair short, wore short dresses, smoked, drank in public, earned their own money, and danced.

Charleston

Women•Women entered the

workforce in greater numbers but were limited to certain categories of jobs

•They were usually clerks, nurses, teachers, and maids

•They were paid less than men

Women and Men•One of the

biggest changes was the revolt against sexual taboos

Women and Men•Some were

influenced by Sigmund Freud who stressed the role of sexual repression in mental illness

Women and Men• The use of

contraceptives was still illegal in almost every state but Sanger and other advocates achieved growing acceptance in the 20s

Women and Men•Flappers

danced dances, like the foxtrot and Charleston, encouraged greater sexual promiscuity

Women and Men•This conflicted with the

older generation’s ideas of what women should do– Get married– Have children– Clean house– Obey their husbands

Women and Men

•This double standard, requiring a different set of behaviors for men and women, continues today

•Women of the 1920s used more efficient electrical appliances to make their jobs easier or hired cheap immigrant help

Women and Men

•There are also studies that show that as more appliances came available for women, the level of expectation also rose

•Example – 4 burner stoves meant 4 course meals

•Vacuum cleaners meant floors cleaned daily

Women and Men•The divorce rate

was 1 in 8 in 1920

•By 1930, it was 1 in 6

•Birthrates declined

Women

•New child labor laws kept most children out of factories or at home or in schools

Youth in the 1920s

•Young people acted as if they did not have a care in the world

•Pole sitting, eating goldfish, dance marathons, going to speakeasies were all the ‘bees knees’ of the Roaring 20s

The Roaring Life of the

1920s

Education and Popular Culture

Youth in the 1920s

•As the economy improved, more children attended more years of school

•New immigrants learned English and became ‘Americanized’

•Taxes rose to meet the needs of the growing school systems

News in the 1920s

•Radios brought news into almost every home

•Local papers were bought out by large chains

•Magazine circulation increased, tailoring their articles to specific readers

Entertainment in the 1920s

• In the 20s, the radio and a few radio stations appeared

•By 1930 there were 800 stations broadcasting to 10 million radios

•The movie industry made stars of Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo

Entertainment in the 1920s

•Glamorous movie theaters were constructed

•Talkies were introduced in 1927 and by 1929, over 80 million tickets were sold each week Little

RascalsSteamboat Willie

Entertainment in the 1920s

•Americans shifted their view of heroic figures from TR and Wilson to people celebrated on sports pages or on the movie screen.

Entertainment in the 1920s

• Jack Dempsey•Gertrude Ederle• Jim Thorpe•Babe Ruth•Bobby Jones

•Boxer•Swimme

r•Football•Baseball•Golf

Entertainment in the 1920s

•The most popular ‘hero’ of the day was Charles Lindbergh

•He flew from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927

Entertainment in the 1920s

•American literature included works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an unflattering view of the 1920s in The Great Gatsby

• Jazz was born with George Gershwin

•Ernest Hemingway left America and wrote A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises

Automobiles •Cars changed every aspect

of society from– Traffic jams, accidents and

death– Shopping– Dating– Commuting to work

The Roaring Life of the

1920s

Harlem

Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

•By 1930 almost 20% of African Americans lived in the North

•Still facing discrimination in jobs and housing, some improved their economic standing for their skill in acting, music, art and writing

Harlem Renaissance

•The African American community of Harlem, in NY, had a high concentration of talented men and women

•Their collective achievement was called the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

• Poets – Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and Claud McKay – expressed emotion from bitterness to joy

Langston Hughes

Harlem Renaissance

•Musicians – Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and actor Paul Robeson entertained white audiences but had to use the back door to enter the theaters

Marcus Garvey

•His “Back to Africa” plan was in opposition to WEB DuBois

•Advocated individual and racial pride

•His ideas will come alive again in the equality movement of the 1960s