The Jazz AgeGuided Reading Activity Answers

The Charleston Sweeps the NationAnd that was just the beginning. In quick succession, dances like the Lindy Hop, the Black Bottom, and the Breakaway all came and went as the most fashionable dances. Crazy fads like flag pole sitting, marathon dance competitions, and mah-jongg spread from coast to coast. And occasionally, people decided that teaching their pet monkeys to dance the Charleston seemed like a pretty good idea, too.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth

The Sultan of Swat smashed 7114 homeruns during his career. Originally a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919 – and went on to win seven pennants and four World Series during his time in Yankee Stadium – “The House that Ruth Built!”

Charles Lindbergh – “Lucky Lindy”

JazzJazz music is defined as a musical form which combined the rhythms from West Africa and the Caribbean, work chants and spirituals from slaves and sharecroppers in the rural South, an the harmonies from Europeans styles of music into a new form. It is a distinctly American form of music – and an African-American form of music at that – which was brought into popularity during the 1920s.

Jazz was created in the South, and particularly in New Orleans, LA.

New Orleans Jazz Festival Louis Armstrong

Jazz Musicians of the 1920sBessie Smith Duke Ellington

George GershwinGeorge Gershwin was perhaps the most beloved composer of the 1920s and 1930s. While his pop music was probably most well known, he was also a classical composer and accomplished as both a performer and an entertainer. Some of his greatest hits include:

Strike Up the Band

I Got Rhythm

Funny Face

He died of a brain tumor in 1937 at the young age of 39.

Aaron CoplandAaron Copland was a composer of the 1920s and beyond who was strongly influenced by Jazz but eventually found his own niche in the American musical spectrum. He was bald and rather feeble looking by the height of his popularity, but his music spoke for him. His most famous scores, soundtracks, and songs include:

Fanfare for the Common Man

Billy the Kid (a ballet)

The Red Pony

Copland began his career in the 1920s, but was much more productive during the 1930s and 1940s.

F. Scott FitzgeraldFitzgerald, like many of the “Lost Generation” of American authors, was a critic of the empty lives led by wealthy Americans during the 1920s. Many of these young and influential authors found Americans to be hypocritical in their daily lives – banning alcohol by Prohibition, but visiting speakeasies – claiming to be virtuous Christians, but never visiting a church – the list went on and on. Fitzgerald himself led a very dubious sort of lifestyle – perhaps he was the hypocrite...

Ernest Hemingway, American Literature’s 20th Century Standard Bearer

The Sun Also Rises A Moveable Feast

Sinclair LewisIn his famous novel Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis criticized middle class Americans for their mediocrity and their willingness to conform to common standards in their lifestyles – even when it meant they would hypocritically live out their lives.

The Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance was a literary movement which took place in Harlem, a New York City neighborhood during the 1920s. African-American poets, authors, playwrights, artists, musicians, and actors found a forum for self expression through their various arts. In doing so, the black community in the United States was able to find a literary and artistic voice to express their own unique experiences as Americans.

Langston HughesI, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.

Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in the kitchen,"Then.

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

James Weldon JohnsonOh Black and Unknown Bards

O Black and unknown bards of long ago,How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?How, in your darkness, did you come to knowThe power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,Feeling the ancient faith of prophets riseWithin his dark-kept soul, burst into song? Heart of what slave poured out such melody As "Steal Away to Jesus"? On its strainsHis spirit must have nightly floated free,Though still about his hands he felt his chains.Who heard great "Jordan Roll"? Whose starward eyeSaw chariot "Swing Low"? And who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,"Nobody Knows de Trouble I See"?

by James Weldon Johnson

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was a trained anthropologist who collected folklore and folk songs in African-American communities in the Deep South and the Caribbean. In her own writings, she celebrated the unique lifestyles of African-Americans in segregated communities in the South – communities which she refused to view as victimized, oppressed places. The dialects of the characters in her novels distinguished her prose – Their Eyes Were Watching God is probably her most famous work.