The 1920sA New Culture Emerges

A New Urban Culture

• After WWI, a change in attitudes/culture occurred in America.

• Mostly in cities.

• This was the 1st time in US History that there were more people living in cities rather than the country.

Names Given to New Culture

• The Roaring 20s.

• The Jazz Age

The Old Victorian Culture

• Small town ideals were predominant.

• Central was the idea of Self-Making.

– Hard Work + Proper Moral living = success.

• People were supposed to emulate their parents (especially women).

New Urban Attitudes

• More care-free, living-for-the-moment.

• Hedonistic—self-gratification above all else.

• Instead of Progressive crusades, people want to enjoy life.

Causes of the New Culture

• 1. Disillusionment with WWI and the Progressive era (backlash).– Ezra Pound—Men had died, “For an old bitch gone in

the teeth. For a botched civilization.”

• 2. Change from 60hr work week to 40 = more free time.

• 3. Modern technology—Auto, Radio, Movies.

Automobile

• By 1927, Americans owned 4 out of every 5 cars in the world.

• Automobile manufacturing became America’s biggest industry during the 1920s.

• Also boom for steel, gasoline, glass, and rubber.

How the Car Transformed American Culture

• People began taking day-trips.

• People could live in suburbs outside of the cities where they worked.

• People took cross-country vacations.

• Young people took joy-rides and used cars for dating.

• Many consumers bought cars on credit.

Buying Habits

• In the 1920s, Americans started buying things like cars, furniture, appliances, radios, etc. on credit.

• Chain Stores that carried many items in one place began to dominate the retail sector.– Sears and Roebuck, JC Penny, Safeway, A&P.

• Advertising became a mass media.

Radio

• KDKA of Pittsburgh was the 1st radio station (1920).

• Soon radio networks (such as NBC and CBS) began to form.

• News, sports, music, and variety shows.• In 1929, $852 million worth of radios sold.

• Radio is most responsible for creating a national mass culture.

Movies

• Movie industry takes off in the 20s—it becomes the 5th largest business in the US (100 million people per week).

• The Jazz Singer, starring AL Jolson, was the 1st talking picture.

• Air Conditioning.

• Like radio, helped spread a mass culture.

Sports

• With more leisure time and the mass media of radio, sports became popular in the 20s.

• Baseball’s biggest star was Babe Ruth.

• In football, it was Red Grange. In one game he had TD runs of 95, 67, 55, and 45 yards the first 4-times he carried the ball.

• Boxing—Jack Dempsey.

The Biggest Hero

• Aviator Charles Lindbergh— “The Lone Eagle.”

• Became the 1st person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

• Plane was the Spirit of St. Louis.

Music

• Big Bands and Jazz became the most popular music.

• Louis Armstrong became the most popular performer.

• New dances such as the Charleston.

Literature

• The 1920s were the beginning of the “Golden Age” of American Literature.

• Many of the writers were disillusioned with America and WWI.

• The themes of their works dealt with alienation, disillusionment, and cynicism.

• Many of these writers left America to live in Paris.

• Others lived in Greenwich Village in New York.

“The Lost Generation”

• Gertrude Stein called the expatriates “the Lost Generation.”

• Writers included: William Faulkner,– John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, F.

Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis.

– Literary Critic = H.L Mencken “Booboisie”– Theatre = Eugene O’Neill.

Harlem Renaissance

• A flowering of Black Culture that was centered in Harlem.

• Included literature, music, theatre, and art.

• Dealt primarily with celebrating blackness and the notion of being black in America.

• Key figures were: Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen.

Freud and Sex• Sigmund Freud was a doctor from Vienna, Austria who pioneered

psychoanalysis.

• Argued that sexual repression was responsible for a variety of nervous and emotional illnesses.

• His works became popular in America during the 1920s.

• During the 20s, attitudes towards sex began to change—Sexuality came into the open.

• Dating replaced courting.

• This was especially true for women.

Flappers

• A look and an attitude.

• Short skirt, bobbed hair, no hips or breasts.

• Wore Make-up.

• Smoked and drank.

• Not shocked or offended by lewd jokes.