The New The Culture

Samantha Merrifield, Josh Romance, Matt Gibbon, Emery Jellock, & Ashlyn

Anderson

Consumerism

• People were able to spend on meaningless things

• Middle class peoples could go on vacations because of the automobile

Advertising

• Advertising came to age in the 1920s partly because of the wartime propaganda publishers sought to identify products with magazines, posters, and through vehicles.

The Movies and Broadcasting

• During this period, movies became very popular• More than 100 million people saw movies in 1930• In 1977, sound was introduced to movies• Studio owners created the MPA or Motion Picture

Association• Radios also were becoming a hit• KDKA in Pittsburg was first commercial radio

network• By 1923 there were more than 500 radio stations

Modernist Religion

• Religion was changed by consumer culture, and its increasing emphasis on the immediate and personal fulfillment.

• Theological modernists taught their followers to abandon some traditional tenets of evangelical Christianity and to accept a faith that would help individuals to live more fulfilling lives in the present world

• The middle class was abandoning religion and religious activities.

Professional Women

• There were up to 3 generations of graduates of women’s of coeducational colleges and universities.

• Occupations for women were still limited.• They reminded confined to fields including:

Fashion, education, social work, and nursing.• Most middle-class married women did not

work outside the home

Changing Ideas of Motherhood

• A group of psychologists -the behaviorist- began to Challenge the long held assumption that women had an instinctive capacity for motherhood

• They expressed the belief that maternal affection was not enough for child rearing. They encouraged women to get advice and assistance from experts and professionals

• Birth control was developed, which caused relationships to become “romantic” and less about reproduction.

The “Flapper”: Image and Reality

• Women could smoke, drink, dance, and wear seductive clothing.

Pressing for Women’s Rights

• The National Women’s Party pressed the campaign to make the equal rights amendment in the 1920s.

• The league of women voters and women’s auxiliaries were made.

• The Sheppard-Towner Act secured protective legislation for women.

Education and Youth

• High school attendance with form 2.2 million to 5 million

• College enrollment increased threefold in 1918 there were 600,000 college students in 1930 there was 1.2 million

• Schools and college provided an area to create social patterns and hobbies

The Decline of the “Self-Made Man”

• Teddy Roosevelt had glorified warfare and the “strenuous life” as a route to “manhood”

• Men were seeking confirmation of their masculinity

• Heroes: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh

The Disenchanted

• People segregated themselves from society and worked for personal fulfillment. The heart of the disenchanted was rooted to WWI

The Harlem Renaissance

• A new generation of black artist and intellectuals created a flourishing African-American culture widely described as the “Harlem Renaissance”.

• Night clubs with Jazz, musical comedies and vaudeville.

• Also, literature poetry and art.