The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties

Pre-Test!


Question #1:What famous baseball player started as a Red Sox pitcher, then became a

Yankee slugger?


Question #2:What was the accomplishment of

Charles Lindbergh, in his Spirit of St. Louis?


Question #3:What Los Angeles “town” was created

during the 1920’s as a location for movie making?


Question #4:What activity was conducted in

“marathons”, to see which pair would be the last to drop?


Question #5:What name was given to young girls, who cut their hair, wore the

latest fashions, and tried to have a tomboyish figure?


Question #6:

Can you name the Chicago gangster who was known as “Scarface”? Clue: he earned millions in the bootlegging

industry.


Question #7:

What is the serious-looking farmer holding in a famous 1920’s picture

entitled, “American Gothic”?


Question #8:

What hate group regained strength during the post World War I period, in

rural parts of the South?


Question #9:

How were Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti executed after a 5-year

trial for murder?


Question #10:

For how many days did Shipwreck Kelly sit atop a pole in

downtown Atlantic City?


Question #1:What famous baseball player started as a Red Sox pitcher, then became a

Yankee slugger?


Question #2:What was the accomplishment of

Charles Lindbergh, in his Spirit of St. Louis?


Question #3:What Los Angeles “town” was created

during the 1920’s as a location for movie making?


Question #4:What activity was conducted in

“marathons”, to see which pair would be the last to drop?


Question #5:What name was given to young girls, who cut their hair, wore the

latest fashions, and tried to have a tomboyish figure?


Question #6:

Can you name the Chicago gangster who was known as “Scarface”? Clue: he earned millions in the bootlegging

industry.


Question #7:

What is the serious-looking farmer holding in a famous 1920’s picture

entitled, “American Gothic”?


Question #8:

What hate group regained strength during the post World War I period, in

rural parts of the South?


Question #9:

How were Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti executed after a 5-year

trial for murder?


Question #10:

For how many days did Shipwreck Kelly sit atop a pole in

downtown Atlantic City?

Why Do We Call It The “Roaring” Twenties?

• Exciting sports adventures

• Entertainment industry (films, music)

• Changing culture (art, fashion)

• Prohibition of alcohol

• Risk-taking behavior (example: investing in the stock market)

Roaring Twenties Lingo“That’s nonsense!” = horsefeathers, applesauce, baloney

“a superb person” = bee’s knees

“to murder” = bump off

“a boring person” = flat tire

“the jitters” = heebie jeebies

“eyeglasses” = cheaters

“wise” = hep

“attractive, appealing” = keen, hotsy totsy

Roaring Twenties Lingo“elegant” = ritsy

“to leave hurriedly” = scram

“crazy or unusual” = screwy

“drunk” = spifficated

“a hired gunman” = torpedo

“to vomit” = upchuck

“spiffy”, “swanky”, “swell”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3svvCj4yhYc

Warren Harding

Twenty-Ninth President

1921-23

Calvin Coolidge

Thirtieth President

1923-29

American Gothic

Grant Wood

Some traditional values:

Strong family emphasis

Deep faith in God/Bible

Resistance to change

Some new values:

Strong individual emphasis

Growing faith in science

Excitement about change

"The Three Dancers”, one of Picasso's key works, was painted in 1925 at a crucial moment in his development, and marks the beginning of a new period of emotional violence and Expressionist distortion.

In 1924, the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act limited Koreans entering the US to 100 per year.

Women of the Klan- March on Washington, 1925

National Thrift Director and One of His Banks for Children : Dr. J. Stanley Brown, of Joliet, Ill., whose picture appears above, will, it is announced, distribute fifteen million of these hand grenade banks to children. These transformed implements of war will become powerful aids to peace.

Here, the fear of communism is portrayed as a fungus growing on a tree.

The WCTU suggested that school teachers put half of a calf’s brain in an empty jar into which alcohol should be poured. As the color of the brain turned from pink to gray, pupils were to be warned that a drink of alcohol would do the same to their brains. http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/FunFacts/Prohibition.html

A major prohibitionist group, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) taught as "scientific fact" that the majority of beer drinkers die from dropsie. 11

http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/FunFacts/references/Prohibition.html#Slide%2011

Prohibition led to widespread disrespect for law. New York City alone had about thirty thousand (yes, 30,000) speakeasies. And even public leaders flaunted their disregard for the law. They included the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, who owned and operated an illegal still.

In Los Angeles, a jury that had heard a bootlegging case was itself put on trial after it drank the evidence. The jurors argued in their defense that they had simply been sampling the evidence to determine whether or not it contained alcohol, which they determined it did. However, because they consumed the evidence, the defendant charged with bootlegging had to be acquitted.

There was one way to obtain alcoholic beverages legally during the prohibition years: through a physician's prescription, purchasing the liquor from a pharmacy. Physicians could prescribe distilled spirits--usually whiskey or brandy--on government prescription forms.

Documents

The Roaring Twenties