THE TWENTIES

Age of Paranoia

Roaring Twenties

A Time of new ideas and prosperity that brought change to popular culture and contritubed to new directions in American life

A new Consumer Culture

New products make life easier

Listerine, Toaster, Vacums , washing machines, irons, refrigerators

Advertising Grows

Focus on buying the next best thing

Used psychologists to figure out people’s desires and behaviors

Bruce Barton Print and radio

Buy now / Pay later

Credit Installment buying 15% of all retail

sales were on installment plans

Americans in the Air and on the Roads

Airplanes

Charles Lindbergh flies across the Atlantic

U.S post office uses surplus military planes

First transcontinental mail route in 1920 from NY to San Francisco

Ford produces an all metal airplane that carried 10 passenders

Automotible

Henry Ford’s Model T

Allowed people to live outside of cities (suburbs)

Building of Federal Highways

Gas stations, diners, motels spring up

Automobile accidents rise

Mass Media Grows

Radio

KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasts the 1920 Presidential election

David Sarnoff broadcasts the sinking of the Titanic.

RCA (Radio Corporation of America) and Sarnoff create NBC radio

Broadcast news, sports, music, drama, and comedy across the nation

Brings Americans closer together

Motion Pictures

50 million movie goers in 1920 rises to 90 million by 1929

The Jazz Singer first “Talkie”

Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino

Sports

Spectator Sports like Boxing, wresting and Baseball emerge

Jack Dempsey fight earns $2.6 million dollars

Radio spreads the popularity

Babe Ruth in Baseball and Jim Thorpe Football became national heroes.

The Boom Years

Henry Ford Pioneers a New Age

By 1929 half of american famlies owned a car

Assembly line helped Ford cut the price of the car from $950 to $290

Doubled pay from $2.40 an hour to $5.00 By 1930 Ford produced 20 Million cars

Innovations give Birth to New industries

1 of every 8 workers had a job related to the auto industry

By 1930 – 38 domestic and five international airlines

Plastics Craze, Synthetic fibers changed clothing, cellophane

Big Businesses Get even Bigger

Consolidation of businesses grew as Presidents ignored anti-trust laws

Three big auto makers - GM, Ford, Chrysler

A&P Grocery Store Chain drives small businesses out.

Speculators Aim to Get Rich Quick

Ponzi Scheme and Florida Land Boom led to speculators losing everything

Stock Market investment become commonplace for housewives, barbers, taxi drivers and other middle class workers.

DOW Jones Industrial Average doubled between 1928 and 1929

Left Out of the Boom: Enduring Poverty

Gross national produce rose by 40% between 1921-1929

Half of American families earned $1500 a year or less. ($2500 was decent)

Farmers remained in debt after the war. Surplus crops caused farm prices to drop.

Farmworkers earned low wages Workers in old industries struggled (coal

miners, textile factory workers,) African Americans paid less than whites,

barred from unions.

A whole new way of life for Women

19th Amendment grants suffrage

WWI jobs inspired women to do more

Flappers – rebellious women who wore short skirts

Birth Control – Margaret Singer

Makeup, cigarettes

Harlem Renaissance

The outpouring of creativity among African American writers, artists and musicians who gathered in Harlem in the 1920’s

William Johnson (artist)

Aaron Douglas (artist)

Zora Neale Huston (writer)

Claude McKay (writer)

Langston Hughes (writer)

I Am

I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,But I laugh,

And eat well,And grow strong.

Tomorrow,I'll be at the table

When company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"Then.

They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

- Langston Hughes 

The Jazz Age

The Jazz Age

Grew from African rhythms, European Harmonies African American folk music

Improvisation Born in New Orleans Spread to Chicago,

New York, St. Louis as musicians traveled north

Duke Ellington

Jazz clubs in Harlem (Cotton Club) had mostly white patrons but black entertainers

Radio Stations catch on Louis Armstrong, Duke

Ellington Led to new dance

called the Charleston Traditionalists felt that

jazz was leading to immoral behavior

Prohibition

18th Amendment Prohibited the sale and/or use of alcohol

Why Prohibit alcohol

The Good

• The use of alcohol declined under the 18th

• Fewer workers especially poor and working class ethnic groups spent their wages at saloons

The Bad

• The gov’t did not provide enough funding for men or supplies

• People sold alcohol illegally in speakeasies

• People brewed their own “bath tub” gin

• People bought bootlegged alcohol smuggled in from Canada

The Bad

Sale of alcohol was a multibillion dollar business for gangsters like Al Capone

Al Capone bribed judges, politicians and police and was blamed for hundreds of murders