Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
• Describe the new fads and heroes that emerged during the 1920s and how they affected American culture.
• Identify the origins, importance, and spread of a new musical style—jazz.
• Explain how new literature styles described American society in a new, more critical way.
Objectives
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Terms and People
• Charles Lindbergh – the first airplane pilot to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean
• jazz – a style of music developed in New Orleans in the 1920s
• Sinclair Lewis – author of Babbit, a novel about the hypocrisies of middle-class culture
• Langston Hughes – Harlem Renaissance poet whose poems express racial pride
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Jazz music was created in New
Orleans.
New heroes captured the spirit of the
time.
Writers produced enduring
literary works.
What arts and culture symbolized the Jazz Age?
The 1920s produced a burst of cultural change and artistic creativity.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
During the 1920s, feelings of optimism ran high. Many Americans expressed their new exuberance through dance.
Dance marathons
Flagpole sitting competitions
The Chinese game of mah-
jongg
Dances such as the Charleston
Americans participated in other amusing fads as well.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Sports entertainment also gained popularity at this time, and sports heroes became celebrities.
Baseball player Babe Ruth was one such hero.
The mass media made Ruth a style setter. Millions of fans copied his style.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Lindbergh symbolized American energy and optimism.
Charles Lindbergh was the most beloved hero of the time.
In 1927, he made the first nonstop flight
across the Atlantic.
He became an instant hero. New York City
held a huge parade in his honor.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Jazz Music
The 1920s also saw the creation of a new musical sound: jazz. Jazz combined elements of music from around the world.
West African rhythms
Southern work chants and spirituals
Caribbean rhythms
European harmonies
Jazz was created by black musicians in the port city of New Orleans, where these cultures met.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Jazz music gained popularity among African American audiences.
Many African American jazz musicians became famous.
Trumpet player Louis Armstrong
Band leader Duke Ellington
Singer Bessie Smith
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Jazz quickly spread beyond the African American community.
People all around America heard jazz on the radio.
White composers, band leaders, and audiences embraced jazz.
Jazz became one of the most important American contributions to world culture. The 1920s became known as the “Jazz Age.”
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Jazz music provoked both positive and negative reactions.
Many young people found jazz music exciting.
They enjoyed its emphasis on improvisation and experimentation.
Many older Americans found jazz rhythms jarring.
Some thought its emphasis on pleasure was a bad influence on the young.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Like music, American literature flourished during the 1920s.
Many writers seemed disillusioned by the postwar generation.
They complained that Americans had become greedy and selfish after World War I.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Many writers acted as social critics, writing novels that pointed out society’s flaws.
F. Scott
Fitzgerald
portrayed the
emptiness of rich
people’s lives in
his novel, The
Great Gatsby.
In his novel, Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis pointed out the hypocrisies of middle-class culture.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Some writers found American society so intolerable that they became expatriates, people who leave their own country to live abroad.
This experience is reflected in his novel, The Sun Also
Rises.
Ernest Hemingway lived for a time with American expatriates in France.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
During the 1920s, a vibrant African American culture grew in Harlem, a part of New York City.
During the Harlem Renaissance, African American artists expressed the hope of black Americans and reacted against prejudice.
Writers Musicians Poets
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Writers were an important part of the Harlem Renaissance.
Langston Hughes wrote poems that expressed racial pride. He wanted his poems to sound like jazz music.
James Weldon Johnson combined poetry and politics. He also worked as an organizer for the NAACP.
Chapter 22 Section 3
The Jazz Age
Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most important women writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston recorded folk songs and folk tales to preserve and analyze them.
She is most remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.