Roaring Twenties

Roaring Twenties

1. The Car

   • Cars helped the cities grow by opening up the suburbs
   • Carried workers to and from their work and their entertainment facilities.
   • Cars took Americans to: - sporting events, beach holidays, shopping trips, picnics in the countryside, and visits to family and friends.

2. Morals

   • Sex became a major concern of tabloid newspapers, Hollywood films, and everyday conversations.
     • Scott Fitzgerald - American writer - The Great Gatsby.
     • 36 states threatened to introduce a censorship legislation.
   • American Dream?

3. Growing Cities

   • Imposing skyline of skyscrapers; skyscrapers were built because there was no more land.
   • More Americans lived in towns than in cities.
   • tension between rural USA and urban USA
     • People from the countryside thought that their traditional values (religion and family life), were being threatened from the growing cities.
       • They thought that the cities were full of atheists, drunks, and criminals.

4. Entertainment

   • Average working weekly hours dropped from 47.4 to 44.2.
   • Average wages rose by 11%.
   • Sports
     • Boxing was also a very popular sport; Jack Dempsey.
     • Baseball became a big money sport with legendary teams; the Red Sox, Yankees.
   • Radio
     • People that couldn't afford to buy one out right, could purchase one in installments.
     • By the end of 1922, there were 508 licensed radio stations in the USA.
     • By 1929, for example, NBC was making $150 million a year.
   • Jazz
     • inspirational
     • became an obsession among young people.
     • Jazz brought the Charleston dance and flappers.
     • had a primitive rhythm.
     • So much power that it became known as the Jazz Age.
     • Older generation saw jazz and associates as a corrupting influence on the young people of the USA.
     • Black people that went to the cities brought jazz and blues music with them.
       • Blues music was more popular within the black population.
   • Cinema
     • movies became a multi-billion dollar business.
       • One hundred million tickets were sold each week.
     • UNtil 1927 all movies were silent.
       • 1927 - first talkie was made.
     • Hollywood
       • Studio produced a large amount of films.
     • New stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Bushes Keaton