Transcript Life in the 1920s

WARMUP
 What
might life be like for
Americans in the 1920s?
 How would the culture
change?
 What stories do you know
about the 1920s?
The Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance
Life in the 1920s:
A.


Prohibition Era (1919-1933):
18th Amendment (1919) – prohibited
the making, selling, or transportation of
alcohol
Volstead Act – law passed by Congress
to enforce prohibition – ignored by
most of the cities on the east coast
Life in the 1920s:
Success of prohibition:
-consumption of alcohol decreased
-arrest for drunkenness decreased
 Why did Prohibition eventually fail?
1) Not enforced – some police depts.
were corrupt, just didn’t care, or were
scared of the gangsters
2) Most people didn’t take prohibition
seriously – drank anyway

Effects of Prohibition
Life in the 1920s:
The crime wave that began made most
people think that the amendment
should be repealed

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
organized crime got involved in bootlegging
(the illegal selling of alcohol)
the most famous gangster of the 1920s
was Al Capone from Chicago
Life in the 1920s:

Al Capone – nicknamed “Scarface”
-had a talent for avoiding jail by buying
off policemen, city officials, and
politicians
-made up to $60 million a year from
bootlegging
-convicted of tax evasion in 1931 and
sent to prison
-released in 1939 after becoming ill with
syphilis – died in 1947
Life in the 1920s:
21st Amendment (1933) – repealed the 18th
Amend. and allowed local communities to
decide whether or not to legalize alcohol
 Slang Words from prohibition era:
-bathtub gin
-moonshine (made at night)
-white lightning
-speakeasy – secret club or bar – usually in a
basement – needed a password to get in

Life in the 1920s:
Entertainment:
B.

Shorter working hours and higher wages gave Americans
more spare time and more money for entertainment
1)
Radio – first radio station in Pittsburgh, PA in Nov.
1920 – only news at first – baseball and music
broadcasted later
Moving Picture Shows (“movies”) – all movies were
silent films at first (had music but no talking)
2)
Ex. Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Clara Bow
3)
4)
5)
Sports –often called the “Golden Age of Sports”
Music / Dance – the radio made music more popular
Literature
Life in the 1920s:

Sports Continued
a) Babe Ruth – nicknamed “The Sultan of
Swat” or “The Great Bambino”
-most famous baseball player of the 20s
-played most of his career with the NY
Yankees
-hit 60 homeruns in 1927 (remained a
record until 1961)
-hit 714 career homeruns (remained a
record nearly 40 years)
Life in the 1920s:

Music and Dance Continued
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Jazz was the most popular music of the 20s
started in New Orleans
Louis Armstrong was the most popular jazz
musician of the 20s
George Gershwin was a popular composer –
wrote “Rhapsody in Blue”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSq_nwo
G43s&safe=active
popular dances included: Charleston, Foxtrot, and Tango
Life in the 1920s:
Literature Continued
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Famous 1920s authors include:
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F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Sinclair Lewis – Main Street
Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
Poetry Reading:
“Let America be America again”

Life in the 1920s:
C.
Return of the Ku Klux Klan
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Revived in the 1920s
Membership:
-1916- 100,000 -1924- 2 million
-1928- 4 million -today- approx. 6,000
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Attacked African Am.’s, Jews, Catholics,
and immigrants
Life in the 1920s:
Scopes / “Monkey” Trial
The state of TN passed a law in 1925
that made it illegal to teach evolution
(Charles Darwin theory) in public schools
John Scopes, a teacher from Dayton, TN,
was chosen by the ACLU to challenge the
law
Life in the 1920s:
He was arrested and charged – defense
attorney was Clarence Darrow
 William Jennings Bryan was the
prosecutor
 The judge refused to allow scientists to
testify for the defense since “they were
not around during creation”
 Scopes was found guilty and fined $100,
however the law was later changed

DOT ACTIVITY
Life in the 1920s:
D.
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The Red Scare
The fear of radicals (esp. communists
and socialists)
Causes:
1) the communist revolution in Russia
(1917) scared many Americans – “If it
can happen there, it can happen here.”
2) terroristic violence in the U.S. – mail
bombs were sent to local, state, and
national leaders
Life in the 1920s:
Because of the Red Scare and the
power of the KKK, limits were placed on
immigration
 Sacco and Vanzetti Case – two Italian
immigrants, who were anarchists, were
accused of killing 2 men during a
robbery in MA – convicted without a fair
trial – both were executed in 1927

Boom Time?
 The years between World War I and
the Great Depression were "boom
times" in the United States.
 A "boom" is a time of rapid,
widespread expansion of economic
opportunity, during which jobs are
plentiful.
 Jobs were plentiful in cities,
especially in the North.
Women in the 20s
Women are starting to assert
themselves in this time period
 Flappers: Women in the 20s who
challenge the old norms of America.
Modern women of the 1920s – young,
rebellious, fun-loving, and bold – short
hair, short dresses (to the knees), more
makeup (esp. lipstick) – attitudes
changes – ex: began to smoke and
drink in public, vote

The Harlem Renaissance
Explosion of culture
among African
Americans in New
York
 Langston Hughes,
Louis Mailou Jones,
Billie Holliday, Duke
Ellington, Louis
Armstrong

Harlem Renaissance
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originally called
the New Negro
Movement.
fostered a new
black cultural
identity.
1920s through
mid-40s.

an outpouring of
creative
expression that
had long been
bottled up by
the constraints
of segregation.
Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington
(1899-1974) composer, musician, band leader
The Great Migration

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Mass exodus from the South
Between 1920 and 1930, almost 750,000 African
Americans left the South for political, social,
and economic reasons.
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At the beginning of the period, particularly
in the South, racism was rampant, and
economic opportunities were scarce.
At this time in the South, African
Americans were restricted to "colored"
facilities clearly inferior to those reserved
for white citizens.
Lynching was still being used to instill fear
in entire African American communities in
the South.
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Strange Fruit
Before I show you the video, keep in
mind:
 What is the singer describing?
 What words or actions stand out to you?
 What is the mood or tone of the song?
 What issue in society might the song be
about?

Strange Fruit (deals with lynching)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Zyu
ULy9zs
The “New” City – The Great Migration
Causes of Migration
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new farm machinery drove thousands of
tenant farmers off the land.
Southern states had fewer schools and
higher rates of illiteracy than Northern
states.
Northern states also had more cultural
attractions and booming industries.
○ wider opportunities for prosperity
○ more racially tolerant environments
○ a sense of actual (as opposed to
theoretical) citizenship
The New Negro Has no Fear

After centuries of abuse in the South, many
African Americans were "voting with their
feet"
UNIA Parade
Organized in
Harlem, 1924
The North: Home Sweet Home?
 The North was a step up from the
South, but it was no paradise.
 Segregation in housing and
hiring were the norm.
 Northern racism sometimes took
on a brutality that equaled
anything in the South.
Why "Harlem" Renaissance?
Of the almost 750,000 African
Americans who moved
North, nearly 175,000 moved
to Harlem.
 Harlem is a section of
Manhattan, which covers
three square miles;
therefore, Harlem became
the largest concentration of
black people in the world.

Triggers of Harlem Renaissance
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the end of World War I and the
return of black veterans
the support of civil rights
organizations (NAACP) and black
solidarity movements (UNIA)
the ascendance of Harlem as the
"Negro capital of the world"
a new sense of economic, social,
and cultural potential
Famous Faces of the Harlem
Renaissance
Claude McKay
“If We Must Die”
“America”
photo by James L. Allen
Famous Faces of the Harlem
Renaissance
Langston Hughes
(1902-1967)
“Dreams”
“Harlem”
“The Weary Blues”
Wrapup
What caused the Harlem Renaissance?
 Why were the 1920s known as the
roaring 20s?
 What examples of changes to American
culture can you give?
