The Jazz Age How Did Consumerism and Leisure Affect American Culture?
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The Jazz Age How did consumerism and leisure affect American culture?
The Roaring Twenties: GREASES Chart As you read pages 5–11, use the GREASES Chart to record information about key aspe American culture and society during the 1920s.
Editable Activity
Teacher's Guide
New electronic goods, a strong economy, and mass communication gave r to a leisure culture during the 1920s. Leisure means “free time.” This leisu culture was partly the result of national pride after World War I. America felt that they had won the war in Europe. Now, many hoped to focus on th own needs and desires.
Music
The 1920s became known as the Jazz Age. This was because the mood of th times was upbeat and exciting, just like jazz music. Jazz is a style of music that African American musicians created in the late 1800s. These musician lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. They were influenced by music from the Caribbean, West Africa, Europe, and the rural South. Jazz musicians
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responded to one another’s music as they played. They did not plan or practice. Each jazz performance was different from the rest. There were f rules to follow.
Many African American musicians helped create the jazz sound. Trumpet Louis Armstrong, composer Duke Ellington, and singer Bessie Smith were some of the most famous jazz performers. White entertainers also loved ja In 1924, white composer George Gershwin wrote “Rhapsody in Blue.” This was a blend of classical music and jazz.
Sports and Movies
Professional sports and movies became a big part of the 1920s leisure culture. In 1922, the New York Yankees and New York Giants played in baseball’s World Series. Two hundred thousand people watched from the stands. In 1923, they again played in the baseball World Series. This time, 300,000 people came to watch. Radio also made sporting events a shared experience. For example, one popular event was a heavyweight boxing m in 1927. It was between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. According to the Chicago Tribune newspaper, the radio audience was 15 million. Others ha estimated that 50 million people listened to the match worldwide.
Movie attendance grew in the 1920s. By the mid-1920s, half of the nation went to the movies each week. That is about 50 million people. New filmmaking technology made it possible to make copies of a movie. As a result, the same film could play in theaters around the country on the sam day. This created a shared movie culture in America.
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Movie stars became American idols of success and glamour. Douglas Fairbanks was everyone’s favorite hero. Mary Pickford was America’s swe innocent girl. Clara Bow reflected the excitement and daring of the Jazz Ag She earned the nickname “It Girl.” When people went to the movies, they might see live entertainment and a newsreel. This was a short movie that showed important national and world events. Like sports, movies became fun activity that brought Americans together.
Fashion
Fashion also interested consumers. The Nineteenth Amendment had just been passed. Women had won the right to vote. They were showing their independence. They were demanding equality. They also wanted to be modern. They cut their hair short like men. They gave up the tight corsets that gave them the “ideal” female figure. They wore loose-fitting blouses a short skirts. They also broke the rules of proper female behavior. Young women who adopted the new fashions and the new attitude were called flappers.
Flapper fashion spread. Women across the country of all ages wanted to f free and modern. Ads in popular magazines helped spread flapper fashion and ideas. Ladies’ Home Journal and Harper’s Bazaar expanded their fash sections to cover flapper styles. Style experts gave the same advice to wom in New York City, Chicago, Illinois, and Nashville, Tennessee. This advice created national fashion trends. Each season, new styles or colors were crowned as the new “It” Fashion. Clothes went out of style quickly. As a re
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people had to buy new clothes each year to keep up with trends. Nationall branded chain stores made the newest fashions available to small-town America.
Visual Arts and Architecture
Many artists in the 1920s commented on the changes going on American l For example, Mexican artists visited the United States and painted large murals on the walls of buildings. José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siquieros, and Diego Rivera were known in Mexico as Los Tres Grandes, o “the big three.” Rivera’s work focused on the problems workers faced in American factories. His 1932 mural at the Detroit Institute of Art shows workers on an auto assembly line.
The spirit of progress also shaped architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright developed what he called “prairie style” for homes. They had rectangular shapes and sharp horizontal lines. This style resembled the flatness of the American plains. Every part of his buildings had a functional purpose. Oth architects followed Wright’s idea that the materials and the design of a building must have a purpose. Nothing should be added just for decoratio Skyscrapers were built out of concrete and glass. They did not include carving, decoration, or color. These buildings were meant to show the progress and focus of American society.
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The Lost Generation How did literature respond to the cultural changes of the 1920s?
Many Americans were shocked by the horrors of World War I. They thought that something must be very wrong with traditional values if those values caused World War I. Nothing could excuse the death and destruction that young men and women experienced during the war. American writers traveled to Europe in search of inspiration. They hoped to create something new in a land where the old world had been destroyed. These Americans were expatriates, or people who choose to live in a foreign country.
American writer Gertrude Stein spent most of her life in France. She described these wandering Americans as the Lost Generation. These writers included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and Stein herself. They were “lost” because they felt strongly that something was wrong but did not know what to do about it. They wrote stories and poetry that criticized consumer society.
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, spent many years traveling in Europe. They mostly traveled throughout France. In his book Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald wrote about how his generation was damaged emotionally by World War I. According to Fitzgerald,
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they were dedicated “to the fear of poverty and the worship of success.” This description reflects the commercialism in the United States.
Fitzgerald’s most famous novel is The Great Gatsby. The main characters are obsessed with money and how to spend it. They go to lavish parties and are always looking for entertainment. Their relationships are based on lies. Fitzgerald was speaking out about his problem with people who care more about social position and money than personal relationships.
Ernest Hemingway was another famous novelist who spent many years living in Europe. The characters in his books The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are members of the Lost Generation. William Faulkner’s story “The Bear” tells the story of a boy coming to terms with the adult world by learning to hunt. The story celebrates pride, humility, and courage. Faulkner feared that these qualities were being lost as Americans left the country for the city. He thought that people needed to be connected to nature. Industrialization took that away. Sinclair Lewis wrote about small-town life in his novel Babbitt. He showed how consumerism and conformity in American values created boredom and destroyed happiness.
During the 1920s, many American writers and thinkers studied the effects of a changing American society on those men and women who grew up during World War I. Their works reveal the problems of the Jazz Age.
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Crossing the Atlantic Ocean Who were the heroes of the 1920s?
One of the greatest heroes of the 1920s was not a professional sports figure or a writer. It was a shy pilot named Charles Lindbergh. He was born in Detroit, Michigan. Born in 1902, Lindbergh took up flying in the early 1920s for the U.S. Postal Service. In 1927, a $25,000 prize was offered to the first pilot to fly without stopping from New York City to Paris, France. Lindbergh accepted the challenge. On May 20, he took off in a small, single-engine plane called the Spirit of St. Louis. He flew 33.5 hours. He landed in Paris the next day. He had overcome bad weather, sleepiness, and hunger to reach his goal.
Lindbergh’s success excited Americans. They were becoming obsessed with media events and contests during the 1920s. Lindbergh was one of the first celebrities in American society. His transatlantic flight was one of the decade’s most famous events. To welcome Lindbergh home, New Yorkers threw a huge parade. President Calvin Coolidge even invited the young man to the White House.
Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) was another celebrity pilot of the 1920s. In 1928, she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly alone, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. Media coverage of her flight made her an American heroine. As a role model, she inspired many young women
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to prove that they were equal to men. They did this in their own ways. Most Americans were excited by these events. They represented the new, modern world. However, some found this excitement for change troubling. They pushed for a return to traditional life.
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Lindbergh’s Transatlantic Flight Thanks to an immense amount of media attention, Lindbergh is credited as being one of the first international celebrities.
IMAGE Charles Lindbergh, 1927 Charles Lindbergh stands next to his famous plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, which made the 3,610-mile flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
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Conservatism and Immigration What were backlashes against change during the 1920s?
By the 1920s, many Americans were upset about the direction the country was going. A lot had changed since the end of the 1800s. Some saw these changes as threats to traditional American values. These citizens were concerned about changes such as increased immigration, advances in science, new machines, and the rise of labor unions. They also opposed the changing role of women and the popularity of alcohol. These people were not a single, unified group. People had different interests and fears. For example, some people in rural areas were upset by the growth of cities. Others were simply glad to have bigger markets for their crops. Some Americans saw drinking any alcohol as a sin. Others worried that drinking was destroying people’s jobs and families.
Some of the fear also had to do with the economy. The economic crisis at the beginning of the decade made people worry about losing their jobs to foreigners. Many thought that the increase in immigration after World War I had led to not enough jobs. They feared this increase was destroying the economy. These fears led to laws targeting foreigners.
The Immigration Act of 1924, also called the Johnson-Reed Act, included two different laws. These were the National Origins Act and the Asian Exclusion Act. These laws lowered the number of immigrants who could enter the United States each year. Immigration visas were given
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out by nationality. Each year, the United States would issue visas to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality already in the country. This was recorded in the 1890 Census.
The Johnson-Reed Act did not apply equally to all nationalities. The 1890 Census did not include Asian immigrants. Asians were not allowed to enter the country. This act also set up a quota system. However, it did not apply to countries in the Americas. The U.S. government kept President Theodore Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy. This put no limit on the number of immigrants who could enter the United States from Mexico and Canada.
People from Northwest Europe made up the biggest group of immigrants in the 1880s. This meant that most immigrants in the 1920s were German, English, or Irish. Americans of the time thought that Northwest Europeans were similar to them. They were stereotyped as hardworking and skilled people.
However, some Americans thought that Southern and Eastern Europeans were different from them. Italians, Hungarians, and Spaniards were thought of as ignorant and un-American. Religion played a part in these thoughts. These immigrants were usually Catholic or Jewish. Many Americans believed that these different belief systems did not belong in American society. As a result, Southern and Eastern European immigrants often were not welcomed in American society. They lived in isolated communities.
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Some people were desperate to keep their ideal of America. These people were called nativists. They were against letting in new groups of foreigners. Some nativists turned to violent measures to achieve their goal. For example, the Ku Klux Klan was revived in the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan is a terrorist group that enforces white power in society. It used the growing fear of immigrants to increase its membership. It also used that fear to scare, hurt, and even kill foreigners and African Americans.
IMAGE Doors Shut on Ellis Island The Immigration Act of 1924 cleared lines at Ellis Island. This photograph shows the inspection room in the New York Harbor landmark.
VIDEO SEGMENT Leaving Families Behind The Immigration Act of 1924 caused a cultural divide in the United States. How do you think the 1924 Immigration Act affected the culture of the country?
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Temperance and Prohibition How did Prohibition affect the nation?
As you may recall, the temperance movement began in America in the mid-1800s. Members of this movement urged people to stop drinking alcohol. They pressured the U.S. government to make drinking alcohol illegal. This movement led to an amendment that made selling and drinking alcohol illegal. This ban was called Prohibition. To prohibit means to stop people from doing something.
The Eighteenth Amendment banned the sale and production of alcohol. It was approved in 1919. It took effect in January 1920. The Volstead Act was passed along with it. The act enforced the amendment. It listed the types of alcohol that were now illegal. For instance, wine used for religious purposes was allowed. Ethanol used for medicine also was allowed. Prohibition was meant to guide people back to traditional values. Reformers believed that Prohibition would improve American society in many ways. If men were not getting drunk, they would not miss work. If they went to work each day, they could get paid and support their families. The grain used to make alcohol could be made into food instead. Immigrants would not abuse alcohol.
Most Americans did not like Prohibition. Many more thought that the law was not fair. Opponents of Prohibition said that it was a restriction of their freedom and an attack on their culture. They argued that the
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ban was an abuse of power. It was not the government’s role to control drinking habits.
Prohibition began in 1920. People began drinking in secret. Liquor was sold illegally in speakeasies, or secret bars. These bars got their nickname from the fact that their customers spoke quietly. They did not want to alert the neighbors or police. The people who sold alcohol to speakeasies were called bootleggers. They charged high prices and made big profits. This attracted many gangsters and criminal gangs to bootlegging. Gangster groups fought over profits and territory lines.
Gangsters used the profits they made from selling alcohol to bribe city police and other officials. Those who did not cooperate with the gangs were threatened. Sometimes, they were even killed. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre happened in Chicago in 1929. Gangster Al Capone had seven men in a different gang shot in broad daylight. No one was ever arrested for the murders. Capone was never even arrested for selling alcohol. Instead, many Americans treated him like a celebrity.
Prohibition was almost impossible to enforce. However, it was not repealed until 1933. The Twenty-First Amendment had to be passed to end it. Many agreed that it was a failed experiment. It did not change society for the better. Alcoholism and the number of alcohol-related deaths did go down slightly, though. However, he amount of crime did not change. There still was little respect for the law. Gangsters became celebrities. They were noticed more than people who obeyed the law.
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Conservative Christians and the Scopes Trial What role did conservative Christians play in 1920s social changes?
Some conservative Christians rejected new ideas in science. They worked to pass state and local laws that made it illegal to teach modern scientific theories in public schools. One new theory that they opposed was Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. They believed that the theory of evolution went against the Protestant Bible and harmed Christian morality.
The Scopes Trial
In 1925, a teacher in Tennessee named John T. Scopes taught his students about evolution. Earlier that year, the state had passed a law making it illegal to teach evolution in schools. Scopes was arrested for breaking the new state law. The Scopes Trial came to be seen as religion versus science. Large crowds traveled to Tennessee to see the trial. About 1,000 people were in the courtroom on the first day of the hearing.
The climax of the drama happened near the end of the trial. Scopes’s lawyer Clarence Darrow called an unexpected witness. He asked William Jennings Bryan to testify. Bryan was the state’s lead lawyer on
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the case. Bryan claimed to be an expert on the Bible. Darrow led him through a series of questions that challenged the belief that people should live their lives according to the Bible. By the end of his testimony, Bryan testified that stories in the Bible could not always be taken literally. However, the judge ruled that Bryan’s statements should be removed from the record of the trial. He said that they did not provide any evidence. The jury found Scopes guilty. He had to pay $100.
Clarence Darrow Defense attorney Clarence Darrow (center) and the defendant, John Scopes (seated, far right), attend the trial in a crowded courtroom.
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Politics as Usual How did the federal government influence the 1920s?
Two Ohio newspaper publishers ran for president in 1920. James M. Cox was the Democrat. Warren G. Harding was the Republican. Eugene Debs ran as the Socialist candidate once again. Harding had won the Republican nomination. This was partly because people were convinced that he “looked like a president.” He had a friendly manner that made people comfortable. Harding promised a “return to normalcy.” People liked his promise. The war was over. People wanted to get on with their lives. Harding won the election.
Harding was a popular president. Still, his time in office was difficult. The Republicans were the party of big business. Men in Harding’s government did special favors for their friends in business. They also used their government positions to make money. The worst scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. Fall sold oil fields at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. He sold them for far less than they were worth. The buyers did not pay the government the full price for the oil fields. Instead, they gave Albert Fall the money. Congress investigated the deals in 1924. There were many lawsuits over the scandal. Major American newspapers like the Wall Street Journal covered these lawsuits. Attorney General Harry Daugherty was Harding’s friend and his former campaign manager. Daugherty was
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found guilty of dishonesty just like Albert Fall. The American public did not blame Harding for the Teapot Dome scandal. Still, they were furious about it. It became a symbol of dishonesty in American politics.
Politics in the 1920s were thought of as being the same as they had been in the Gilded Age. Harding died suddenly in 1923. Some people said it was of a broken heart.
Calvin Coolidge
Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president after Harding’s death in 1923. He was reelected the next year. Coolidge famously said, “The business of America is business.” Coolidge continued Harding’s pro- business policies. The income tax was reduced further. The Sherman Antitrust Act was rarely enforced. Instead, federal officials simply asked businesses to obey the law. Oversupply of farm products caused prices to drop. Farmers were earning less. They tried to produce more so they could sell more. This only made the problem worse. Coolidge refused to regulate farming. He told farmers to cooperate to help themselves.
Harding and Coolidge’s laissez-faire policies allowed markets to grow wildly. The lack of regulation made the economy unstable. It was only a matter of time before the stock bubble burst and Americans were called on to pay their debts.
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