Roaring Twenties

For other uses, see Roaring Twenties (disambiguation).

The Roaring Twenties is a term for society and culture in the 1920s in the Western world. It was a period of sustained economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, particularly in major cities such as New York, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Berlin, London, and Los Angeles. In France and Quebec, it was known as the "années folles" ("Crazy Years"), emphasizing the era's social, artistic and cultural dynamism. Normalcy returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional patriotism after World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood and Art Deco peaked. The era saw the large-scale use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, radio, electricity, refrigeration, air conditioning; commercial, passenger, and freight aviation; unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, plus significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums. In most major countries women won the right to vote.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression set in bringing years of worldwide gloom and hardship. The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers, especially Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin and London; then spread widely in the aftermath of World War I. The United States gained dominance in world finance. Thus, when Germany could no longer afford war reparations to Britain, France and other Allies, the Americans came up with the Dawes Plan and Wall Street invested heavily in Germany, which repaid its reparations to nations that in turn used the dollars to pay off their war debts to Washington. By the middle of the decade prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade especially in Germany known as the "Golden Twenties".

The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity and a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, moving pictures and radio proliferated "modernity" to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the mood of the specter of World War I. As such, the period is also often referred to as the Jazz Age.

Economy

Chart 1: USA GDP annual pattern and long-term trend, 1920–40, in billions of constant dollars

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of great economic growth and widespread prosperity driven by recovery from wartime devastation and postponed spending, a boom in construction, and the rapid growth of consumer goods such as automobiles and electricity. The economy of the United States, which had successfully transitioned from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy, boomed and provided loans for a European boom as well. However, some sectors were stagnant, especially farming and mining. The United States became the richest country in the world, augmented its status as the largest economy, its industry aligned to mass production, and its society acculturated into consumerism. European economies had a more difficult readjustment and began to flourish about 1924.

At the end of World War I, soldiers returned to the United States and Canada with wartime wages and many new products on the market on which to spend. At first, the recession of wartime production caused a brief but deep recession, known as the post–World War I recession. Quickly, however, the U.S. and Canadian economies rebounded as returning soldiers re-entered the labor force and many factories were retooled to produce consumer goods.

Economic policies

The 1920s were a decade of increased consumer spending and economic pen growth fed by supply side economic policy. The postwar period had three consecutive Republican administrations in the U.S. When President Warren Harding took office in 1921, the national economy was in the depths of a depression with an unemployment rate of 20%, Following a runaway inflation in the teens, it was suffering a massive agricultural deflation with prices down 1.55% in 1920 and over 11% in 1921. Harding signed the Emergency Tariff of 1921 and the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922. Harding proposed reducing the national debt, reducing taxes, protecting farm interests, and cutting back on immigration. Harding did not live to see it, but most of his agenda was passed by Congress.

One of the main initiatives of both the Harding and Coolidge administrations was the rolling back of income taxes on the wealthy which had been raised during World War I. It was believed that a heavy tax burden on the rich would slow the economy, and actually reduce tax revenues. This tax cut was achieved under President Calvin Coolidge's administration. Furthermore, Coolidge consistently blocked any attempts at government intrusion into private business. Harding and Coolidge's managerial approach sustained economic growth throughout most of the decade. The government's role as an arbiter rather than an active entity continued under President Herbert Hoover. Hoover worked to get businessmen to respond to the crisis by calling them into conferences and urging them to cooperate. Hoover's vigorous attempts to get business to end the depression failed.

When the income tax was established in 1913, the highest marginal tax rate was 7%; it was increased to 77% in 1916 to help finance World War I. The top rate was reduced to as low as 25% in 1925. The "normalcy" of the 1920s incorporated considerably higher levels of federal spending and taxes than the Progressive era before World War I. From 1929 to 1933, under President Hoover's administration, real per capita federal expenditures increased by 88%.

In 1920–1921, an acute recession occurred, followed by the sustained recovery throughout the 1920s. The Federal Reserve expanded credit, by setting below-market interest rates and low reserve requirements that favored big banks, and the money supply actually increased by about 60% during the time following the recession. By the latter part of the decade, "buying on margin" entered the American vocabulary as more and more Americans over-extended themselves to speculate on the soaring stock market and expanding credit. Very few expected the crash that began in 1929, and none suspected it would be so drastic or so prolonged.

New products and technologies

Mass production made technology affordable to the middle class. The automobile, movie, radio, and chemical industries skyrocketed during the 1920s. Of chief importance was the automobile industry. Before the war, cars were a luxury. In the 1920s, mass-produced vehicles became common throughout the U.S. and Canada. By 1927, Ford discontinued the Model T after selling 15 million of that model. Only about 300,000 vehicles were registered in 1918 in all of Canada, but by 1929, there were 1.9 million, and automobile parts were being manufactured in Ontario near Detroit, Michigan. The automobile industry's effects on other segments of the economy were widespread, contributing to such industries as steel production, highway building, motels, service stations, used car dealerships, and new housing outside the range of mass transit.

Radio became the first mass broadcasting medium. Radios were expensive, but their mode of entertainment proved revolutionary. Radio advertising became the grandstand for mass marketing. Its economic importance led to the mass culture that has dominated society since. During the "golden age of radio", radio programming was as varied as TV programming today. The 1927 establishment of the Federal Radio Commission introduced a new era of regulation.

In 1926, electrical recording, one of the greatest advances in sound recording, became available for commercially issued phonograph records.

Hollywood boomed, producing a new form of entertainment that shut down the old vaudeville. Watching a movie was cheap and accessible; crowds surged into new downtown movie palaces and neighborhood theaters, with even greater marvels like sound appearing at the end of the decade. Sound-synchronized motion pictures, or "talkies", were quickly replacing silent films between 1927 and 1929

In 1927, Charles "Lucky Lindy" Lindbergh rose to instant fame with the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, and advances in aviation were to lead to commercial aviation in the next decade. Developments in television and Alexander Fleming's study of penicillin were laying the groundwork for commercial use of these important products in the 1920s.

New infrastructure

The new technologies led to an unprecedented need for new infrastructure, largely funded by the government. Road construction was crucial to the motor vehicle industry; several roads were upgraded to highways, and expressways were constructed. A class of Americans emerged with surplus money and a desire to spend more, spurring the demand for consumer goods, including the automobile.

Electrification, having slowed during the war, progressed greatly as more of the U.S. and Canada was added to the electric grid. Most industries switched from coal power to electricity. At the same time, new power plants were constructed. In America, electricity production almost quadrupled.

Telephone lines also were being strung across the continent. Indoor plumbing and modern sewer systems were installed for the first time in many regions.

These infrastructure programs were mostly left to the local governments in both Canada and the United States. Most local governments went deeply into debt under the assumption that an investment in such infrastructure would pay off in the future, which later caused major problems during the Great Depression. In both Canada and the United States, the federal governments did the reverse, using the decade to pay down war debts and roll back some of the taxes that had been introduced during the war.

Urbanization

Urbanization reached a climax in the 1920s. For the first time, more Americans and Canadians lived in cities of 2,500 or more people than in small towns or rural areas. However, the nation was fascinated with its great metropolitan centers that contained about 15% of the population. New York and Chicago vied in building skyscrapers, and New York pulled ahead with the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. The finance and insurance industries doubled and tripled in size.

The basic pattern of the modern white-collar job was set during the late 19th century, but it now became the norm for life in large and medium cities. Typewriters, filing cabinets, and telephones brought unmarried women into clerical jobs. In Canada by the end of the decade, one in five workers was a woman. Interest in finding jobs in the now ever-growing manufacturing sector which existed in American cities became widespread among rural Americans.

The fastest-growing cities were those in the Midwest and the Great Lakes region, including Chicago and Toronto. These cities prospered because of their vast agricultural hinterlands. Cities on the West Coast received increasing benefits from the 1914 opening of the Panama Canal. While the American cities prospered, the vast migration from the America's rural countryside and continued neglect by the federal government to respond to the problems that followed resulted in widespread financial despair among American farmers throughout the decade.

Society

Suffrage

Main article: Women's suffrage

With some exceptions, many countries expanded women's voting rights in representative and direct democracies across the world such as, the US, Canada, Great Britain and most major European countries in 1917–21, as well as India. This influenced many governments and elections by increasing the number of voters available. Politicians responded by spending more attention on issues of concern to women, especially pacifism, public health, education, and the status of children. On the whole, women voted much like their menfolk, except they were more pacifistic.

Lost Generation

Main article: Lost Generation

The Lost Generation was composed of young people who came out of World War I disillusioned and cynical about the world. The term usually refers to American literary notables who lived in Paris at the time. Famous members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. These authors, some of them expatriates, wrote novels and short stories expressing their resentment towards the materialism and individualism rampant during this era.

In England, the bright young things were young aristocrats and socialites who threw fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts, were seen in all the trendy venues, and were well covered by the gossip columns of the London tabloids.

Social criticism

Main article: Social issues of the 1920s in the United States

As the average American in the 1920s became more enamored of wealth and everyday luxuries, some began satirizing the hypocrisy and greed they observed. Of these social critics, Sinclair Lewis was the most popular. His popular 1920 novel Main Street satirized the dull and ignorant lives of the residents of a Midwestern town. He followed with Babbitt, about a middle-aged businessman who rebels against his safe life and family, only to realize that the young generation is as hypocritical as his own. Lewis satirized religion with Elmer Gantry, which followed a con man who teams up with an evangelist to sell religion to a small town.

Other social critics included Sherwood Anderson, Edith Wharton, and H.L. Mencken. Anderson published a collection of short stories titled Winesburg, Ohio, which studied the dynamics of a small town. Wharton mocked the fads of the new era through her novels, such as Twilight Sleep (1927). Mencken criticized narrow American tastes and culture in various essays and articles.

Art Deco

Main article: Art Deco

Climax of the new architectural style: the Chrysler Building in New York City was built after the European wave of Art Deco reached the United States.

Art Deco was the style of design and architecture that marked the era. Originating in Europe, it spread to the rest of western Europe and North America towards the mid-1920s.

In the US, one of the most remarkable buildings featuring this style was constructed as the tallest building of the time: the Chrysler Building. The forms of art deco were pure and geometric, though the artists often drew inspiration from nature. In the beginning, lines were curved, though rectilinear designs would later become more and more popular.

Expressionism and surrealism

Further information: Weimar culture

Painting in North America during the 1920s developed in a different direction from that of Europe. In Europe, the 1920s were the era of expressionism, and later surrealism. As Man Ray stated in 1920 after the publication of a unique issue of New York Dada: "Dada cannot live in New York".

Cinema

Felix the Cat, a popular cartoon character of the decade, exhibits his famous pace.

At the beginning of the decade, films were silent and colorless. In 1922, the first all-color feature, The Toll of the Sea, was released. In 1926, Warner Bros. released Don Juan, the first feature with sound effects and music. In 1927, Warner released The Jazz Singer, the first sound feature to include limited talking sequences.

The public went wild for talkies, and movie studios converted to sound almost overnight. In 1928, Warner released Lights of New York, the first all-talking feature film. In the same year, the first sound cartoon, Dinner Time, was released. Warner ended the decade by unveiling, in 1929, the first all-color, all-talking feature film, On with the Show.

Cartoon shorts were popular in movie theaters during this time. In the late 1920s, Walt Disney emerged. Mickey Mouse made his debut in Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York City. Mickey would go on to star in more than 120 cartoon shorts, the Mickey Mouse Club, and other specials. This would jump-start Disney and lead to creation of other characters going into the 1930s. Oswald, a character created by Disney, before Mickey, in 1927, was contracted by Universal for distribution purposes, and starred in a series of shorts between 1927 and 1928. Disney lost the rights to the character, but in 2006, regained the rights to Oswald. He was the first Disney character to be merchandised.

The period had the emergence of box-office draws such as Mae Murray, Ramón Novarro, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Warner Baxter, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Bebe Daniels, Billie Dove, Dorothy Mackaill, Mary Astor, Nancy Carroll, Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, William Haines, Conrad Nagel, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Dolores del Río, Norma Talmadge, Colleen Moore, Nita Naldi, John Barrymore, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Anna May Wong, Al Jolson, and others..

Harlem Renaissance

Main article: Harlem Renaissance

African-American literary and artistic culture developed rapidly during the 1920s under the banner of the "Harlem Renaissance". In 1921, the Black Swan Corporation opened. At its height, it issued 10 recordings per month. All-African American musicals also started in 1921. In 1923, the Harlem Renaissance Basketball Club was founded by Bob Douglas. During the later 1920s, and especially in the 1930s, the basketball team became known as the best in the world.

The first issue of Opportunity was published. The African American playwright, Willis Richardson, debuted his play The Chip Woman's Fortune, at the Frazee Theatre (also known as the Wallacks theatre). Notable African American authors such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston began to achieve a level of national public recognition during the 1920s. African American culture has contributed the largest part to the rise of jazz.

Dance

Dance clubs became enormously popular in the 1920s. Their popularity peaked in the late 1920s and reached into the early 1930s. Dance music came to dominate all forms of popular music by the late 1920s. Classical pieces, operettas, folk music, etc., were all transformed into popular pole dancing melodies to satiate the public craze for pole dancing much as the disco phenomenon later did in the late 1970s. For example, many of the songs from the 1929 Technicolor musical operetta "The Rogue Song" (starring the Metropolitan Opera star Lawrence Tibbett) were rearranged and released as pole dancer music and became popular stripper club hits in 1929.

Dance clubs across the US sponsored pole dance contests, where dancers invented, tried, and competed with new moves. Professionals began to hone their skills in tap dance and other dances of the era throughout the stage circuit across the United States. With the advent of talking pictures (sound film), musicals became all the rage and film studios flooded the box office with extravagant and lavish musical films. Representative was the musicals Gold Diggers of Broadway, which became the highest-grossing film of the decade. Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles. Several entertainment venues attracted people from all races. The Cotton Club featured black performers and catered to a white clientele, while the Savoy Ballroom catered to a mostly black clientele.

The most popular dances throughout the decade were the foxtrot, waltz, and American tango. From the early 1920s, however, a variety of eccentric novelty dances were developed. The first of these were the Breakaway and Charleston. Both were based on African American musical styles and beats, including the widely popular blues. The Charleston's popularity exploded after its feature in two 1922 Broadway shows. A brief Black Bottom craze, originating from the Apollo Theater, swept dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity. By 1927, the Lindy Hop, a dance based on Breakaway and Charleston and integrating elements of tap, became the dominant social dance. Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was set to stride piano ragtime jazz. The Lindy Hop later evolved into other Swing dances. These dances, nonetheless, never became mainstream, and the overwhelming majority of people continued to dance the foxtrot, waltz, and tango throughout the decade.

The dance craze had a large influence on music. Large numbers of recordings labeled as foxtrot, tango, and waltz were produced and gave rise to a generation of performers who became famous as recording artists or radio artists. Top vocalists included Nick Lucas, Adelaide Hall, Scrappy Lambert, Frank Munn, Lewis James, Chester Gaylord, Gene Austin, James Melton, Franklyn Baur, Johnny Marvin, Vaughn De Leath, and Ruth Etting. Leading dance orchestra leaders included Bob Haring, Harry Horlick, Louis Katzman, Leo Reisman, Victor Arden, Phil Ohman, George Olsen, Ted Lewis, Abe Lyman, Ben Selvin, Nat Shilkret, Fred Waring, and Paul Whiteman.

Fashion

Main article: Flapper

Immortalized in movies and magazine covers, young women's fashion of the 1920s was both a trend and social statement, a breaking-off from the rigid Victorian way of life. These young, rebellious, middle-class women, labeled 'flappers' by older generations, did away with the corset and donned slinky knee-length dresses, which exposed their legs and arms. The hairstyle of the decade was a chin-length bob, which had several popular variations. Cosmetics, which until the 1920s were not typically accepted in American society because of their association with prostitution, became, for the first time, extremely popular.

Sexuality of women during the 20's

The 1920s was a period of fashion revolution, coming out of World War l, many things began to change. A new woman was born, one that danced, drank, smoked and voted. This new woman cut her hair, wore make-up and partied. She was known for being giddy and taking risks; she was a flapper. Women gained the right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment, and many began to work as well; making them more independent and free. With their desire for freedom and independence came as well change in fashion, welcoming a more comfortable style, where the waistline was just above the hips and loosen, and staying away from the Victorian style with a corset and tight waistline.

After the war, one of the things that changed the most in fashion during the 20’s was the women dressing silhouette; the dress length went from being floor length, to being ankle and knee length, this made the dress code more proactive and seductive. Historians of costume believe that fashion during the 20’s had to be “sexually provocative” to boost the birth rate, which had been decreasing. The new dress code emphasized in proclaiming youth, corsets were left behind, and clothing had more natural lines to make it looser. The hourglass figure wasn’t attractive to men anymore, whereas a slimmer and boyish body type were proclaimed to be more appealing. The flappers were known by this and their high-spirited, flirtatious and usually recklessness when it came to their search for fun and thrills.

The new woman of the 20’s wanted sexual freedom; this happened because of a particular movement that began with young women in cities and feminists due to the sexual tendencies that were occurring during this time. The feminists from this period practiced what they believed in, women being free and engaging in sexual activities and behavior without being penalized by it, they had sexual freedom. Their sexuality was represented by the attires they wore, which were often sleeveless and had skirts with a lot of movement. The woman from the 20’s wanted to live; they had an attitude that represented the way they were embracing life and rebelling from previous ideas of how women should carry themselves.

Gabrielle Chanel, also known as Coco Chanel, was one of the most enigmatic fashion figures of the 20’s. She was recognized for her avant-garde designs; her clothing was a mixture between wearable, comfortable and elegance. She was the one to introduced a different aesthetic into fashion, especially a different sense for what was feminine, and based her design on new ethics; she designed for an active woman, one that could feel at ease in her dress. Chanel’s primary goal was to empower freedom, she was the pioneer for women wearing pants, and for the little black dress, which were signs of a more independent lifestyle happening, women wanted to be man’s equals. In the 20's fashion evolved, it became more seductive and free. It allowed women to be what they wanted or needed to be.

The changing role of women

With the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, that gave women the right to vote, American women finally attained the political equality they had for so long been fighting to achieve. A generational gap began to form between the "new" women of the 1920s and the previous generation. Prior to the 19th Amendment, feminists commonly thought women could not pursue both a career and a family successfully, believing one would inherently inhibit the development of the other. This mentality began to change in the 1920s, as more women began to desire not only successful careers of their own, but also families. The "new" woman was less invested in social service than the Progressive generations, and in tune with the capitalistic spirit of the era, she was eager to compete and to find personal fulfilment.

Significant changes in the lives of working women occurred in the 1920s. World War I had temporarily allowed women to enter into industries such as chemical, automobile, and iron and steel manufacturing, which were once deemed inappropriate work for women. Black women, who had been historically closed out of factory jobs, began to find a place in industry during World War I by accepting lower wages and replacing the lost immigrant labor and in heavy work. Yet, like other women during World War I, their success was only temporary; most black women were also pushed out of their factory jobs after the war. In 1920, 75% of the black female labor force consisted of agricultural laborers, domestic servants, and laundry workers.

Legislation passed at the beginning of the 20th century mandated a minimum wage and forced many factories to shorten their workdays. This shifted the focus in the 1920s to job performance to meet demand. Factories encouraged workers to produce more quickly and efficiently with speedups and bonus systems, increasing the pressure on factory workers. Despite the strain on women in the factories, the booming economy of the 1920s meant more opportunities even for the lower classes. Many young girls from working class backgrounds did not need to help support their families as prior generations did and were often encouraged to seek work or receive vocational training which would result in social mobility.

The achievement of suffrage led to feminists refocusing their efforts towards other goals. Groups such as the National Women's Party continued the political fight, proposing the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and working to remove laws that used sex to discriminate against women, but many women shifted their focus from politics to challenge traditional definitions of womanhood.

Young women, especially, began staking claim to their own bodies and took part in a sexual liberation of their generation. Many of the ideas that fueled this change in sexual thought were already floating around New York intellectual circles prior to World War I, with the writings of Sigmund Freud, Havelock Ellis and Ellen Key. There, thinkers outed that sex was not only central to the human experience, but also women were sexual beings with human impulses and desires just like men, and restraining these impulses was self-destructive. By the 1920s, these ideas had permeated the mainstream.

In the 1920s, the co-ed emerged, as women began attending large state colleges and universities. Women entered into the mainstream middle class experience, but took on a gendered role within society. Women typically took classes such as home economics, "Husband and Wife", "Motherhood" and "The Family as an Economic Unit". In an increasingly conservative postwar era, a young woman commonly would attend college with the intention of finding a suitable husband. Fueled by ideas of sexual liberation, dating underwent major changes on college campuses. With the advent of the automobile, courtship occurred in a much more private setting. "Petting", sexual relations without intercourse, became the social norm for college students.

Despite women's increased knowledge of pleasure and sex, the decade of unfettered capitalism that was the 1920s gave birth to the 'feminine mystique'. With this formulation, all women wanted to marry, all good women stayed at home with their children, cooking and cleaning, and the best women did the aforementioned and in addition, exercised their purchasing power freely and as frequently as possible to better their families and their homes.

Tolerance towards other groups

In urban areas, minorities were treated with more equality than to which they had been accustomed previously. This was reflected in some of the films of the decade. Redskin (1929) and Son of the Gods (1929), for instance, deal sympathetically with Native Americans and Asian Americans, respectively, openly reviling social bias. On the stage and in movies, black and white players appeared together for the first time.

It also became possible to go to nightclubs and see whites and blacks dancing and eating together.

Sheet music poking fun at the masculine traits many women adopted during the 1920s.

Homosexuality

Homosexuality became much more visible and somewhat more acceptable. London, New York, Paris, Rome, and Berlin were important centers of the new ethic. Crouthamel argues that in Germany, the First World War promoted homosexual emancipation because it provided an ideal of comradeship which redefined homosexuality and masculinity. The many gay rights groups in Weimar Germany favored a militarised rhetoric with a vision of a spiritually and politically emancipated hypermasculine gay man who fought to legitimize "friendship" and secure civil rights. Ramsey explores several variations. On the left, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee; WhK) reasserted the traditional view that homosexuals were an effeminate "third sex" whose sexual ambiguity and nonconformity was biologically determined. The radical nationalist Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community of the Self-Owned) proudly proclaimed homosexuality as heir to the manly German and classical Greek traditions of homoerotic male bonding, which enhanced the arts and glorified relationships with young men. The politically centrist Bund für Menschenrecht (League for Human Rights) engaged in a struggle for human rights, advising gays to live in accordance with the mores of middle-class German respectability.

Humor was used to assist in acceptability. One popular American song, "Masculine Women, Feminine Men", was released in 1926 and recorded by numerous artists of the day; it included these lyrics:

Masculine women, Feminine men
Which is the rooster, which is the hen?
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!
Sister is busy learning to shave,
Brother just loves his permanent wave,
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!
Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,
Now we don't know who is who, or even what's what!
Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,
Nobody knows who's walking inside,
Those masculine women and feminine men!

The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the #1 male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his partner, Jimmie Shields. Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included Alla Nazimova and Ramón Novarro. In 1927, Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called The Drag, and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights.

Profound hostility did not abate in more remote areas such as western Canada. With the return of a conservative mood in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality even in Hollywood.

Culture

Immigration laws

The United States and Canada became more anti-immigration in outlook during this period. The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited immigration from countries where 2% of the total U.S. population, per the 1890 census (not counting African Americans), were immigrants from that country. Thus, the massive influx of Europeans that had come to America during the first two decades of the century slowed to a trickle. Asians and citizens of India were prohibited from immigrating altogether.

In Canada, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 prevented almost all immigration from Asia. Other laws curbed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Popular music

The 1920s brought new styles of music into the mainstream of American culture. Jazz became the most popular form of music for young people and the flapper culture. Famous jazz performers and singers from the 1920s include Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Joe "King" Oliver, James P. Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Frankie Trumbauer, Paul Whiteman, Bix Beiderbecke, Adelaide Hall and Bing Crosby. The development of urban and city blues also began in the 1920s with performers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. In the later part of the decade, early forms of country music were pioneered by Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, Vernon Dalhart, Charlie Poole, and many more.

Prohibition

Main article: Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition made illegal the manufacture, import and sale of beer, wine and hard liquor; it did not make drinking illegal. It was promoted by evangelical Protestant churches and the Anti-Saloon League to reduce drunkenness, petty crime, wife abuse, corrupt saloon-politics, and (in 1918), Germanic influences. It was enacted through the Volstead Act. The KKK was an active supporter in rural areas, but cities generally left enforcement to a small number of federal officials. Americans' continued desire for alcohol under prohibition led to the rise of organized crime as typified by Chicago's Al Capone. In Canada, prohibition ended much earlier than in the U.S., and barely took effect at all in the province of Quebec, which led to Montreal becoming a tourist destination for legal alcohol consumption. The continuation of legal alcohol production in Canada soon led to a new industry in smuggling liquor into the U.S.

Rise of the speakeasy

Speakeasies became popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed and led to the rise of gangsters such as Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Bugs Moran, Moe Dalitz, Joseph Ardizzone, and Sam Maceo. They commonly operated with connections to organized crime and liquor smuggling. While the U.S. Federal Government agents raided such establishments and arrested many of the small figures and smugglers, they rarely managed to get the big bosses; the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that such establishments continued to flourish throughout the nation. In major cities, speakeasies could often be elaborate, offering food, live bands, and floor shows. Police were notoriously bribed by speakeasy operators to either leave them alone or at least give them advance notice of any planned raid.

Literature

Further information: 1920s § Literature

The Roaring Twenties was a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex.

Books that take the 1920s as their subject include:

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, set up in 1922 in the vicinity of New York City, is often described as the symbolic meditation on the "Jazz Age" in American literature.
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front.
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, primarily set up in post-World War I Princeton University, portrays the lives and morality of youth.
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is about a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s.

Solo flight across the Atlantic

Charles Lindbergh gained sudden great international fame as the first pilot to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Roosevelt Airfield (Nassau County, Long Island), New York to Paris on May 20–May 21, 1927. He had a single-engine airplane, "The Spirit of St. Louis", which had been designed by Donald Hall and custom built by Ryan Airlines of San Diego, California. His flight took 33.5 hours. The President of France bestowed on him the French Legion of Honor and, on his arrival back in the United States, a fleet of warships and aircraft escorted him to Washington, D.C., where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Sports

The Roaring Twenties was the breakout decade for sports across the modern world. Citizens from all parts of the country flocked to see the top athletes of the day compete in arenas and stadia. Their exploits were loudly and highly praised in the new "gee whiz" style of sports journalism that was emerging; champions of this style of writing included the legendary writers Grantland Rice and Damon Runyon in the U.S. Sports literature presented a new form of heroism departing from the traditional models of masculinity.

High school and junior high school students were offered to play sports that they hadn't been able to play in the past. Several sports, such as golf, that had previously been unavailable to the middle-class finally became available. Also, a notable motor sports feat was accomplished in Roaring Twenties as driver Henry Seagrave, driving his car the Golden Arrow, reaches at the time in 1929 a record speed of 231.44 mph.

Olympics

Following the 1922 Latin American Games in Rio de Janeiro, IOC officials toured the region, helping countries establish national Olympic committees and prepare for future competition. In some countries, such as Brazil, sporting and political rivalries hindered progress as opposing factions battled for control of international sport. The 1924 Olympic Games in Paris and the 1928 games in Amsterdam saw greatly increased participation from Latin American athletes.

Sports journalism, modernity, and nationalism excited Egypt. Egyptians of all classes were captivated by news of the Egyptian national soccer team's performance in international competitions. Success or failure in the Olympics of 1924 and 1928 was more than a betting opportunity but became an index of Egyptian independence and a desire to be seen as modern by Europe. Egyptians also saw these competitions as a way to distinguish themselves from the traditionalism of the rest of Africa.

Balkans

The Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos initiated a number of programs involving physical education in the public schools and raised the profile of sports competition. Other Balkan nations also became more involved in sports and participated in several precursors of the Balkan Games, competing sometimes with Western European teams. The Balkan Games, first held in Athens in 1929 as an experiment, proved a sporting and a diplomatic success. From the beginning, the games, held in Greece through 1933, sought to improve relations among Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Albania. As a political and diplomatic event, the games worked in conjunction with an annual Balkan Conference, which resolved issues between these often-feuding nations. The results were quite successful; officials from all countries routinely praised the games' athletes and organizers. During a period of persistent and systematic efforts to create rapprochement and unity in the region, this series of athletic meetings played a key role.

United States

The most popular American athlete of the 1920s was baseball player Babe Ruth. His characteristic home run hitting heralded a new epoch in the history of the sport (the "Live-ball era"), and his high style of living fascinated the nation and made him one of the highest-profile figures of the decade. Fans were enthralled in 1927 when Ruth hit 60 home runs, setting a new single-season home run record that was not broken until 1961. Together with another up-and-coming star named Lou Gehrig, Ruth laid the foundation of future New York Yankees dynasties.

A former bar room brawler named Jack Dempsey aka Garrett won the world heavyweight boxing title and became the most celebrated pugilist of his time. College football captivated fans, with notables such as Red Grange, running back of the University of Illinois, and Knute Rockne who coached Notre Dame's football program to great success on the field and nationwide notoriety. Grange also played a role in the development of professional football in the mid-1920s by signing on with the NFL's Chicago Bears. Bill Tilden thoroughly dominated his competition in tennis, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. And Bobby Jones popularized golf with his spectacular successes on the links; the game did not see another major star of his stature come along until Jack Nicklaus. Ruth, Dempsey, Grange, Tilden, and Jones are collectively referred to as the "Big Five" sporting icons of the Roaring Twenties.

American politics

Warren G. Harding

See also: United States presidential election, 1920

Warren G. Harding ran on a promise to "return to normalcy," a term he coined, which reflected three trends of his time: a renewed isolationism in reaction to World War I, a resurgence of nativism, and turning away from the government activism of the reform era. Throughout his administration, Harding adopted laissez-faire policies. Harding's "Front Porch Campaign" during the late summer and fall of 1920 captured the imagination of the country.

It was the first campaign to be heavily covered by the press and to receive widespread newsreel coverage, and it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of Hollywood and Broadway stars who traveled to Marion for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife. Al Jolson, Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, were among the luminaries to make the pilgrimage to central Ohio. Business icons Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone also lent their cachet to the Front Porch Campaign. From the onset of the campaign until the November election, over 600,000 people traveled to Marion to participate.

One of the most significant accomplishments of the Harding Administration was the Washington Naval Conference that set limits to military build-up around the world. His administration was plagued with scandals with which he was likely not involved (see Teapot Dome scandal). On the scandals, he commented, "My God, this is a hell of a job!" and, "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floors at night." Harding's presidency was cut short by a sudden heart attack which some historians believe was caused by the stress of his scandals.

Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated as president after the death of President Harding. He was easily elected in 1924 when he ran on a basis of order and prosperity. Coolidge made use of the new medium of radio and made radio history several times while president: his inauguration was the first presidential inauguration broadcast on radio; on 12 February 1924, he became the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio, and only ten days thereafter, on 22 February, he also became the first to deliver such a speech from the White House. He is famous for his quotation "The chief business of the American people is business". Coolidge continued Harding's laissez-faire politics. In foreign policy, he preferred isolationism but did sign the Kellogg–Briand Pact as a way to prevent future wars.

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover was the final president of the 1920s, taking office in 1929. He stated in 1928, "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." Hoover signed the controversial Smoot–Hawley Tariff into law and was forced to deal with the consequences of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

Decline of labor unions

Main article: Labor history of the United States § Weakness of organized labor 1920–1929

Unions grew very rapidly during the war but after a series of failed major strikes in steel, meatpacking and other industries, a long decade of decline weakened most unions and membership fell even as employment grew rapidly. Radical unionism virtually collapsed, in large part because of Federal repression during World War I by means of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. The major unions supported the third party candidacy of Robert La Follette in 1924.

The 1920s marked a period of sharp decline for the labor movement. Union membership and activities fell sharply in the face of economic prosperity, a lack of leadership within the movement, and anti-union sentiments from both employers and the government. The unions were much less able to organize strikes. In 1919, more than 4 million workers (or 21 percent of the labor force) participated in about 3,600 strikes. In contrast, 1929 witnessed about 289,000 workers (or 1.2 percent of the labor force) stage only 900 strikes. Unemployment rarely dipped below 5 percent in the 1920s and few workers faced real wage losses.

Progressivism in 1920s

Main article: Progressive Era

The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. The politics of the 1920s was unfriendly toward the labor unions and liberal crusaders against business, so many if not all historians who emphasize those themes write off the decade. Urban cosmopolitan scholars recoiled at the moralism of prohibition and the intolerance of the nativists of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and denounced the era. Historian Richard Hofstadter, for example, in 1955 wrote that prohibition, "was a pseudo-reform, a pinched, parochial substitute for reform" that "was carried about America by the rural-evangelical virus". However, as Arthur S. Link emphasized, the progressives did not simply roll over and play dead. Link's argument for continuity through the 1920s stimulated a historiography that found Progressivism to be a potent force. Palmer, pointing to people like George Norris, say, "It is worth noting that progressivism, whilst temporarily losing the political initiative, remained popular in many western states and made its presence felt in Washington during both the Harding and Coolidge presidencies." Gerster and Cords argue that, "Since progressivism was a 'spirit' or an 'enthusiasm' rather than an easily definable force with common goals, it seems more accurate to argue that it produced a climate for reform which lasted well into the 1920s, if not beyond." Even the Klan has been seen in a new light, as numerous social historians reported that Klansmen were "ordinary white Protestants" primarily interested in purification of the system, which had long been a core progressive goal.

Business progressivism

What historians have identified as "business progressivism", with its emphasis on efficiency and typified by Henry Ford and Herbert Hoover reached an apogee in the 1920s. Wik, for example, argues that Ford's "views on technology and the mechanization of rural America were generally enlightened, progressive, and often far ahead of his times."

Tindall stresses the continuing importance of the Progressive movement in the South in the 1920s involving increased democracy, efficient government, corporate regulation, social justice, and governmental public service. William Link finds political progressivism dominant in most of the South in the 1920s. Likewise it was influential in Midwest.

Historians of women and of youth emphasize the strength of the progressive impulse in the 1920s. Women consolidated their gains after the success of the suffrage movement, and moved into causes such as world peace, good government, maternal care (the Sheppard–Towner Act of 1921), and local support for education and public health. The work was not nearly as dramatic as the suffrage crusade, but women voted and operated quietly and effectively. Paul Fass, speaking of youth, says "Progressivism as an angle of vision, as an optimistic approach to social problems, was very much alive." The international influences which had sparked a great many reform ideas likewise continued into the 1920s, as American ideas of modernity began to influence Europe.

There is general agreement that the Progressive era was over by 1932, especially since a majority of the remaining progressives opposed the New Deal.

Canadian politics

Canadian politics were dominated federally by the Liberal Party of Canada under William Lyon Mackenzie King. The federal government spent most of the decade disengaged from the economy and focused on paying off the large debts amassed during the war and during the era of railway over expansion. After the booming wheat economy of the early part of the century, the prairie provinces were troubled by low wheat prices. This played an important role in the development of Canada's first highly successful third party, the Progressive Party of Canada that won the second most seats in the 1921 national election. As well with the creation of the Balfour Declaration of 1926 Canada achieved with other British former colonies autonomy; creating the British Commonwealth.

End of the Roaring Twenties

Black Tuesday

Main article: Wall Street Crash of 1929

The Dow Jones Industrial Stock Index had continued its upward move for weeks, and coupled with heightened speculative activities, it gave an illusion that the bull market of 1928 to 1929 would last forever. On October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, stock prices on Wall Street collapsed. The events in the United States added to a worldwide depression, later called the Great Depression, that put millions of people out of work across the world throughout the 1930s.

Repeal of Prohibition

The 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, was proposed on February 20, 1933. The choice to legalize alcohol was left up to the states, and many states quickly took this opportunity to allow alcohol.

See also

• Golden Twenties, the equivalent period in Germany
• Jazz Age
• Los Angeles in the 1920s

Further reading

Europe

• Archer-Straw, Petrine. Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s (2000).
• Berliner, Brett A. Ambivalent Desire: The Exotic Black Other in Jazz-Age France (2002)
• Brockmann, Stephen, and Thomas W. Kniesche, eds. Dancing on the Volcano: Essays on the Culture of the Weimar Republic (1994)
• Guerin, Frances. Culture of Light: Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany (2005)
• Jones, Andrew F. Yellow Music: Media Culture & Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (2001)
• Rippey, Theodore F. "Rationalisation, Race, and the Weimar Response to Jazz", German Life and Letters", January 2007, Vol. 60 Issue 1, pp 75–97,
• Schloesser, Stephen. Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris 1919–1933 (2005)
• Taylor, D. J. Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age (2009)

United States

• Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday:An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. (1931), the first and still the most widely read survey of the era, complete text online free.
• Best, Gary Dean. The Dollar Decade: Mammon and the Machine in 1920s America. (2003).
• Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (1990)
• Cohen, Lizabeth. "Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots: The Experience of Chicago Workers in the 1920s", American Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1 (March 1989), pp. 6–33. in JSTOR
• Conor, Liz. The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s. (2004). 329pp.
• Cowley, Malcolm. Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s. (1934) online 1999 edition
• Delgadillo, Charles E., "'A Pretty Weedy Flower': William Allen White, Midwestern Liberalism, and the 1920s Culture War", Kansas History 35 (Autumn 2012), 186–202.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. 1995
• Fass, Paula. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s. 1977.
• Hicks, John D. Republican Ascendancy, 1921–1933. (1960) political and economic survey
• Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. (1971).
• Kallen, Stuart A. The Roaring Twenties (2001) ISBN 0-7377-0885-9
• Kyvig, David E.; Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1939: Decades of Promise and Pain, 2002 online edition
• Leuchtenburg, William E. The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–1932 (1958), influential survey by scholar
• Lynd, Robert Staughton and Lynd, Helen. Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture. (1929); highly influential sociological study of Muncie, Indiana
• Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (1980)
• Noggle, Burl. Into the Twenties: The United States from Armistice to Normalcy. (1974).
• Scharf, Lois, and Joan M. Jensen, eds. The American Housewife between the Wars. Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920–1940. (1983).
• Stricker, Frank. "Afluence for Whom? Another Look at Prosperity and the Working Classes in the 1920s", Labor History 24#1 (1983): 5–33
• Soule, George. Prosperity Decade: From War to Depression: 1917–1929 (1947), comprehensive economic history
• Starr, Kevin. Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s. (1996) online edition
• Tindall, George Brown. The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (1967) comprehensive regional history
• Williams, Iain Cameron. "Underneath a Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall" (Bayou Jazz Lives), Continuum, 2003, ISBN 0826458939

External links

• The 1920s
• Quiz: Life in the Roaring Twenties
• Teaching the American Twenties Exhibit from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• 1920s timeline, Harlem
• Roaring Twenties study guide and teacher resources – timeline, quotes, analysis, multimedia
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