The 1920’s

FOOD FOOD

The introduction of refrigerators enabled healthier and longer storage of perishable foodstuffs, with consequent health benefits as well as time saved due to less frequent purchases. Refrigeration also permitted the transport of perishable foodstuffs over much longer distances by road and sea. Smaller farms were absorbed by larger farms who could afford the expensive farm machinery that lowered costs and improved profitability while increasing production.  Food was plentiful and cheap thanks to the large quantities produced by American farms. The American diet in the early part of the century consisted for a large part of meat and potatoes. A lot of time was taken up in preparing and cooking meals. Data from 1920 reveals that 44 hours were spent on preparing meals and cleaning up after them each week. As vitamins began to be discovered from 1912 on, fruit, vegetables and milk became much more important than they had in the earlier years. For the first time people could drink fresh orange juice year round due to improvements in storage and transport. 

JAZZ JAZZ

Black people who moved from the country to the cities had brought jazz and blues music with them. Blues music was particularly popular among the black population, while jazz captured the imagination of both white and black young americans. Jazz gained popularity in America and worldwide by the 1920s. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before in America. New exuberant dances were devised to take advantage of the upbeat tempo's of Jazz and Ragtime music.  By the mid-1920s, jazz was being played in dance halls and roadhouses and speakeasies all over the country. Early jazz influences found their first mainstream expression in the music used by marching bands and dance bands of the day, which was the main form of popular concert music in the early twentieth century. 

Beeswax - business, i.e. None of your beeswax. Bootleg - illegal liquor Bump Off - To murder, To kill Dead soldier - an empty bear bottle Fire extinguisher - a chaperone  Giggle Water - An intoxicating beverage; alcohol Hair of the Dog - a shot of alcohol Hooch - Bootleg liquor Juice Joint - a speakeasy Joint - A club, usually selling alcohol

Moll - A gangster's girl On the lam - fleeing from police Ossified - a drunk person Pinch - To arrest Rubes - money or dollars Speakeasy - An illicit bar selling bootleg liquor Spifflicated - Drunk. The same as canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified or fried to the hat Shiv - a knife Torpedo - A hired gun Upchuck - To vomit when one has drunk too much

The Charleston is a dance named for the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The rhythm was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States by a 1923 tune called the Charleston by composer/pianist James P. Johnson which originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one of the most popular hits of the decade. Runnin' Wild ran from 29 October 1923 through 28 June 1924. Developed in African-American communities in the United States, the Charleston became a popular dance craze in the wider international community during the 1920s. Despite its origins, the Charleston is most frequently associated with white flappers and the speakeasy. Here, these young women would dance alone or together as a way of mocking the "dryes," or citizens who supported the Prohibition amendment, as the Charleston was then considered quite immoral and provocative.

A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages which are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Squares in which answers begin are usually numbered. The clues are then referred to by these numbers and a direction, for example, "4-Across" or "20-Down". At the end of the clue the total number of letters is sometimes given, depending on the style of puzzle and country of publication. Some crosswords will also indicate the number of words in a given answer, should there be more than one.

Music In the 1920`s

Music in the 1920`s Jazz gained popularity in America and worldwide by the 1920s. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before in America. New exuberant dances were devised to take advantage of the upbeat tempo's of Jazz and Ragtime music. Meanwhile, radio and phonograph records — Americans bought more than 100 million of them in 1927 — were bringing jazz to locations so remote that no band could reach them. And the music itself was beginning to change — an exuberant, collective music was coming to place more and more emphasis on the innovations of supremely gifted individuals. Improvising soloists, struggling to find their own voices and to tell their own stories, were about to take center stage.