1. Pop Culture in the 1920s Society in the 1920s
Mass Media in the Jazz Age
Cultural Conflicts
Pictures with rounded edges are hyperlinked to videos

2. Pop Culture
The economic prosperity of the 1920’s provided many Americans with more leisure time and more spending money, which they devoted to making their lives more enjoyable.
Millions of Americans eagerly watched and participated in sports and enjoyed music, movies, radio, and other forms of popular entertainment.

3. Americans on the move
1920: First time in American history that there were more people living in cities than on farms.

4. Education Rural v. Urban
Realization that education was important.
1920: 2.2 million had high school diplomas
1930:4.4 million
Rural education often ended at 8th grade for farm children.

5. Rural v. Urban
Rural Americans didn’t like the flappers and thought the cities were dangerous places.
Wanted to preserve their “traditional” life.

6. American Heroes

7. Charles Lindbergh Lucky Lindy
May 20, 1927: First man to fly non-stop New York to Paris.
33 ½ hours
THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS – plane
Won $25,000

8. Charles Lindbergh Made other flights surveying and advising airlines.
Tragedy in his life.
Kidnapping and murder of his firstborn son.
Seen as being pro-Hitler when WWII began.

9. Amelia Earhart 1928 – first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane.
1932 – first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
First to fly from Hawaii to California.

10. Amelia Earhart
1937 – was on a journey to be the first to circumnavigate the world in a plane.
Disappeared over the Pacific.

11. Sports Heroes of the 1920s

12. Jack Dempsey
1926: Gene Tunney beat Dempsey for the world heavyweight boxing championship (decision)
1927: rematch
“The Long Count”
Dempsey is favored

13. George Herman “Babe” Ruth
The Sultan of Swat
Between playing for the Yanks and the Sox – 714 homeruns.
Unbroken record for 40 years.

14. Mass Media: movies, films, newspapers, radio, music

15. Mass Media
UNTIL 1920s the US had been a collection of regional cultures.
Accents differed
Customs differed
Entertainment differed

16. Mass Media
Films, national newspapers and radio created the “national” culture of the country.
We still hear accents today, just a lot fewer of them

17. Mass Media The founding of Hollywood
Drew film makers to the area in 1900.
Variety of landscapes (mountains, desert, ocean)
Warm climate
Lighting was better
Large work force from LA.

18. Movies 1910 – 5,000 theaters in the country. 1930 – 22,500 theaters
Throughout the 1920’s Americans went to about 1 movie a week.
1929 – 125 million Americans.
80 million movie tickets were sold every week.

19. Stars of the 1920s Charlie Chaplin The Tramp movies
atch?v=79i84xYelZI

20. The Jazz Singer Until 1927 movies were silent.
The first sound film The Jazz Singer – 1927
Going to the “talkies” was a popular pastime.

21. Stars of the 1920s
Greta Garbo
Swedish star
“I want to be alone.”

22. Stars of the 1920s
Clara Bow – the first “It” girl

23. Stars of the 1920s
Lillian Gish
Delicate heroine

24. Stars of the 1920s
Harold Lloyd
Physical comedian

25. Newspapers and Magazines
Golden Age of newspapers.
EVERY town had a newspaper.
The rise of newspaper chains.
Some owners had monopolies on the news in their states.

26. Newspapers
Tabloids – more on entertainment, fashion, sports and sensational stories.
The New York DAILY MIRROR
“90% entertainment, 10% information – and the information without boring you.”

27. Newspapers
More Americans began to share the same information, read the same events, and encounter the same ideas and fashions.
Created a common culture.

28. Radio
1920 Westinghouse Electric engineer Frank Conrad put a transmitter in his garage in Pittsburgh. Read news, played music.
KDKA – the FIRST American radio station.

29. Radio By 1922, 500 radio stations across the country.
National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) offered radio stations programming.

30. The Jazz Age

31. Harlem Renaissance 1914: 50,000 African Americans in Harlem.
1930: 200,000
Movement in the arts

32. Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes
Poet, short story writer, journalist and playwright.
Joys and difficulties of being human, American and being black.

33. The Jazz Age
The radio audience and the African American migration to the cities made jazz popular.
Improvisation of music
Syncopation – offbeat rhythm.

34. The Jazz Age Young people were NUTS about jazz.
1929 – 60% of radio air time was playing jazz.

35. Jazz Clubs and Dance Halls
To hear the “real” jazz – NYC and the neighborhood of Harlem.
500 jazz clubs
Cotton Club the most famous
But…
Most white Americans did not want to hear jazz.

36. Heroes of Jazz Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1974) “Satchmo” and “The Gift”
New Orleans to Chicago to the world.
Trumpet and singing “scat”
atch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA

37. Jazz Heroes “Duke” Ellington
17 years old – played jazz in clubs in Washington DC at night and painted signs in the day.
Wrote thousands of songs and had his own band.

38. Jazz Influences on Art Artists were showing the rougher side of life.
Edward Hopper conveyed a modern sense of disenchantment and isolation.

39. Art
Georgia O’Keefe turned to natural objects – flowers, bones, landscapes.

40. Literature in the 1920s Upton Sinclair Eugene O’Neill
Attacked American society.
THE JUNGLE, ELMER GANTRY, MAIN STREET
Eugene O’Neill
Dark tragedies of everyday American life.
A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
                                           

41. Literature in the 1920s: “The Lost Generation”
Many writers concentrated on the negative effects of modernism. They began to attack America’s materialism and expressed disillusionment.
Many writers, artists, and musicians went to Europe and most ended up in Paris
Cheap living
Racial tolerance
Intellectual tolerance

42. The Lost Generation F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wife Zelda
THE GREAT GATSBY
THE SUN ALSO RISES
Showed the people of the jazz age – exposed the emptiness and superficiality of much of modern society.

43. Analysis The 1920s was a period of contrasts.
With you partner, list and provide examples of the contrasts that existed during this period.