1. New Popular Culture in the 1920’s

2. Rise in Heroes Why do we have heroes? What qualities make up a hero?
What role do heroes play in our lives?
Examples of heroes we have now?

3. One of the new kinds of entertainment was the motion picture.
In the 1920s, 60 to 100 million people went to the movies each week.
Throughout most of the decade, movies were silent, so people could watch them no matter what language they spoke.

4. Film Star Heroes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtZTIwSIuGw
The great popularity of movies in the 1920s gave rise to a new kind of celebrity—the movie star.
One of the brightest stars of the 1920s was Charlie Chaplin, a comedian whose signature character was a tramp in a derby hat and ragged clothes.
What are some similarities between these two films?

5. Rudolph Valentino, a dashing leading man of romantic films, was such a big star that his unexpected death in 1926 drew tens of thousands of women to the funeral home where his body lay.

7. The radio and the phonograph were powerful instruments of mass culture.
The first commercial radio station, KDKA, began in 1920.
Within three years, there were 600 radio stations.
People all over the country could hear the same music, news, and shows.
With phonographs, people could listen to music whenever they wanted.
Improvements in recording technology made records popular.
People listened to the same songs and learned the same dances.

8. Music Comparison Activity
Describe the type of society that each song is portraying
How do the songs compare to each other?
What can an art form like music tell us about a time period/society?

9. Aviator Charles Lindbergh became a national hero when he made the first solo flight across the Atlantic.
In May 1927, Lindbergh flew his single-engine plane, Spirit of St. Louis, non-stop from New York to Paris.
The flight took more than 33 hours. 9

10. Amelia Earhart
A little over a year after Lindbergh’s flight, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, returning to the U.S. as a hero.
She went on to set numerous speed and distance records as a pilot.
In 1937 she was most of the way through a record-breaking flight around the world when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

11. Sports Heroes Radio increased popularity of stars
Sports like football, baseball, boxing & golf gained popularity

12. The world of sports produced some nationally famous heroes.
Baseball player Babe Ruth, nicknamed “The Sultan of Swat,” thrilled people with his home runs.

14. Arts of the 1920s
F. Scott Fitzgerald helped create the flapper image, coined the term the “Jazz Age,” and explored the lives of the wealthy in The Great Gatsby and other novels and stories.
Sinclair Lewis wrote about the emptiness of middle-class life.
Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos were war veterans and, as part of the so-called Lost Generation, wrote about war experiences.

15. Write one paragraph describing some aspect of the mass entertainment of the 1920s and how it connects to the present day.