1. 25 Topic: Transition to Modern America- 1920s
EQ: How was the 1920s a real transition to modern America?

2. POP QUIZ
1. Please, in 3-4 sentences, explain the Scope’s Trial and give the outcome of the trial.
2. Please tell me the association between the following: a) Speakeasies, b) Flappers, c) Al Capone
3. Why was the KKK reinvigorated during the 1920’s?

3. The Second Industrial Revolution
U.S. developed the highest standard of living in the world
The 1920s and the second revolution
Electricity replaced steam
Modern assembly introduced

4. The Automobile Industry
Auto makers stimulated sales through model changes, advertising
Auto industry fostered other businesses
Autos encouraged suburban sprawl

5. Autos of the Era

6. Patterns of Economic Growth
New technologies meant new industries such as radio and motion pictures
Structural change
Professional managers replaced individual entrepreneurs
Corporations became the dominant business form

7. Early Radio

8. Patterns of Economic Growth
Marketing and national brands spread
Big business weakened regionalism, brought uniformity to America

9. Advertising Modernity
Advertising became a thriving industry that promoted consumerism.
Advertising agencies employed market research and psychology to stress consumer needs, desires, and anxieties rather than the qualities of the product.
They celebrated consumption as a positive good.

10. Glenwood Stove Ad

11. Other Ads

12. © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.
A 1919 advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes featured the image of actress Billie Burke. Paid celebrity endorsements for consumer goods became a common practice in the post WWI years. Tobacco companies were among the most aggressive purveyors of this new advertising strategy.
© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

13. Economic Weaknesses Railroads poorly managed
Coal displaced by petroleum
Farmers faced decline in exports, prices
Growing disparity between income of laborers, middle-class managers
Middle class speculated with idle money

14. City Life in the Jazz Age
Rapid increase in urban population
Skyscrapers symbolized the new mass culture
Communities of home, church, and school were absent in the cities

15. Women and the Family Ongoing crusade for equal rights
“Flappers” sought individual freedom
Most women remained in domestic sphere
Discovery of adolescence
Teenage children no longer needed to work
Indulged their craving for excitement

16. The Roaring Twenties
Sports, like golf and baseball, became much bigger part of national popular culture
Decade was notable for obsessive interest in celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Gertrude Ederle
Sex became an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainment

17. Sports Culture

18. “Lucky Lindy” Lindbergh

19. The Flowering of the Arts
Alienation from 1920s mass culture
“Exiled” American writers put U.S. at forefront of world literature
T.S. Eliot
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald

20. Part Five:
The New Mass Culture

21. Movie-Made America
Mass communication media reshaped American culture in the 1920s.
Movie ticket sales soared.
Publicists whetted American appetites by creating an elegant image for movie stars.
Attacked by conservative groups for sexual permissiveness, Hollywood studios came up with a plan of self-censorship by hiring Will Hayes as a morals czar.

22. © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.
Seeing History Creating Celebrity.
© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

23. One of the First Talkies
The Jazz Singer

24. Radio Broadcasting
Radio developed into the nation’s first comprehensive mass entertainment medium.
Large companies formed national networks that aired a variety of programs to homes across the country.
Building on blackface minstrelsy, “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was the first national radio hit show.
Radio also helped to commercialize previously isolated forms of music and build a mass following for sports.

25. New Forms of Journalism
The 1920s saw the growth of newspaper tabloids that emphasized crime, sex scandals, gossip columns, and sports.
Their popularity forced advertisers to appeal directly to working class and immigrant readers.
As in other businesses, journalism saw the trend towards consolidation.
The Hearst chain controlled 14 percent of the nation’s circulation.

26. The Flowering of the Arts
Writers like Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken criticized flaws and contradictions of 1920s
Harlem Renaissance: African Americans prominent in music, poetry