1. The Roarin’ 20s

2. First, a Movie Trailer

3. And an Explanation

4. The Government Gets Goofy
End of war means no more weapons contracts
Demobilization
Result: mass unemployment, economic upheaval, and recession

5. Labor Unrest Without the war, factory workers weren’t as important
Wages dropped, conditions worsened
Strikes, unrest, and violence became common
Middle Class Americans wanted to get on with life

6. The “-isms” Radicalism, Anarchism, Communism, and Socialism
The “Red Scare”
Loss of Civil Liberties
Parallel to today?

7. Sacco & Vanzetti Shows conservative hysteria of the period
Two Italian atheists, anarchists, and draft-dodgers who got convicted of murder in 1921
Executed by electric chair for their crimes

8. The KKK Re-Appears Birth of a Nation (1915) spreads racial unrest
Beginning of the “modern” Ku Klux Klan
More evidence of American intolerance

9. Black Responses Race riots and racial tension
Marcus Garvey launched the “Back to Africa” movement
Garvey later went to prison for mail fraud
Question of integrated or separate society for blacks

10. But, Black Music is Popular

11. The Harlem Renaissance
“Renaissance” comes from the Italian word for “Rebirth”
Harlem was a neighborhood in New York City that attracted a number of African-Americans moving north during the Great Migration
Created a new “black identity”

12. Prior to the 1920s…
What was life like for African-Americans in the United States?
What shared culture did the African-American community have?
What were some of the things that blacks disagreed about?

13. Langston Hughes Descended from slaves Attended Columbia
While in New York, wrote poetry about the African-American experience
Left Columbia due to racial prejudice

14. Music of the Period

15. Leading To…

16. Pop Culture Changes Shift toward “black” music, mainly jazz
Rise of the “Charleston” and flappers
Rise of Radio
Motion pictures: now featuring (some) sound

17. Consumer Culture
Today, if you need something, you can just go to Wal-Mart
The idea was that buying things would make people happy… and benefit the economy
New products made life easier

18. Planes and Cars Two symbols of the new consumer culture
Car production became streamlined: Henry Ford & the Model T
Airplanes used to link cities… and, during war, to bomb them

19. More Consumer Culture Radios Movies
Sports (especially baseball and boxing)
Flappers!

20. The Lost Generation
Some argued that this explosion of consumer culture, or even just mass culture, was an outgrowth of post-war exhaustion
“Lost Generation” writers tried to make sense of it all

21. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald belonged to “The Lost Generation”
He, too, was troubled by the rise of American consumer culture
The Great Gatsby was a critique of how the US had lost its way