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The “New Era” & The Lost Generation

The “New Era” & The Lost Generation. John Ermer U.S. History Honors Miami Beach Senior High LACC.1112.RH.1.9, SS.912.A.5.1-10, SS.912.A.1-7, SS.912.G.1-3, SS.912.G.4-3. New Culture.

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The “New Era” & The Lost Generation

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  1. The “New Era” & The Lost Generation John Ermer U.S. History Honors Miami Beach Senior High LACC.1112.RH.1.9, SS.912.A.5.1-10, SS.912.A.1-7, SS.912.G.1-3, SS.912.G.4-3

  2. New Culture • Faster communication and travel together with rise of consumer culture allow Americans to experience life in increasingly similar ways • New values reflect prosperity and complexity of modernity • Increasing diversity of American population, culture

  3. Consumerism • Economic success allows Americans to buy for pleasure, not just need • Refrigerators, washing machines, electric irons, vacuum cleaners • Wrist watches, cigarettes, cosmetics, mass produced fashion/clothing • Automobile changes life for urban and rural population • City-dwellers escape congested cities for weekend getaways • Businesses include paid vacations to restore vigor/energy of workers • Isolation of rural life lessened by ease and decreased time of travel • Young people develop social life away from family—youth culture

  4. Advertising • Rise of advertising industry causes rise in consumerism • Use techniques of wartime propaganda to improve advertising • Identify products with particular lifestyles, investing glamour and prestige • “Buy this product and your life will improve” • Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows, paints Jesus as super-salesman • New forms of communication aid advertising, expand consumerism • Newspaper chains and wire services • New magazines • Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, and Time

  5. Multimedia • Movies increase in popularity and influence, “talkies” debut in 1927 • Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer is first talkie to create nation-wide excitement • Fatty Arbuckle scandal produces calls to “clean up” Hollywood • Motion Picture Association created, Will Hays becomes head of MPA • Hays reviews films for appropriateness, pushes sanctimonious conformity • Radio is newest form of communication, available at home • 1920: Pittsburg’s KDKA becomes first commercial radio station • 1927: National Broadcasting Company (NBC) • Radio was more diverse than film, sometimes controversial, but self regulated

  6. 1920s Womanhood • Women of the 20s are from multi-generational lines of educated women • Professional opportunities remain limited to “feminine work” • Most married women did not work outside the home • Behaviorists redefine motherhood as a communal endeavor • Mother’s now less likely to allow children to interfere in married life • Companionate Marriages: women play larger role in husbands’ social lives • Increase in birth control devises/methods, Margaret Sanger

  7. Flappers & Politics • Rejection of Victorian ideals of womanly “respectability” • Women smoke, drink, dance, wear seductive clothes/make-up, and “party” • New models of womanly independence known as “flappers” • Characterized by certain modes of dress, speech, behavior • National Woman’s Party fights for Equal Rights Amendment • Sheppard-Towner Act provides federal funds for prenatal and child health • Terminated in 1929 over concerns of American Medical Association

  8. Education & Youth • Emphasis on expertise and training raises public school enrollment • College enrollment increases threefold, include modern technical skills • Idea of adolescence as distinct period of development as result of longer periods of training and education and Freudian psychology • College becomes place for adolescents to participate in organized clubs and athletics as well as develop own social patterns and hobbies • Primary association with peer groups rather than families

  9. The Lost generation • Many youths see WWI as a useless conflict, disenchanted • Rejection of consumerism and U.S. itself • Artists and intellectuals reject “business as usual” of 1920s • Ernest Hemingway’s A Farwell to Arms • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby • Lost Generation writers criticize many American values, including: religion, democracy, material success, the medical profession, Republican politics, the modern city, the small town

  10. The Harlem Renaissance • African-American neighborhood of Harlem in NYC becomes symbol of flourishing African-American cultural nationwide • African-American music gains a white audience • African-American writers show pride in their racial heritage • Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, CounteeCullen “I am a Negro—and beautiful”~ Langston Hughes

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