Education and Popular Culture

1. Education and Popular Culture Chapter 13 Section 3 Pages 446-451

2. Objectives • Describe the popular culture of the 1920s. • Explain why youth-dominated decade came to be called the Roaring Twenties.

3. Main Idea • The mass media, movies, and spectator sports played important roles in creating the popular culture of the 1920s – a culture that many artists and writers criticized.

4. Why It Matters Now • Much of today’s popular culture can trace its roots to the popular culture of the 1920s.

5. Education • High School Enrollments • 1914 = 1 million • 1926 = 4 million • Prosperity • Vocational training

6. Education • Teaching immigrant children • Spoke no English • Taxes increase • Total cost in 1925 = $2.7 billion a year

7. US Dept of Education • $71.5 billion per year • 14,600 school districts • approximately 54 million students • nearly 9.9 million postsecondary students • http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/index.html?src=ln

8. PA Dept of Education • Basic Education Funding for 2005-2006 is $4,492,184,000 • http://www.pdeinfo.state.pa.us/education_budget/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=71004&education_budgetNav=|4869|&education_budgetNav=| North Penn School District • Budget, Taxes, Per Pupil Costs2005-2006 budget—$169,679,139 • Per pupil costs—$12,846

9. Expanding News Coverage • Sensational tabloid headlines • National chain newspapers • Mass-circulation magazines • Reader’s Digest • Time

10. Radio Comes of Age • Most powerful medium • 1st commercial station KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA • News as it happened • Larger world appears • Voice of our president • World Series live

11. Babe Ruth Red Grange Jack Dempsey Gertrude Ederle Andrew “Rube” Foster Helen Wills Ty Cobb Bill Tilden Knute Rockne Lou Gehrig New Heroes and Old Dreams • 1929, $4.5 billion spent on entertainment • Golden Age of Sports The power of the individual to improve their life

12. Lindbergh’s Flight • 1st nonstop solo flight of the Atlantic • $25,000 prize • Spirit of St. Louis • New York to Paris • 33 hours and 29 minutes • Represented bravery and honesty in an age of sensationalism, excess, and crime

13. Film • The Jazz Singer, 1927 • Disney’s Steamboat Willie, 1928 • These talkies double movie attendance

14. Plays • The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill forces reflection on isolation, confusion, and family conflict • Eugene O’Neill was one of the greatest playwrights in American history.

15. Music • George Gershwin merges traditional elements with American jazz • Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Concerto in F

16. Painters • Edward Hopper paints empty streets and lonely people

17. Painters • Georgia O’Keefe Manhattan1932Georgia O'Keeffe Smithsonian American Art Museum

18. Writers • Sinclair Lewis – 1st Nobel Prize in literature • Ridicules conformity and materialism in novel Babbit

19. Writers • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Coins term “Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s • This Side of Paradise and the Great Gatsby • Reveals the negative aspects of wealthy, attractive socialites in NYC

20. Writers • Edna St. Vincent Millay • Celebrates youth and a life of independence from traditional constraints

21. Writers • Ernest Hemingway • Criticizes the glorification of war • Tough, simplified style of writing setting a new literary standard. • The Sun Also Rises • A Farewell to Arms