The Jazz Age 1920-1929

The Jazz Age1920-1929 Section 1: Boom Times Section 2: Life in the Twenties Section 3: A Creative Era

Section 1: Boom Times • Prosperity and Productivity • GNP = $70 billion in 1922 and $100 million in 1929 • Investments grew • Business expansion led to wage increases • Electricity becomes common in American homes, by 1930 2/3 of homes have electricity • Mixers, food grinders, sewing machines, washing machines, radio and phonographs • Scientific management – Frederick W. Taylor- based on the idea that every kind of work could be broken down into a series of smaller tasks • “Time-and-Motion” studies identified these tasks • “Efficiency” experts • The Growth of the Automobile Industry • Henry Ford • Model T “Tin Lizzy” • Assembly line at Detroit factory – cut production time in half, reduced prices, $850 in 1909 to $290 in 1924

Brought them to the average American • Average 1 car for every 5 citizens • Became largest business • Consuming: glass, rubber, steel, etc • By 1929 over 1 million people worked in auto industry or a related industry • Changes in work • Ford and his workers • Shortened workday (8 hours) • Raised wages ($5 per day due to tedium) • Regulated morality and personal behavior of workers • Opposed tobacco use, alcohol use, American values stressed, Recommended workers move from ethnic neighborhoods, learn to read and write English • Impact of new products • Electric appliances • Less domestic help

A Land of Automobiles • Trains & Trolley Cars lose riders • Almost completely replaced horse-drawn vehicles • 400,000 miles of new roads built in 1920s • Billboards, drive-in restaurants, filling stations, tourist cabins start to appear • Suburbs • Auto-tourism- allowed Americans to travel without restrictions of schedules or routes of trains. • Family life • New social opportunities for teens • Critics claimed it caused a loss of community • Also brought pollution, traffic jams, parking problems, accident rates soared • Creating Consumers • Alfred P. Sloan- head of General Motors • Marketing • Installment plans – “buy it on time” –kitchen appliances, pianos, sewing machines, cars

Streamlined look – used for planes, ships, cars, etc… started doing it for other things like radios, clocks, and appliances • Up-to-date models continued to arrive • GM introduced yearly model change and the trade-in, getting people to get a new car each year • Department of Labor reported women were going into debt trying to keep up with fashion! • Advertising • Big business in 1920s • 1929 $3 million spent on advertising alone – in magazines, newspapers, billboards, radio spots • Targeted women, used slogans, jingles and celebrities • A growing retail industry • Chain stores- A&P grocery chain • Quick freezing techniques • cellophane

Section 2: Life in the Twenties • Prohibition • Eighteenth Amendment • Ban on manufacture, sale, transportation of alcoholic beverages • Volstead Act created to enforce amendment • Some places strictly enforced, some not so much • Al Capone and the Chicago mob • violence against other mobs/gangs • St. Valentine’s Day 1929 – his mob killed 7 of a rival gang • Speakeasies, clubs, bars, bootleg, smuggling • Enter Eliot Ness and the Federal Prohibition Bureau • Strict enforcement of prohibition laws • “Untouchables” and Ness arrested Capone on tax evasion charges, during prison time lost control of his gang

Positives of Prohibition • Alcoholism, alcohol related deaths declined • Negatives of Prohibition – more press • Widespread breakdown of law and order • Turned millions of law abiding citizens into lawbreakers • Repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933 • Youth Culture • The “new woman” • Flappers: Stylish, adventurous, independent, career-minded • Changed their dress = Goodbye corsets… hello shorter skirts and silk hose! • Cut hair into bobbed styles • Drove cars, sought economic independence • Participated in sports

College life • 1900-1930 college enrollment tripled • Middle and upper classes • “collegiate look” = baggy flannel slacks & sports jacket • Leisure fun and fads • Dance marathons • Dance Derby of the Century = 482 hours! (nearly 3 weeks) in 1928 • Beauty Contests • Miss America- 1921 • Flag pole sitting • Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, most famous • Mass entertainment • Radio • Broadcasted church services, local news reports, music, sports events • Dempsey- Carpenter heavyweight title fight • World Series • Advertising spots for sale “sponsors”

Movies • Cecil B. DeMille • Biblical epic plots, complex characters • Why Change Your Wife (1920) • Forbidden Fruit (1921) • The Ten Commandments (1923) • Actors – silent films • Lon Chaney (horror/scary) • Charlie Chaplin (comedy) • Tom Mix (westerns) • 1927 “Talkies” • The Jazz Singer (1st one) 1927- starred Al Jolson • The Sheik – Rudolph Valentino (married in Crown Point)- created controversy. People demanded regulations on films. • Sports • Professional sports • College/professional football • Red Grange played his first professional game for the Chicago Bears Thanksgiving 1925

Baseball • “Black Sox” Scandal • “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox players accused of taking a bribe to throw the World Series game in 1919 • Legends: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig • Books and magazines • Book-of-the-month club founded 1923 • Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post • Cartoons, short stories, advertising pages • Dewitt and Lila Wallace found Reader’s Digest in 1921 • Celebrities and Heroes • Young people copied the celebrities behaviors • A Woman of Affairs, starring Greta Garbo, she wore a slouch hat… became the “in” thing • “Sultan of Swat” = Babe Ruth • Jim Thorpe, won both the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics, went on to play baseball and football • Amelia Earhart- first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean

Religion in the 1920s • Revivalism • Evils of popular entertainment and alcohol • Aimee Semple McPherson • Movie star image: white dress, white shoes, blue cape • International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, headquartered in Los Angeles • Dramatic religious services- combined orchestra, chorus, stage sets • Closely tied with Pentecostalism • Fundamentalism • Protestant movement • Traditional Christian doctrine to be followed without question • Bible was a literal translation • Christian “liberals” were attacked, the ones who believed in science, evolution • Evangelical spread fundamentalism “old-time” religion

The Scopes Trial- July 1925 • Tennessee legislature outlawed “Darwinism” in public schools • American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend a school teacher, John Scopes, a science teacher • Defense attorney, Clarence Darrow • Prosecution witness… William Jennings Bryan… 3 time democratic presidential hopeful • Trial exposed the deep divide in American society between traditional religious values and new ones based on scientific thought and theory • Darrow attacked the law as impeding free expression • Bryan admitted his belief that bible was literal, forced Bryan to admit inconsistencies in his interpretation of the scriptures • Darrow failed to convince the jury. Snopes was found guilty and fined $100 • Showed to some a narrow mindedness in some fundamentalists like Bryan and lowered some American’s views of fundamentalism

Section 3: The Creative Era • Music • The Emergence of Jazz • Charles “Buddy” Bolden • Blues mix of slave music and spirituals • Mamie Smith • Gertrude “Ma” Rainey • Bessie Smith • Louis Armstrong • Jazz Moves North • Chicago and New York • Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton – Chicago formed a band called the Red Hot Peppers, “Jelly Roll Blues” • Joseph “King” Oliver, Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong joined his band in 1922, “Mabel’s Dream” and “Froggie Moore” • 1924 Louis Armstrong goes solo “When the Saint Go Marching In”, “Savoy Blues”, and “Hotter than That”

The popularization of jazz • Bix Beiderbecke, cornetist and pianist, put jazz rhythms in his music • George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue • Igor Stravinsky • Aaron Copeland • Big Band music, dance music • Harlem’s Cotton Club • Duke Ellington • Ethel Waters • Cab Calloway • Many clubs were “white” only with black entertainers, even when the clubs were in black neighborhoods • Langston Hughes “Why should I want to be white? I am a negro – and beautiful” • Josephine Baker and others traveled and spread jazz to other places, such as Paris which had its own Jazz Age

The Harlem Renaissance • Theater • Paul Robeson, Emperor Jones • Son of a former slave • Graduate from Rutgers and Columbia Law • Singer “Ol’ Man River”, from Showboat • First African American actor to play a leading role opposite a white actress • Rose McClendon, Deep River • In Abraham’s Bosom • Porgy, she appeared in the first production • Literature • Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928) • Claude McKay, Home to Harlem • James Weldon Johnson, educator, lawyer, diplomat to Venezuela and Nicaragua, office of the NAACP • Poetry: “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” became a song

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) • The Book of American Negro Poetry • Executive secretary of NAACP, raised money to support African American artists and art programs in Harlem • The Lost Generation • Scorned middle-class consumerism and superficiality of post war years • “lost generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein in reference to Ernest Hemingway and others • Stories of disillusionment • Ernest Hemingway • A Farewell to Arms – devastation of war • F. Scott Fitzgerald • The Great Gatsby –emptiness of the pursuit of social status and money • Married Zelda Sayre, her mental illness and his alcoholism cut short their glamorous lifestyle when his creativity dried up due to the pressures

Criticizing the middle class • Sinclair Lewis • Main Street (1920) satire of close-mindedness of a typical small Midwestern town • Babbitt (1922), story of middle aged realtor and city booster who hates his life but is too cowardly to change • H.I. Mencken, wrote in The American Mercury, he promoted writers who satirized middle America or “booboisie”, made fun of Republican politicians, Fundamentalist Christians, rural southerners, people who lived in small towns, and others • The Visual Arts • Painting and Photography • Georgia O’Keefe – NY factories and tenements • Alfred Stieglitz – photos of people, airplanes, skyscrapers, crowded city streets

Murals • Mexican influence • Jose Clemente Orozco • Diego Rivera • Detroit Institute of Art • Wife, Frida Kahlo • Rockefeller Center mural was destroyed by the sponsors because it featured Lenin • David Alfaro Siqueiros • Architecture • Louis Sullivan • Frank Lloyd Wright • Empire State Building (1250 feet) in 1931 – tallest building in the world until 1954. • Chrysler Building (1048 feet) in 1930 -End notes-

The Jazz Age 1920-1929