19th Amendment Research Paper

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Tremendous change was taking place in the United States during the 1920s. The 19th Amendment altered the roles of women by giving women the right to vote. By extension, the 19th Amendment allowed women to exercise more freedom and independence within society. This new found freedom influenced women and enabled them to modernize. Women started using more makeup, wearing shorter dresses that ended at the kneecap and cutting their hair short as an act of rebellion against society’s norms. Women also started to advance and expand their education so that they could go into a career of their own choosing. These modernized 1920s women were collectively known as the “flappers.” The 1920s was a time of mass consumerism, which eventually led to a rise …show more content…

Americans were excited to buy newly invented and mass produced time saving consumer appliances. Sales of electrical household appliances such as the refrigerator, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, sewing machine and steam irons skyrocketed across America. Consumer businesses in the United States developed “installment plans” whereby a person pays a percentage of the cost for the item upfront, then that person pays an installment payment each month to keep the item until they eventually pay it off and own it. This installment plan was the earliest version of credit and allowed people to buy the new appliances they desired even though they didn’t have the full amount of money required for that purchase. Almost everyone in America wanted to modernize and buy these new consumer appliances. The convenience of the new time saving appliances allowed more leisure time for the average American citizen. This helped fuel the entertainment explosion that was taking place because the average American wanted to be entertained during this new found free time. In the 1920s entertainment had a very large role in the lifestyles of the American public. Entertainment in this era was largely comprised of movies, radio, music, magazines and …show more content…

The radio had the largest impact of any of the innovative consumer appliances that were created during the 1920s. Kay Gallant says, “ Sales of radios soared from $60 million in 1922 to $426 million in 1929. The first commercial radio station began broadcasting in 1919, and during the 1920s, the nation's airwaves were filled with musical variety shows and comedies” (Gallant). The record player known as the phonograph was a close second in entertainment value just behind the radio. In the 1920s the record player entered the average American’s life and impacted their musical entertainment choices. Peter Tschmuck says, “Piano sales actually drastically slumped as phonograph production rose from just 190,000 in 1923 to 5 million in 1929”(Tschmuck). However, it was the invention of the radio that transformed and revolutionized the music industry. Before radios, Americans had to go to a concert hall or purchase a phonograph in order to listen to the popular music. David Sarnoff founded the National Broadcast Company (NBC) in 1926 which changed radio listening forever. Americans could then listen to not only free of cost popular music in their own homes, but they could also listen to serial programs, performances of Shakespeare, sport broadcasts, news reports and weather reports. Unlike newspapers and magazines, radios delivered news and information much

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