As a nation coming out of a devastating war, America faced many changes in the 1920s. It was a decade of growth and improvements. It was also a decade of great economic and political confidence. However, with all the changes comes opposition. Social and cultural fears still caused dichotomous rifts in American society.
Life Changes of Americans in the 1920's
In the 1920's many American lives were improved greatly, but some
lives were as bad as they had been before. The economy was booming,
with cars being mass produced, and many other consumer goods such as
radios, were widely available. Also more jobs became available, and
many people recieved a par rise. However there were bad things such as
racism about. Many ethnic minority groups were treated poorly.
The 1920s marked the start of the Jazz Age, also known as the Roaring Twenties, as World War I came to a closure. It was a period of significant economic boom, cultural shifts and social changes. Prominent progress in technology brought about rapid modernization and urbanization after the war. This then resulted in many changes in people’s lifestyles. A bigger part of the population was able to enjoy higher standards of living due to higher affordability. Cultural wise, war affected the way both men and women viewed themselves and hence there was a major shift in mindsets and what was socially deemed acceptable.
The 1920s were a time of leisure and carelessness. The Great War had ended in 1918 and everyone was eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. The end of the war and the horrors and atrocities that it resulted in now faced millions of people. Easily obtainable credit and rapidly rising stock prices prompted many to invest, resulting in big payoffs and newfound wealth for many. However, overproduction and inflated stock prices increased by corrupt industrialists culminat...
In the 1920s the change of the American Dream began to change for the worse. The Dream changed from “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness” to “anyone can get rich” because America grew as a nation. After World War 1 the creation of cars, telephones, movies, and
The 1920s exemplified a new era of wealth, prosperity, and change. The 1920s were a time of social changes, cultural conflicts, and political change. New ways of life, including the flapper lifestyle, played a big role in shaping the new generation. Machines and inventions fabricated more free time, while simultaneously higher wages were a result of the expanding prosperity. However, this prosperity brought downsides and corruption. For example, alcohol was prohibited in the 1920s. Many who opposed this law went to speakeasies, illegal bars that sold alcohol. The Teapot Dome Scandal, where Albert Bacon Fall decided to lease his controlled land as supervisor of the naval oil reserve lands for millions of dollars, resulted in a loss of faith in the government. Buying items on credit was a new feature of the 1920s. Although this did not seem like a big deal at the time, it turned out to be one of the leading causes to the start of the Great Depression, another of the decade’s biggest failures. The 1920s was the first decades to have a nickname, called either, “The Roaring Twenties,” or “The Jazz Age.” This demonstrated the wealth, prosperity, and cultural differences that the 1920s contained. The Jazz Age included many artifacts, such as the following. The Red Scare was a movement where the government tried to eliminate communism. The Harlem Renaissance was a time where Black people gathered and created jazz and art that were popular across the “mainstream” culture. The Flapper was a new woman lifestyle where women stayed out of the house, drank, smoked, partied, and did everything that was socially unacceptable for a woman before World War I to do. In the Scopes Trial, the government sided with the banning of teachin...
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, northern cities such as Chicago were experiencing social problems because of population booms caused by “waves of immigrants, displaced farm workers, and blacks fleeing the rural south” (Gabbidon, 2010). By the 1920s the University of Chicago had put together a group of scholars to investigate the social ills plaguing the city. Together, these scholars combined their ideas to formulate what is now known as the “Chicago School” (Gabbidon, 2010).
After the small recession of 1921 as the United States struggled to switch from a wartime to a peacetime economy, a “New Era” of success, opulence, and relative happiness followed, which has become known as the “Roaring Twenties” (Brinkley 642). During this time period, the national economy boomed as new technologies were developed, consumers bought numerous goods, the market skyrocketed, and people in general were confident about the situation of the country as a whole. The urban middle class became stronger and more influential during the twenties and began to become accustomed to all of the wealth and success which they were experiencing during the era. Despite all of this overt wealth and prosperity, however, many underlying problems existed which ensured that the eventual collapse of the economy on Black Tuesday and the Great Depression that followed would occur. Additionally, there existed numerous contradictions and confrontations between various pairs of diametrically opposed groups, ideas, or people. Thus, the statement, “The Roaring Twenties was a paradox destined for depression” truthfully portrays the economic situation of this era, in which covert problems were ignored and overt prosperity existed. Specifically, the free flow of credit, the surplus created by rural farmers, and the inability of European countries to pay back their loans to the United States of America virtually guaranteed that a depression would occur sometime in the future. Additionally, there were two sides to almost every aspect of life, thus supplying the paradoxes discussed in the quote, such as conservatism and liberalism, urban and rural, women and men, black and white, citizens and immigrants, and reason and religion.
How Music Helped Change And Define The United States In The 1960’s
Rock and roll, one of the biggest and most influential parts of music history that came out of the 1950s and continued to change the United States in many ways through the mid to late 1960’s rock and roll had changed American youth drastically, inventing not only new sounds but a new culture. That culture would be known as the youth counterculture which changed the way everything would be perceived for the rest of time. It gave birth to a new, modern thinking, and morally concerned youth. Which is why I firmly do believe that the music of the 1960s wasn't just for entertainment, but for people to get their point across, to let the government and society know that things
The Culture of the 1920s
The Roaring Twenties started in North America and spread to Europe as the effects of World War I diminished. In Europe, the years following the First World War (1919-1923) were marked by a deep recession. Europe spent these years in rebuilding and coming to terms with the vast human cost of the conflict. Unlike in the aftermath of World War II, the United States did little to try to rebuild Europe. Instead, it took an increasingly isolationist stance (Answers, 2006).