Why The Roaring 20's

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The entertainment individuals involve themselves in may not always be the best decision even if there is prize money involved. The roaring 20’s was a time of great prosperity for most people, but not so much for the farmers. This was due to agriculture not being a high demand job, since machinery was beginning to take their place. With all kinds of inventions arousing, everyone wanted to partake in each and every item or event to keep themselves entertained. One form of entertainment that came upon the 20’s was the dance marathons. Dance marathons had a great impact on society which includes its history, the desperation within people to win, and the opposition against these marathons. Throughout the 20’s and 30’s, dance marathons were beginning …show more content…

There was quite a bit of opposition against the dance marathons because of multiple reasons. For instance, many churches and women’s groups opposed this form of entertainment because of moral and humanitarian reasons. The moral reason included “the contestants’ dance positions resembled dragging full-body hugging rather than social dance positions” (Becker). The humanitarian reason was that, “it was wrong to charge money for the dubious privilege of watching bedraggled contestants become increasingly degraded” (Becker). Also, many movie theater owners were against the dance marathons because they “lost money when their patrons attended a marathon instead of a movie” (Becker). Another group were police officers because they thought the marathons “attracted an undesirable element to their towns” (Becker). Furthermore, one city, Seattle, took action on September 5, 1928, and passed an ordinance prohibiting dance marathons within their city limits. They decided to take this action because of the attempted suicide of a Seattle woman who competed in a 19-day marathon and placed only fifth. After this, more towns began to take action, to the point where the state of Washington passed an act prohibiting dance marathons. All in all, there was quite a bit of opposition from many different groups of people that wanted dance marathons to

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