Music in Annie in 1920-1930

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Music in Annie in 1920-1930

The Roaring Twenties was a decade absorbed with the growth of the music industry thanks to the radio being born in 1920 (Tyle). The excitement of the war being over brought the Roaring Twenties forth. The American people hungered for change, and the new music of the era, jazz, satisfied their great hunger (100 Favourite Songs). Jazz was a brand new type of music drastically different from anything the American people had heard before. Unfortunately, the Great Depression, which occurred in the thirties, brought forth an aroma of sadness and despair in the lives of the American people. Would jazz also cave into the Depression? Or fight back? Although the mood of the American people changed from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression, the music of each era stayed the same; the music industry was the Americans’ outlet from the Depression.

The radio was a huge part of the music industry in the twenties and thirties. The first radio broadcast occurred in 1920, and by 1922 there were 600 radio stations (100 Favourite Songs). The radio became very popular very quickly; nearly sixty percent of Americans had radios in their homes (100 Favourite Songs). By the Great Depression the chief source of music was no longer phonographs or sheet music, but the radio (Tyle). Their favorite things to listen to were comedies such as Amos ‘n Andy and the new music of the age: jazz (Bailey 761). Towards the end of the twenties the radio went from being a treat to inexpensive entertainment (Tyle). In the well-known comic strip, Annie, there were pictures of Annie and the orphans listening to the radio; these same scenes were observed in the beloved Broadway play, Annie (Annie). This goes to show the radio was definitel...

... middle of paper ...

...es’ outlet from the shift in mood of their lifestyles and politics during that time.

Word Count: 1,632

Works Cited

“100 Favourite songs from the 1920s.” Wordpress. 15 July 2012. Web. 26 January 2014.

Annie. Thomas Meehan. Dir. Karen Smith. Calvary Christian School, Covington, KY. 20 March 2014.

Armstrong, Louis. Dinah. 1933. YouTube. Web. 26 March 2014.

Armstrong, Louis. Hello Dolly. 1927. YouTube. Web. 26 January 2014.

Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. Print.

“Jazz, Jazz-Scored, and Jazz Age Films: 1920s-Present.” Arcadia Systems. 10 September 2012. Web. 29 April 2014.

Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

Tyle, Chris. “Jazz History in Standard Time.” Jazz Standards. 2012. Web. 11 February 2014.

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