The Roaring Twenties
The 1920s have been dubbed everything from 'The Roaring Twenties" and The Era of Wonderful Nonsense" To The Decade of the Dollar" and The period of the Psyche" to the " Dry Decade" and the age of Alcohol and the Al Capone." Many historians regard the years between World War I and the stock- market crash of 1929 as the culmination of a long process of social change, which Frederick Lewis Allen described as a "revolution in manners and morals." The 1920s opened in the aftermath of World War I. the war's brutality and devastation in Europe culminated in euphoria at home over the armistice, followed by political controversy over the Treaty of Versailles. While president Woodrow Wilson helped end the war "over there," he claimed Americans did not "want to be coached and lead" and as a result offered no organized plan to convert the economy from military mobilization to peace or incorporate masses of returning veterans into society.In the absence of government planning, conversion to a peace economy was abrupt. Veterans poured into the job market and competed with the nine million workers, including many blacks and women,
Mass- production workers responded with the first general strike in American history. " Whether a young working -class woman, a college graduate, flapper or feminist, the new women insisted on her right to unrestrained behavior-to drink and smoke in public and obtain sexual satisfaction-and in general sought greater personal freedom and equality with men in her social life. Prohibition transformed saloons into speakeasies, which got their name from the use of passwords to gain entrance. African and Hispanics shared little of the prosperity enjoyed by the other Americans in the 1920s. As government contracts terminated, construction companies planned mew buildings and homes, and factories geared up to fill orders for domestic goods. but more labors now worked for large, impersonal firms, and the new corporate order no longer valued restraint, thrift, and sobriety but instead was oriented toward conformity, consumerism, and individual gratification. Fads Mass communication through radio and syndicated news columns enable new pastimes to catch on as fads quickly in the 1920s, and the decade has been called "fad crazy" Flamboyant 1920s fads included flagpole sitting, goldfish swallowing, dance marathons, crossword puzzles, mah-jongg, and the Self- improvement. Suddenly, respectable members of the middle class, and middle-class youth especially, partook of amusements formerly associated only with the working and immigrant classes. In United States in the 1920s, the label was applied to young women who flaunted their freedom from convention and constraint in conduct and dress. Race and Ethnicity Growing racial and ethnic conflict marked the 1920s. New leisure-time pursuits became an arena of cultural conflict. The movie industry provided new visual media in the 1920s. the decade saw the Hollywood studio system grow, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, and the Twenties Century-Fox consolidating control over the distribution and exhibition of their films.
Common topics in this essay:
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Europe Asia,
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Margaret Deland,
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Acceptance Essays
