the roaring twenties

The Roaring Twenties, also known as the Jazz Age, refers to the 1920s in Western society that was characterized by economic prosperity and social change in the United States and Europe.

As the economies of the Western world prospered, wages rose and prices fell, resulting in a higher standard of living that saw a dramatic increase in consumer consumption and new trends in lifestyle and culture. .

With the invention of radio, movies, and mass-produced consumer goods, mass-market advertising influenced consumer demand, jazz flourished, and flappers redefined the modern look of Western women.

1920 United States

The United States gained dominance in the financial world and was on the path to becoming a superpower.

As the 30th President of the United States (1923-1929), Calvin Coolidge restricted government spending to produce constant government surpluses amidst the material prosperity that many Americans enjoyed during the 1920s era.

The negative influences of the 1920s in the United States saw moral standards decline as many people defied Prohibition and organized crime and murder increased.

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947), American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company, was the main developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.

World War I (1914-18) accelerated the development of aircraft so that by the early 1920s they were capable of flying longer distances and carrying heavy loads.

As airmail became more popular, other industries began to turn to the plane for cargo transportation, which was much faster than ground transportation.

Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926)

Rudolph Valentino, was an Italian actor based in the United States who became a cultural icon of cinema.

His early death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans.

Charlie Chaplin (April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977)

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE, was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent film era.

He became a world icon as “El Vagabundo”, and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.

the italian mafia

In the 1920s, Italian mafia families began waging wars for absolute control of lucrative bootlegging businesses with ethnic Irish and Jewish gangs.

Bank robberies, kidnapping, carjacking, gambling, and drug dealing are becoming increasingly common crimes stemming from Nationwide Prohibition.

The Volstead Act of 1920, also known as the 18th Amendment, became law prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was a famous American Prohibition crime fighter who led a nine-man team of law enforcement officers dubbed the “Untouchables” to combat the underworld network of Al Capone in Chicago.

1920 Europe

Britain

George V (June 3, 1865 – January 20, 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from May 6, 1910 until his death in 1936.

George V’s reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement impacting the British Empire.

Germany

The 1920s were an unsettled time for Germany after Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate and flee to the Netherlands at the end of World War I.

The Weimar Republic was the government of Germany from 1919 to 1933, until the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Faced with reparation payments that they could not afford, Germany began printing huge amounts of money that put the country in a state of superinflation and reached the point where millions of marks became worthless.

jazz age

The Jazz Age was a cultural ‘golden age’ from which new styles of music and dance emerged.

Attributed largely to African Americans, jazz music soon spread to white middle class America.

Buddy Bolden, an African-American bandleader (“the first jazz man”) was at the forefront of the jazz movement.

Jazz musicians made it a worldwide phenomenon like Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, through the big band sounds of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, to vocalists like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone.

Louis Armstrong, a popular African-American jazz musician who played the trumpet and cornet and was known for his distinctive, deep voice, was the most famous jazz musician of the decade and possibly of all time.

Charleston

The Charleston is one of the most iconic dance styles of the Roaring Twenties.

The name of the port city of Charleston, South Carolina, gained popularity in the US due to a 1923 song from the Broadway show Runnin’ Wild, composed by James P. Johnson, who grew up listening to Scott Joplin, the “Ragtime King”. (musical style that enjoyed its maximum popularity between 1895 and 1919).

fox trot.

Named for its creator, vaudeville performer Harry Fox, the fox trot made its debut in 1914.

The smooth and graceful ballroom dance of the Fox Trot was a favorite of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

al jolson

Al Jolson (1885 – October 23, 1950), was America’s most famous and highest-paid entertainer and is remembered today as the star of the first sound film, The Jazz Singer (1927).

“Swanee” is an American popular song written in 1919 by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Irving Caesar.

The song was recorded for 18 weeks in 1920 selling a million copies of sheet music and approximately two million records.

fins

The flappers of the 1920s were considered the first generation of young, independent Western women who rejected the idea that they should uphold the morals of society through temperance and chastity.

They wore short skirts (knee-length), shorts (bobbed), hairstyles, smoked cigarettes, wore bolder makeup, and put rouge on their knees to create a “look at me” effect below the waist.

Colleen Moore, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks were the three most famous flappers in Hollywood in the 1920s.

The flapper became a very popular character in ‘roaring twenties’ movies.

The Great Depression (October 29, 1929)

The 1920s began with a roar, but the era ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that brought the United States and the Western world to its knees.

The Great Depression was a severe economic depression that brought years of hardship from 1929 to 1939.

It started after the stock market crash that caused a panic on Wall Street and wiped out millions of investors.

Ultimately, it caused drastic drops in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country in the world.

The average American family lived by the Depression-era motto: “Use it, wear it, fix it, or present it.”

Economic mobilization for World War II finally cured the depression as millions of men and women joined the armed forces or began working defense jobs.