What was 1920s like

And new machines and technologies like the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner eliminated some of the drudgery of household work.

During the s, many Americans had extra money to spend, and they spent it on consumer goods such as ready-to-wear clothes and home appliances like electric refrigerators. In particular, they bought radios. By the end of the s, there were radios in more than 12 million households. People also went to the movies: Historians estimate that, by the end of the decades, three-quarters of the American population visited a movie theater every week.

But the most important consumer product of the s was the automobile. In there was one car on the road for every five Americans. Cars also gave young people the freedom to go where they pleased and do what they wanted. Jazz bands played at venues like the Savoy and the Cotton Club in New York City and the Aragon in Chicago ; radio stations and phonograph records million of which were sold in alone carried their tunes to listeners across the nation.

The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the Jazz Age. During the s, some freedoms were expanded while others were curtailed. This drove the liquor trade underground—now, people simply went to nominally illegal speakeasies instead of ordinary bars—where it was controlled by bootleggers, racketeers and other organized-crime figures such as Chicago gangster Al Capone. Prohibition was not the only source of social tension during the s.

This led to the passage of an extremely restrictive immigration law, the National Origins Act of , which set immigration quotas that excluded some people Eastern Europeans and Asians in favor of others Northern Europeans and people from Great Britain, for example. Immigrants were hardly the only targets in this decade. Prosperity had ended. The economic boom and the Jazz Age were over, and America began the period called the Great Depression.

The s represented an era of change and growth. The decade was one of learning and exploration. America had become a world power and was no longer considered just another former British colony. American culture, such as books, movies, and Broadway theater, was now being exported to the rest of the world.

World War I had left Europe on the decline and America on the rise. Barrett A. The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina in the 's.

Forsyth County Public Library. Winston-Salem in the Jazz Age. North Carolina Museum of History. A New Woman Emerges. October 19, Accessed February 28, October 29, The s could be considered a decade of progress for women and minorities for a multitude of reasons. One of these reasons is that the nineteenth amendment was passed giving women the right to vote.

Another reason is that women were being recognized as consumers and many new technologies were created for their usage. Another reason is that many minorities were recognized for their musical talent by playing in places such as the cotton club.

The s could be considered a period of regression for women and minorities for many reasons. One of these reasons is minorities were companies last options for hiring. Many minorities were without jobs because of this.

In s Hollywood, the studio system was created in which actors, directors, writers and others were put under contracts, and production and distribution were tightly controlled by the giant industry studios. Independent movie theaters were subject to so-called block booking that required them to rent a package of films and often denied them access to box-office hits.

A U. Supreme Court decision brought an end to the monopolistic system, ordering studios to rid themselves of the theaters they owned.

Local radio stations formed networks to share programming, and the first nationwide broadcast was produced by the National Broadcasting Company, of the Rose Bowl football game out of Pasadena, California.

The game between Stanford University and the University of Alabama ended in a tie. Popular culture, music and news spread like never before with the advent of nationwide radio networks. You may also like: Major cities most at risk of rising sea levels. Anti-immigration and anti-communist sentiment grew to a fervor in the s in the wake of national security concerns from World War I and the Russian Revolution of Congress passed the Immigration Act of that severely limited immigration, using a quota system, and banned almost all immigrants from Asia.

The law was revised in a version that ended the Asian ban, but the quota system remained largely in effect until Congress approved the Immigration and Nationality Act in Scott Fitzgerald. The U. One reason was factories that were located near population centers, and the jobs they provided.

Labor unions lost their clout in the s after gaining acceptance for their role in the World War I effort of previous years. Americans grew fearful of communist influences; massive strikes in the steel and mining industries ended in failure; and union membership plunged.

Among the rollbacks in conditions for American workers, the U. Supreme Court in outlawed the minimum wage, a ruling that would stand for 14 years. The stock market soared, and in , the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a high that was six times its value in You may also like: 87 top rated charities to support military members and their families.

The number of American homes with electricity nearly doubled from the beginning of the decade to the end, when two-thirds of homes had power.

People began buying refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, the ease of which made a huge impact on daily life. But the vast majority of homes in rural America remained without electricity until the Rural Electrification Administration was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in The comedy featured two white men playing two black men who migrated north to Chicago from the South.

The show moved to television in , where it was the first to feature a cast that was nearly all black. Criticism over its racial stereotypes led to its cancellation in Revival of the white supremacist group was aided by an effective publicity campaign that emphasized morality, small-town values and nationalism, playing on xenophobia and fears of foreign-bred communism after World War I.

Dozens of people were killed in a race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma in , and in , more than 50, white-robed Klan members marched in Washington D.

In ensuing years, however, public condemnation grew, the Klan became more commonly recognized for its extreme racial views, and its numbers dropped. The group's numbers would grow again amid civil rights battles in the s and s. Having built a huge business with its trademark catalog, Sears, Roebuck and Company opened its first retail store in Chicago in , after growing automobile use both dampened mail orders and allowed more people to drive to shop.

By the end of the decade, there were more than Sears stores nationwide. After decades of business, Sears closed its catalog sales in and filed for bankruptcy protection in This report proved a prescient recognition of the enduring social problems that defined the period for many. The conditions it described also underpinned the bitter industrial conflicts that coalesced in the General Strike in , and the emergence of a radical politics that demanded the profits of peace be shared among the many, not the few.

Fixating on the United States, finally, draws attention away from other — equally vital and important — global influences on s British culture.

Europe mattered, of course. Far from distant or marginal, empire was intrinsic to everyday life. It was studied at school, read about in newspapers, seen in newsreels and films and witnessed in the packets of tea sold in shops. It created an increasingly cosmopolitan population, particularly in ports like Liverpool, Cardiff and Glasgow. All of this meant that it required — and still requires — remarkable cultural amnesia to portray s Britain as stable, let alone characterised by hedonism and frivolity.

And on Tin Pan Alley, songwriters from Gershwin to Irving Berlin created some of the most intoxicating songs of the new century. The nod to Prince is a neat touch, but we would do well to remember that was also the year of the Wall Street crash, and an economic crisis that rippled across the world.

Women over 30 had gained the vote in It was only in July , however, that women were enfranchised on the same terms as men and could vote from the age of The ways in which Britons thought about the Great War slowly began to change.

Only in the past two years has one of the largest online fancy dress shops added a recognisably British costume to its section on the s.