 |
Back
to Modules
Learn
About the
1920s
The 1920s was a decade of exciting social
changes and profound cultural conflicts. For many Americans, the growth
of cities, the rise of a consumer culture, and the so-called "revolution
in morals and manners" represented a liberation from the restrictions
of the country's Victorian past. But for others, the United States seemed
to be changing in undesirable ways. The result was a thinly veiled "cultural
civil war," in which a pluralistic society classed bitterly over
such issues as foreign immigration, evolution, the Ku Klux Klan, and race.
The
1920s is commonly thought of as a hedonistic interlude between the Great
War and the Great Depression, a decade of dissipation, of jazz bands,
raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, bootleggers,
and marathon dancers. According to this view, World War I had shattered
Americans' faith in reform and moral crusade, and the younger generation
proceeded to rebel against traditional taboos while their elders engaged
in an orgy of speculation.
In
fact the decade was both a decade of bitter cultural tensions as well
as a period in which many of the features of a modern consumer society
took root.
Recordings
from the 1920 presidential election
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/nfhtml/nfexpe.html
To
learn more
Maps:
Map
of the Presidential Election of 1920
Map of territorial growth, 1920
Legend for maps of territorial growth
Map of the Presidential Election of 1924
Map of the Presidential Election of 1928
Images:
 |
Warren G. Harding
dines with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
|
|
image
2 |
text
about image 2 |
|
image
3 |
text
about image 3 |
To
learn more
Timelines:
Click
here for timeline.
Fact sheets and lesson plans:
Fact sheets:
Controversies
of the 1920s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us33.cfm
Recommended
lesson plan:
1920s
Consumer Culture
http://history.osu.edu/projects/hti/Lessons/1920sconsumercult.htm
Fact checks:
Test
Your Knowledge About the 1920s
Recommended readings:
Stanley Coben,
Rebellion Against Victorianism
An analysis of the social and intellectual transformation during
the 1920s.
Ellis W.
Hawley, The Great War and the Search for Modern Order
A highly readable interpretation of the period.
 Recommended
film{maybe an s} :
It
Clara Bow’s vivaciousness helped define the new woman of the 1920s.
This film tells the story of a shop clerk who wins the heart of her
rich employer because she has “it”: "that quality possessed by
some which draws all others with its magnetic force."
http://www.filmsite.org/20sintro.html
Learn
more:
learn
more film
 Recommended
Web site:
Prosperity
and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html
Library of Congress materials from the 1920s that document the
widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition
to a mass consumer economy, and the role of government in this
transition.
To
learn more
|
|
