Were the 1920s good for minorities?

Black Advancements

• Blacks advance in many areas of society

• 1920s the expansion of Jazz

• Music grew out of New Orleans to Chicago, Detroit and New York

NY & Harlem

Harlem Renaissance• Cultural explosion of music, art, literature of black

Americans • Seemingly accepted by many in cities • Art depicted everyday life in Harlem • Black poetry became more mainstream - Langston

Hughes -Read Let America be America Again

Black Artists

Black Art

JAZZ

• Jazz explodes in cities up north – Louis Armstrong – Duke Ellington

• Becomes the dominant form of music that defines the 1920s

The Cotton Club

• Whites only patronage

• Located in Harlem • If you played there

you made it • Defined the period • Read “Pearl of the

Harlem Renaissance”

Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club

!9

Black Renaissance Jazz and Women

1920s Dress

• Basic style of dress • Shorter hair • Straight waist

Changes in Fashion

• Dresses Shorter • Shorter hair • Rise of the cosmetics industry • Evolution from high waist to straight

waist style dresses • Shift from corset to camisole and

bloomers to replace Victorian era undergarments

Women and the 1920s

Changing Attitudes of Women• Margaret Sanger - Changes in women’s role in marriage

– Marriage for love as opposed to security – Birth Control was more available – Family sizes decreased – Divorce see as acceptable way out of unhappy marriage

• Eleanor Rowland Wembridge - Changes in women’s attitudes toward Victorian restrictions - Kissing and other activities were seen as the norm -

• Changes in attitudes toward sex as not just for procreation

Reality

• Worked in “female” jobs • Business good place to find a husband

and learn endurance, self-effacement and obedience

• Marriage = Loss of Job • Still seen as wife and home maker • Most women were not flappers

Women’s Hopes Dashed

• Suffrage did not mean equality • Not able to serve on juries • Could not sign contracts without

husband’s permission • Held responsible for illegitimate births • Divorce favored men

Changes in Home Life

• Modern conveniences=higher expectations – Cleanliness became important – Housework continued unabated – Mixed messages from life and the media

Were the 1920s good for minorities?