1920’s Popular Culture Mini-Research Assignment

Step 1: Background Read through the following slides

and complete the guided notes for different aspects of 1920’s American culture.

Consumerism New products, such as kitchen and household

appliances, became products consumers wanted. New kinds of advertising created demand for new

products. Americans began to use credit to buy consumer

goods. By the end of the 1920s, 15 percent of all retail sales were made on installment plans.

Transportation Popularity of planes led engineers to design safer,

more powerful transport planes.Affordable cars quickly changed the way Americans

lived – giving people more freedom and allowing for easier travel.

Suburbs began to spread out around cities because people could use cars to commute.

The federal government gave aid to help build highways and new roads, making travel around the United States far easier.

Gas stations, diners, campgrounds, and motels sprang up to serve the needs of car travelers.

Mass Media

Radio began to be used to broadcast information, such as sporting events, situation comedies, and national news.

Attending movies became a national pastime, creating new jobs for writers and actors.

Movies exposed people to new fashions, hairstyles, and loosening of morals.

Women’s Rights The League of Women

Voters was designed to educate voters on public issues.

Women were elected to state legislatures, as governors, and as representatives in Congress.

Women demonstrated a new sense of freedom by wearing shorter dresses, cutting their hair, wearing makeup, and loosening their social behaviors.

Jazz Age Jazz, a combination of

blues and ragtime, was a distinctly American form of music.

Nightclubs opened in Harlem, where people came to hear the great jazz musicians.

Jazz music led to new dances, like the Charleston, that included kicks, twists, and turns.

Literature and Art

The creativity among African American writers, artists, and musicians who gathered in Harlem during the 1920s led to the exploration of what it meant to be black in America.

“Lost Generation” writers such as E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson developed themes and writing styles that that still define modern literature.

Art museums and magazines began to show popular art of the time.

Sports Mania Sports became big business

as Americans looked for ways to spend their leisure time.

Professional sports attracted large numbers of fans and huge crowds.

Radio stations began to broadcast popular sporting events, including a new, live, blow-by-blow account of each sporting event.

Sports stars like Babe Ruth, became national celebrities.

Stop Be ready to discuss your responses with the class.

Step 2: Celebrity Research –due Friday 12/5 You will research one celebrity who had a major

influence on 1920’s popular culture. In your research you must include information for

the following categories: 1. Mini Biography

2. Major Accomplishments (focus on achievements in their specific trend: transportation, art, etc.)

3. How the trend they were involved in helped to shape popular culture in the 1920’s

4. Include at least one image

5. Typed

◦ Include MLA formatted citations Use at least 3 sources

◦ No Wikipedia!