Social Changes and the 1920’s. Consumer Culture The Electrified Home: 60% New Consumer Goods:...
-
Upload
osborn-carroll -
Category
Documents
-
view
218 -
download
0
Transcript of Social Changes and the 1920’s. Consumer Culture The Electrified Home: 60% New Consumer Goods:...
Social Changes and the 1920’s
Consumer Culture
The Electrified Home: 60%• New Consumer Goods:
– Vacuum, Refrigerator, Washing Machine, Range
• Store bought clothing• Supermarkets & Canned
foods• Radio• Advertisement Industry
• What effect did these new products have on society?
Consumerism (+ and -)
• Positive results• Reduced the number of
hours and effort spent on Household duties
• Mass Culture: shared experience
• Leisure activities increase• More jobs: make and sell• Mass production: lowers
cost
• Negative Results• Items on Credit: Debt• Increased cost of living• Changing values:
abundance, consumerism• Mass production: loss of
uniqueness
“You can get [a Model T] in any color you want, so long as
it’s black”-Henry Ford
“No job is particularly hard, if you divide it into small parts”
-Henry Ford
The Automobile
• Henry Ford
• Passenger Car Registration jumped from 8 million in 1920 to 23 million in 1930
Model T
Fordism
• How did Ford do it?
• Assembly Line: Apply conveyor belt to cars, simple tasks
• Worker’s Contract: $5 a day to stay
• Standardized vehicles
• Price: 1909-1924 price dropped 66%
• Model T: afFORDable to Middle and Upper class
Automobile (+ and -)Automobile (+ and -)
• Positive ResultsPositive Results• Automobile industry
created jobs • Related industries
Boom: oil, gas, rubber• Indirect: shopping
malls, diners, tourism• Suburbs• Freedom• Govt. matches funds
for roads
• Negative ResultsNegative Results• Not available to lower
classes• Credit: Debt• Urban Sprawl• Pollution• Accidents• Moral implications• Working conditions
The Demon RumProhibition in the 1920’s
‘Why the Roaring 20’s went dry’Analyze the cartoons to find reasons
why
Health and EffectsTemperance Movement
ProtestantismWWI
“Progressivism”Results: 18th Amendment (1919)
& The Volstead Act
What are the Pros and Cons of Prohibition?
Pro and Con of Prohibition
• Pro’s.• Overall consumption
decreased• Arrests for drunkenness down• Cirrhosis of the liver down• Admission to hospitals for
alcoholism down• Less alcohol related
death• Save $
• Con’s• Produce at home• Bootleggers• Organized Crime• More corruption• Increased urban violence• Enforcement difficult• Harmful products consumed• Violates individual rights• Widespread abuse an
lawlessness• ‘Speakeasies’
But did consumption increase or decrease?. . .
Speakeasies
Why repeal prohibition?
1933- 21st Amendment
Women and Youth Culture
The Roaring 20’s
Jazz Age
Was the Bee’s Knees!
Sheiks
Watch out for gold diggers!
Flappers
Characteristics
And
Behavior
THE FLAPPERby Dorothy Parker
The Playful flapper here we see,The fairest of the fair.
She's not what Grandma used to be, --You might say, au contraire.
Her girlish ways may make a stir,Her manners cause a scene,
But there is no more harm in herThan in a submarine.
She nightly knocks for many a goalThe usual dancing men.
Her speed is great, but her controlIs something else again.
All spotlights focus on her pranks.All tongues her prowess herald.
For which she well may render thanksTo God and Scott Fitzgerald.
Her golden rule is plain enough -Just get them young and treat them
rough.
Women
• 19th Amendment: Right to vote
• Birth Control: Margaret Sanger
• New Stores and Appliances: changed domestic life
• More education and job opportunities (white collar, office)
• Changing Victorian morality and domesticity
Women
• Positive Results• Political power• Economic opportunity• More domestic
freedom• More control over
sexuality• Women more
independent and expressive
• Negative Results• Less pay• Loss of war jobs• No workplace
advancement• Double standards• Appliances bring new
pressure• Unfulfilled w/
domestic life
African American
Experience
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
-William H. Johnson
African American Experience
• Great Migration: African American move to Northern cities for work in factories
• South: Jim Crow continues, KKK Revival, Lynching
• North: Harlem Renaissance
• Celebration of African heritage – Writers, poets and
musicians– Jazz
Langston Hughes
Louis Armstrong
African American Experience
• Positive Results• More jobs• Ethnic communities
provide security• Pride• New cultural
expressions• Black Middle Class• Jazz as American
music
• Negative results
• Blacks first to lose jobs
• Forced into ghettos
• Discrimination in N. and S.
• Violence• Music clubs/
industry controlled by whites
Harlem
Globe-trotters
“Old” Culture “New” Culture
Emphasized Production
Character
Scarcity
Religion
Idealized the Past
Local Culture
Rural
Substance
Cultural Contrast: A Contrast of Values
“Old” Culture “New” Culture
Emphasized Production
Emphasized Consumption
Character Personality
Scarcity Abundance
Religion Science
Idealized the Past Looked to the Future
Local Culture Mass Culture
Rural Urban
Substance Image
Cultural Contrast: A Contrast of Values
Reactionary 1920’s
• Scopes trial: – Fundamentalism vs. Science
• Sacco-Vanzetti Case: – Anti-Radicals and Immigration
• Isolation: – No to League of Nations– Immigration Policy 1924: Quota System
• Politics: Pres. Harding, Coolidge and Hoover– Big-Business, Laissez-faire, Republican, Conservative
• Celebrity Culture:– Individual Man v. Machine– Babe Ruth, Charles Lindberg, Lou Gehrig, Amelia Earhart
Why were people so reactionary at this time?