The Jazz AgeGlamour, culture, and excitement!
Post-War LiteratureTelling A Whole New Story
The Lost Generation
Coined by poet Gertrude Stein
Writers, musicians, and painters
Questioned accepted ideas about reason, progress, religion, and society
Mainly settled in Paris
ExistentialismThere is no universal
understanding or meaning to life. Each person creates his or her own meaning in life through
actions and choices taken.
Lost Generation WritersGertrude Stein - Tender Buttons: objects, food,
rooms
“A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.
GLAZED GLITTER.
Nickel, what is nickel, it is originally rid of a cover.”
Lost Generation Writers
Ernest Hemmingway – known for stoic male characters and disillusionment with youth and heroism; The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Coined the term – the “Jazz Age”
Glamorized the youth and excitement of the times in The Great Gatsby
TechnologyInventions and their effect on culture
A New Consumer Culture
Many new goods came on the market to take advantage of the new disposable income.
Most were advertised on the radio
People began buying high-priced items on credit – enjoy now, pay later!
Quickly, credit was applied to all purchases, big and small, inflating ideas of the public wealth and security of purchases
The Radio
More than any other invention of the age, the radio changed the very nature of how Americans communicated› National Broadcasting Company and the
Columbia Broadcasting System became the first national broadcasts
It created a homogeneous American culture:› Sports› Entertainment› News› Advertising› Standardized speech patterns
Putting America on the Move By 1920, the automobile was a way of
life for many Americans. Henry Ford produced the first
affordable automobile by using the assembly line.
– 1913: One car every 93 minutes. Sold for $490.
– 1925: One car every 10 seconds. Sold $295.
• Model T was nicknamed the “Tin Lizzie” or “Flivver”
“You can get the Model T in any color you wish, as long as
that color is black.”
Effects of the Automobile
Created a new industry that would drive America's economy for the next 50 years.
The automobile gave American youth the opportunity to pursue interests away from parents.
Allowed people to move farther away from the cities
1920 Ford Model T
In 1919, a New York City hotel owner offered $25,000 to the first aviator to fly nonstop from New York to Paris.
Several pilots were killed or injured while competing for the Orteig prize.
Orteig Prize
Charles Lindbergh An American aviator who made
the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927. › Total flight time: 33 hours, 30
minutes, 29.8 seconds. Charles Lindbergh had not slept in 55 hours.
Lindbergh's feat gained him immediate, international fame. The press named him "Lucky Lindy" and the "Lone Eagle."
Amelia Earhart
The Jazz Age Starts Swingin’
America’s Social Revolution
Art Deco Art Deco is one of the most
enduring physical legacies of the 1920s
Art Deco became the prevailing style for everything from buildings (the Chrysler Building) to jewelry
It emphasized geometric shapes, pattern of color, and symmetry
What do these have in common?
Pantages Theatre
The Movies
Hunks and Hams
RudolphValentino
DouglasFairbanks
“Fatty”Arbuckle
CharlieChaplin
Glittering Starlets
Mary PickfordMarion Davies
The Jazz Singer – The first “Talkie”
Sports
The Great Experiment
In 1919, the 18th Amendment was passed, outlawing the manufacture, sale, distribution, and consumption of alcohol illegal in the United States
Congress passed the Volstead Act a year later, which gave the federal government the ability to enforce the amendment.
Moonshining and Bootlegging
With alcohol still being a desirable product, many turned to illegal methods of obtaining it› Moonshining› Bootlegging› Speakeasies
Gangsters Emergence of a
cutthroat black market
Bootleggers began using intimidation and violence to guard their “territory”
Organized crime families took over in major cities› Chicago, NYC
Many gangsters with colorful names began making headlines: “Baby Face” Nelson, Lucky Luciano, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Jack “Legs” Diamond, “Bugs” Moran, and John Dillinger
The most influential and dangerous gangster› Leader of Chicago’s
Southside gang Suspected of
orchestrating numerous murders, but unable to be pinned for the crime. › St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre Eventually convicted of
tax evasion, sent to Alcatraz
Al Capone
St. Valentine’s
Day Massacre
The Harlem Renaissance
Bringing African American culture into the forefront
Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance:
A rebirth of African American culture during the 1920s
WWI left African Americans with a new sense of pride, having shown bravery and dedication during the war.
Marcus Garvey
A dynamic leader from Jamaica, he promoted “Negro Nationalism,” which glorified black culture and the traditions of the past
Back to Africa Movement
Literature
Literature of the Harlem Renaissance reflected the struggles and contributions of African Americans.
Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
LiteratureA Dream DeferredBy Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Jazz and Blues
Blues
Bessie Smith – Empty Bed Blues
I woke up this morning with a awful aching headI woke up this morning with a awful aching headMy new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed
Bought me a coffee grinder that's the best one I could findBought me a coffee grinder that's the best one I could findOh, he could grind my coffee, 'cause he had a brand new grind
Louis Armstrong – “Satchmo”
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
Jazz jumpstarts Classical
The Charleston
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