There really hadn’t been anything like it in the history of the young U.S.A. From a fairly conservative past, it suddenly broke out into the wildest decade. Why did the ’20s roar?
Answer: The 1920s roared because they could.
Actually, there’s more to know about how the spectacle of the twenties came about.
- post-WW 1 milieu
- prohibition
- new freedoms for women
- business soared
- a bull stock market
- easy money
- the new consumerism
- the automobile
- new technologies at home & work
- radio and new music: jazz!
- speakeasies
- gangsterism
- corrupt politicians
Quite a few happenings in American culture converged and intertwined unexpectedly to produce the unique experience that was the second decade of the new century. Let’s go over them.
What caused the roaring twenties?
The Second Industrial Revolution, that preceded World War 1, set the stage for what was to happen in this decade. The U.S. had become an emergent world power in economics and industry.
Standards of living and movement toward the cities had been increasing for some decades, interrupted by the Great War.
So many inventions were coming into fruition: Home conveniences and increasingly available delightful new products made life easier.
It was the end of WW I. That had been the worst war in memory. Now, everything was booming: developing commerce, construction, and earnings. And, of course, the stock market.
A confluence of unexpected trends produced the roar of the twenties
Looking back on our earlier understanding, we were always puzzled about the coexistence of the roaring twenties and prohibition, the one being so modern and outgoing and outrageous, the other being so conservative. And what did it all have to do with the burgeoning improvement in attention paid to women, or did that come later?
Delving into it further, we finally realized we had the cart before the horse. Put in its proper order, the coexistence of these seemingly divergent trends became convergent. And what did it all have to do with post-war affluence?
What actually happened is that the coming consumer society was being born in the period after the war due to the influences we just mentioned: technological achievements coming to a point of being useful in everyday life, businesses being launched, buildings going up, and incomes improving.
At the same time, prohibition was launched. The consequences that were unleashed largely caused the upheavals and downsides of the roar of the times. You could imagine that, if there had not been prohibition, the twenties would have roared like a baby kitten, not the lion (or lioness) that it became.
Prohibition (1920 – 1933)
To our modern senses, it certainly seems like a naive or at least misguided effort to assail crime. But in its day, the theories of the temperance movement were widely believed: that alcohol caused most of the problems evident in the country: violence, crime, and poverty.
It was called the “noble experiment”. Somehow, following a trend nationwide toward religiosity and penitence, the Eighteenth Amendment went through in 1919.
According to the stipulations of the Volstead Act, the National Prohibition Act, it was not illegal to drink, but illegal to manufacture and sell alcohol.
This sent it underground to the bootleggers, who moved liquor illegally, and racketeers.
Drinking became the glamorous thing to do in this freewheeling era. Corruption and immorality magnified.
(Photo courtesy Orange County Archives)
Authorities would come to dispose of the liquor. But it would soon be restored, until the next raid.
The rise of speakeasies in the cities
Speakeasies were passworded private saloons or barrooms. They aimed to stay out of sight of the law. The clubs and bars that had existed previously were usually men only. Now, newly liberated women (see more below) were welcomed, too.
There was much corruption in government too. Officials and city police got paid off to stay away or overlook the illicit goings-on.
The down, dark side of the era loomed.
Homebrewing moonshine was less evidence of overt criminality because it took place more in private residences. In fact, there was a loophole in the law such that folks could home ferment plenty of home-made wine! The quality wasn’t there, but there definitely was some quantity.
The end of Prohibition (thank goodness)
However, the desired and expected outcome of making society behave better did not happen. Work-related problems such as poor productiveness and job absentees did not diminish.
Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.
Will Rogers, cowboy philosopher and public figure, (written during Prohibition)
Thirteen or so long years later the nation came to its senses and repealed Prohibition with the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. I guess we should not be so critical; as they say, “hindsight is 20/20”. We weren’t there. It just seems like a dumb idea.
(But then, maybe future folks will look back on the many years during the later 20th and early 21st century that marijuana was illegal as similar folly. We don’t know. Just sayin’.)
By then, the shine on the 1920s was already faded. The onset of the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1929 ensured that. (See comments below.)
By the way, the speakeasies pretty much collapsed at this point. Organized crime, however, found many reasons to continue.
Women got the vote and social power
During the course of World War I women worked in some men’s jobs and received better wages. When peacetime came around again, they wanted to keep their new, better status and relative affluence.
The suffrage movement finally succeeded. Women attained the right to vote in consequence of the Nineteenth Amendment, which passed in 1920.
The restrictions on female dress, historically so conservative, were lifting. Also, decorum and behavior had lightened up since the Victorian age.
Young ladies were emboldened politically, economically, and socially. They could drive a car (see Model T below) and get around by themselves. They were also ready to party! Speakeasies – here they came.
It’s flapper time
What was a flapper? Well, it seems kind of silly to us, but the word “flapper” came from gals walking around in rubber overshoes in the rain. Huh?
Well, it was British, so there you have it. Anyway, it came to stand for the socially liberated young lady.
The dress of flappers was designed to be flashy but comfortable. They needed to have a particular look and style to be suitable for dancing!
That resulted in the form being straight and loose. Skirts needed to be short enough to move in easily, but long enough to allow a graceful appearance.
The Jazz Age
If you want a synonym for the Roaring Twenties, this is it: the Jazz Age.
Jazz began out of slavery. Singers while working in the fields relied on their spirituals and African roots.
Ragtime was a precursor. Oddly, ragtime’s sources are so interesting and unexpected. They were influenced by the marches of John Philip Sousa and a recollection of the rhythms of Africa. (You may note we have another article on Sousa’s marches!)
The blues grew up alongside and before jazz, both influencing.
It is said that jazz was born in New Orleans as Dixieland.
The unique music of America
We have a lot of respect for this musical heritage. It is the only music that is uniquely American.
A mixing of instruments (the trumpet, the saxophone, the trombone} and techniques with old music, it is blended from traditional spirituals that were sung and reworked in slavery. Add rhythm, creativity, and individuality.
What characterizes jazz, making it different from all other kinds: improvisation and spontaneity. Also, the central role and emphasis on instrumental soloists.
African Americans had been migrating from the rural South to northern cities since the days of Reconstruction.
So held back since the end of slavery by post-Reconstruction “Jim Crow” laws, they were still markedly restricted in acceptance into society. But there was one area where they did experience some positive reception. That was music.
In Harlem, African Americans found the ability to have fun, and in public. With the contribution of this fabulous and exciting music, they attracted the positive attention of the white community as well. Some semblance of mutual interest and respect was reached along the way, too.
The arrival of radio across the States spread the new musical themes through the country and across cultures. The phonograph carried into homes and musical venues on shellac records.
Legends of the Cotton Club
Harlem’s Cotton Club was the most famous of the speakeasies in those days. The bootlegger-gangster Owney Madden owned it. It was meant to be for white audiences only, characteristic of the times. Most of the black entertainers, singers, musicians, bands, and dancers of the Harlem Renaissance (see below) gigged there.
Duke Ellington got his start there. The subsequently famous jazz composer and pianist, started his band, the Washingtonians, there in the early ’20s. They became the band for the Club and broadcast on the radio weekly. In ten years he was on his way touring to stardom.
His best-known pieces date from his prolific later years. There were many. You know his Swing music from the 1930s: “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”
But here he is, with his orchestra playing a 1928 classic, the “Jubilee Stomp”. It is a lot of fun to listen to. We imagine the dancers!
The legendary jazz king
Louis Armstrong (“Satchmo”) was born into a poor family in New Orleans and always maintained his heritage there. As a young adult gaining prowess in jazz cornet, he became part of the King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago.
His innovation and leadership continued to expand. His first NYC venture was with Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. With his influence, it became what was essentially the first big jazz band.
But they did not want him to sing! Today, we can’t imagine that, but his voice was too rough, he was told. Anyway, he returned to Chicago and to further successful solo instrumental innovations with his own recordings as Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five. And he began scat singing. Oh, and added the trumpet to his repertoire.
Earl Hines teamed up with him on the piano for some terrific recordings, such as “Weather Bird” and “West End Blues” (1928). Here is the latter, which is pretty terrific. We like that there are also some nice photos shown as they play.
(Note: His entire story is fascinating. Famous for so many pieces, actually he made his most well-known one many years later: “What A Wonderful World”.
There are a great many details well beyond the time and space we have here. We encourage you to read at least a brief bio.
Dream jazz duo meets up
We know you were wondering: Did these two greats, Ellington and Armstrong play together?
Well, here it is: It happened in 1961! The combination resulted in two albums, “Recording Together For The First Time” and “The Great Reunion”.
Dance craze
During this period and in these places, music didn’t just happen alone. It was so connected to dance, more than any other era.
The Broadway musical, Run-in’ Wild, introduced the Charleston in 1923. You could perform alone, with a partner, or in a loose group.
You could dance for hours, or even days in a dance marathon.
People wanted to dance, and the style of movement was new and free-ing.
There was a variety that could be tried at the speakeasies or community dances.
- Charleston
- Black Bottom
- Cake Walk
- Shimmy
- Flea Hop
- Lindy Hop (Jitterbug)
Age of entertainment
Along with the booze and jazz, a lot of other modern phenomena were occurring that supported the merriment.
We think of radio and the phonograph, as we alluded to earlier. But also, movies (see more, below). They all became big at this time. It was the start of mass culture.
The first commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, revved up in 1920 and radios entered home life.
These years were also the beginning of what eventually came to be known as mass media: Hey, that same year the presidential election returns were live!
But, of course, a major impact of radio was not only getting the news right away but getting music anywhere you could put that device. And where there was music there was dancing. You did not have to have a live band. This also expanded the underground spread of social life, in addition, to live bands in the speakeasies.
The Golden Age of Hollywood begins
Hollywood really came into people’s consciousness. Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater movie palace opened in Los Angeles in 1918.
The fabled Hollywood sign was erected in 1923.
The major movie studios were in force.
Major silent films were feature-length and in black and white with piano or organ accompaniment. Coloration was also coming in.
You’ll recognize some of the classic moving pictures.
The Sheik {1921}, with Rudolph Valentino
The Ten Commandments (1923), by Cecile B. DeMille
The Gold Rush (1925), with Charlie Chaplin
The General (1926), with Buster Keaton
Steamboat Willie (1928) animation, by Walt Disney, with Mickey Mouse
The first talkie was The Jazz Singer (1927) with Al Jolson. The singing was fabulous. Unfortunately, the movie has fallen into disrepute because of its use of blackface, which was common at the time and in vaudeville.
And last but not least to mention: the Academy Awards in 1929. Douglas Fairbanks was the host. The first Best Picture Oscar went to Wings (1927). (It, by the way, was the only silent film to win that award.)
The book that captured the times
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote prolifically during the first years of the decade. He came out with magazine articles, short stories, and novels. He became a sort of an explainer of what the Jazz Age was all about. Some think “flapper” was his invention.
The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. He captured the essence of the age for posterity.
He nailed the glitz and glamor, the sophistication and extravagant carelessness of the materialistic and the rich new wealth.
Written in the middle of the ’20s, its air of disillusionment almost predicted the demise of the hedonistic lifestyle that came years later.
Due to the crash of the stock market on Black Tuesday in 1929 and the Great Depression.
Art Deco arrives
The popular and artistic culture was evolving at a rapid rate.
The fluid, luxuriant style of the flappers and decor of the speakeasies were very much in tune with the artistic creations that also characterized this era.
Art Deco appears as though derived from the Art Nouveau that peaked a couple of decades earlier. The later was new with ornate and organic lines. We think of Gustav Klimt.
The newer form was intensely more geometric and bolder, with cleaner, less complicated lines. And there was little connection to the natural world of origin. We think both fit in well with this era, though Art Deco clearly predominated. Interestingly enough, this art movement persisted with some popularity well after the ending of the times in which it originated, until World War II.
The designs were spectacular on jewelry and posters just as well as on interior decor and architecture.
They still have many fans today!
The Chrysler Building, built in New York City in 1928, is a prime example in architecture.
It may not be the tallest building in New York. But it is the best looking.
James Maher Photography
It also has some cool design details that uniquely reflect its automobile industry heritage. The interior is also wonderful. There is a gigantic ceiling mural in stunningly ornate Art Deco detail in the lobby.
Officially completed in 1930, it was the tallest building until the Empire State Building in 1931.
The beautiful Woolworth Building had held the title for the preceding decade and a half.
The story of the dueling businessmen and architects who were competing to construct the most impressively high skyscraper is pretty fascinating.
The Great Depression ended the race for that era. Until the 1970s saw the building of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The Harlem Renaissance
We believe this may have been one of the first times in American history that African Americans started to get some respect in society.
It had been a long time and a long way from slavery, through the Civil War, beyond the Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction Jim Crow years and migration from the South into the cities of the North.
Now was a cultural movement in which black people were getting attention and kudos for their ideas and intellectual achievements.
It was manifest in writing, literature, and visual arts. We’ve already gone over the music of the Jazz Age.
At the time it was referred to as the “New Negro Movement”. It was so named after an anthology of African Americans’ writings.
Noted authors included Langston Hughes, author of jazz poetry, and Zora Neale Hurston.
The affluent consumer society
To say the 1920s were materialistic is one of those understatements.
The economic boom: Business, manufacturing, and job availability were healthy and prosperous.
With more money, living in fast-moving cities, more freedom in society, both women and men became avid consumers.
Now there were popular consumer magazines like The Saturday Evening Post.
The word iconic is bandied about pretty easily these days. But we must employ it in describing the association between the magazine and its frequent cover artist, Norman Rockwell.
It was a great match for 50 years starting in 1916. Rockwell’s lightly humorous and devilishly accurate depictions of Americana home life were right on.
It was also the age of advertising, which promoted all this new buying power. Ads really got started before the turn of the 20th century, during the Second Industrial Revolution (which we have a post on). But the rise of the consumer in the twenties gave a blast to the ad industry. And they got to be on the radio, too.
Buy an automobile
Henry Ford produced the fantastic Model T in 1908 on the assembly line.
(flickr.com CC BY-2.0, cropped)
At the beginning of the ’20s, you might have called it a luxury item.
By the waning of the decade, it had become one of life’s necessities.
People could afford the “Tin Lizzie”. There was easy credit available from the banks. Women drove, not only men.
The auto spawned lots of new businesses
Thinking of the automobile, do you realize how many businesses there are that leveraged their existence from the car?
Obviously, directly needed were service stations (called “filling stations” then) to pump gasoline and repair shops. As other brands came along in the late ’20s, part manufacturers and later car dealerships came along, too. The production of petroleum was amplified, as were rubber-making and steel.
But what about more distantly related services that were needed or benefitted from the action on the ever-widening and lengthening highways?
- roadside restaurants
- motels and motor lodges
- highway construction
- emergency services
- auto insurance
The car eventually changed the fabric of American life. Without it, would there have ever been suburbs? How about, moderate to long-distance family trips and vacations. On and on.
The convenience of household appliances
But the car wasn’t the only best new thing this first consumer age came to treasure. Home conveniences developed unlike and better than had been possible prior to the World War. Electricity was increasingly common in private homes.
With women on the go now, out of the house on the job and having fun, labor-saving machines began to proliferate in homes.
Prime among them were:
- electric refrigerator
- vacuum cleaner (carpet sweeper)
- washing machine
- garbage disposal
- toaster
- sewing machine
- alarm clock
In the skies with Charles Lindbergh
We mentioned this skyborne master in another post, the one on living at the turn of the twentieth century.
The ’20s were an interesting transitional period for air travel. Military planes made a brief appearance in WW I and U.S. Air Mail initiated delivery by the end of the war.
Among those postal pilots was Charles Lindbergh. Earlier he had been one of those barnstormers, daredevil pilots and aerial stunt performers who flew about the countryside in those days when a flight was new.
They were a source of admiration and popular entertainment in the post-war era. There was not much air traffic regulation; that must be obvious when you see what they were doing.
The first barnstorming pilots were ex-military who had learned during the war and were now able to acquire left-over warplanes.
A popular model was the Curtiss JN-4 Biplane (also called “Jenny”).
In 1927 Lindbergh made his famous single, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (Long Island to Paris) aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. His achievement and later advocacy were important in encouraging commercial air flight.
The Golden Age of Sports
Actually, the decade has also been termed the Age of the Spectator. All the influences we’ve been talking about: affluence, freedom after the war to finally have fun, ease of travel, and radio updates and broadcasts induced more interest in attending and watching sporting events.
Play ball
Baseball was definitely way ahead of any other spectator sport in its popularity. It was the “national pastime”, and remained so for many years.
The New York Yankees dominated the sport, especially in 1927 with its “Murderers’ Row” team.
The World Series was on the radio for the first time in 1921. The New York Giants beat the Yankees. That was the first year after Babe Ruth joined the Yankees and it was the team’s first Series. Yankee Stadium was the “House That Ruth Built” in 1923. Ruth hit a home run in the first game. The Yankees won their first World Series, which was their third try against the Giants.
To this day, no-one really has exceeded Home Run King Babe Ruth in fame or the glamor of his achievements. While records may have been broken over the years, the original image of a bigger than life character cannot be beaten.
Here is a fascinating video about how Ruth personified the Roaring Twenties.
The film also features a bit about Jack Dempsey, Harold Grange, and Charles Lindbergh.
Boxing and sports enthusiasms
Boxing was also very popular. Enthusiasm seemed to form out of the local neighborhood, often, ethnic, contests.
Jack Dempsey was another larger-than-life character. He rivaled the Babe’s aura with his own prestige and charisma. The Gene Tunney – Jack Dempsey pro fight in 1926 and “Long Count” rematch the next year for the heavyweight title became legendary.
Others sports lagged well behind in popularity, though college football was gaining fans. Professional football started up but had not gained that much interest so far.
American sports heroes of the 1920s
| baseball | Babe Ruth |
| basketball (exhibition/pro) | Harlem Globetrotters |
| boxing | Jack Dempsey |
| football (college) | Notre Dame, Coach Knute Rockne |
| football (pro) | Jim Thorpe |
| golf (amateur) | Bobby Jones |
| swimming | Johnny Weissmuller |
| tennis | Bill Tilden |
| thoroughbred racing | Man O’War |
The stock market crashes
Part of the economic exuberance of the twenties was enormous faith and input into the stock market.
Prices were record high, too high for real value. It was a big, big bull market.
Newly affluent and interested regular folks had started buying during this decade.
People had gotten used to buying on the margin (paying for only a little part of the price and getting a loan for most). Today we call this being quite reckless.
The Wall Street Crash went on four excruciating days, ending on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929.
Folks ran to the banks for their remaining money (which was not insured), the banks failed, other economic factors and the Dust Bowl of the Midwest were approaching. The country fell into the Great Depression.
So ended one of the most fascinating eras in American history.
Before you go
We hope you have liked our article. The Roaring Twenties made our heads spin! Maybe you would like to read one of the other posts we have written about some of the other fascinating eras out of America’s past.
We have one on the very beginning of Colonial times. And another on the turn of the twentieth century. It is amazing how different these eras were as the United States marched through history.
The 1950s: When the American Dream became a reality