The 1920's in America brought in a whole new lifestyle. For the first time ever, the majority of Americans live in urban areas, not the country. The 1920's was also a time for pushing the boundaries. Margaret Sanger campaigned for the acceptable use of contraceptives, and Alice Paul's national Women's Party fought for an equal rights amendment to the constitution.
Fundamentalist churches also found themselves branching out a bit more. In fact, God was a pretty good guy, and the earth was a pretty chummy place to live. Church advertisement also sprung about. Church sayings plastered all over bill boards and posters.
A new sexual wave also made its way into America in the 1920's, with teenagers leading the front. Young women took on new identities as flappers with their bobbed dresses, elevated hemlines, rolled stockings, breasts taped flat, cheeks rouged, and crimson lips that help a cigarette. For many of them, the flapper identity represented independence in their coming of age as young women.
Young women and men would stay out late in dark movie theater corners, closed in cars, and dance joints... and I'm betting you get the picture. Older men and women were shocked at this radical turn in culture that they were not used to at all.
Jazz music
was the anthem of the new sexual frontier with its smooth beats and riveting turns in styles and instruments. Jazz moved up from New Orleans from black culture. Musicians like handy, Jelly Roll Morton, and Joe King Oliver gave birth to the jazz music.Racial pride in Northern black communities also came of age, particularly in Harlem. Harlem was a vibrant creative culture that produced people like poet Langston Hughes politician Marcus Garvey, who founded the United Negro Improvement Association.
Hey Allison,
ReplyDeleteI really like your post about the dynamic decade! your pictures are awesome and represent very well your topic which you made understandable by using your own words and explanations!
Well, the title just says it all, now doesn't it. I'd wondered where the whole American obsession with...your main topic, came from and now I think I know. I also like how you supplanted your talk of America's new lifestyle with the rise of Fundamentalist chuches, jazz music and black communities, like Harlem in a casual, yet informative way.
ReplyDeleteNice recap of this admittedly fun topic, and one that makes it easy to see why historians view this period as a particularly dynamic era. I wonder how we would compare our own era, in terms of it's "dynamism"?
ReplyDeleteGreat info about the Jazz Age. However many other genres of music arose in this era such as blues, gospel, and various others. Anyway great post
ReplyDeleteOh man I lol-led .. not really :) but you have a very nice tone in your blog post, very humorous. I have a question, why would flappers use tape? It doesn't make much sense.
ReplyDeleteWhat a crazy time that was back then, it seems kind of fun but bad. I wonder if the parents went crazy with their teenagers running wild like that!
A-Dizzle!
ReplyDeleteYou are the bomb.com, you are the bees knees, you put the team on your back. Your post was awesome. I never knew that sex would be used as a type of advertisement. It was reallu easy to understand because you used your own words and the pictures were a great visual aid. Keep it up Alliso!!
Great job! When I was reading this section at home I started laughing! My sister was like "US history cannot be that funny!" -- little does she know! Cool pictures :)
ReplyDeleteAlexis, they used tape because it was a clear color, and couldn't easily be seen. It also made them look more "grown" or "adult" if you get what I'm saying. Just a fun little rebelious thing the women liked to do. I, actually, consider myself a modern day flapper. Hahaha, I'm totally kidding and I have no idea if what I just said was true or false, so please, don't take it for fact.
ReplyDeleteIts understandable how jazz became the music of the new sexual frontier. Jazz is calming music and African Americans tend to know how to put that extra sway in jazz.
ReplyDeleteWhat comes after Sex O'Clock? Baby Boom Hour? I believe our book's author mentioned snogging in cars on at least two occasions in the book. Sexual history is an interesting topic and especially how it has changed (and how the Fundamentalist arguement against most types of sex has changed as well). Freud himself stated in 1910 that a sexual revolution was upon us but most people think of teh 1960s as the major sex revolution time, but the 20s was just as eploratory.
ReplyDeleteFreud had a theory about psychosexual development that came out at this timeperiod that is very in tune with most teenagers feel today. See, he was one of the first to realize sex is a huge drive for humans through their life. No other thinkers ever considered this approach, Freud called our Sexual Energy "libido." These drives are repressed by society in general and often find cultural outlets as shown in the 20's where the car became such a Freudian outlet of sexual refugee.
Good post!
You know what Allison .. I don't know if I can ever trust your words again, but I thank you for the good try haha :)
ReplyDeleteMaybe some how we could harness people's sexual drive and use it for something else? Hmmmmmmm....
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that Harlem became a big place for black national pride. Go NY.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sex wave, I almost refuse to comment but it's too good of an opportunity to miss ;P. I like how you compared their sex craze to modern teenagers. It's a very realistic point, even though it's not exactly the greatest message to be sending. Lol but I agree with Alexis: exactly what were the parents thinking?! And Evan with his Freud pyschology.. aiaiai I just know that that man was a lunatic. ^^
Fun post Allison >.<