The Turbulent Twenties Uneven Prosperity

Changes to everyday life Cars replace horses. Highways appear all over the U.S. Gas stations, garages, and bill- boards are all put up because of people traveling in the car.

Refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines all make domestic life easier. Electricity starts to reach rural areas.

By the mid-1920’s most homes have radios.

By the end of 1920’s “Talkies,” motion pictures with sound, come out.

Flappers Flappers were young women of the twenties who dressed in a bold new style. They wore make-up, dresses above the knee and rolled down their stockings. They were considered very loose women.

In both rural (country) & urban (city) settings, African Americans faced huge difficulties = among the poorest people in the 1920’s. Harlem was the largest black urban community at the time. African Americans in the 1920’s faced racial hatred & segregation.

A newspaper, published black authors, for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began the NAACP. The Harlem Renaissance was a period of cultural rebirth of Harlem. Harlem Renaissance authors cried out against the social injustice they saw. They demanded full equality for blacks.

Black artists and writers become famous. Langston Hughes was an African- American poet and author. He wrote about the problems people of color faced in America. Hughes wrote the Harlem Renaissance.

Jazz and Blues was music brought by black musicians from the South to the North. Black musicians come to fore front with this “new” music. Most jazz clubs were white only- Jazz musicians could play there but they couldn’t sit at the tables and listen.

Famous musicians were: Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong. They played in clubs like the Cotton Club, they played there but were not allowed to go as a customer.

The Harlem Renaissance ends in 1930 with the Great Depression. No one had money to go to shows.