The Emergence of New Values in the 1920s

Women Women began to demonstrate new independence & assertiveness Women began to drink & smoke in public Began reading Sigmund Freud Adopted the look of the “flapper” – Short dresses – Short hair & lots of makeup

Tin Pan Alley NYC emerged as capital of popular music publishing Tin Pan Alley: (section of NYC) where song-writing & and musical ideas mixed together Blues, jazz, & ragtime melded together

Tin Pan Alley Vaudeville – most popular form of stage entertainment – Showed need for sheet music & Tin Pan Alley publishing houses supplied them

Youth & the Lost Generation New group of writers, the Lost Generation, rejected desire for material wealth Sinclair Lewis: wrote Main Street and Babbitt, which ridiculed hypocrisy of American life – 1st American author to be awarded Nobel Prize in Literature Ernest Hemingway: wrote A Farewell to Arms about WWI F. Scott Fitzgerald: wrote The Jazz Age and The Great Gatsby about the 20s

The Great Migration 2 decades from 1910 to 1930 witnessed the Great Migration: 2 million African-Americans moving out of the South to the North In search of jobs to escape sharecropping & racism

The Great Migration Still faced racism, housing shortages, and crime But, found organizations such as National Urban League and the NAACP to help them Largest African-American city: Harlem – In Upper Manhattan of NYC – Roughly 200,000 African- Americans lived there in 20s

Harlem Renaissance 1920s referred to as Jazz Age General awakening of African-American culture has become known as the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance Included visual art, dance, & music They shared an unprecedented level of optimism & pride

Harlem Renaissance Poets & writers expressed pride in their heritage – Zora Neale Hurston One of the 1 st successful female African-American authors Published her greatest novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God – Countee Cullen won more literary prizes than any other African-American during the 20s – Langston Hughes One of America’s best poets Expressed the determination to overcome racial prejudice – Alain Locke Influential writer during Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance Marcus Garvey: – highly controversial political activist, known for fancy uniforms. Emphasized racial pride. – formed Universal Negro Improvement Association – Goal was the total liberation of African people around the world – Organized the “Back-to-Africa” movement, where African-Americans would return to Africa (especially Liberia)

Popular New Heroes Charles Lindbergh – 1 st person to fly across Atlantic Ocean in 1927 – Single engine plane, The Spirit of St. Louis; landed 33 hours after takeoff