Books and Movies of the 1920s Maddie Jackson & Abbey Robertson

Overview time period known as the lost generation intolerance toward immigrants and socialist led many writers to see america as grossly provincial F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the excess of the jazz age The Great Gatsby Ernest Hemingway-- The Sun Also Rises T.S. Eliot Eugene O’neil Sinclair Lewis

Overview cont. movie industry was created for mass audiences Charlie Chaplin The Hays Office the 1st talking picture, The Jazz Singer, appeared in 1927 Walt Disney released Mickey Mouse’s Steamboat Willie the following year over 100 million viewers attended the movie houses each week by the end of the decade

The Great Gatsby & Fitzgerald Fitzgerald’s most famous novel highlights the opulence of american materialism while harshly criticizing its morality all about the american dream importance of honesty, the temptations of wealth, and the struggle to escape the past difference and significance of new and old money, as well as dirty money book remained a phenomenon and later became a movie in 1974 then again in 2013 attended Princeton served in WW1 not in combat wrote novels and later wrote screen plays Zelda, his wife, spent her last days in mental institutions after never fully recovering from a breakdown Fitzgerald died of a heart attack while eating a chocolate bar in 1940

Walt Disney Timeline Walt resigns himself to bankruptcy and moves to Hollywood planning to become a director Walt hires his first animator Signed a contract with M.J Winkler to produce the Alice Comedies The name “Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio” changes to “The Walt Disney Studio” Oswald the Lucky Rabbit debuts Walt loses the Oswald series Walt and Roy (his brother) come up with Mickey & Minnie Mouse Steamboat Willie debuts (the first synchronized cartoon) The Skeleton Dance debuts (the first Silly Symphonies Cartoon)

Alice Comedies ● Series of short films featuring Alice and Julius, a cat. ● Walt had a commercial short from which he earned $500 from and spent that on his new film, Alice’s Wonderland. ● There were 56 Alice Comedies produced between Oswald the Lucky Rabbit ● A character in the Alice Comedies ● The first Disney character to generate merchandise ● Was a “spunky and mischievous” character ● The first Oswald Cartoon was Trolley Troubles Steamboat Willie ● The first sound cartoon, and was the first to feature synchronized sound ● Has a running time of 7:45 ● This introduced the world’s most popular cartoon character The Skeleton Dance ● When night falls, 4 skeletons rise and dance to music they make by using each other as instruments. ● Appeared in a lot of Mickey Mouse’s short films ● Was the original of the Silly Symphonies

“‘The twenties’ is an entrenched concept in American historiography, but the precise beginning and end of this period, and the evaluations of it, vary from writer to writer.” -Burl Noggle

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