1. Postwar Social Change

2. The decade of the 1920’s brought about a complex urban culture.
Many people were disillusioned and they questioned the ideas of traditional values.
This helped ignite a revolution in morals and values.

3. Changing Roles of Women
Women were at the forefront of social change in the 1920’s.
During the Great War, the roles of women had changed.
More women joined the workforce.
Obtained better, high-paying jobs.
19th Amendment = Suffrage August 18, 1920

4. Flappers
Represented a small fraction of American women, but their impact was significant and lasting.
Flappers were not traditional at all. They wore:
Short skirts
Short hair
more make-up
consumed alcohol
Smoked publicly

5. Working Women & Prejudices
During the 1920’s, 15% of women had become professionals.
20% held clerical positions.
Despite the advances, businesses remained prejudices against women in professional fields.
Hospitals and legal firms, refused to hire women.
Pay was unequal and few women advanced to leadership positions.

6. Suffrage & Politics
In the beginning, many women were uncomfortable with voting rights. Why?
During the 1920’s, more women became involved in politics.
1916, Jeanette Rankins was the first woman elected to the House of Reprentatives.
Nellie Ross and Miriam Ferguson were elected governors in 1924.
By 1928, 145 women in 38 state legislatures.

7. Migration Rural people moved to more urban places. Why?
Farmers were economically stressed.
Industrial/commercial economy boomed in urban areas.
6 million people moved from rural areas to urban areas.

8. Escaping Oppression African-Americans moved to flee Jim Crow laws.
They were also seeking new job opportunities in northern industries.
% of African-Americans lived in the South; only 80% in 1930.
Immigrants also came to urban centers….refugees from the Great War.
China -- Mexico
Japan -- Canada
Europe
Many came for a better life in the U.S.

9. Advances in Society
Charles Lindbergh – his transatlantic flight helped foster development for commercial aviation.
Amelia Earhart
1st woman to fly across the Atlantic ocean in 1932.
1st person to fly from Hawaii to California.
Sports brought larger audiences and more revenue to the country.
Babe Ruth -- Jim Thorpe
Jack Johnson
Hazel Wightman, Helen Wills, and Gertrude Ederle, women that blazed the trail for future women athletes. What message did they send to America?

10. Beginnings of a National Culture
Before the 1920’s, the U.S. had been filled with regional cultures. Why?
Developments in communication, entertainment, and the arts contributed to the growth of a national culture.
Movies
Newspapers -- Magazines
radio

11. Jazz Age What two factors contributed to the Jazz Age?
Jazz became popular in the 1920’s. It featured improvisation and off-beat rhythms.
Harlem was the capital of Jazz. The city had 500 jazz clubs.
Jazz musicians included:
Duke Ellington – composer, arranger, bandleader
Louis Armstrong – trumpet player
Jelly Roll Morton - pianist

12. Jazz Age
Painters – Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent showed the nations rougher side (coal mines, streets, bars).
Georgia O’Keefe painted natural objects, such as, flowers, animal bones, and landscapes.
Lost Generation – artistic people disconnected from their country and its values.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Hart Crane
E.E. Cummings

13. Harlem Renaissance
It was a literary awakening in the African American community of Harlem, New York.
A.K.A. the New Negro Movement:
Out with the “old negro.” The implied inferiority and docile manner of Post-Reconstruction.
In with the “new negro.” Self-assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and intelligent.
Raised issues affecting the lives of African-Americans through various forms of literature, art, music, drama, painting, and sculpture.
Themes included alienation, marginality, black dialect, sophistication, jazz and blues composition.