1920s Lecture 6 New Culture

Radio – most popular electronic device

American’s share entertainment, pastimes

Invented 1800’s

1900’s military

use

1910’s hobbyists

1920 – hobbyist in Pittsburg started playing

records over the radio

Listening caught on

Westinghouse realized people would buy

radios if there were programs to listen to

Started first corporate radio station KDKA

Hundreds of radio stations were created

Technical improvements increased popularity

Exploded in popularity during 1920’s

Short, silent films

1927 – The Jazz Singer

First movie with sound

“Talkies”

1927 Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie

Mickey Mouse became a star

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REbZO82tkg

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By end of 1920’s Americans bought over

100 million movie tickets a week

U.S. population = 123 million

Movies led to movie stars – a new group of

American heroes

Charlie Chaplin – silent films

Rudolph Valentino – the hunk

Clara Bow – sex symbol

Mary Pickford – America’s sweetheart

Charlie Chaplin Rudolph Valentino

Mary Pickford Clara Bow

Charles Lindbergh First person to

complete transatlantic flight

Flew single engine plane from NY to Paris non-stop Most people believed

you would need a large plane with many engines

Removed all the weight he could

Became a beloved hero

Amelia Earhart

First woman to fly

across the Atlantic

1937 tried to fly

around the world

Disappeared over

Pacific Ocean

From Atchison, KS

Red Grange

College Football

“The Galloping Ghost”

Helen Wills

Tennis

Won 31 majors

Bobby Jones

Won golf’s first Grand Slam

All in same calendar year

Babe Ruth

Baseball

Modernism

THEMES:

Disillusionment

Disconnection

Loneliness

Emptiness

African American Literature

Tales of WWI

Women’s Literature

Literature about booming business

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Sinclair Lewis

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ernest Hemingway WWI

A Farewell to Arms

John Dos Passos Three Soldiers

T.S. Eliot The Wasteland

A lot of modernists part of the Lost Generation Large group of

American authors, poets, artists who lived in Europe after WWI

Art Deco

movement in visual

arts, interior design

and architecture

Lavish, rich,

colorful

Shaped by “all the

nervous energy

stored up and

expended in the

War.”

G!SPRITE’s and re-do terms by Thursday

2/19