Roaring twenties why

Teenagers, May : The societal expectations and allowances for young women changed dramatically in the s. Another significant change in the overall behavior of American society began in urban areas, where minorities were treated with more equality in the s than they had been accustomed to previously.

This was reflected in some of the films of the decade, as well. Redskin and Son of the Gods dealt sympathetically with Native Americans and Asian Americans, respectively, by rejecting social bias.

In movies and on the stage, black and white players appeared together for the first time, while it became common in nightclubs to see whites and blacks dancing and dining together. The s was also a period of more visibility, and somewhat more acceptance, for homosexuals. New York, London, Paris, and Berlin were important centers of the new ethic, and humor was used to assist its acceptability. The relative liberalism toward homosexuality was publicly demonstrated by the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the top male box-office draw, who lived in an openly gay relationship with his partner, Jimmie Shields.

West regarded talking about sex as a basic issue of human rights and was an early advocate of gay rights. Mae West : Screen, stage, and radio megastar Mae West was a vocal proponent of sexual openness and gay rights.

Profound hostility toward homosexuality continued to exist, however, especially in more remote areas. With the return of a conservative mood in the s, the public once again grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality, even in the relatively liberal safe haven of Hollywood.

In contrast to other organizations, such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on lobbying individual states, the NWP put its priority on passage of a constitutional amendment ensuring suffrage.

While nonpartisan, the NWP directed much of its ire at President Woodrow Wilson as someone responsible for the poor treatment of women during the era. The protesters were tolerated at first, but after the U.

Many NWP members went on hunger strikes while in jail; some, including Paul, were force-fed to keep them alive. The resulting scandal, at a time when Wilson was trying to present himself and America as being at the forefront of human rights, may have contributed to his decision to publicly call for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Suffrage Amendment.

The NWP spoke for middle-class women, while its agenda was generally opposed by working-class women and labor unions representing working-class men who feared that women working for low wages would bring down the overall pay scale and demean the role of the male breadwinner. Eleanor Roosevelt, an ally of the unions, generally opposed NWP policies because she believed women needed protection, not equality. She told the story of one woman who required care following a self-induced abortion and had begged a doctor for medical assistance, but who was met only with the advice to remain abstinent.

Margaret Sanger, : Margaret Sanger was a nurse and pioneering educator and birth-control activist in the s. Sanger sought answers to the plight of women in this situation but was unable to find information about contraception in public libraries. She was indicted in August , but prosecutors focused their attention on articles Sanger had written on assassination and marriage, rather than on contraception.

During her absence, however, a groundswell of support had grown in the United States, and Sanger returned in October Prominent civil-rights attorney Clarence Darrow offered to defend Sanger free of charge. Bowing to public pressure, the government dropped the charges in early Sanger opened a family-planning and birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, on October 16, , the first of its kind in the United States.

Nine days after its opening, Sanger was arrested for distributing contraceptives. Following a trial in January , Sanger was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse. Using the legal exemption allowing physicians to distribute contraceptive information to women provided it was prescribed for medical reasons, Sanger established the Clinical Research Bureau CRB in The CRB was the first legal birth-control clinic in the United States, staffed entirely by female doctors and social workers.

Sanger died in , about a year after the event that marked the climax of her year career: the U. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut , which legalized birth control in the United States. The Lost Generation was a group of writers and artists, including many expatriates, who helped define a larger, modernist movement after World War I.

The s was a notable period of artistic creativity, especially in literature, with works by several distinguished authors appearing during this time. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technologies, especially with automobiles, movies, and radio programs spreading modernity throughout society.

Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both daily life and architecture. While largely regarded as a romantic poet, Walt Whitman is also considered a pioneer of the modernist era. Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron. You are a lost generation.

Miller was an American whose most notable works, including Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn , were based on his experiences in New York and Paris and were banned for many years in the United States due to their sexual content. The more recognizable pen name of Thomas Stearns Eliot, T.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, : T. In that same vein, but employing a perspective outside of the American viewpoint, the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front. The film version of the book was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two, including best director for Lewis Milestone.

Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. The Roaring Twenties: — Search for:. The Roaring Twenties. Government and big business became more closely entwined during the postwar era under the successive Republican administrations of three presidents: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Facing high unemployment and inflation, President Warren Harding signed the Emergency Tariff and Forney-McCumber Tariff to reduce the national debt and taxes, protect the farming industry, and limit immigration.

The s saw two major literary movements: The Lost Generation, a group of U. Radio, jazz music, and Hollywood films flourished as the popular entertainment of the era, while Prohibition and speakeasies helped fuel a criminal outbreak.

Key Terms Emergency Tariff of : A temporary measure enacted on May 27 to ease the plight of farmers until a better economic solution could be put into place by the government. Once that begins to happen and people like Kim Kardashian start to join in, it's unstoppable, because they have such power and influence over the mainstream buyer," says Blackman.

This suggests that fashion historians of the future are going to have a much harder time tying down the decade stylistically than in the s. I think lockdown has cemented that," says Blackman. When it comes to imagining how our cities might develop over the coming decade, it seems that s architects share many of the social concerns of their s contemporaries. However, where once the car was king when it came to urban planning, now nature takes precedence.

For their Rethink: competition , the Royal Institute of British Architects RIBA asked architects and students to consider what life and the built environment might look like in the post-pandemic world. All three winning entries had the environment, quality of life and social justice at their core.

One, which focused on redesigning streets to create high-quality outdoor spaces for people and encourage cleaner, more physically active methods of transport has effectively come into being already. Nature will take centre stage when it comes to urban planning in the s Credit: Getty Images.

Another entry imagines repurposing redundant office space to house the homeless. Obviously, landlords, not known for their altruism, are still going to want to make money, but as Young says: "if you've got a s office building standing empty, having a charity in there that pays you rent is probably better than nothing.

But by far the most ambitious project envisages transforming London's metropolitan area into an ecologically diverse, agricultural landscape, in part as a response to the premise that industrialised food production has made us vulnerable to diseases transmitted from animals to humans. That kind of resetting of ideas about us and nature. Not just in terms of health but also our mental health," she says. And these are ideas that could potentially be adopted by cities everywhere.

It seems like the s could well have some of the hedonism that characterised the "Roaring Twenties," although we must hope it does not echo the end of that decade, which saw economic depression and the rise of fascism. There is reason for optimism as, alongside that understandable yearning for pleasure, it is clear there will also be the same desire to build a better society that pandemics have always inspired.

A growing concern with social justice and the fragility of our environment will be reflected in the culture all around us. The clothes we wear to go clubbing or to the theatre will be vintage or sustainable. Our cities are less likely to roar than murmur as the car is increasingly confined to the outskirts and green spaces proliferate. And artists will, as they always have, offer reflection on our current condition while seeking to inspire their audience to improve the world around them.

It would be wonderful if this time they were able to succeed. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.

Art Literature. And radio became a family experience. Everyone would gather around the radio and listen to the news, the comedy shows, and the music.

Musical styles were also changing in the s. In Louis Armstrong started improvising and adding personal musical variations with his trumpet, playing in a style known as jazz. In the flappers found a new dance craze, called the Charleston. In Mickey Mouse first appeared in the cartoon Steamboat Willie , and in Popeye first appeared in the comic strip Thimble Theater. Aviation represented another area in which things were changing quite rapidly, helped by advances and improvements in aircraft during World War I.

Up to this time only a few daredevils and barnstormers had flown. In the United States Air Service circumnavigated the world in airplanes, just twenty-one years after Orville Wright flew the first powered plane for only forty yards here in North Carolina. Before the decade was over, commercial passenger air travel had begun.

The Fourteenth Amendment had already given African Americans citizenship in Yet segregation , or separation of the races, continued to be practiced in North Carolina and in the South. Modern civil rights laws for minorities were still many years away. As mentioned in the beginning of this article, the decade also represented the worst of times. Here in North Carolina, Thomas W.

Bickett was the governor until Show Boat became the basis for the popular musical of the same name. Prosperity had ended. The economic boom and the Jazz Age were over, and America began the period called the Great Depression. The s represented an era of change and growth. The decade was one of learning and exploration. America had become a world power and was no longer considered just another former British colony.

American culture, such as books, movies, and Broadway theater, was now being exported to the rest of the world. World War I had left Europe on the decline and America on the rise. Barrett A. The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina in the 's. Forsyth County Public Library. Winston-Salem in the Jazz Age. North Carolina Museum of History. A New Woman Emerges.