What were the "roaring twenties"?

The 1920 are called the roaring twenties.

It was a period in the USA, after the WW1, of loud and wild music in which everyone had a good time

Causes

Growing cities

Majority of Americans lived in urban areas

Tension between rural and urban areas

the city were full of atheists, drunks and criminals

Fought a rearguard action against the ‘evil’ effects of the city

had a skyscraper

powerful symbol

small cities

meant that they were sharing in the boom

big cities

meant that no land was available

Entertainment

People had more leisure time and disposable income

A lot of this free time and money went to entertainment

Radio

Almost everyone in the USA listened to the radio

Choice of programs grew quickly

There was only one licensed radio station in the USA

There were 508 of them and in 1929 NBC was making $150 million a year.

Jazz

The radio gave much greater access to music

became popular in young people

Along with jazz went new dances and new styles

The older generation saw jazz and everything related to it as a corrupting influence in the young people

who moved from the countryside to the cities had brought blues and jazz with them

Blues was popular among black people

jazz was popular in both black and white people

Cinema

During the 20’s movies produced billions of dollars

The Hollywood film industry was developing

Charlie Chaplin appeared and it was a revolution

The first spoken movie was in 1927

Morals

The war sex was a taboo subject

it was something that was in the newspapers and took part of daily conversations

Discovered that this subject was best-seller so they took advantage of this

Sports

became a big money sport with legendary teams and players were national figures

Millions of Americans listened to sporting events on the radio

Cars

The motor car made all this possible

Helped the cities to grow by opening up the suburbs

They carried their owners to enjoy entertainment