The roaring twenties

1920s US Population: 105,273,049 (at beginning of decade)
As of September 2004: 294,564,504
By the end of the decade: 122,288,177

Unemployment 1920s: 2,132,000 5.2%
Unemployment 2003: 6%
Unemployment as of September 2004: 5.4%
Unemployment 1990s: 5.7%

1920s life expectancy:
Males: 53.6 years
Females: 54.6 years
For those born in 2000 (of all races):
Males: 74.3 years
Females: 79.7 years

1920s number of people in the military:
343.000 (down from 1,172,601 in 1919)
Currently: 1.4 million in active Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines
1.1 million in Reserves, Army and Air Force National Guard

Average Annual Salary: $1236
Equivalent today to: $12,741.38

Prior to 1920s:
World War I
US Economy goes Global
Technology takes off
Immigration Act of 1917
Red Scare

Presidents:
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1928)

18th Amendment-Ratified on January 16, 1919
This made illegal: the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes.
The Volstead Act of 1919 defined alcohol as any drink having an alcoholic content above 0.5 percent.

This led to the era known as Prohibition.
Its goal, in theory, was to reduce crime, poverty, the prison systems, death and disease rate, corruption, and other social problems.
Many historians believe it was a WASP backlash to exert superiority over minorities, a reaction to the overwhelming immigration of the first part of the century.

Problems:
Very hard to enforce
People continued to drink.
People continued to find ways to profit
from alcohol.
Led to development of organized crime

By 1925, there were an estimated 100,000 Speakeasies in New York City.
Underpaid police officers were easily bribed into warning these Speakeasies about raids and feigning oblivion about the mob.

Speakeasies united citizens of various ethnic backgrounds when nothing else could.

In Chicago, clubs called “Black and Tans” were run by the mob and served alcohol while jazz bands played. This was one of the only instances of racial tolerance in an otherwise divided city.

While people listened to the premiere jazz musicians of the day, they danced all kinds of new dances, including the Charleston.

Liquor was smuggled in from Canada, stolen from government warehouses, or manufactured at home.
People hid it in flasks shaped like ordinary objects, such as books or canes.
A distilling unit.

Yuengling opened a dairy across the street from the brewery in 1920. They also switched to manufacturing near beer.

Gangsters ran bootlegging industries and turned a huge profit.
Unfortunately, they became rivals with other gangs, especially in big cities, leading to more violent crime.

The most famous of the gangsters of the 1920s was Al Capone.

19th Amendment-Ratified in August of 1920
Ensures no US citizen will be denied the right to vote based on gender.

New found freedom led to the rise of the so-called “flapper”:
1923-24
1925
1926

Hair gradually became shorter over the course of the decade.

Picture from a fashion magazine circa 1923.

Ursinus Glee Club, 1925

The current generation did not invent baggy pants.

This is the cover of a 1925 clothing company featuring the latest in men’s suits.

This issue of Life has a flapper on the cover. By 1925, when this magazine was originally published, organized sports were very popular. College football was really a big deal, as was golf and baseball, but professional football was taking off as well.

United States emerges from WWI as the dominant figure in World Trade
Much money to be made in investments: rich get richer.

Rural America is left behind.
For the first time in American History, more people lived in urban areas than in rural.
Four million farmers quit in the 1920s to move to urban areas

Technology brings electricity, gas, and running water to the cities.

However-
Number of American farms with electricity by the end of the decade was:
10%
Number of farms with running water by the end of the decade was:
33%

Roads that had been paved for motor cars between cities left small towns isolated from the rest of the country.

Rural people were also cut off from colleges, which were becoming more and more necessary as new skills were required for industry.

Aviation is huge, due to the war and later, Charles Lindbergh.

What else took off in the twenties?
Department stores
Band-Aids
Advertising billboards and commercials
Kleenex
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
La-Z-Boy Loungers
Fast Food
Wonder bread
Velveeta
Wheaties
Gerber Baby Food

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.