Progress and Decline in the 1920s:

20s as Decade of Cultural/Economic Flowering:

I. PROGRESS

A. Consumerism:

                  Edward Bernays=father of modern pr

 Movies:

Warner Bros. Pictures inc. in 1923

MGM formed in 1924

Fox Film Corporation founded in 1912

         (became 20^th Century Fox in 1935)

United Artists, formed in 1919

(by stars Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Charlie Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith)

Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres

The Sheik, 1921

B. Literature:  Harlem Renaissance

Based on the following two poems, what are some key themes of the Harlem Renaissance?

If We Must Die, Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

I, Too, Sing America, Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

“Lost Generation”

The “New Woman”

II. DECAY  1920s as a Decade of Ignorance andCultural Decay

A. Influenza

--killed 25 million worldwide

(700,000 in U.S.)

Historian Alfred Crosby:

The virus “killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.”

“I  had  a  little  bird, I  had  a  little  bird,

Its  name  was  Enza.   Its  name  was  Enza.

I  opened  up  the  window, I  opened  up  the  window, And  in flu enza, In flu enza.” 

Children’s jump rope rhyme

B. World Economic Chaos:

England=industrial problems: General Strike of 1926

         --2 million unemployed by 1930

         --3 million unemp. in 1933

Depression

         One billion per year in reparations

Hyperinflation in Germany:

                 

1 dollar=9000 marks (Jan. of 1923)

1 dollar=4.2 trillion marks

(Nov. of 1923)

                 

--one loaf of bread=580 billion marks

C. Urban Racial Unrest: Chicago, 1919

…48 recorded lynchings in 1917

…78 recorded lynchings in 1919

D. Nativism:

National Origins Act of 1924

Sacco and Vanzetti

The KKK

E. Clash in values: Scopes Monkey Trial

VII. Significance: