Roaring 20s - A Quick Look

Arts & Entertainment

  • Author Alexine Ray
  • Published June 3, 2010
  • Word count 461

The era is called the Roaring Twenties because it describes the aggressive air that hovered in America during 1920s. Sometimes, it is also named as the Jazz Age, the Age of Intolerance or the Age of Wonderful Nonsense. Many names may be associated with this era but this period is simply the advent of Modern United States. The 1920s era brought about many different changes, both good and bad for modern America. Changes such as hairstyles and the changes in the kind of music that they were into.

North America isn't the only country that experienced the roaring twenties, Paris, London and Berlin also experienced the roar. It highlights the period's social, artistic and cultural dynamism, including the several inventions and discoveries which signified exceptional industrial growth and an increase of consumer demand and aspirations that eventually led to a considerable change in lifestyle at that time.

There were close to 150,000 anarchists or Communists living in the U.S. during this decade. North American public was confused and this confusion spread rapidly to Europe which was still rebuilding itself during that time. North America, on the other hand, was headed the other direction and went back into provincialism. Because of the reappearance of the Ku Klux Kaln, laws became limited and more restrained.

At the start of the Roaring Twenties when weapons for World War I were no longer needed, United States converted their financial systems into a peacetime economy. During that period, the minimum wage was $5 which was adequate during that time. Better roads, tourism and holiday resorts started sprouting and real estate soared high. Because of these developments, America became the richest country in the world.

By the time half of the decade was through, economic development soared in Europe, particularly in Germany, Britain and France, so that the second half of the Roaring Twenties also became known as the Golden Twenties.

Sinclair Lewis, Scott Fitzgerald, Carl Sandburg, Ernest Hemingway. and William F. Faulkner were authors who enriched American writing with their brilliant works. Jazz Age came in with a distinctive kind of American music. The genre of Jazz, which started as a medium for expressing African sentiments, now produced great music players like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Many jazz musicians brought the music to Broadway and concert halls.

Entertainment today is a product of the entertainment during the twenties. It was at this age when Walt Disney produced his first cartoon, Alice in Wonderland. Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino are a few of the brilliant actors during that period who got great box office success and they introduced dances like Foxtrot, Charleston and Flagpole sitting and flying stunts. This period was also the time of Babe Ruth and other sport figures who later became heroes.

The 1920's was considered to be the dawn of discontinuity and the start of modernity that broke the old traditions and gave rise to newer, bolder and more and more hyped-up norms. Since then, a sharper line of definition has been in place to differentiate the roaring 20's and the eras that came prior to it.

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