An air of excitement was floating in the air before starting the new decade of 2020s. No wonder it had something new for us in the pouch and who-knows probably has some more. Interestingly, the 20s of the former century is also a notable decade in the history of the world. Yeah, we're talking about the historical 'Roaring 20s'! The decade of laughter, luxury, going bonkers and what not. Not for everyone though.
The Roaring Twenties was a period of economic prosperity and cultural revolution for the big cities of North America, Europe and Australia. After the wartime devastation of WWI, the economy of America took a huge turn especially because of mass production, increase in employment and technological progress. People had more money in pocket and the consumer cultural was getting more and more popular. Some of the notable aspects of these Années folles (crazy years) as the French liked to call it are noted here -
More and more people were leaving the rural areas and adapting to the urban lifestyle. People were willing to spend their money in buying luxury products, so consumer cultural reached its peak. Massive advertisement and buying on credit opportunity (buy first, pay later method) only added to this phenomenon.
This is the time when automobiles started being produced massively for common consumption and were made affordable. Radio was a new craze. Almost 40% household owned a radio and half of the American families owned a car by the end of the decade. People were going more on vacations, sports became a big source of entertainment; especially baseball and media made the celebrity culture popular.
Roaring 20s had its deploring events too. In the early 1920s, racism took an ugly turn and white supremacist group 'Ku Klux Klan' made the discrimination more prominent than ever. During this time, Many black Americans moved from South to the northern cities. Harlem, a neighborhood in Manhattan, became a center for Black community. It was then when Jazz music became a sensation not only in America but also in rest of the world. People from different parts of the country would come to Harlem to listen to Jazz music, dance to the rhythm and party all night. You know how powerful the sensation was when the decade of 1920s is also known as 'The Jazz Age'.
With the new age came new freedom of women. In 1920, the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote. Women were going outside and partying alongside men. A photo describing the jazz age would probably be incomplete without having a 'flapper' in it. A flapper was a woman with short skirt, short hair, more makeup and doing stuffs that could be considered 'unladylike'. But they were only a fraction of the women society back then. Even for the housewives, life became easy as many home appliances were introduced and they could enjoy more leisure leaving most of the household works to the machine.
For the first time, people were starting to get benefit of all these new technologies. Automobiles and radio have already been mentioned. Electricity lit the cities, recently built stadiums, cinemas and houses. The most exciting event was Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris in 1927 which was the first successful attempt in transatlantic flight.
The trial of John Scopes who was prosecuted in 1925 for teaching evolution in his class soon became the talk of the town. The question of whether to stick to the Christian fundamentalism or go with the modern science became a great conflict.
The fast pace through which all the changes of The Roaring Twenties went and the drastic change of culture weren't easy to accept for everyone, especially for the elders. However, it's undeniable that modernity had its great start in this decade. Unfortunately, the roar of the roaring 20s ended in a wail. The stock market crash of 1929 in October gave the era a devastating ending followed by 'The Great Depression' which began a new decade of hardship - much contrary to the past decade. This is another history that I may cover in a future article.
Hope you enjoyed your time reading! :)
See you soon with another article.