Popular Culture
Essential Questions
o How is popular culture in the 20's different than the previous decade?
Vocabulary
Mass Media: A form of communication intended it reach a large audience.
Consumerism: The protection or promotion of the interests of consumers. Prosperity: A state of wealth and success. Mass Production: The production of large quantities of a standardized item. |
Key Points
o The production of an affordable automobile allowed people to drive to work and visit family and friends who lived farther away.
o Radio brought cheap and convenient communication to many households, and movies soared in popularity throughout the decade. o Air-mail provided people with parcels and letters much more quickly and efficiently, and Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic helped the airplane to be recognized as one of the most important inventions of the 1920's. o New methods of advertising made products more popular to the general public. Such methods are still used today. o Because of advances in transportation, more and more people could watch live sports in the 20's. Many sports legends also rose throughout the decade. |
sports With the rise of the radio as well as printed news, sports rose in popularity as well as heroes emerged from every end of the athletic spectrum. Sports legends such as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Red Grange, Knute Rockne, Helen Wills, Bill Tilden, Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Jack Dempsey, Benny Leonard, and Tommy Hitchcock set records and helped increase the fan base of many sports. Many sports were announced over the radio, especially baseball, and highlights as well as results were published in daily newspapers. Another major contribution to the popularity of sports in the 20's was the rise of the automobile. Because transport had become so easy, much more people were able to attend live sports, and in turn larger stadiums were built to accommodate all the fans who attended.
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Pop culture: old vs. new So what is the significance of all this? Really, this is a rhetorical question. Large changes in technology, media, and subject popularity gave the 20's a bold, fresh and unique look compared to the decade before it. These changes also permanently affected society as we know it: today sports, movies and radio are popular all over the world, almost 90% of American households own at least one car, and airplanes have developed into a means of commercial transportation. Companies make new advertisements everyday using the same methods developed in the 20's, and dozens of sports are broadcasted nationwide as well as worldwide every day. If not for all the fresh ideas introduced in the 20's, America as well as the rest of the world would surely not be where they are today.
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thinking like a historian
A lot changed in terms of popular culture throughout the 20's. Generally major changes occurred in technology, media, and subject popularity. Most people benefitted from all these changes because mass production allowed for them to be much cheaper. Cars were extremely affordable, and if a man owned a car, he could go to a movie or to a live sports match. If he didn't own a car, he could buy a radio and listen to broadcasts of sports, or even just read the results in tabloid newspapers if he couldn't afford a radio. The 20's offered extremely flexible options to gain access to the media as well as advertisements. However, amongst all this rapid change, there were still many aspects of popular culture that remained the same - or at least didn't change significantly - but the lack of change didn't affect society majorly.
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Most of the changes in popular culture during the 20's were not brand new ideas or inventions, but simply significant improvements on recent ideas and technology. For instance, Henry Ford did not "invent" the automobile, he just made the first combustion engine-powered automobile. And airplanes existed before the 1920's, they were just incredibly unstable and dangerous. Advertising was also present before the 20's, it was just not portrayed effectively to the general public. So it wasn't America's cultural ideas or goals that changed in the 1920's, it was how America went about executing them. In terms of popular culture, the 20's was an era of success rather than failure, as was present in the past. However, without that failure success would have been much harder to achieve.
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apparts: analyzing the des moines speech
AuthorThe speaker in this case was Charles Lindbergh, the first man to make a non-stop trip by plane across the Atlantic Ocean. Before his famous trip, he was no more than an average U.S. Air Mail pilot.
audienceThe audience was both the general public and the U.S. Government. He needed the support of the public in order to help sway the government to his ideas.
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place and timeThe speech was delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941. It was not in the 1920's, nor was it about popular culture, but it was given by a man famous for his influence on popular culture in the 20's.
reasonLindbergh gave this speech primarily because he wanted to convince the general public as well as the government not to enter WWII.
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prior knowledgeCharles Lindbergh flew his plane, Spirit of St. Louis, from New York to Paris in 1927 and became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane on a non-stop flight. Before WWII he was a strong anti-war advocate.
the main ideaLindbergh's speech listed reasons why America shouldn't join WWII, and why the country should seek an independent future.
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