Suffrage Many countries expanded women's voting rights, such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, India, and various European countries after
World War I.
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom was established through
acts of Parliament, first in 1918 with restrictions, and subsequently in 1928, on the same basis as men. This influenced many governments and elections by increasing the number of voters (but not doubling it, because many women did not vote during the early years of suffrage, as can be seen by the large drop in voter turnout). Politicians responded by focusing more on issues of concern to women, especially peace, public health, education, and the status of children. On the whole, women voted much like men, except they were more interested in peace, even when it meant appeasement.
Lost Generation The Lost Generation was composed of young people who came out of World War I disillusioned and cynical about the world. The term usually refers specifically to American literary notables who lived in Paris at the time. Famous members included
Ernest Hemingway,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, and
Gertrude Stein who wrote novels and short stories criticizing the materialism they perceived to be rampant during this era. In the United Kingdom, the
bright young things were young aristocrats and socialites who threw fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts, were seen in all the trendy venues, and were well covered by the gossip columns of the London tabloids.
Social criticism reached the United States. As the average American in the 1920s became more enamored of wealth and everyday luxuries, some began satirizing the hypocrisy and greed they observed. Of these social critics,
Sinclair Lewis was the most popular. His popular 1920 novel
Main Street satirized the dull and ignorant lives of the residents of a Midwestern town. He followed with
Babbitt, about a
middle-aged businessman who rebels against his dull life and family, only to realize that the younger generation is as hypocritical as his own. Lewis satirized religion with
Elmer Gantry, which followed a
con man who teams with an evangelist to sell religion to a small town. Other social critics included
Sherwood Anderson,
Edith Wharton, and
H. L. Mencken. Anderson published a collection of short stories titled
Winesburg, Ohio, which studied the dynamics of a small town. Wharton mocked the fads of the new era through her novels, such as
Twilight Sleep (1927). Mencken criticized narrow American tastes and culture in essays and articles.
Art Deco Art Deco was the style of design and architecture that marked the era. Originating in Europe, it spread to the rest of Western Europe and North America towards the mid-1920s. In the U.S., one of the more remarkable buildings featuring this style was constructed as the
tallest building of the time: the
Chrysler Building. The forms of Art Deco were pure and geometric, though the artists often drew inspiration from nature. In the beginning, lines were curved, though rectilinear designs would later become more and more popular.
Expressionism and surrealism Painting in North America during the 1920s developed in a different direction from that of Europe. In Europe, the 1920s were the era of
expressionism and later
surrealism. As
Man Ray stated in 1920 after the publication of a unique issue of
New York Dada: "
Dada cannot live in New York".
Cinema , a popular cartoon character of the decade, exhibits his famous pace. At the beginning of the decade, films were silent and colorless. In 1922, the first all-color feature,
The Toll of the Sea, was released. In 1926,
Warner Bros. released
Don Juan, the first feature with
sound effects and music. In 1927, Warner released
The Jazz Singer, the first sound feature to include limited talking sequences. The public went wild for sound films, and movie studios converted to sound almost overnight. In 1928, Warner released
Lights of New York, the first all-talking feature film. In the same year, the first sound cartoon,
Dinner Time, was released. Warner ended the decade by unveiling
On with the Show in 1929, the first all-color, all-talking feature film. Cartoon shorts were popular in movie theaters during this time. In the late 1920s,
Walt Disney emerged.
Mickey Mouse made his debut in
Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York City. Mickey was featured in more than 120 cartoon shorts, the
Mickey Mouse Club, and other specials. This started Disney and led to creation of other characters going into the 1930s.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character created by Disney before Mickey in 1927, was contracted by
Universal for distribution purposes, and starred in a series of shorts between 1927 and 1928. Disney lost the rights to the character, but in 2006, regained the rights to Oswald. He was the first Disney character to be merchandised. '', 1923 The period had the emergence of box-office draws such as
Mae Murray,
Ramón Novarro,
Rudolph Valentino,
Buster Keaton,
Harold Lloyd,
Warner Baxter,
Clara Bow,
Louise Brooks,
Baby Peggy,
Bebe Daniels,
Billie Dove,
Dorothy Mackaill,
Mary Astor,
Nancy Carroll,
Janet Gaynor,
Charles Farrell,
William Haines,
Conrad Nagel,
John Gilbert,
Greta Garbo,
Dolores del Río,
Norma Talmadge,
Colleen Moore,
Nita Naldi,
Leatrice Joy,
John Barrymore,
Norma Shearer,
Joan Crawford,
Anna May Wong, and
Al Jolson.
Harlem African American literary and artistic culture developed rapidly during the 1920s under the banner of the "
Harlem Renaissance". In 1921, the
Black Swan Corporation was founded. At its height, it issued 10 recordings per month. All-African American musicals also started in 1921. In 1923, the
Harlem Renaissance Basketball Club was founded by
Bob Douglas. During the late-1920s, and especially in the 1930s, the basketball team became known as the best in the world. The first issue of
Opportunity was published. The African American playwright Willis Richardson debuted his play ''The Chip Woman's Fortune'' at the Frazee Theatre (also known as the
Wallacks theatre). Notable African American authors such as
Langston Hughes and
Zora Neale Hurston began to achieve a level of national public recognition during the 1920s.
Jazz Age The 1920s brought new styles of music into the mainstream of culture in avant-garde cities.
Jazz became the most popular form of music for youth. Historian Kathy J. Ogren wrote that, by the 1920s, jazz had become the "dominant influence on America's popular music generally". Scott DeVeaux argues that a standard history of jazz has emerged such that: "After an obligatory nod to African origins and ragtime antecedents, the music is shown to move through a succession of styles or periods: New Orleans jazz up through the 1920s, swing in the 1930s, bebop in the 1940s, cool jazz and hard bop in the 1950s, free jazz and fusion in the 1960s.... There is substantial agreement on the defining features of each style, the pantheon of great innovators, and the canon of recorded masterpieces." The pantheon of performers and singers from the 1920s include
Louis Armstrong,
Duke Ellington,
Sidney Bechet,
Jelly Roll Morton,
Joe "King" Oliver,
James P. Johnson,
Fletcher Henderson,
Frankie Trumbauer,
Paul Whiteman,
Roger Wolfe Kahn,
Bix Beiderbecke,
Adelaide Hall, and
Bing Crosby. The development of urban and city blues also began in the 1920s with performers such as
Bessie Smith and
Ma Rainey. In the latter part of the decade, early forms of
country music were pioneered by
Jimmie Rodgers,
The Carter Family,
Uncle Dave Macon,
Vernon Dalhart, and
Charlie Poole.
Dance Dance clubs became enormously popular in the 1920s. Their popularity peaked in the late 1920s and reached into the early 1930s. Dance music came to dominate all forms of popular music by the late 1920s. Classical pieces, operettas, folk music, etc., were all transformed into popular dancing melodies to satiate the public craze for dancing. For example, many of the songs from the 1929
Technicolor musical operetta "
The Rogue Song" (starring the Metropolitan Opera star
Lawrence Tibbett) were rearranged and released as dancing music and became popular dance club hits in 1929. Dance clubs across the U.S.-sponsored dancing contests, where dancers invented, tried and competed with new moves. Professionals began to hone their skills in tap dance and other dances of the era throughout the stage circuit across the United States. With the advent of talking pictures (sound film), musicals became all the rage and film studios flooded the box office with extravagant and lavish musical films. The representative was the musical
Gold Diggers of Broadway, which became the highest-grossing film of the decade. Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles. Several entertainment venues attracted people of all races. The
Cotton Club featured black performers and catered to a white clientele, while the
Savoy Ballroom catered to a mostly black clientele. Some religious moralists preached against "Satan in the dance hall" but had little impact. The most popular dances throughout the decade were the
foxtrot,
waltz, and
American tango. From the early 1920s, however, a variety of eccentric novelty dances were developed. The first of these were the
Breakaway and
Charleston. Both were based on African American musical styles and beats, including the widely popular
blues. The Charleston's popularity exploded after its feature in two 1922 Broadway shows. A brief
Black Bottom craze, originating from the
Apollo Theater, swept dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity. By 1927, the
Lindy Hop, a dance based on Breakaway and Charleston and integrating elements of tap, became the dominant
social dance. Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was set to
stride piano ragtime jazz. The Lindy Hop later evolved into other
swing dances. These dances, nonetheless, never became mainstream, and the overwhelming majority of people in Western Europe and the U.S. continued to dance the foxtrot, waltz, and tango throughout the decade. The dance craze had a large influence on popular music. Large numbers of recordings labeled as foxtrot, tango, and waltz were produced and gave rise to a generation of performers who became famous as recording artists or radio artists. Top vocalists included
Nick Lucas,
Adelaide Hall,
Scrappy Lambert, Frank Munn,
Lewis James,
Chester Gaylord,
Gene Austin,
James Melton,
Franklyn Baur, Johnny Marvin,
Annette Hanshaw,
Helen Kane,
Vaughn De Leath, and
Ruth Etting. Leading dance orchestra leaders included
Bob Haring,
Harry Horlick, Louis Katzman,
Leo Reisman,
Victor Arden,
Phil Ohman,
George Olsen,
Ted Lewis,
Abe Lyman,
Ben Selvin,
Nat Shilkret,
Fred Waring, and
Paul Whiteman.
Fashion Attire Paris set the fashion trends for Europe and North America. The fashion for women was all about getting loose. Women wore dresses all day, every day. Day dresses had a drop waist, which was a sash or belt around the low waist or hip and a skirt that hung anywhere from the ankle on up to the knee, never above. Daywear had sleeves (long to mid-bicep) and a skirt that was straight, pleated, hank hem, or tired. Jewelry was less conspicuous. Hair was often bobbed, giving a boyish look. For men in white collar jobs, business suits were the day to day attire. Striped, plaid, or windowpane suits came in dark gray, blue, and brown in the winter and ivory, white, tan, and pastels in the summer. Shirts were white and neckties were essential. Immortalized in movies and magazine covers, young women's fashions of the 1920s set both a trend and social statement, a breaking-off from the rigid
Victorian way of life. These young, rebellious, middle-class women, labeled 'flappers' by older generations, did away with the corset and donned slinky knee-length dresses, which exposed their legs and arms. The hairstyle of the decade was a chin-length bob, which had several popular variations. Cosmetics, which until the 1920s were not typically accepted in American society because of their association with prostitution, became extremely popular. In the 1920s, new magazines appealed to young German women with a sensuous image and advertisements for the appropriate clothes and accessories they would want to purchase. The glossy pages of
Die Dame and
Das Blatt der Hausfrau displayed the "Neue Frauen", "New Girl" – what Americans called the
flapper. She was young and fashionable, financially independent, and was an eager consumer of the latest fashions. The magazines kept her up to date on styles, clothes, designers, arts, sports, and modern technology such as automobiles and telephones.
Sexuality of women during the 1920s The 1920s was a period of social revolution, coming out of World War I, society changed as inhibitions faded and youth demanded new experiences and more freedom from old controls. Chaperones faded in importance as "anything goes" became a slogan for youth taking control of their subculture. A new woman was born—a "flapper" who danced, drank, smoked and voted. This new woman cut her hair, wore make-up, and partied. She was known for being giddy and taking risks. Women gained the right to vote in many countries, although in some countries this occurred later, notably in France (in 1944) and in Switzerland (1971 at the federal level, and 1959-1990 at cantonal level, with the Swiss canton of
Appenzell Innerrhoden being the last jurisdiction in Europe to grant women the right to vote; see
Women's suffrage in Switzerland). New careers opened for single women in offices and schools, with salaries that helped them to be more independent. With their desire for freedom and independence came change in fashion. One of the more dramatic post-war changes in fashion was the woman's silhouette; the dress length went from floor length to ankle and knee length, becoming more bold and seductive. The new dress code emphasized youth: Corsets were left behind and clothing was looser, with more natural lines. The
hourglass figure was not popular anymore, and a slimmer, boyish body type was considered appealing. The flappers were known for this and for their high spirits, flirtation, and recklessness when it came to the search for fun and thrills.
Coco Chanel was one of the more enigmatic fashion figures of the 1920s. She was recognized for her avant-garde designs; her clothing was a mixture of wearable, comfortable, and elegant. She was the one to introduce a different aesthetic into fashion, especially a different sense for what was feminine, and based her design on new ethics; she designed for an active woman, one that could feel at ease in her dress. Chanel's primary goal was to empower freedom. She was the pioneer for women wearing pants and for the
little black dress, which were signs of a more independent lifestyle.
Changing role of women Most British historians depict the 1920s as an era of domesticity for women with little feminist progress, apart from full suffrage which came in 1928. On the contrary, argues
Alison Light, literary sources reveal that many British women enjoyed: With the passage of the
19th Amendment in 1920, that
gave women the right to vote, American feminists attained the
political equality they had been waiting for. A generational gap began to form between the "new" women of the 1920s and the previous generation. Prior to the 19th Amendment, feminists commonly thought women could not pursue both a career and a family successfully, believing one would inherently inhibit the development of the other. This mentality began to change in the 1920s, as more women began to desire not only successful careers of their own, but also families. The "new" woman was less invested in social service than the
progressive generations, and in tune with the consumerist spirit of the era, she was eager to compete and to find personal fulfillment. Higher education was rapidly expanding for women. Linda Eisenmann claims, "New collegiate opportunities for women profoundly redefined womanhood by challenging the Victorian belief that men's and women's social roles were rooted in biology." Advertising agencies exploited the new status of women, for example in publishing automobile ads in women's magazines, at a time when the vast majority of purchasers and drivers were men. The new ads promoted new freedoms for affluent women while also suggesting the outer limits of the new freedoms. Automobiles were more than practical devices. They were also highly visible symbols of affluence, mobility, and modernity. The advertisements, wrote Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, "offered women a visual vocabulary to imagine their new social and political roles as citizens and to play an active role in shaping their identity as modern women". Significant changes in the lives of
working women occurred in the 1920s.
World War I had temporarily allowed women to enter into industries such as chemical, automobile, and iron and steel manufacturing, which were once deemed inappropriate work for women. Black women, who had been historically closed out of factory jobs, began to find a place in industry during World War I by accepting lower wages and replacing the lost immigrant labor and in heavy work. Yet, like other women during World War I, their success was only temporary; most black women were also pushed out of their factory jobs after the war. In 1920, 75% of the black female labor force consisted of agricultural laborers, domestic servants, and laundry workers. Legislation passed at the beginning of the 20th century mandated a
minimum wage and forced many factories to shorten their workdays. This shifted the focus in the 1920s to job performance to meet demand. Factories encouraged workers to produce more quickly and efficiently with speedups and bonus systems, increasing the pressure on factory workers. Despite the strain on women in the factories, the booming economy of the 1920s meant more opportunities even for the lower classes. Many young girls from working-class backgrounds did not need to help support their families as prior generations did and were often encouraged to seek work or receive vocational training which would result in social mobility. The achievement of suffrage led to feminists refocusing their efforts towards other goals. Groups such as the
National Woman's Party continued the political fight, proposing the
Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and working to remove laws that used sex to discriminate against women, but many women shifted their focus from politics to challenge traditional definitions of womanhood. Young women, especially, began staking claim to their own bodies and took part in a
sexual liberation of their generation. Many of the ideas that fueled this change in sexual thought were already floating around New York intellectual circles prior to World War I, with the writings of
Sigmund Freud,
Havelock Ellis, and
Ellen Key. There, thinkers claimed that sex was not only central to the human experience, but also that women were sexual beings with human impulses and desires, and restraining these impulses was self-destructive. By the 1920s, these ideas had permeated the mainstream. In the 1920s, the
co-ed emerged, as women began attending large state colleges and universities. Women entered into the mainstream middle class experience but took on a gendered role within society. Women typically took classes such as home economics, "Husband and Wife", "Motherhood", and "The Family as an Economic Unit". In an increasingly conservative postwar era, a young woman commonly would attend college with the intention of finding a suitable husband. Fueled by ideas of sexual liberation, dating underwent major changes on college campuses. With the advent of the automobile, courtship occurred in a much more private setting. "
Petting", sexual relations without intercourse, became the social norm for a portion of college students. Despite women's increased knowledge of pleasure and sex, the decade of unfettered capitalism that was the 1920s gave birth to the "feminine mystique". With this formulation, all women wanted to marry, all good women stayed at home with their children, cooking and cleaning, and the best women did the aforementioned and in addition, exercised their purchasing power freely and as frequently as possible to better their families and their homes.
Liberalism in Europe The Allied victory in World War I seemed to mark the triumph of
liberalism, not just in the Allied countries themselves, but also in Germany and in the new states of Eastern Europe, as well as Japan. Authoritarian militarism as typified by Germany had been defeated and discredited. Historian Martin Blinkhorn argues that the liberal themes were ascendant in terms of "cultural pluralism, religious and ethnic toleration, national self-determination, free-market economics, representative and responsible government, free trade, unionism, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes through a new body, the League of Nations". However, as early as 1917, the emerging liberal order was being challenged by the new
communist movement taking inspiration from the
Russian Revolution. Communist revolts were beaten back everywhere else, but they did succeed in Russia.
Homosexuality 's sheet music poking fun at the masculine traits many women adopted during the 1920s
Homosexuality became much more visible and somewhat more acceptable. London, New York, Paris, Rome, and Berlin were important centers of the new ethic. Historian Jason Crouthamel argues that in Germany, the First World War promoted homosexual emancipation because it provided an ideal of comradeship which redefined homosexuality and masculinity. The many gay rights groups in Weimar Germany favored a militarised rhetoric with a vision of a spiritually and politically emancipated hypermasculine gay man who fought to legitimize "friendship" and secure civil rights. Ramsey explores several variations. On the left, the
Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee; WhK) reasserted the traditional view that homosexuals were an effeminate "
third sex" whose sexual ambiguity and nonconformity was biologically determined. The radical nationalist
Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community of the Self-Owned) proudly proclaimed homosexuality as heir to the manly German and classical Greek traditions of homoerotic male bonding, which enhanced the arts and glorified relationships with young men. The politically centrist
Bund für Menschenrecht (League for Human Rights) engaged in a struggle for human rights, advising gays to live in accordance with the mores of middle-class German respectability. Humor was used to assist in acceptability. One popular American song, "Masculine Women, Feminine Men", was released in 1926 and recorded by numerous artists of the day; it included these lyrics: {{Poemquote|
Masculine women, Feminine men Which is the rooster, which is the hen? ''It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!''
Sister is busy learning to shave, Brother just loves his permanent wave, ''It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!''
Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot, ''Now we don't know who is who, or even what's what!''
Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide, ''Nobody knows who's walking inside,''
Those masculine women and feminine men! The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor
William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the No. 1 male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his partner,
Jimmie Shields. Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included
Alla Nazimova and
Ramón Novarro. In 1927,
Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called
The Drag, and alluded to the work of
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of
gay rights. Profound hostility did not abate in more remote areas such as western Canada. With the return of a conservative mood in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and
gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality even in Hollywood.
Psychoanalysis Austrian psychiatrist
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) played a major role in
psychoanalysis, which impacted avant-garde thinking, especially in the humanities and artistic fields. Historian
Roy Porter wrote: :He advanced challenging theoretical concepts such as unconscious mental states and their repression, infantile sexuality and the symbolic meaning of dreams and hysterical symptoms, and he prized the investigative techniques of free association and dream interpretation, to methods for overcoming resistance and uncovering hidden unconscious wishes. Other influential proponents of psychoanalysis included
Alfred Adler (1870–1937),
Karen Horney (1885–1952),
Carl Jung (1875–1961),
Otto Rank (1884–1939),
Helene Deutsch (1884–1982), and Freud's daughter
Anna (1895–1982). Adler argued that a neurotic individual would overcompensate by manifesting aggression. Porter notes that Adler's views became part of "an American commitment to social stability based on individual adjustment and adaptation to healthy, social forms". ==Culture==