The document summarizes key social, economic, and technological developments during the 1920s in Western societies. Some of the major trends it discusses include the post-WWI economic boom and rise of consumerism, new technologies like the radio and automobile that shaped culture, increasing female empowerment and the flapper movement, the Prohibition era in the US, and the Harlem Renaissance. It provides context on how new industries, mass production techniques, and credit availability fueled economic growth and consumer spending during the decade.

1. THE ROARING
TWENTIES
Economic Boom and Social Changes in the Western World

2. Leaving WWI Behind

3. Shifting Attitudes

4. Key Term: Globalization
• World War I accelerated the expansion of U.S. business overseas. American firms were especially
successful in replacing dominant British firms in Western Hemisphere and Asian markets. The
period from the end of World War I to 1950 also experienced some elements of globalization as
new technology joined expansion in finance, trade, investment, and culture throughout the
world. As technology became better, and economies became more inter-dependent, the world
became even more linked.

5. Key Term: Materialism
• The Roaring 20's was the height of consumer culture and conspicuous consumption. Perhaps
the main reason for such economic progress is the development of business
management. From 1917 to 1929, expenditures on advertising grew from $400 million to $2.6
billion. Mass produced advertisement was common, and big companies would capitalize on the
popularity of entertainment figures of the time to endorse their products. The average
American was no longer a producer, but a consumer. Buying on credit was an increasing trend
of the 20s. Nearly 20 percent of purchases were made on credit during this decade. Credit
allowed Americans to buy whatever they wanted as long as they had the money at the end of
the month. People could buy more than they could afford, but could go overboard and become
indebted. The flourishing capitalist economy allowed people of the 20s to take advantage of
mass industrialization. More than ever the average American could enjoy niceties only
previously enjoyed by the upper class.

6. Credit in the 1920s
• Buying on credit was an increasing trend of the 20s. Nearly 20 percent of purchases were made
on credit during this decade. Credit allowed consumers to buy whatever they wanted as long as
they had the money at the end of the month. People could buy more than they could afford,
but could go overboard and become indebted. The flourishing capitalist economy allowed
people of the 20s to take advantage of mass industrialization. More than ever the average
citizen could enjoy niceties only previously enjoyed by the upper class.

8. Mass Production
• The 1920s was a period of great industrial production in the West. The automobile, petroleum,
steel, and chemical industries skyrocketed in their production during this period. This was
largely due to the adoption by industry of the technique of mass production, the system by
which identical products were churned out quickly and inexpensively using assembly lines. The
changeover to mass production drove down prices for objects that were previously made in
much more individual, time-consuming methods and subsequently enabled an increase in new,
affordable technology. Meanwhile, technological advances in electrical recording created new
entertainment media including radio and film, which became widespread and highly profitable.
A middle class emerged in the postwar period with surplus money and a desire to spend more,
spurring the demand for consumer goods, especially the car.

10. Prohibition: United States
• The ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution–which banned the manufacture,
transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors–ushered in a period in American history known as
Prohibition. The result of a widespread temperance movement during the first decade of the
20th century, Prohibition was difficult to enforce, despite the passage of companion legislation
known as the Volstead Act. The increase of the illegal production and sale of liquor (known as
“bootlegging”), the proliferation of speakeasies (illegal drinking spots) and the accompanying
rise in gang violence and other crimes led to waning support for Prohibition by the end of the
1920s.
• In early 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to the Constitution
that would repeal the 18th. It was ratified by the end of that year, bringing the Prohibition era to
a close.

13. Female Suffrage and Empowerment

15. The Flappers
• “(…) the New Woman of the 1920s boldly asserted her right to dance, drink, smoke, and date—
to work her own property, to live free of the strictures that governed her mother’s generation.
(…) She flouted Victorian-era conventions and scandalized her parents. In many ways, she
controlled her own destiny.”
― Joshua Zeitz, Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who
Made America Modern

16. Clothing Revolution
• Female empowerment became visible
through the clothing and hairstyles of the
1920s.

17. Flapper Fashion

20. The Charleston
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJC21z
zkwoE

21. Increase in Racism: u.s.
• Spreading far beyond its roots in the Reconstruction South, the resurgent Klan of the 1920s was
a short-lived but potent phenomenon. By equating white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism with "true
Americanism," it fueled intolerance for blacks, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. In the guise of
protecting community morals, it expanded its victims of vigilante justice to those it deemed
lawbreakers, bootleggers, unfaithful spouses, corrupt politicians, etc.—all with no judge or jury
beyond the local secret "klavern." Whippings, tar-and-featherings, threats of violence, and for
black victims, lynching, became common practice in some regions of the South, Southwest, and
Midwest (Indiana was the stronghold of Klan power in the decade).

24. Increase in Racism: Europe
• “Age of Anxiety”
• Rise of Anti-Semitism

25. New Technologies: The Radio and the
Automobile

26. The Radio
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMujQke4mMo
• One of the great attractions to the radio listener was that once the cost of the original
equipment was covered, radio was free. Stations made money by selling air time to advertisers.
The possibility of reaching millions of listeners at once had advertising executives scrambling to
take advantage. By the end of the decade advertisers paid over $10,000 for an hour of premium
time.
• The RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA created a new dimension to the venture in 1926. By
licensing telephone lines, RCA created America's first radio network and called it the NATIONAL
BROADCASTING COMPANY. For the first time, citizens of California and New York could listen
to the same programming simultaneously. Regional differences began to dissolve as the
influence of network broadcasting ballooned. Americans listened to the same sporting events
and took up the same fads. Baseball games and boxing matches could now reach those far away
from the stadiums and arenas. A mass national entertainment culture was flowering.

27. The Automobile
• Perhaps no invention affected American everyday life in the 20th century more than the
automobile.
• Although the technology for the AUTOMOBILE existed in the 19th century, it took HENRY
FORD to make the useful gadget accessible to the American public. Ford used the idea of
the ASSEMBLY LINE for automobile manufacturing. He paid his workers an unprecedented $5 a
day when most laborers were bringing home two, hoping that it would increase their
productivity. Furthermore, they might use their higher earnings to purchase a new car.
• Ford reduced options, even stating that the public could choose whatever color car they wanted
— so long as it was black. The MODEL T sold for $490 in 1914, about one quarter the cost of
the previous decade. By 1920, there were over 8 million registrations. The 1920s saw
tremendous growth in automobile ownership, with the number of registered drivers almost
tripling to 23 million by the end of the decade.

30. Harlem Renaissance

31. Harlem Renaissance
• Spanning the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the Harlem Renaissance was a literary, artistic, and
intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity. Its essence was summed up by
critic and teacher Alain Locke in 1926 when he declared that through art, “Negro life is seizing
its first chances for group expression and self determination.” Harlem became the center of a
“spiritual coming of age” in which Locke’s “New Negro” transformed “social disillusionment to
race pride.” Chiefly literary, the Renaissance included the visual arts but excluded jazz, despite its
parallel emergence as a black art form.

32. Literature Spotlight: Langston Hughes

33. Jazz Music Spotlight: Bessie Smith
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpVCqXRlXx4

34. Discussion Questions:
• How does technological innovation shape societal and cultural change?
• What are some examples of technologies that have shaped societies
throughout history?