The Roaring Twenties Essay

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The Roaring Twenties

The 1920’s was a time for big change in the U.S. after World War I. This was the roaring 20’s , which had a big impact on the economy, social standards, and everyday life. It was a time of positive changes for industry consumer goods and American families. With this came higher wages, shorter working hours, and manufacturing was up 60% in consumer goods. Not only that but African­ Americans became further infused with mainstream America with Harlem Renaissance. Women were also given more rights and freedom. The 1920's saw new discoveries and inventions in nearly every field of endeavor that became the foundation of thriving businesses. In this decade, America became the richest nation on Earth and a culture of consumerism was born. It was the time of the $5 workday, good worker pay for those days. People spent money for better roads, tourism, and holiday resorts. New business and production methods along with progressive business philosophies allowed manufacturers to boost turnover and to make large profits which they plowed back into new factories and wage rises.
Department store and service station chains used massive buying power and operating efficiencies to lower prices while increasing service and choice, helping wages to go further. Henry Ford used his huge buying power to set up discount grocery stores selling cheap groceries for his employees. Technology played a vital part in delivering the economic and cultural good times that most of America enjoyed during the 1920s. henry Ford blazed the way with his Model T; he sold more 15 million of them by 1927.
Ford's assembly line means of production was the key. The automobile's popularity, and construction of roads and highways pouring fresh public funds into the economy brought tremendous economic prosperity during the roaring twenties. The radio found its way into virtually every home in America. Following the first public station, KDKA, in
Pittsburgh, thousands more went on the air across the country. Radio became a national pastime; many listeners would gather in their living rooms to tune in sports, concerts, sermons, and "Red Menace" news. The 1920s were a period of significant change for women. The 19th amendment was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote, and women began to pursue both family life and careers of their own. Notions of modern womanhood and fashion were redefined by the flappers .Young women began to attend large state colleges and universities, and also to stake claim to their own bodies, taking part in a sexual liberation movement of their generation. This was the age of the flapper: a new breed of young women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for socially acceptable behavior by wearing makeup, smoking, driving automobiles, and flouting sexual norms. Flapper fashion was both a trend and a social statement, a deliberate parting of ways with rigid Victorian gender roles, which emphasized plain living, hard work, and religion, to embrace consumerism and personal choice. The Harlem Renaissance was an African­American cultural movement that spanned the 1920. Harlem became an African­American neighborhood in the early 1900s, during the Great Migration in which many African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South.The Harlem
Renaissance
helped lay the foundation for the post­World War II phase of the Civil Rights Movement and inspired countless future black artists. Though the Roaring twenties was an exciting time for america, there were also many faults.
Prohibition laws were passed in America during the 1920s with the intention of decreasing some of already present issues in the American society. These problems included are the like of robberies, street