Lesson 3: Roaring Twenties Culture

Question 1

Expatriate Definition

Answer 1

a person who leaves his own country and takes up residence in a foreign land

Question 2

Fad Definition

Answer 2

an activity or fashion that is taken up with great passion for a short time

Question 3

Flapper Definition

Answer 3

a young woman in the 1920s who adopted unconventional fashions, including short hair and short skirts

Question 4

Jazz Definition

Answer 4

a music style developed by African Americans in early 1900s that developed from blues, ragtime, and other earlier styles

Question 5

What were fads? In the 1920s, what were the fads of flagpole sitting, dance marathon, crossword puzzles, and mah-jongg?

Answer 5

Fads caught on, then quickly disappeared. A fad is an activity or a fashion that is taken up with great passion for a short time. Flagpole sitting was one fad of the 1920s. Young people would perch on top of flagpoles for hours, or even days. Another fad was the dance marathon, where couples danced for hundreds of hours at a time to see who could last the longest. Crossword puzzles and mah-jongg, a Chinese game, were other popular fads of the 1920s.

Question 6

How influential were dance crazes during the Roaring Twenties? What was the Charleston? When and where was it created? Which group created it? By what year had it become a national dance craze?

Answer 6

Dance crazes came and went rapidly. The most popular new dance was probably the Charleston. First performed by African Americans in southern cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, the dance became a national craze after 1923. Moving to a quick beat, dancers pivoted their feet while kicking out first one leg, and then the other, backward and forward.

Question 7

What were flappers? What activities and fads did they practice?

Answer 7

Perhaps no one pursued the latest fads more intensely than the flappers. These young women rebelled against traditional ways of thinking and acting. Flappers wore their hair bobbed, or cut short. They wore their dresses short, too—shorter than Americans had ever seen. Flappers shocked their parents by wearing bright red lipstick.

Question 8

How did the behavior of flappers, not their looks, concern older Americans?

Answer 8

To many older Americans, the way flappers behaved was even more shocking than the way they looked. Flappers smoked cigarettes in public, drank bootleg alcohol in speakeasies, and drove fast cars. “Is ‘the old-fashioned girl,’ with all that she stands for in sweetness, modesty, and innocence, in danger of becoming extinct?” wondered one magazine in 1921.

Question 9

Were many young women flappers? How did flappers establish ideas of freedom for women?

Answer 9

Only a few young women were flappers. Still, they set a style for others. Slowly, older women began to cut their hair and wear makeup and shorter skirts. For many Americans, the bold fashions pioneered by the flappers symbolized a new sense of freedom.

Question 10

Created in the 1920s in New Orleans, what were the roots of jazz?

Answer 10

Another innovation of the 1920s was jazz. Born in New Orleans, jazz combined West African rhythms, African American work songs and spirituals, and European harmonies and band music. Jazz also had roots in the ragtime rhythms of composers such as Scott Joplin.

Question 11

How was Louis Armstrong an integral part in the creation of jazz? How about “Jelly Roll” Morton and singer Bessie Smith?

Answer 11

Louis Armstrong was one of the brilliant young African American musicians who helped create jazz. Armstrong learned to play the trumpet in the New Orleans orphanage where he grew up. Armstrong had the ability to take a simple melody and experiment with the notes and the rhythm. This allowed his listeners to hear many different versions of the basic tune. Other great early jazz musicians included “Jelly Roll” Morton and singer Bessie Smith.

Question 12

How did jazz spread all across the United States? How about to Europe?

Answer 12

Jazz quickly spread from New Orleans to Chicago, Kansas City, and the mainly African American section of New York City known as Harlem. White musicians, such as trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, also began to adopt the new style. Before long, the popularity of jazz spread to Europe as well.

Question 13

What did many older Americans think about jazz? What is the influence of jazz on American culture, even today?

Answer 13

Many older Americans worried that jazz and the new dances were a bad influence on the nation’s young people. Despite their complaints, jazz continued to grow more popular. Today, jazz is recognized as an original art form developed by African Americans. It is considered one of the most important cultural contributions of the United States.

Question 14

How did radio, movies, and newspapers create celebrities? Who were some of the most beloved sport’s heroes during the 1920s?

Answer 14

Radio, movies, and newspapers created celebrities known across the country. Americans followed the exploits of individuals whose achievements made them stand out from the crowd. Some of the best-loved heroes of the decade were athletes. Each sport had its stars. Bobby Jones won almost every golf championship. Bill Tilden and Helen Wills ruled the tennis courts. Jack Dempsey reigned as world heavyweight boxing champion for seven years. At the age of 19, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

Question 15

What was the influence of College Football during the 1920s? Who was Red Grange of the University of Illinois?

Answer 15

College football also drew huge crowds. Many Americans who had never attended college rooted for college teams. They were thrilled to watch the exploits of football stars like Red Grange, the “Galloping Ghost” of the University of Illinois.

Question 16

How did baseball play an important part in Roaring Twenties Culture? Who was Babe Ruth, or “the Sultan of Swat”? What records did he set?

Answer 16

Americans loved football, but baseball was their real passion. The most popular player of the 1920s was Babe Ruth. He became the star of the New York Yankees. Fans flocked to games to see “the Sultan of Swat” hit home runs. The 60 home runs he hit in one season set a record that lasted more than 30 years. His lifetime record of 714 home runs was not broken until 1974.

Question 17

Who was Charles A. Lindbergh, the most celebrated hero in Roaring Twenties Culture? What amazing feat had he accomplished?

Answer 17

The greatest hero was Charles A. Lindbergh. On a gray morning in May 1927, he took off from an airport in New York to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean—alone. His was the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. For more than 33 hours, Lindbergh piloted his tiny single-engine plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, over the stormy Atlantic. He carried no map, no parachute, and no radio. At last, he landed in Paris, France. The cheering crowd carried him across the airfield. “Lucky Lindy” returned to the United States as the hero of the decade.

Question 18

How did World War I and other factors influence the celebrated young writers of the 1920s? What was an expatriate?

Answer 18

A new generation of American writers earned worldwide fame in the 1920s. Many of them were horrified by their experiences in World War I. They criticized Americans for caring too much about money and fun. Some became so unhappy with life in the United States that they moved to Paris, France. There, they lived as expatriates, people who leave their own country to live in a foreign land.

Question 19

Who was Ernest Hemingway? What was his experience with war? What did he often write about?

Answer 19

Ernest Hemingway was one of the writers who lived for a time in Paris. Still a teenager at the outbreak of World War I, he traveled to Europe to drive an ambulance on the Italian front. Hemingway drew on his war experiences in “A Farewell to Arms”, a novel about a young man’s growing disgust with war. In “The Sun Also Rises”, he examines the lives of American expatriates in Europe. Hemingway became one of the most popular writers of the 1920s. His simple but powerful style influenced many other writers.

Question 20

Who was F. Scott Fitzgerald? What topics did he mainly write about? What made him appealing to young adults?

Answer 20

The young writer who best captured the mood of the Roaring Twenties was Hemingway’s friend F. Scott Fitzgerald. In “The Great Gatsby” and other novels, Fitzgerald examined the lives of wealthy young people who attended endless parties but could not find happiness. His characters included flappers, bootleggers, and moviemakers. Fitzgerald became a hero to college students and flappers, among others.

Question 21

Who was Sinclair Lewis? What topics did he often write about? In 1930, he became the first writer to win what?

Answer 21

Sinclair Lewis grew up in a small town in Minnesota and later moved to New York City. In novels such as “Babbitt” and “Main Street”, he presented small-town Americans as dull and narrowminded. Lewis’s attitude reflected that of many city dwellers toward rural Americans. In fact, the word babbitt became a popular nickname for a smug businessman uninterested in literature or the arts. In 1930, Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

Question 22

Who was poet Edna St. Vincent Millay? What did she often write about?

Answer 22

Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was enormously popular. She expressed the frantic pace of the 1920s in her verse, such as her short poem “First Fig.”

Question 23

True or False: Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote poetry about youth, rebellion, and romantic ideals.

Answer 23

Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote poetry about youth, rebellion, and romantic ideals.

Question 24

Who was Eugene O’Neill? What topics did he often write about? How were his plays unique during the Roaring Twenties?

Answer 24

Another writer, Eugene O’Neill, revolutionized the American theater. Most earlier playwrights had presented romantic, unrealistic stories. O’Neill shocked audiences with powerful, realistic dramas based on his years at sea. In other plays, he used experimental methods to expose the inner thoughts of tortured young people.

Question 25

In the 1920s, African Americans of which professions were traveling to Harlem? What event did this lead to?

Answer 25

In the 1920s, large numbers of African American musicians, artists, and writers settled in Harlem, in New York City. “Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual,” said one African American writer. This gathering of African American artists and musicians led to the Harlem Renaissance, a rebirth of African American culture.

Question 26

During the Harlem Renaissance, what did the many young black writers write about? What did many white Americans do for the first time?

Answer 26

During the Harlem Renaissance, young black writers celebrated their African and American heritages. They also protested prejudice and racism. For the first time, too, a large number of white Americans took notice of the achievements of African American artists and writers.

Question 27

Who was Langston Hughes? What was his role in the Harlem Renaissance? What topics did he write about?

Answer 27

Probably the best-known poet of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. He published his first poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” soon after graduating from high school. The poem connected the experiences of African Americans living along the Mississippi River with those of ancient Africans living along the Nile and Niger rivers. Like other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes encouraged African Americans to be proud of their heritage. In other poems, Hughes protested racism and acts of violence against African Americans. In addition to his poems, Hughes wrote plays, short stories, and essays about the African American experience.

Question 28

Who were Countee Cullen and Claude McKay? What role did they play in the Harlem Renaissance? What topics did they discuss? What were their backgrounds? What were their achievements?

Answer 28

Other poets such as Countee Cullen and Claude McKay also wrote of the experiences of African Americans. A graduate of New York University and Harvard, Cullen taught in a Harlem high school. In the 1920s, he won prizes for his books of poetry. McKay came to the United States from Jamaica. In his poem “If We Must Die,” he condemned the lynchings and other mob violence that African Americans suffered after World War I. The poem concludes with the lines “Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, / Pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back!”

Question 29

Who was Zoe’s Neale Hurston? What was her role in the Harlem Renaissance? What was her background? What were her contributions and works?

Answer 29

Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up in Florida, wrote novels, essays, and short stories. Hurston grew concerned that African American folklore “was disappearing without the world realizing it had ever been.” In 1928, she set out alone to travel through the South in a battered car. For two years, she collected the folk tales, songs, and prayers of African American southerners. She later published these in her book Mules and Men.