Honors History Essay #2: The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring 20's ushered in many new changes for American society, culture, the US economy, technology and more. Describe the most significant changes during the 1920's. Support your essay with direct evidence (quotes, statistics, etc.) from relevant history texts such as Nation of Nations and A People's History of the US.

The 1920's, otherwise known as the Roaring Twenties, was a time of change in America. There were major changes in not only the economy, technology and education, but the overall lifestyle of American citizens.

Things got more lenient in the 1920's. The average hours of a job, each week, decreased from over 47/week to 42/week during this decade. With all this extra time, people spent more time engaging in activities of recreation, such as spectator sports. With this, football got big, and baseball got bigger. Stadiums were built larger to accommodate the large fan count. Ohio's state notable 64,000 seat stadium is an example of such.

The concept of "dating" took over the 19th-century tradition of courtship. Premarital intercourse became more of a talked subject (although casual sex was rarely admitted). Tea parties went out of fashion, and "petting parties" were in. Similar frilovity occurred in the younger culture of the 1920's, where teenagers in high school took part in newly created school events, such as athletics, proms and clubs. Young adults in college joined sororities and fraternities. People of all ages enjoyed the popular new thing: dancing. In the mid-20's, new dances such as the charleston and the camelwalk spread in popularity, along with the growing new sound of jazz. Jazz was a different type of music that nobody had understood before. The new music fad started when blues players from New Orleans played in Carnegie hall.

The roaring twenties was also an era for Harlem Renaissance. Starting in the early decade, this renaissance consisted of artwork, sculptures and literature created by the black American citizens, inspired by the previous "first mass movement of African Americans in history" (the Universal Negro Imporvement Association, created by Marcus Garvey, in the previous decade). These artists found their subjects for writing, sculpting and painting on the streets of cities and preindustrial cultures. The topics are seen as a pattern in the works done during this time. This renaissance was supported by a minority of white patrons, but was overall seen as an alienation from white Americans.