Chapter 20The Jazz Age

Section 2Cultural Innovations

Art & Literature

• During the 1920s, American artists, writers, and intellectuals began challenging traditional ideas as they searched for meaning in the modern world.

Greenwich Village and the South Side

• The artistic and unconventional, or Bohemian, lifestyle of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Chicago’s South Side attracted artists and writers.

• These areas were considered centers of creativity, enlightenment, and freedom from conformity to old ideas.

Modern American Art

• The European Art movement influenced American modernist artists.

• Edward Hopper revived the visual accuracy of Realism.

Poets and Writers

• Carl Sandburg – used common speech to glorify the Midwest and the expansive nature of American life.

Poets & Writers

• Edna St. Vincent Millay – expressed women’s freedom and equality and praised a life intensely lived.

Poets & Writers

• T.S. Eliot – described a world filled with empty dreams and foresaw a world that would end “not with a bang but a whimper.”

Poets & Writers

• Eugene O’Neil – focused on the search for meaning in modern society.

Poets & Writers

• Ernest Hemingway – Often created characters who were “heroic antiheroes” – flawed individuals who still had heroic qualities of mind and spirit.

Popular Culture

• The economic prosperity of the 1920s afforded many Americans leisure time for enjoying sports, music, theater, and entertainment.

• Radio, motion pictures, and newspapers gave rise to a new interest in sports.

Baseball

• Babe Ruth – became a national hero, famous for hitting hundreds of homeruns (714).

Babe Ruth

Boxing

• Jack Dempsey – World Heavyweight Champion from 1919 to 1927.

Football

• Red Grange – aka “the Galloping Ghost” was one of the most famous football players of the 1920s

Golf

• Bobby Jones – best golfer of the decade.

• First golfer to win the U.S. Open and British Open in the same year.

Tennis

• Bill Tilden – dominated the tennis world.

Swimming

• Gertrude Ederle – shattered records by swimming the English Channel in a little over 14 hours.

Gertrude Ederle

The Rise of Hollywood

• Motion pictures became increasingly popular.

• The first “talking” picture, The Jazz Singer, was made in 1927.

• The golden age of Hollywood began.

Popular Radio Shows & Music

• The mass media – radio, movies, newspapers, and magazines – helped break down the focus on local interests.

• Mass media helped unify the nation and spread new ideas and attitudes.

End of Section 2

Next: Section 3African American Culture