M04 Overview

The Jazz Age (1919-1929)

Figure 1. Photograph of Carter And King Jazzing Orchestra a jazz quintet in Texas, 1921. Photograph by Robert Runyon, image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

 

In this module, students will also examine postwar America, both the affluent sector and those left out of the seemingly widespread prosperity of the 1920s. As the economy improved for the middle and upper classes, rural Americans and people of color watched their quality of lives erode under corporate expansion, evangelical Christianity, and white supremacy.  In a decade in which general prosperity, quick riches in the stock market, and new technologies held out the promise of success to all, many found their dream always just out of reach.

The 1920s was a decade of paradox and contradiction. Conflicting trends persisted throughout the decade: prosperity and poverty, optimism and disillusionment, inventiveness and intolerance, flamboyant heroism and fallen idols, anxiety and affluence. The Jazz Age, known as the Roaring Twenties, was an era of American history that began after World War I and ended with the start of the Great Depression in 1929. The popularity of the new jazz culture resulted in both positive and negative consequences within American society in the 1920s.

Jazz was an early bridge between the American mainstream and Black culture, it was the first time we see a minoritized group included in popular culture. Although white performers took over the music and navigated its spread among American society at large, the music was an early vehicle for the integration of some aspects of Black culture into white society. Jazz music represented a symbol of freedom in the form of lyrical prose and musical expression that quickly became popular among middle-class white Americans. Young people in the 1920s, captivated by jazz, were the first generation of teenagers and young adults to rebel against their parents’ traditional culture. The influence of jazz also positively impacted the women’s rights movement. As women gained the right to vote after World War I, they also achieved more social and financial freedom, which allowed some women to live more liberated lives despite traditional gender roles. Women were finally allowed to be free with their language, style of dress, relationships, and they even began to connect with other like-minded women. 

This era aided in the status elevation of Black Americans, however there was a very serious White reactionary movement to this success. The Ku Klux Klan grew to record highs reaching over four million members in the 1920s, in addition to several other White supremacist groups that formed. The Klan’s movement railed against the “urban” popular culture captivating the White youth and the growing wages of Black entertainers. The Klan created a nationwide campaign that called for society to “Americanize Americans”, proclaiming that all Black persons, immigrants, Jews, and Catholics were not true Americans, and therefore were a problem that needed to be removed.

The Great Depression (1929-1932)

Figure 2. A photograph shows a row of urban shanties, with several of their inhabitants sitting outside.

Figure 2. In 1935, American photographer Berenice Abbott photographed these shanties, which the unemployed in Lower Manhattan built during the depths of the Great Depression. (credit: modification of work by Works Progress Administration)

 

On March 4, 1929, at his presidential inauguration, Herbert Hoover stated, “I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope.” Most Americans shared his optimism. Hard times had hit the United States before, but never had an economic crisis lasted so long or inflicted as much harm as the slump that followed the 1929 crash. After nearly a decade of supposed prosperity, the economy crashed to a halt. People suddenly stopped borrowing and buying. Industries built on debt-fueled purchases sold fewer goods. Retailers lowered prices and, when that did not attract enough buyers to turn profits, they laid off workers to lower labor costs. With so many people out of work and without income, shops sold even less, dropped their prices lower still, and then shed still more workers, creating a vicious downward cycle.

The stock market crash of October 1929 set the Great Depression into motion, but other factors were at the root of the problem, propelled onward by a series of both human-made and natural catastrophes. Anticipating a short downturn and living under an ethos of free enterprise and individualism, Americans suffered mightily in the first years of the Depression. As conditions worsened and the government under President Hoover failed to act, they grew increasingly desperate for change. While Hoover could not be blamed for the Great Depression, his failure to address the nation’s hardships would remain his legacy.

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