In New York, they were in great need of performers. He then played in many clubs and dance halls. He then started his own band. Even when Duke started, the people could tell a difference in his music from other artist's music. Duke often traveled around to different places. This way his music became known all over the world. During his touring around the world, Duke composed thousands of songs. Duke Ellington was considered one of the most famous music artists of the decade and century.
There were many entertainers during the 1920's. Charlie Chaplin is known as one of the best comedians ever. He did many silent movies that made everyone get a good laugh. Harry Houdini on the other hand amazed everyone with his spell binding tricks and stunts.
Charlie Chaplin was a great Comedian/ Actor. He pleased audiences world wide and he performed excellently in the 1920’s as well. As a child he played small roles on stage and was appreciated sufficiently. During 1912, Chaplin came to the America where he was noticed by Mack Sennett, head of the Keystone Studios, and signed a contract with them.
Harry Houdini is known today as a famous magician of the 1920’s. He performed many amazing magic tricks that left many people amazed. In 1922, Harry Houdini formed his own production company called the Houdini Picture Corporation. He also started to write a book called, "The Man from Beyond"
Radio
Most radio historian’s claim that radio broadcasting began in 1920 with the broadcast of ‘KDKA’. Only a few people heard the voices and music which were produced because of the lack of radio receivers at that time whereas the public was overcome by a radio craze after the original broadcast. Radio became a product of the mass market. Manufacturers were weighed down by the demand for receivers, as customers stood in line to complete order forms for radios after dealers had sold out. Between 1923 and 1930, 60% of American families purchased radios.
Families gathered around their radios for night-time entertainment. As radio ownership increased, so did the number of radio stations. In 1920, KDKA was not actually the only operating radio station, but it remains a target in most accounts.
By 1922, 600 radio stations had sprung up around the United States. Chicago's first radio station, ‘KYW’, begun in 1921 by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, was the first specialized radio station, broadcasting exclusively opera six days a week.
The radio station experienced immediate popularity and continued to be a favorite in Chicago.
After the opera season ended, the station owners saw the need to diversify their programming. They began broadcasting things like popular music, classical music, sporting events, lectures, fictional stories, newscasts, weather reports, market updates, and political commentary. Radio stations like KYW enhanced a sense of community among different ethnic groups as each group could listen to programming suited to their interests and needs. However, the advance of radio technology also created a tension between modernity and the traditions and habits of Americans.
Sport
Sports gained popularity in the 1920's. School teams were formed for students. Several sports, such as golf, that had previously been unavailable to the middle-class became open. Record-breaking athletes also attracted many new people to various physical activities.
The decade of the 1920's is often referred to as the Golden Age of Sports. This was a time when America and the world wanted to put the memory of the Great War behind them and enjoy life. That war provided an economic boom for Americans, along with the timing of the automobile becoming the common means of transportation and many other new modern devices finding their way into the homes people had more free time on their hands then ever before. So with this free time they turned their attention to sports. It was good timing on their part because in this decade they got to watch the exploits of Jack Dempsey, Man O' War, The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, Red Grange, Big Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen, Eddie Shore and Howie Morenz, Bobby Jones and the biggest of them all Babe Ruth. What a decade it was. So I thought I would go back and replay some of the famous games, series and events that these legends of their sport played in. I thought it would be a fun and interesting way to look back at these greats in time when it seems we all are looking back as this century is nearing its end.
The 1920s were called the Golden Age of Sports.
From the very beginning of the decade extraordinary athlete/heroes appeared in virtually every sport—baseball, football, tennis, golf and the Olympic sports. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Red Grange, Knute Rockne, Helen Wills, Bill Tilden, Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Jack Dempsey, Benny Leonard, and Tommy Hitchcock established records and, in the process, became legends. The most popular sport in the twenties was usually baseball and soccer.
Cinema
In the period immediately following World War I, movies were a popular escape into fantasy for many people, and the film industry boomed. The boom was helped by the hyperinflation of the early 1920s. This enabled film makers to borrow money in Papiermarks which would be vastly devalued by the time it had to be repaid.
Nevertheless film budgets were tight and the need to save money was a contributing factor to the rise of German Expressionism, as was the desire to move forward and embrace the future that swept most of Europe at the time. Expressionist movies relied heavily on symbolism and artistic imagery rather than stark realism to tell their stories. The film usually credited with sparking the popularity of expressionism is Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
Most Americans were unconcerned about the dark side of life. They were too busy enjoying the prosperity of the 1920s. American industry had expanded during the Great War, making weapons, uniforms, equipment etc. This expansion continued after the war, helped by America's massive reserves of raw materials and by high tariffs (import duties on foreign goods).Tariffs made foreign goods dearer, so American goods were bought. Some industries were also given subsidies (cash support), which increased their profits. So there was a boom (the economic expansion).
The greatest boom was in consumer goods, e.g. cars, refrigerators, radios, cookers, telephones etc. Ordinary people were encouraged through advertising to buy these goods and many could now afford what had been luxuries before the war. One reason was that they earned slightly higher wages because of the boom. Another reason was that the growth of hire purchase meant that people could spread the cost over months and even years. But the main reason was that goods had become cheaper, e.g. 1908 the average cost of a car was $850 1925 the average cost of a car was $290.This was because of "mass production" methods used to produce many consumer goods. Assembly lines were built in factories and each worker concentrated on one small job only. The most famous example of this method was Henry Ford's factory which was fully automated (many of the jobs done by machines).Because of mass production and automation one Model T car was produced every ten seconds.
Gangsters and Prohibition
Prohibition and the gangsters are an important part of America's history in the 1920's. America experienced the Jazz Age and the young who formed the basis of this period's fame wanted alcohol.
1920 was often described as a decade of contrasts and conflicts. Freedoms in dress, behavior, and sexual attitudes clashed with a new Puritanism. The automobile was replacing the old horse and buggy. There were conflicts between the traditional small-town way of life and a new urbanism and cosmopolitanism. In the 1920s, some Americans saw life as a glorious orgy, with the popularization of Freud, songs such as "Hot Lips" and "I Need Lovin,'" and movies called "Up in Mabel's Room" and "Her Purchase Price." On the other hand, religious fundamentalism underwent a rebirth, as people tried to latch onto the traditional moral standards--either real or imagined--of bygone years. Overall, the decline of the Anglo-Saxon class as the most influential group in American society characterized this time period. Even as the power of the Anglo-Saxon establishment was on the wane, one of its final attempts at holding onto control was the passage of national Prohibition.
Al Capone
Al Capone is America's best known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of law and order in the United States during the 1920s Prohibition era. Capone had a leading role in the illegal activities that lent Chicago its reputation as a lawless city.
Al Capone's mug shot, 1931. (CHS DN-91508)
Capone was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York. Baptized "Alphonsus Capone," he grew up in a rough neighborhood and was a member of two "kid gangs," the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. Although he was bright, Capone quit school in the sixth grade at age fourteen. Between scams he was a clerk in a candy store, a pinboy in a bowling alley, and a cutter in a book bindery. He became part of the notorious Five Points gang in Manhattan and worked in gangster Frankie Yale's Brooklyn dive, the Harvard Inn, as a bouncer and bartender. While working at the Inn, Capone received his infamous facial scars and the resulting nickname "Scarface" when he insulted a patron and was attacked by her brother.
In 1918, Capone met an Irish girl named Mary "Mae" Coughlin at a dance. On December 4, 1918, Mae gave birth to their son, Albert "Sonny" Francis. Capone and Mae married that year on December 30.
Ku Klux Klan – (K.K.K)
Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K) is the name of a number of past and present fraternal organisations in the United States that have supported white supremacy, anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Catholicism, homophobia and nativism. These organisations have often promoted the use of terrorism, violence and acts of intimidation such as cross burning to oppress African Americans and others. The Klan's first incarnation was in 1866. Founded by veterans of the Confederate Army, its main purpose was to resist Reconstruction, and it focused as much on intimidating "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" as on putting down the freed slaves. It quickly adopted violent methods. A rapid reaction set in, with the Klan's leadership disowning violence, and Southern elites seeing the Klan as an excuse for federal troops to continue their activities in the South. The organization was in decline from 1868 to 1870 and was destroyed in the early 1870s by President Ulysses S. Grant's vigorous action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act).
The original Ku Klux Klan was created after the end of the American Civil War on December 24 1865 by six educated, middle-class Confederate veterans who were bored with postwar routine from Pulaski, Tennessee. The name was constructed by combining the Greek "kyklos" (circle) with "clan. It was at first a humorous social club centering on practical jokes and hazing rituals but soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a "reign of terror" against Republican leaders both black and white.
Those assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds, three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who had served in constitutional conventions.
From 1866 to 1867, the Klan began breaking up black prayer meetings and invading black homes at night to steal firearms. Some of these activities may have been modeled on previous Tennessee vigilante groups such as the Yellow Jackets and Redcaps.
In an 1867 meeting in Nashville, an effort was made to create a hierarchical organization
with local chapters reporting to county leaders, counties reporting to districts, districts reporting to states, and states reporting to a national headquarters. The proposals, in a document called the "Prescript," were written by George Gordon, a former Confederate brigadier general. The Prescript included inspirational language about the goals of the Klan along with a list of questions to be asked of applicants for membership, which confirmed the focus on resisting Reconstruction and the Republican Party. The applicant was to be asked whether he was a Republican, a Union Army veteran, or a member of the Loyal League; whether he was "opposed to Negro equality both social and political;" and whether he was in favor of "a white man's government," "maintaining the constitutional rights of the South," "the reenfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights," and "the inalienable right of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power.