The Roaring Twenties in Australia.

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The 1920’s, or the “roaring twenties” was the beginning of a modern age. For many Australians, it was a time for breaking out, of questioning and changing old values and behaviour and enjoying the good life. The age of jazz, silent movies, massacres, social dislocation and turmoil had begun with the end of the most devastating of wars which brought a period of great optimism and progress for many in Australia. (SOURCE 1 PG 49) This “good time decade” brought many changes including technological advances, the economy strengthened, the barrier of isolation began to break, communications improved and the population grew. However the most significant change was that of women during the 1920s and this will be the basis of this essay.

The 1920s was about enjoying the peace and the good things of life. The wealth of some people and the introduction of jazz music, new fashions, motion pictures, wireless and motor cars earned the decade the title of the “roaring twenties”. Jazz came from the United States and along with it came some of the atmosphere of America in the 1920s, with an emphasis on booze, thrill seeking crime and youth rebellion. The great barrier of isolation began to break down with the growing popularity of the automobile and other forms of transport came of age as Australians began to take to the air. Australians embraced the automobile with great enthusiasm. By 1929 there were over 450 000 registered motor vehicles on the roads, but they remained expensive. In 1924 a Ford model T cost 185 pounds ($370) at a time when the wage for an average working man was 5 pounds ($10) a week. (SOURCE 3.14 PG 108) Aviation was also the great adventure of the twenties. In May 1928 Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm became the first men to fly across the Pacific Ocean and in the same year, the Flying Doctor Service began in Cloncurry Queensland using Aircraft owned by the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service or QANTAS which was founded in November 1920 by Hudson Fysh and P J McGuiness.

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The most predominant change of the twenties was that of women. In the 1920s it was women more than men who began to challenge the old ways of the past. Young women now demanded greater freedom, equality and independence and they quickly embraced the changes in lifestyle and manners that came with the 1920s. The restricted and uncomfortable fashions of the pre-war years gave way to the new styles. Whalebone corsets and elaborate dresses and hats were out. From the mid-1920s the length of these dresses shortened dramatically, much to the distress of the more conservative elements in Australian society. ...

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