I'd really like to sail into the Roaring Twenties
.
So let's sail a?
Roaring Twenties
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=684n8FO68LU
Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, that emphasizes the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. Normality returned to politics in the wake of World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, Art Deco peaked, and finally the Wall Street Crash of 1929 served to punctuate the end of the era, as The Great Depression set in. The era was further distinguished by several inventions and discoveries of far-reaching import, unprecedented industrial growth and accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle.
The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity, a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, movies and radio proliferated 'modernity' to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality, in architecture as well as in daily life. At the same time, amusement, fun and lightness were cultivated in jazz and dancing, in defiance of the horrors of World War I, which remained present in people's minds. The period is also often called "The Jazz Age".
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The 1920's were Broadway's prime years, with over 50 new musicals opening in just one season. Record numbers of people paid up to $3.50 for a seat at a musical. It was also a decade of incredible artistic developments in the musical theatre.
Even in the 1920's the lights of Broadway lit up the billboards at night in a huge splash of color that was immortalized in song. The dazzling lights were an attraction in their own right that compared with the shows in popularity.
The Broadway shows were produced by showmen who took musical theatre seriously and tried to provide quality entertainment while making a profit at the same time. This attitude kept the musical theatre booming right through the 1920s. Among the hundreds of popular musical comedies that debuted on Broadway in the early 1920s, two classic examples epitomise the Broadway musical of that era - Sally and No, No, Nanette.
Tea For Two - No No Nanette (Doris Day)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=58YzXvL3IYU
Film poster for the 1925 film "The Phantom of the Opera".
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a 1921 silent movie
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L7RCRlnsbe0
The 1921 film is a fictional story inspired by the history of World War I.
There is a famous tango sequence in this movie.
1920's CARS
Prohibition in the United States.
During Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. Prohibition was supposed to lower crime and corruption, reduce social problems, lower taxes needed to support prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. Instead, Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; organized crime blossomed; courts and prisons systems became overloaded; and endemic corruption of police and public officials occurred.
In 1919, the requisite number of legislatures of the States ratified The 18th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, enabling national Prohibition within one year of ratification. Many women, notably the Women's Christian Temperance Union, had been pivotal in bringing about national Prohibition in the United States of America, believing it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol.
Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Federal Prohibition agents (police) were given the task of enforcing the law.
Even though the sale of alcohol was illegal, alcoholic drinks were still widely available at "speakeasies" and other underground drinking establishments. Many people also kept private bars to serve their guests. Large quantities of alcohol were smuggled in from Canada, overland and via the Great Lakes.
Prohibition also presented lucrative opportunities for organized crime to take over the importing ("bootlegging"), manufacturing, and distributing of alcoholic drinks. Al Capone, one of the most infamous bootleggers of them all, was able to build his criminal empire largely on profits from illegal alcohol.
Every passing year the number of repeal organizations and demand for repeal increased. In 1932, the Democratic Party's platform included a promise to repeal Prohibition, and Franklin Roosevelt ran for President promising to repeal of federal Prohibition laws. By then, an estimated three quarters of American voters, and an estimated forty-six states, favored repeal.
In 1933, the legislatures of the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Amendment XVIII and prohibited only the violations of laws that individual states had in regard to "intoxicating liquors". Federal Prohibitionary laws were then repealed. Some States, however, continued Prohibition within their own jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of the states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents to vote for or against local Prohibition; therefore, for a time, 38% of Americans still lived in areas with Prohibition. By 1966, however, all states had fully repealed their state-level Prohibition laws
1920's Jewelry
Costume Jewelry increased in popularity during the 1920's
After the First World War the new fashions for women were casual as well as sporty, and were not very well suited to the formal nature of precious stones. The Art Nouveau movement had already shifted the public's focus to appearance rather than cost. Following the war there was a major trend toward non-precious jewelry.
The Art Deco movement was a popular design style of the 1920's that often used strong colors and geometric shapes to convey the "modern" look. It used sleek, streamlined forms to convey elegance and sophistication. This was a period of wonderful new inventions, upbeat music, and flappers. Jewelry materials ranged from the new plastics through to rubies, gold, and platinum. Platinum was the new luxury metal used with stones like coral, jade, aquamarine, citrin, onyx and opal. Trend-setting designers were Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.
Inspiration came from such diverse sources as Nature, China and Japan, and the Pharoahs of Egypt. Following Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb and artifacts in 1922 Egyptian motifs were the rage. While many of the designers of the 1920's based their jewelry on geometric forms: circles, arcs, squares, rectangles and triangles etc. there were other designers who took their inspiration from nature.
Business/Economy
Boom and Bust in the U.S. and World Economies
Fueled by easy money the nineteen-twenties were boom times like never before. The post-war recession was forgotten as everyone went on a spending spree. Credit, and not savings, enabled consumers to boost corporate profits to new levels.
The 1920's saw new discoveries and inventions in nearly every field of endeavor that became the foundation of thriving businesses. Patent attorneys did a roaring trade and nearly every man fancied himself as an inventor if the number of patent submissions was anything to go by.
New business and production methods allowed manufacturers to make large profits which they plowed back into new factories and wage rises. Department store and service station chains used massive buying power and operating efficiencies to lower prices while increasing service and choice, helping wages to go further. Henry Ford used his huge buying power to setup discount grocery stores for his employees, much to the annoyance of local store owners.
Increased incomes, along with the introduction of credit, funded a huge increase in consumer spending. Only some of the increased affluence found its way into insurance as a provision for retirement.
People living in the cities and areas of industry benefited most from the increased prosperity although there were arguments to the contrary. Those living in rural areas did not benefit to the same extent, and this was made worse by widespread drought. This encouraged population movement from rural areas to cities, a trend which has continued down to the present day. In 1926 alone the Department of Agriculture calculated that the nett migration in favor of the cities was over one million people.
The Share Market climbed to dizzy heights as speculators bought on margin, and following well publicized successes, the general public joined in looking for easy profits. Shares could be purchased for a down-payment of 10%, the remainder of the price being financed by a loan from the share broker. When stock prices eventually slumped many investors had to sell shares to meet "margin calls" forcing share prices to drop further, exacerbating the problem and leading to the Share Market crash of October and November 1929.
Chicago Stock Exchange
From one extreme to the other - Boom to Bust. The magical prosperity vanished almost overnight as people lost confidence following the Stock Market crash, and despite everything that governments could do, America and much of the world slipped into a harsh depression that only ended ten years later with the start of World War 2.
1920's Dancing
In the 1920's new kinds of dancing evolved along with the new Jazz and Blues music.
The new music and dances were fast paced and energetic, like the optimistic 1920's themselves. They were an escape from the horror of war, and an opportunity to release pent up emotions created by the restricted lifestyles forced on the public by the war effort
Ragtime which had been popular during and after the war was suited to the new music tempos and so it flourished. Old favorites like the Waltz and Foxtrot remained popular due to people like Arthur Murray who ran dance schools and published "How to" books on all the popular dances. Dances like the Tango and Charleston received a huge boost in popularity when featured in movies by stars like Rudolph Valentino and Joan Crawford. Freed from the restrictions of tight corsets and the large puffed sleeves and long skirts that characterized dress during the late Victorian era, a new generation of dancers was swaying, hugging, and grinding to the new rhythms in dances.
While the new dances appealed to the youth they were not so popular with the older, more conservative generation who saw jazz in particular as decadent. This was partly due both to the nightclubing and parties that were the venues for the dancing, and to the style of dance itself. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" illustates the lifestyle of young people at this time.
It is worth pointing out that in the early 1900's both the Waltz and the Tango were considered scandalous dances because they involved physical contact between partners during the dance. Once the dance crazes which took off in Paris were demonstrated in America, they were embraced by the public and close dancing became a social norm. In the 1920's and 30's the Lindy hop, named for the pilot Charles Lindburgh's first solo flight, emerged and was the first dance to include swinging the partner into the air, as well as jumping in sequence.
People saw the new dances in Hollywood movies and practiced them to phonograph records or to radio broadcasts before going out on the dance floors of nightclubs or school gymnasiums. Dancing was a major part of peoples entertainment and an important part of every party. Schools taught dancing to small children, while churches used dances to attract young people. Tangos, Foxtrots, Camel Walks, even Square dances (which were heavily promoted by Henry Ford) were popular.
Young people introduced their own fashion styles and so the "flapper" and "sheik" came into existence. Young women with short bobbed hairstyles, close fitting hats and short skirts were referred to as flappers, and young men with ukeleles, racoon coats and bell-bottom trousers were called "sheiks".
Dancing began to actively involve the upper body for the first time as women began shaking their torsos in a dance called the Shimmy. Young people took to throwing their arms and legs in the air with reckless abandon and hopping or "toddling" every step in the Foxtrot, and soon every college student was doing a new dance which became the Toddle.
The dance that epitomizes the 1920's is the Charleston. The Charleston was introduced to the public in the Ziegfield Follies of 1923 by the all black cast Afro-American Broadway musical "Running Wild", and became so popular that even today, it is still a symbol for the 1920s Jazz Age. The Charleston is characterized by outward heel kicks combined with an up and down movement achieved by bending and straightening the knees in time to the music. Flappers with their knock knees, crossing hands, and flying beads danced the Charleston, and a dance called the "Black Bottom", first introduced in a 1926 Broadway production. Within the year, the dance swept not only America, but the entire world.
The Charleston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJC21zzkwoE
The overwhelming popularity of the Charleston inspired choreographers and dance teachers to fabricate and promote several new fad dances to a public hungry for novelty. A new style of Blues Dancing also developed to fit the disreputable atmosphere of the speakeasy. It seemed as if the good times would never end, however the prosperity and optimism of the 20's came to a halt with the Stock Market crash on Black Monday in September of 1929. America's mood changed significantly during the Great Depression that followed
and now.....
WAKE UP EVERYONE
(oh oh oh - apologies for anything factually incorrect - heck - don't anyone start flapping ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!
)
) to protest the injustice you are leaving? and who gains and who loses?? Its we who will lose you and miss you..and it is you who will lose us and the miss us..do we both deserve it dear?
some do, some don't, so what 