IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
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New forms of entertainment

During the 1920s sport became popular with the great mass of the people for the first time. For most Americans baseball became the craze. it was a sport in which working class men could excel without any expensive equipment or training. All that was needed was a 'good eye' for the ball. The greatest hero of all was Babe Ruth (right), who became the highest paid sportsmen of his day in 1927 when he earned $80,000.

Boxing also became a very popular sport, largely because of the rivalry between Jack Dempsey (left) and Gene Tunney. Dempsey, like Babe Ruth, was an ordinary working man. They both seemed to represent the idea of the USA. It did not matter what your background was, if you had the talent and the ability, you could succeed.

But sport was not the only new form of entertainment in the 1920s. Dancing became very popular. Not only were there new dances, but for the first time night clubs and dance halls opened that catered for thousands of people. Dancing competitions were organised that went on for days. But the greatest form of entertainment of all was the motorcar. It offered a new form of freedom that people had never experienced before. For the first time Americans were able to explore their own country in comfort at a time when the government was just beginning to build freeways (motorways) all over the country.

All of these new forms of entertainment took advantage of two important changes. Firstly there was an increasing number of Americans who had time to spare to enjoy themselves. This change had been brought about by the new consumer goods that had been made so much cheaper by the invention of the production line. Secondly, Americans now had the money to spend on the new forms of entertainment. They could afford to buy tickets to baseball games or to go to the cinema. By 1930, 95 million cinema tickets were being sold each week. Not only were people now able to buy labour saving devices, but they could also enjoy better entertainment. At the same time, for many people, wages rose and prices remained the same or even fell. The price of a motor car fell by 60 percent after the introduction of the assembly line. Everybody seemed to be getting better off.

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