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
• Links

The roaring twenties

The years of war led to a reaction in the 1920s, when many people were determined to have as much fun as possible. As prices fell, people had more money to spend on enjoying themselves. For many, the 'Roaring Twenties' were a time of fun, parties, prosperity, jazz music and frantic dancing. It was also called 'The Jazz Age'. New dances and music were all the rage, the 'Charleston', the 'Black Bottom' and jazz. Jazz evolved from black music and became almost the only way that Blacks could be successful in America. Jazz clubs were especially popular during Prohibition.

Jazz was a new form of music that had evolved from earlier forms of black music such as blues and ragtime. Its spread was helped by the movement of blacks from the south to the northern cities during the war. New night clubs were opened, with performers such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.The appeal of jazz was that it offered a sense of danger and excitement. For the first time white Americans began to understand and appreciate the music and traditions of black Americans.

During the war, women had taken jobs previously closed to them. Although they lost most of these jobs when the soldiers returned, they did not surrender their freedom. In 1920 all women got the vote. 'Flappers' were young, liberated women of the 1920s, who smoked in public, wore short dresses and drove their own cars. This produced a great change in American society. For the first time women began to make a mark of their own. Instead of having to play second fiddle to men, women began to demand recognition. Many of the most famous film starts of the 1920s were women. In the 1930s, it was women film stars who attracted all of the attention.

But the changes to the lives of women in the 1920s did not stop at the ways that they dressed and behaved in public. Financially, many young women became independent of their parents and no longer had to live at home. This meant that women became more independent and could decide for themselves much more easily. Contraception also became much more freely available and the divorce rate began to rise. But these changes took place most strongly in the big cities and were only really possible if women had significant incomes. For the great majority of American women there were few changes in the 1920s. Life could still be very hard and it was usually men who made all of the decisions.

But the Roaring Twenties was not just about film stars, music and flappers. It was a time when the USA was confident. It had won the First World War (or so Americans thought), it had sorted out the problems of the 'Old World' and now it could look forward to a bright and certain future. There seemed to be no reason why people in the USA could not go on getting richer and why life could not go on getting easier.

Next: Advertising and Consumerism

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