The+Roarin'+20s



media type="custom" key="12731452" As you will no doubt notice, the 20s turn out to be as different from the preceding era as night is from day... let's begin!

media type="custom" key="12731470" The election of Warren Harding and the sea change both in politics and culture starts the decade of the Twenties - about as different a decades from its predecessor and successor as is possible. Flappers! Prohibition! Sex! Modernity! Conservatism! The twenties has it all.. this is an introduction to this always popular unit.

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media type="custom" key="12731484" This lecture looks at the long road to women getting the vote in American history finally comes to an end... and that end is plenty anti-climactic. We review all the way back from Abigail Adams to Seneca Falls, and then to the final Suffragette push in the early 20th century up until the passage of the 19th Amendment. Along with Prohibition, the 19th Amendment's passage is the high-point of Progressive Era reforms.

media type="custom" key="12731488" Let us examine the development of the radio, the motion picture (with sound!), and the automobile and moving assembly line; the greater idea is the phenomenon of science working hand in hand with business to build a "consumer economy" with advertising, celebrities, and easy credit. We look at the synergy among all these technologies as they are brought to market and sold to the public, and how this Hamiltonian dynamic of growth and profits changes the way Americans tell their stories and live their lives.

media type="custom" key="12731494" Here we look at the political, social, and artistic achievements and ideas evolving from the "Harlem Renaissance" in the 1920s - Marcus Garvey, UNIA, Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, and all that jazz. We look at the idea of the "New Negro" and the emerging idea of "black is beautiful" that would play such an important role in later African American civil rights visions.

media type="custom" key="17199168" In order to get the feel of the Harlem Renaissance, one must hear the words of Langston Hughes with a jazz accompaniment, as is seen and hear here.

media type="custom" key="12731502" The first eight minutes of the "Jazz" documentary by noted filmmaker Ken Burns is an excellent introduction to this uniquely American form of music. It also briefly introduces some of the most notable jazz musicians we will look at. "We know an age more vividly through its music than through its historians," claimed Roseanne Ambrose-Brown, and this is even more true with the 1920s than with other ages.

media type="custom" key="12731506" Leonard Bernstein directs the New York Philharmonic and himself solos on piano in this 1975 performance of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" performed in London. As you listen to this piece, think to yourself the modern ringing out proudly in its diversity and newness in New York of Jewish musicians and African American Harlem of 20th century urban America.

media type="custom" key="12733286" As British conductor Sir Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Philharmonic, watch Daniel Washington sing George Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So" from the 1935 Opera "Porgy and Bess." This performance took place outdoors in a summer evening of "American music" for Germans in the Waldbuhne amphitheater in Berlin. Watch the stiff Teutons try to swing it and pull off an imitation of African American life in the South!

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media type="custom" key="12733328" Today we probably find white performer Fred Astaire dancing in "black face" to be a bit embarrassing -- even more than a bit embarrassing! It seems to embrace stereotypes of African Americans that are outdated and not "politically correct." But Fred Astaire in this famous dance number seeks to pay homage to the famous Harlem tap dancer and actor Bill Robinson. Watch Astaire dance to three of his own shadows in this creatively staged and filmed movie sequence, not to mention dancing itself. For a whole variety of reasons this segment from the 1936 movie "Swing Time" tells us much about the America of that time.

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media type="custom" key="12733402" This lecture deals with the good, bad, and ugly of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover - and the difficulties the Democratic Party had in finding a candidate that could unify its disparate and dissimilar forces. Al Smith was NOT that candidate in 1928!

media type="custom" key="12733438" This lectures deals with the "laissez faire" economic policies of the Republican 1920s, and its treatment of American farmers and European debtors. We shall show how farmers experienced the Great Depression a decade earlier than the rest of the country and how Republican governments blocked moves to use government to alleviate their misery, and we shall look at the dubious Dawes plan which moved money from country to country to satisfy political concerns without creating wealth or productivity. No wonder the Crash was just around the corner!

media type="custom" key="12733474" This lectures deals with foreign policy in the 1920s, as America tried to sign treaties and bring about safety in the era of American non-involvement in international affairs. The guiding metaphor is "benefits without burdens," as the United States tries to negotiate its security situation without being willing to apply real political pressure and engage the outside world.

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media type="custom" key="12733520" This lectures deals with foreign policy in the 1920s, as America tried to sign treaties and bring about safety in the era of American non-involvement in international affairs. The guiding metaphor is "benefits without burdens," as the United States tries to negotiate its security situation without being willing to apply real political pressure and engage the outside world.

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media type="custom" key="12733616" This lectures deals with the Scopes Monkey Trial and the teaching of evolution in the public schools, as well as the larger cultural significance as rural and urban America square off. We look at not only the events and outcome of the trial, but how the country chose to look at the perception of what had happened; and this is a perfect introduction to the "conservative" backlash of the 1920s and the modern-day rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

media type="custom" key="12733636" This lectures builds on the previous lecture on evolution, and the growing conflict between science (secular) and faith (religion) in American life. We look at the cultural conflict between the countryside and the city (the "east" and "west" in Gatsby) during the 1920s and then examine the "culture wars" of today. We end up looking at this dynamic through Jewish and Muslim cultures, and showing how this "change" versus "continuity" dynamic is a human, not merely an American, phenomenon.

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media type="custom" key="12733738" This video is of Louis Armstrong playing an old Joe Oliver tune, the "West End Blues." We look at this piece of music in the context of our larger discussion on "popular culture" and whether it has any real artistic value or not. As Armstrong emerged from the brothels and pimps of the Storyville section of New Orleans, might contemporary American pop culture today be giving birth to great artists who will be hailed in the same tone by the judgment of History as are Bach, Beethoven, Gershwin, and Duke Ellington?

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