Essay On 1920s Movies

In the 1920’s, movies became an important American pastime that evolved because of new technology, the end of World War I, and the economic boom of the 1920’s. Movies became a common American pastime; they evolved from silent movies to talkies, movies with a synchronized soundtrack. Movies played a huge part of the 1920’s by influencing culture and society because of how accessible and entertaining they were, and changed morals and expectations of media. Before the 1920’s, movies were in its infancy stages. The ideas of movies were first thought of by Athanasius Kircher in the 16th century. He theorized a way to project pictures using a light source to project the picture. With the invention of electricity, though, movies could finally begin to evolve. The first motion picture camera was invented in Oct. 6, 1889 by Thomas Edison (Sklar). He called it the Kinetoscope, a peep-show viewing device. However, Edison did not get an international patent on it, and because of this, the Kinetoscope was legally copied and improved upon in Europe(Sklar). The Lumière brothers in Paris created a lightweight, hand-cranked projector called the cinématographe. In 1896, Edison began to manufacture his own projectors that he called the “Vitascope (Sklar).” The technology had limited capabilities.

In the early 20th century, movies were in

Movies offered a way to escape the troubles of life at a very low cost, which was extremely necessary after the stock market crash of 1929. Even though the country was in a bad economic state, Hollywood continued to produce hit after hit. In 1939, The Wizard of Oz was the first color film. Movies entered their “Golden Age” (UW Staff). “Drive in theatres” opened, John Wayne starred in his first western, and the first “bombshell” blonde, Jean Harlow, came to be a huge celebrity (Naughton and Smith). The already popular industry boomed even