Social And Cultural Changes In The 1920s

ome significant reform movements that impacted society were Labor reform and women's rights. In the 1900’s, particularly 1910 women were not respected and seen as second-class citizens. Woman were brought up as children to learn to serve others and focus on the men before there own. They were expected to be full time wives and mothers, and not having an option on how to live. Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Lucy Stone, and Ida B. Wells are some of the woman who started reforms for woman suffrage.

The 1920s carried much change in society. Some of these changes were more rights for women, jazz music, and prohibition. The people of the 1920s were disillusioned by society lacking in idealism and vision, sense of personal alienation, and Americans were obsessed with materialism and outmoded moral values (The Roaring Twenties).Cultural changes were strongly influenced by the destruction of World War I ending 1918. America needed to recover and with it youth rebelled against the norms of the older generations.

During the 1920s, Word War I had just ended and people were ready to celebrate. Although 1920 had its good times and perks, some bad things were going on, like cultural clashes. The first major cultural clash was the Great Migration. The Great Migration is known as the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural south to the urban north cities. The second major cultural clash was the national origins act.

Many people come from vast variety of cultures that consists of different ideas and beliefs. In today’s culture we tend to live in a fast paced, growing environment. Sexism has been very controversial topic for decades and gender roles have been changed drastically throughout the past decades. People in America in the 1930’s were very conservative and had strict rules and ideas that had to be followed. The moment a male or a female did anything out of their gender’s role; it was misunderstood and looked upon as a sin.

The 1920 's is remembered and referred to as the "Jazz Age," or the "Era of the Lost Generation," which had its share of cultural conflicts between many groups and organizations. In the article of The New Woman and Politics of the 1920 's, by Lynn Dumenil, he explains how the "new woman" of the era also know as a "Flapper," was a symbol for women 's roles in society. The article states that "women 's participation in the workforce, and the political activism of these newly enfranchised citizens, offers a vehicle for broadening our understanding of the social, economic, and political developments of the era. " When the article mentions "women 's participation" this to me, became a major influence to changes in American politics, society and

If you ask an American what it was like in the 1920’s I am sure you would get a completely different answer than if you asked an Immigrant. In School we are taught about the “Jazz Age.” We talk about the jazz music, movies, and flappers, but what people don't realize, is that there are two different ways people lived and acted during this time period. The “New Immigrants” who came from foreign countries such as Poland, Romania, and Italy did not have the same experiences as the Americans. These immigrants were treated differently because they spoke differently and had different religions and customs.

Coming of age is a time or trials and triumphs in a young adolescent's life. It involves many obstacles that need to be overcome in order to become an adult. However, obstacles are not the only thinking that a youth will encounter. Through the journey, they will happen upon successes and triumphs that will add to the shaping of who they are to become. One can easily assume that the events taking place in the world would have a strong influence on how a young comes of age.

The 1920’s were a major step backwards for many reasons, including what I believe, to be the most important issue which was racism. After WWI, many people began to feel frightened about foreigners, “Immigrants were also despised due to the postwar flood of available workers and the dwindling of available positions.” (From Lecture) A strong hatred was directed towards African Americans who began migrating to more urban areas during WWI due to available job positions, especially by the renown organization the Ku Klux Klan who, “…did it’s part to take social justice into their own hands and discriminate against immigrants, African Americans, and numerous other “undesirables”.” The KKK would savagely hunt, perform “surgery below the belt”, and

The culture and the arts are one of significant resources when studying history. They often give great hints and ideas to what the actual life was like in the periods being studied. Adding to that, they are not only a form of entertainments, but also have a strong political influence. Therefore, they are reviewed and treated carefully by historians. The USSR during the 1930s is no exception even though it was under a totalitarian regime.

American way of life. The popular image of the 1920’s as a care-free, frivolous, even anarchic “Jazz age, is partly colored by the popular image of the American 1920’s when America began to exert a strong influence on British and European popular culture (Popalwski, 2008: 542-543). In fact, that was a decade when the popular culture began to take on its typically modern forms, with the rapid growth in popularity of cinema especially spreading other popular fashion, for instance, clothes, hair, speech and manners, interior decoration and music. There were hedonistic modes of ‘living for the day’, among the middle and leisured classes.

The 1920s was a crazy decade for Americans. More people were now living in rural areas instead of the country side, the wealth of the country doubled, and many were buying the same things due to better advertising, but the most exciting thing was the new lifestyle changes that were happening to women. Societies view of a woman would completely change during this amazing decade. Women were now able to vote, try new fashion styles, listen to more unique music, and experience a new social freedom. The most drastic change was women’s lives in politics.