Social And Cultural Rebellion In The 1920's

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The Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, the dry decade, the prosperity decade, the age of normalcy, and the New Era are all labels given to the United States society in the 1920s. World War I ended just two years before this decade of change, and the question is whether the changes were caused by society and culture, or by the economy. In Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle’s “Taking Sides,” Gilman M. Ostrander and David A. Shannon discuss whether the 1920s were an era of social and cultural rebellion. Through their strong arguments, Margaret Sanger’s speech to the delegates, and David E. Kyvig’s descriptions of the 1920s in “Daily Life,” I believe that the 1920s were not an era of social and cultural rebellion, but an attempt to adjust to…show more content…
First of all, the presidential election in 1921 was the first time that women exercised their right to vote. News of the election results were broadcasted on the radio, which symbolized the beginning of the radio age. The most significant American literary renaissance of the twentieth century occurred during this decade, when both F. Schott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis published important novels in the year 1920. Throughout the 1920s, many unforgettable events took place in the United States. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put on trial for charges of murder and robbery, and later the two were convicted and executed. The Ku Klux Klan rose in the early years of the decade, reached a peak in 1925, and then began to fall again. In January of 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect, prohibiting alcohol and leading to mobs. Al Capone made his name known by leading one of these mobs which manufactured and traded alcohol. In 1925, education clashes occurred over whether or not evolution should be taught in schools. President Harding was involved in scandals, and then died in 1923 by poisoning. Sound and talking were put into motion pictures in 1927, beginning with “The Jazz Singer.” All of this glory and growth was put to an end in 1929 with the crash of New York Stock Exchange. The prosperity of the 1920s ended, and the Great Depression began. (Campbell, Madaras,
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