Entertainment in America was appearing all over the place.
People wanted anescape from reality, they wanted to escape life. To do this, they turned toentertainment. In music, Jazz was the big hit. White composers popularizedJazz. Irving Berlin’s “Alexander Ragtime Band” was a big hit through themasses. The most powerful form of entertainment was the movies.
The movieswere generally controlled by brilliant Jews who spent countless hoursperfecting it. Great movie stars ; directors were Gentiles, but the peoplethat helped them were Jewish. The stars of movies were declared cultural heroes. These heroes, moresotemporary celebrities, were worshippped by the masses.
These heroes set thestandard for acting. Radios had a much stronger appeal compared to records. this was probably because once you bought the radio, listening was free. This was much better than changing the record every 4 minutes.
At first,radio broadcasters did not know what to broadcast. Quality was not a bigconcern in radio. The people would basically listen to anything. Radiodrama slowly developed, since directors thought it could not compete withmovies.
The tradition of going to the movies every weekend was developedduring the 1920s. The art movement was also flourishing in the 1920s. Art basically came fromtwo sources: American influence and different forms of expressions. Manysaid it was impossible for an American artist to thrive in America. Although Mark Twain went to Europe, his work stayed in America.
He enjoyedwriting from an American perspective. Ernest Hemingway, one of the mostpopular writers of the era, wrote about Americans in different countries. Before WW1, all writers were Anglo-Saxon. In the 1920s, however, one thingbecame popular: the creativity of the Jewish people. No other decade inhistory produced the amount of literary genius created by this era. Some ofthe most well known writers were in their prime during this eraA few to name would be Ernest Hemingway, e.
e. cummings, John Steinbeck,Robert Frost ; Wallace Stevens. Foreign works did not have much influencein America, with the exception to the work of Irishman James Joyce ;Frenchman Marcel Proust. The two Renaissances, Harlem ; Southern, bothproduced much African-American literature.
Throughout the 1920s, peoplebecame concerned with fashion. Developments in the design of attire,architecture ; automobiles helped define the decade. The war may have ended in November 1918, but the impact it had on theeconomy was substantial. But it picked up with Europe’s demand for rawmaterials. Agricultural exports soared & farmers became wealthy. Farmerssuffered eventually though, once European supply had been restored.
Manyfarms expanded, leaving them with un-needed land. With the exception offarmers, the economy flourished. Demand for automobiles & radios becamegreat. You could find radios in grocery stores. Hotels & large buildingsbegan developing in every major city.
Chain stores began appearing in drug& grocery markets. Prices began rising but many had jobs and wages weregood. Being a stockbroker surpassed the popularity of being a lawyer orphysician. The 1920s was an era where Entertainment prospered, Art flourished, andBusiness boomed. It was an Era which all things were good and a majority ofthe middle class was happy.
