The Clash Of Culture In The 1920's

The 1920s were a busy and crazy time for Americans, I can’t imagine how overwhelming it was for many people. So many truly great events and themes occurred in the ‘20s, but also a lot of less fortunate events. We learned about the Clash of Cultures, the “New Woman”, new innovations, as well as many other topics. In the ‘20s, the city was the place to be. With new appliances, speakeasies, and the more and more popular car, it was where interesting things were happening. At least this was the opinion of most modernist “wets” of the time. Life was changing in the city but many older people and rural populations disagreed with the new lifestyle. They kept their traditional ways, refusing to adapt to the new more carefree-seeming attitude many …show more content…
Women had gotten the right to vote just before the ‘20s. This seemed to have a jump start in women’s attitude and a lot of women became “flappers”, a term used for women that were going against traditional ways; wearing short dresses, having short hair, going on dates without an escort, dancing with men, etc. A third huge movement was the invention and popularity of the radio. In the Roaring ‘20s, the Jazz age, how could you live without a radio? It was becoming a necessity, one that was unifying the US through the shows broadcasted. The radio changed what American culture was, making it more together, making jokes that the whole of America understood instead of divided races of immigrants or blacks vs. whites. The ‘20s is commonly nicknamed The Jazz Age because of how popular the genre of music became. Jazz was providing a new spin on music and dance, the Charleston was common. Jazz is a combination of African folk music with European harmonies and is usually improvised and was the main influence for ragtime, blues, and …show more content…
The name ‘Red Scare’ meant the fear of radicals. Another bad event was the major rise in the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was taking over some parts of the US and was widely feared, with 3 or 4 million members at their peak. Their ways seemed to take over some of the government in the south, like the incident of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial. All in all, the ‘20s was a good time - in the moment. There was a lot of advancement in what was socially acceptable for women to do. It was mostly for the benefit of our current lifestyles that so many of our appliances, especially the radio, were popularized in the’20s. Along with the mass of good things though, just like any other time period, not all was happy. There was still huge rises in the KKK and people weren’t happy with our government. In this instance, the good probably weighed out the bad for the most