Sometimes people see the 1920’s as a decade of fun, loud music and enjoyment, but not everybody lived in that way. There were two kinds of
people at that time, the ones who “joined the party” and the ones
who didn’t. Also, we might say that was a time of rebelion and liberation for the young.
In this decade we had the young people which were starting to grow while the United
States was doing it too. For them, it was a time of change. Entertainment was developing, people had more
spare time and money was destined to entertainment. This mas a time of enjoyment for the young. Music and radio became very popular during this period of time. The jazz music became the sensation
for young people, the black people had brought it to the cities. The jazz also brought other aspects, such as
new dances like Charleston and created new attitudes, like the way
of dressing and behaving. On the other hand we had the old generation, which saw Jazz in relation with corruption and not an influence for the teenagers in USA.
Other aspect that young people
enjoyed was the cinema this took a lot of popularity in Americans but
especially among the young. In Hollywood film buisness started to develop and new attitudes. As
the film industry discovered how interested people where in sex movies, alcohol, crimes, presenting women as sex symbols and picturing behaviors
which till that time were rarely common. Meanwhile, as young were delight with these sensational and
wild movies the old generations were worried by the avalanche of sex obsessed
films which they said it were against the moral. Some states propusse to
introduce a censorship code, that didnt favor the cinema industries and was successful.
Also increassed the production of cars that the majority of Americans enjoyed at that time, but especially
for young people. The car was very important because young, they could open new posibilities.
Women started to rebel themselves towards
society. They started to show in public with make up and with short dresses and this were denominated as “flapper girl”. They started to smoke, drink alcohol and many started to take jobs and get divorced. Even though in rural areas
all stayed the same, older people saw these behaviors as a sign of disrespect
and loss of control.
Black people saw this decade as one with a lot of discrimination and violence, but they started to have the opportunity
of getting better jobs and education, in some places there was a “black middle
class”.
Also there were people who didn’t find the “roaring twenties” so roaring. For them
it was just a time of suffering. First of all, there were the
farmers that for them this time was a decade of struggling to keep going with their
lives. It was a time of changes also, but no good changes. Many were forced to migrate to rural areas
since they couldn’t keep up with the life of the countryside, tones of them
unemployed.
The fear of communism because black people were entering to the USA, republicans
made the immigrants loss the right of entering the USA, being discriminated. White pople created an association against black people named "Ku klux klan" that apllied violence and sometimes killed black people.
Finally we might say
that the 1920’s was a time of prosperity and fun, but just just for the young. For them this decade where they enjoyed life, but for the ones that "didnt enojoy the party" was a peiod of time of suffering and loss.
