1920

1920

January 16th Eighteenth Amendment Prohibition Begins

August 18th Nineteenth Amendment To The Constitution ratified giving women the right to vote

November 21st Irish Revolution Irish Revolution Bloody Sunday (Black and Tans) arrive in Dublin

September 16th Wall Street Bombing

January 2nd Palmer Raids

The war in Europe was over but politicians realized that many men who were coming home after the war would not have homes to go to and Britain was one of the countries that tried to address this by announcing it would build 1,000,000 homes for war veterans.

The 1920s was a decade of exciting social changes and profound cultural conflicts. For many Americans, the growth of cities, the rise of a consumer culture, the upsurge of mass entertainment, and the so-called "revolution in morals and manners" represented liberation from the restrictions of the country's Victorian past. Sexual mores, gender roles, hair styles, and dress all changed profoundly during the 1920s. But for many others, the United States seemed to be changing in undesirable ways. The result was a thinly veiled "cultural civil war," in which a pluralistic society clashed bitterly over such issues as foreign immigration, evolution, the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, women’s roles, and race.

The 1920s was the first decade to have a nickname: “Roaring 20s" or "Jazz Age." It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation, and of jazz bands, bootleggers, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, bootleggers, and marathon dancers. It was, in the popular view, the Roaring 20s, when the younger generation rebelled against traditional taboos while their elders engaged in an orgy of speculation. But the 1920s was also a decade of bitter cultural conflicts, pitting religious liberals against fundamentalists, nativists against immigrants, and rural provincials against urban cosmopolitans.

Have you ever heard the phrase “the roaring twenties?” Also known as the Jazz Age, the decade of the 1920s featured economic prosperity and carefree living for many. The decade began with a roar and ended with a crash.

To paraphrase Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, and sometimes it was the worst of times.”

The 1920s was a decade of change, when many Americans owned cars, radios, and telephones for the first time. The cars brought the need for good roads. The radio brought the world closer to home. The telephone connected families and friends. Prosperity was on the rise in cities and towns, and social change flavored the air. A substantial growth of industry occurred in North Carolina, especially in the areas of tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Some rural farmers were leaving their farms in order to receive a regular paycheck in the factories. Unions were on the rise. Women shortened, or “bobbed,” their hair, flappers danced and wore short fancy dresses, and men shaved off their beards.

In 1920 the average life span in the United States was about fifty-four years, whereas today it’s about seventy-seven years. In 1920 the average time a student spent in school each year was 75 days, and today it’s about 180 days.

In 1920 the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, creating the era of Prohibition. The amendment forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. Many people ignored the ban, however. In 1933 the amendment was abolished, and it became the only Constitutional amendment to be repealed.

The 1920s began with the last American troops returning from Europe after World War I. They were coming back to their families, friends, and jobs. Most of the soldiers had never been far from home before the war, and their experiences had changed their perspective of life around them. After seeing Europe, they wanted some of the finer things in life for themselves and their families.

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