America in the 1920s: Radical Social Change as a Result of Technological Innovation
Important periods in American history are remembered with nostalgia and awe by the subsequent generations. The 1920s are mainly remembered in American culture for the changing attitudes of the youth, who embraced modern ideas and embraced the technological and ideological changes at the level of the society. Thus, America faced changes of an unprecedented scale in the 1920s (Palmer, 2006). The nation’s economic social and cultural identity underwent profound transformations during this time (Palmer, 2006). Americans enjoyed economic growth, political stability, and an unprecedented transformation due to the technological advancements. Novel technologies and inventions allowed people to spend more time performing leisure activities, thus giving birth to a new cultural environment, and to new ideas about what having a good life meant. During this time, the consumer market developed, and women increased their participation in the public and political arena. They became valuable on the labor market. More women gained financial independence, and many married women also got employment, in order for the family to live a better life. The changing ideologies led to tensioned relations between different categories of the population, namely the poor and the rich, men and women, African-Americans and Whites, young and old, republicans and liberals. These conflicts caused social turmoil which resulted in a radical transformation of the society. While the technological advancements of the early 20th century represented the primary cause of this transformation, the economic, cultural and political realities of the time also had a great impact on the society and combined, these factors created the premises for modernity, and for a more cohesive national identity.
An important advancement in technology which changed the social landscape in America was the spread of the radio and the moving pictures. As Kyvig (2004) showed, this development helped to bring communities closer, and represented the dawn of a new culture, shared by everyone, no matter how remotely they lived. People became more attracted to competitive sports which were broadcasted live, to classical music and were more informed on political and public matters (Kyvig, 2004). In 1929, Harbord praised the radio for spreading information and creating more intelligent listeners, and freeing the society of the risk of social or political uprising by putting space among political enthusiasts (Harbord 1929). However, as with most technological innovations, the radio became a threatening force because of its unknown powers. Apart from the radio, the automobile also changed people’s lives to a great extent, and reduced their isolation rapidly. The automobile became the most important technological advancement of the 1920s, because it changed the way people conducted business, met their daily necessities, and spent their leisure time (Kyvig 2004). Young people took advantage of the freedom provided by automobiles in order to gain more freedom in their romantic relationships. These new commodities and technologies increased people’s living standards and changed their beliefs about what a good life means.
New technologies allowed people to spend less time performing manual tasks, which had taken large amounts of their time, both at work and at home. At home the new apparels which emerged on the market benefited women the most. Kywig (2004) argued that, “the advent of electrical home appliances altered the work routines of most married women in cities and towns large enough to be electrified” (p.64). This is because many middle-class women stopped spending most of their time taking care of the home, as it had happened before, and could spend their time pursuing hobbies, shopping, entertaining themselves, or self-educating. In this context, the media encouraged women to consume and normalized the image of the woman as concerned mostly with her own image, and passionate about shopping. These changes were noticed by European visitors, who noted that “American women autocratically “rule the roost,” and that American men exist and labor largely to pour more spending money into their wives’ laps” (Frederick, 1929, p.1). Therefore, technological advancements both helped to develop a consumer market where women had become the primary customer, but also helped women to escape from their endless housework, and to develop in different directions, thus contributing to feminine emancipation.
Freed from the task of keeping the house clean, and of spending so many hours in the kitchen, women could take jobs and seek financial freedom. They could pursue educational programs and transform their passions into businesses. More than in any other country in the world, women worked and had their own businesses, even after entering a marriage (Frederick, 1929). This new reality was commented in the newspapers of the time, where women’s new occupations were signaled as a result of the industrial revolution. As more women were drawn towards the labor market, new solutions for children’s care and education had to be found. As Calverton (1929) showed, “If the mother has children, their lives are no longer confined only to the narrow boundaries of a single house, but have a chance at a more varied and stimulating form of growth”(n.p). This author’s attitude towards the loss of patriarchal family models is very positive, which shows that the society was ready for the change towards female financial independence, even if this meant removing children from the home for several hours each day. More money spent on the diversified entertainment choices such as the popular moving pictures, and on consumer goods of all kinds, meant that the ordinary American family needed more money in order to satisfy the yearning for a good and easy life. Working outside the home eventually became a necessity for women, even after marriage, and the society encouraged this trend, because it allowed women to spend more money on different goods.
Apart from technological change, social change also came through the changing ideologies that were accentuated in the 1920s by politics, by the realities of war, and economic growth. The 1920s were characterized by fractured political landscape, and a great gap between liberal and republican goals, as reflected in the larger social divide between conservatory views and modernizing trends. In addition, “the distribution of wealth during the 1920s moved disproportionately towards upper-income earners, but so did the overall tax burden, as more low-income earners were removed from the tax rolls” (Palmer, 2006 p.177). This practice remained constant throughout this era. Furthermore, the government funding was directed towards care for wounded veterans, improved standards of maternity care, for the development of the highway, radio and airplanes, which demonstrate the commitment towards improved standards of living, social welfare, but also, towards progressiveness and modernization. This was best reflected in the changing aspect of the cities, which became industrial and business centers. The transformation of the cities was not necessarily regarded in a positive light. Mumford (1926) showed that, for people in the city, were richer, but also, more depressed in lack of outdoors and green spaces. Housing became more expensive, cities became overcrowded and the skyscrapers, symbols of industry and technology, conquered the cities.
This era’s political climate was characterized by a renewed commitment towards democratic values and led to the release of antiwar protestors (Palmer 2006). However, this increasing trend towards free democratic dialogue and women’s newly acquired right to vote, which had been determined largely by women’s participation in the war effort, raised popular fears regarding the risks of radical democracy. For example, in an article on the topic, Carey (1928) claimed that ultra-democracy should be abandoned in favor of a combination of democracy and aristocracy, where the noblest and the most intelligent Americans should be trained to lead the country, after being elected by the people. This mistrust in democracy was based upon the disappointment in the politicians. For example, President Harding remained known in history for his disappointing mandate, due in particular to his personal failures (Palmer 2006). Moreover, Americans complained that the ruling class war corrupt and inefficient (Carey 1928). The increasing awareness and public participation was facilitated by easier access to information for everybody. For the first time, in the 1920s, people become aware of what happened throughout the world, and they were less ignorant in many daily aspects (Kyvig 2004). Because information means power, as a whole, the American people became more powerful and able to influence public policy.
This era was characterized by a change in women’s activism and political emancipation as well. The increased affluence of the feminist movement was largely determined by a historical event, namely the World War I. During this time, women had been active in the war effort, which gave them access to the public sphere after the war. Following their victory in 1920, when they won the right to vote, women needed to establish new goals, and to define their place in the political arena. In an article on the topic, Dumenil (2007) showed that on one hand, women needed to overcome differences in class, race, age, and ideologies, which separated them, and on the other hand, they needed to break the political barriers which continued to limit their access to active political participation. However, the right to vote made both Democrats and Republicans more willing to approach women’s issues, due to the fact they wanted to attract their votes (Dumenil, 2007). Women met the prejudicial beliefs of the society that they should focus entirely on problems that fell under women’s ‘areas of expertise’ such as “municipal housekeeping” (Dumenil, 2007, p.23). Moreover, most positions granted to women were marginal and did not hold any power or influence. This shows that men continued to believe that they are best qualified represent women’s interests, which continued the paternalistic tradition in American society. By trying to deny their right to political participation, men continued to hold on to the belief that men were better qualified for politics.
The internal fragmentation of women’s movement was primarily based on race, and secondly, on ideology. In regards to ideology, women’s experiences were extremely different, depending on their class, age, and even geographical location. Urban women were more likely to adopt the emancipatory trend, whereas rural women continued to live more conservatory lifestyles. In this respect, Owen (2007) argued that, while the motion pictures helped to establish the stereotype of the “fun-loving urban flapper” (p. 35), the women who embraced this identity were less numerous than the media portrayals suggested. Besides, they were represented primarily by young city women, whose mothers loudly decried their attitudes on sex and fashion. Also, not all women could afford the new appliances which transformed the lives of middle-class wives, and they continued their previous lives unaffected by these changes. These discrepancies were widely reflected in women’s activism and their relationship during this period.
The race division was also extremely important and kept African American women from promoting their own issues, such as the Jim Crow law, lynching, and abuses against African American women, male disenfranchisement and many other problems (Dumenil 2007). However, the white feminist movement was unwilling to support the efforts of their African American counterparts. African American women faced a double task of overcoming race and gender discrimination. As such, their efforts were integrated in the wider movement for the empowerment of the African American individual. African American women tried to express their right to vote based on the freshly passed amendment but Whites refused their registration, based on the same channels that kept African American males away from political participation, namely tax and educational qualification, grandfather clauses and harassments (Dumenill 2007).
Faced with the expanding enfranchisement of a large group which had been previously denied this right based on gender inferiority, White Americans feared that this will establish a precedent which would soon be followed by the right to vote granted to African-Americans. The fear that this perspective created at the level of the society is expressed for example in the work of Walter White, a writer in whose novels, the issue is discussed. In the novel, the white community leaders said:
“We know that we can’t keep the ballot from the Negro always. But,” he ended with a shrug of the shoulders and a thrusting-out of his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of perplexity and despair Kenneth was learning to know so well that he was associating it instinctively with the Southern white man, “we’d stir up more trouble than we could cope with” (White 1924, p. 10).
This fragment expresses the feelings of imminence, and fear that dominated the American public in regards to African-American political participation. Political participation could have meant increased rights for African Americans, more power to eliminate discriminatory legislation, and increased self-determination. At the time however, white Americans were not at all prepared to make room for African American citizens, and continued to perceive them as inferior. For this reason, in an article on the topic, Marcus Garvey (1922) showed that the African American individual “cannot resort to the government for protection for government will be in the hands of the majority of the people who are prejudiced against him, hence for the Negro to depend on the ballot and his industrial progress alone, will be hopeless as it does not help him when he is lynched, burned, jim-crowed and segregated” (p.10). The solution that Garvey advocated for was relocation in Africa. This became the dream of many African Americans who believed that they could not have a future in America. Going back to Africa seemed the only possible solution for the racial problem.
However, while being isolated and denied political participation, African Americans gained increasing access to the larger American culture during the changing ideology which embraced everything ‘new’, including newly discovered African American art. Palmer (2006) showed that:
The young of the 1920s were the first to push against the barriers of gender, class and race discrimination. White youths mixed with black in the Jazz clubs of Orleans and Chicago, whilst young women experienced a greater degree of economic and sexual freedom. The impatience of the younger generation with the moral and beliefs of the older was palpable throughout the decade (p.4).
The increasing prominence of the African American culture, which included jazz music, was part of this renewal of the American cultural life. As Ogren (1992) showed, jazz soon became a national phenomenon, and signaled an era of profound change. Jazz inspired people to be more dynamic and therefore it was associated with urban life and industrial revolution (Ogren 1992).The embrace of the jazz music, and the Harlem Renaissance culture meant far more than adopting a new musical style. It meant embracing the African American culture at an unpreceded rate. While in the past, African Americans had been entirely isolated from Whites because of historical oppression, jazz and the Harlem culture in general gave Whites an opportunity to to come in contact with, and to learn to appreciate the African-American tradition, and its cultural richness. This new openness meant more opportunities for African Americans, who became appreciated and reached fame as performers or writers, at unprecedented rates. The integration of the African American culture in the wider national consciousness led to increased cohesiveness and a higher sense of national identity.
When the 1920s came to an end, and the economic crisis unexpectedly hit the American people, the society had definitely changed radically. The technological advancements which brought innovative appliances in the lives of ordinary Americans not only led to an economic boom, but also to a transformation of the society as a whole, including the cultural landscape and ideology. Such novelties as the motion picture, the invention of the radio and the spread of electricity improved people’s lives and allowed them to focus more on leisure activities and self-improvement. New technologies influenced women’s lives in particular, because they allowed them to spend less time on housekeeping, and encouraged their personal growth. However, on the other hand, historical events such as the First World War, also contributed to a great extend to the social change which occurred during this period. In particular, in what gender issues are concerned, the war effort brought women the right to vote, which further led to debates regarding women’s role in the public arena, and African-American enfranchisement. All these changes caused social conflict and opposed different categories of the population, but these conflicts had a positive outcome because they sparked dialogue among different groups and helped to establish a more cohesive national identity.
References
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