Topic 1.4 - Cultural Changes

Question 1

State three notable artists of the 1920s

Answer 1

• Count Basie
• Duke Ellington
• Louis Armstrong

Question 2

What was the genre of literature during the 1920s?

Answer 2

Focus on disillusion and despair

Particularly in terms of the stifling morality and material obsessions in American Life.

Question 3

State two popular fad sports in the 1920s

Answer 3

• Crossword puzzles - Increasing popularity
• Flagpole sitting - decreasing popularity.

Question 4

When was the first modern crosswords published?

Answer 4

1917

Boston Globe

Question 5

When was the first book of puzzles published and by whom?

Answer 5

1923

Simon and Schuster

Question 6

Give two examples of popular card games

Answer 6

• Mahjongg
• Contact Bridge

Question 7

Give an example of a dance marathon

Answer 7

Chicago marathon went on for 119 days

Question 8

Give examples of new leisure activities that emerged in the 1920s

Answer 8

• Dance Marathons
• Crossword puzzles
• Card games
• Roller-skating
• Rocking horse derbies

Question 9

What was the bunion derby?

Answer 9

1929

• ran coast to coast
• An attempt at 3,400-mile transcontinental race.
• 55 runners actually accomplished the feat
• 84 days running

Question 10

Who was the original creator of flagpole sitting?

Answer 10

Shipwreck Kelly

• A failed boxer calling himself the luckiest fool alive.
• 1929- spent 145 days on various flagpoles.
• One of the emulators 15 y/o Avon Foreman sat for 10 days.
• keeping the spirit of early America alive

Question 11

State two dances created due to jazz music.

Answer 11

Charleston

Black bottom

Question 12

What was the nickname given to women who seemed to have little moral restraint?

Answer 12

Flappers

Question 13

Give an example of a radio station in the 1920s

Answer 13

KDKA in Pittsburgh set up 1920

Question 14

By 1922 how many radio stations were there in America?

Answer 14

500

Question 15

What was the first national network? and the second?

Answer 15

NBC - 1926

CBS - 1927

Question 16

Why were some people scared of radios and tv’s?

Answer 16

Invisible energy flying through the air must be dangerous and cited dead birds as evidence.

Question 17

How many people listened to the 1927 boxing match between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey?

Answer 17

50 million

Question 18

How much did a typical model radio cost?

Answer 18

$150

usually paid on credit

Question 19

What proportion of furniture was spent on radios?

Answer 19

33% 1927

• 1923 - 1930 60% families had radios.

Question 20

How much was spent on radios in 1929 compared to 1923?

Answer 20

1923 - $60 million

1929 - $842 million

Question 21

Give an example of a company advertising/ sponsoring radios

Answer 21

• August 1929
• Toothpaste company Pepsodent sponsored comedy series ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’ on NBC
• 40 million

Question 22

Where was the centre of the cinema industry?

Answer 22

Hollywood, LA

4th largest capital investment

Question 23

In one day how many people went to the movies?

Answer 23

10 million people in 20,000 cinemas.

Question 24

How many cinema’s were there in America 1920s?

Answer 24

20,000

• Eg. the Roxy in NYC Costing In the region $7-$10 million to build.
• Including - Three organs, A huge chandelier, A red carpet worth $10,000 and 118-piece orchestra.

Question 25

Who was the 'It Girl' and what did she symbolise?

Answer 25

Clara Bow Symbolised the modern liberated women

Question 26

Who was known as the 'vamp' and what did she symbolise?

Answer 26

Theda Bara Exuding a dangerous sexuality.

Question 27

Who was the action hero of America 1920s?

Answer 27

Douglas Fairbanks

Question 28

Name two comic geniuses in America 1920s

Answer 28

* Buster Keaton * Charlie Chaplin

Question 29

State the first sound film

Answer 29

The Jazz Singer 1927

Question 30

State two emerging sports in the 1920s

Answer 30

Boxing Baseball

Question 31

How many people watched the Demsey-Tunney match?

Answer 31

50 million 22 September 1927

Question 32

Who was a famous boxer in 1920s?

Answer 32

Jack Dempsey * Made $10 million

Question 33

Who was a famous baseball player in the 1920s?

Answer 33

Babe Ruth * $80,000 - Salary * $1 million - Over playing career

Question 34

Give two examples of baseball players

Answer 34

New York Yankee team-mates * Babe Ruth * Lou Gehrig

Question 35

State a baseball stadium in America

Answer 35

West Side Grounds in Chicargo

Question 36

What made baseball so popular?

Answer 36

* Charismatic players * Introduction of cork-centred ball that was easier to hit. * Increased the fascination with the spectacular home runs

Question 37

What was the baseball league for black Americans?

Answer 37

the Negro National Baseball League * **1920** * East-West All Star game saw **30,000 spectators.** * Players **earning less than half** those of **white** counterparts * playing **3 times a day every day** * The biggest black-American owned business in the USA

Question 38

What law did President Harding fail to pass in 1922?

Answer 38

Bill to outlaw lynching

Question 39

Where represented the ghettoisation of America?

Answer 39

Harlem * Population growth * 1914 - 50,000 * 1930 - 165,000 * Rents doubled 1919-27

Question 40

What did James Weldon Johnson do?

Answer 40

A black American poet Wrote 'The Making of Harlem' + The weary blues

Question 41

What did Alain Locke think?

Answer 41

History of suffering through slavery and persecution gave black Americans a unique susceptibility to respond to the arts.

Question 42

Who was the king of swing?

Answer 42

Benny Goodman

Question 43

What stage production took place in 1921?

Answer 43

Shuffle Along

Question 44

Why would White Americans go to Harlem?

Answer 44

Experienced the exotic in Cotton Clubs and Plantations.

Question 45

Who were the audience in cotton clubs?

Answer 45

The high prices made exclusive to only the relatively rich

Question 46

What did Claud McKay think about Harlem?

Answer 46

Poet An all-white picnic ground

Question 47

What anthology did 'the New Negro' follow?

Answer 47

Alain Locke's anthology of 1925

Question 48

Year - Slavery abolishment

Answer 48

1865

Question 49

What did the case of Plessey v. Ferguson do?

Answer 49

After 1896 segregation became legalised.P v F - separate but equal- **Jim Crow laws**

Question 50

What did the Crisis magazine write about?

Answer 50

* Fought passionately for ethnic rights * W.E. Dubois's magazine.

Question 51

What three Black American Artists were very influential?

Answer 51

* Alaine Locke * Claud McKay * Langston Hughes

Question 52

What did Marcus Garvey believe?

Answer 52

Separation between the races.

Question 53

What did Marcus Garvey set up?

Answer 53

* Universal Negro Improvement Society * Black Cross - medical care * Black Star Shipping Line - passengers to African ports. * Ran 'Back to Africa' campaign

Question 54

Who was the recipient for the first Literature Nobel Prize in America?

Answer 54

Sinclair Lewis

Question 55

What did many people think about American culture in the 1920s?

Answer 55

Complained it was two concerned with **materialism and economic growth** to appreciate the arts.

Question 56

What did F. Scott. Fitzgerald do and write about?

Answer 56

* Coined phrase **'jazz age'.** * Wrote the **Great Gatsby** * about the superficially hedonistic lifestyle of the young that concealed a deep malaise.

Question 57

What did Hemingway write?

Answer 57

The sun also rises (1926)

Question 58

What did Sinclar Lewis write?

Answer 58

* Main street (1920) * Babbit (1925)

Question 59

What publication was most widely followed in the 1920s?

Answer 59

The Saturday Evening Post Scott Fitzgerald, Zane Gray and Max Brand. Fictional serials

Question 60

Who wrote Tarzan?

Answer 60

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Question 61

What was one of the most popular magazines in the 1920s?

Answer 61

Reader's digestfounded in 1922