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"If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes." Charles Lindbergh
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." Charlie Chaplin
Main Points:
•Exploration and Innovation: Amelia Earharts and Charles Lindbergh’s flights. Cars and planes both popularized during this era. Radio in every house. Moving pictures.
•Leisure: Babe Ruth, the New York Yankees and murderers row. Walt Disney. Football. Dance Halls and Movie Palaces. Driving in your car.
•Great Men/Women Theory for the Time Period: Louis Armstrong, Al Capone, Charlie Chaplin, Amelia Earhart, Henry Ford, Frank Kellogg, Babe Ruth.
Summary:
At the end of World War I, the American industry, whose capacity had significantly expanded during the conflagration, needed new markets to sustain the production of goods. These markets were soon made available by the emerging advertising industry. Advertising campaigns, the radio and the movie industry standardized American life and undermined regional diversity, but at the same time helped forge a national culture and reinvent behaviors. Although the consumerist attitude encouraged waste and triggered an economic downslope movement toward the Great Depression, it also offered ordinary Americans opportunities they had never dreamed of in the previous decades.
- As life in the U.S. became increasingly standardized, workplace routine caused Americans to shift their attention toward leisure-time activities.
- Inventions such as the radio and the movies further standardized culture, they opened the doors to a previously unknown world.
- Increasingly popular invention, the automobile, allowed them to take long drives in the country, plan family vacations and visit faraway cities.
- Movie and music stars, radio celebrities and professional athletes became heroes, symbols of the escape from a regimented existence.
•Exploration and Innovation: Amelia Earharts and Charles Lindbergh’s flights. Cars and planes both popularized during this era. Radio in every house. Moving pictures.
•Leisure: Babe Ruth, the New York Yankees and murderers row. Walt Disney. Football. Dance Halls and Movie Palaces. Driving in your car.
•Great Men/Women Theory for the Time Period: Louis Armstrong, Al Capone, Charlie Chaplin, Amelia Earhart, Henry Ford, Frank Kellogg, Babe Ruth.
Summary:
At the end of World War I, the American industry, whose capacity had significantly expanded during the conflagration, needed new markets to sustain the production of goods. These markets were soon made available by the emerging advertising industry. Advertising campaigns, the radio and the movie industry standardized American life and undermined regional diversity, but at the same time helped forge a national culture and reinvent behaviors. Although the consumerist attitude encouraged waste and triggered an economic downslope movement toward the Great Depression, it also offered ordinary Americans opportunities they had never dreamed of in the previous decades.