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Art Deco was a popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture,
interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film.
This movement was, in a sense, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Constructivism,
Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued
strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions,
Art Deco was purely decorative. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, functional, and ultra modern.
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The Jazz Age describes the period from 1918-1929, the years between the end of World War I and the start of the Roaring Twenties;
ending with the rise of the Great Depression, the traditional values of this age saw great decline while the American stock
market soared. The focus of the elements of this age, in some contrast with the Roaring Twenties, in historical and cultural
studies, are somewhat different, with a greater emphasis on all Modernism.
The age takes its name from and jazz music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity among many segments of society.
Among the prominent concerns and trends of the period are the public embrace of technological developments (typically seen
as progress) cars, air travel and the telephone as well as new modernist trends in social behavior, the arts, and culture.
Central developments included Art Deco design and architecture. In addition, many amateur artists began to aspire including
Duke Ellington, Picasso, etc.
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The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Crash of 29, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of
the United States, taking into consideration the full scope and longevity of its fallout. Three phrases Black Thursday, Black
Monday, and Black Tuesday are used to describe this collapse of stock values. All three are appropriate, for the crash was
not a one-day affair. The initial crash occurred on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), but it was the catastrophic downturn
of Black Monday and Tuesday (October 28 and October 29, 1929) that precipitated widespread panic and the onset of unprecedented
and long-lasting consequences for the United States. The collapse continued for a month. Economists and historians disagree
as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. The crash in America came near the
beginning of the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations, and led to the institution
of landmark financial reforms and new trading regulations.
At the time of the crash, New York City had grown to be a major metropolis, and its Wall Street district was one of the
world's leading financial centers.
Modernism describes an array of cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. The term covers a series of reforming movements in art, architecture, music, literature and the applied
arts which emerged during this period.
It is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with
the aid of scientific knowledge, technology or practical experimentation. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every
aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was 'holding back' progress, and replacing
it with new, progressive and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end.
Embracing change and the present, modernism encompasses the works of thinkers who rebelled against nineteenth century
academic and historicist traditions, believing the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious
faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated; they directly confronted the new economic, social and political
conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. Some divide the 20th Century into movements designated Modernism and
Postmodernism, whereas others see them as two aspects of the same movement.
A speakeasy was an establishment that surreptitiously sold alcoholic beverages during the period of United States history
known as Prohibition (1920-1933, longer in some states), when the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol was illegal.
The term comes from a patron's manner of ordering alcohol without raising suspicion a bartender would tell a patron to be
quiet and "speak easy".
Speakeasies became more popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed, and also became more commonly operated
by those connected to organized crime. Although police and United States Federal Government agents would raid such establishments
and arrest the owners and patrons, the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that such establishments continued
to flourish throughout the nation. In major cities, speakeasies were often elaborate, offering food, live bands,floor shows,
and strip joints. The police corruption at this time was notoriously rampant; speakeasy operators commonly bribed police to
either leave them alone or at least give them advance notice of any planned raids.
In the United States, there are still 37 standing speakeasies from the 1920s.
There are 23 in New York, New York, 13 in Pennsylvania, and one single hush hush bar in the western portion of D.C. Other
slang terms for an establishment similar to a speakeasy are blind pig and gin joint. The difference between a speakeasy and
a blind pig is that a speakeasy was usually a higher class establishment, whereas a blind pig was a lower class dive.
Gangsters are typically organized criminals who are actively engaged in crime as a group activity or enterprise for power,
pleasure, or profit.
The visibility of activities of gangsters can range from the low-level such as drug-trafficking or protectionism, which
are prone to be "under the radar", to the in-your-face spectacular, such as the UK's multi-million Brinks Mat robbery.
Gangsters often run their operations as businesses insofar as they offer a "product" or "service", albeit
an illegal one, or, as is sometimes the case, a legitimate business operating as a front for criminal activity.
A blind pig, also known as a blind tiger or booze can, is an establishment that illegally provides alcoholic beverages.
The name originated in the United States in the 1800s, when blue laws restricted the sale of alcoholic beverages. A saloonkeeper
would charge customers to see an attraction (such as an animal), and provide a "complimentary" alcoholic beverage,
thus circumventing the law.
It was during the years of prohibition that blind pigs were most common in the U.S.
Estimates of the number of blind pigs in some major U.S. cities in the mid-1920s are:
Chicago, Illinois: 10,000
Detroit, Michigan: 15,000
New York City, New York: 30,000-100,000
The blind pig is a classic example of black market economics, and with the end of prohibition in 1933 most blind pigs
had to either become legitimate establishments or close shop. Common current examples of the blind pig include the after hours
club and the keg party.
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The Cotton Club was a famous night club in TGF City that operated during Prohibition. While the club featured many of the
greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas
Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks. During
its heyday, it served as a chic meeting spot in the heart of Harlem, featuring regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays,
at which celebrities such as Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Mae West, Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, Moss Hart,
New York mayor Jimmy Walker and other luminaries would appear.
Heavyweight champion Jack Johnson opened the Club Deluxe at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem in 1920. Owney Madden,
a prominent bootlegger and gangster, took over the club in 1923 while imprisoned in Sing Sing and changed its name to the
Cotton Club. While the club was closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor, it reopened without trouble from the police. The
dancers and strippers occasionally performed for Madden in Sing Sing after his return there in 1933.
The club reproduced the racist imagery of the times, often depicting blacks as savages in exotic jungles or as "darkies"
in the plantation South. The club imposed a more subtle color bar on the chorus girls whom the club presented in skimpy outfits:
they were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific", which meant that they had to be at least 5 feet 6 inches tall,
light skinned, and under twenty-one years of age. Ellington was expected to write "jungle music" for an audience
of whites.
Starting in the 1920s, ballrooms across the U.S. sponsored dance contests, where dancers invented, tried, and competed with
new moves. Professionals began to hone their skills in tap dance and other dances of the era throughout the Vaudeville circuit
across the United States. Electric lighting made evening social entertainment more comfortable, giving rise to an era of dance
halls and live music. The most popular dances were the fox-trot, waltz and tango, and the Charleston.
Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles. With several entertainment venues, people from all walks
of life, all races, and all classes came together. The Cotton Club featured black performers and catered to a white clientele,
while the Savoy Ballroom catered to a mostly black clientele.
From the early 1920s, a variety of eccentric dances were developed. The first of these were the Breakaway and Charleston.
Both were based on African-American musical styles and beats, including the widely popular blues. The Charleston's popularity
exploded after its feature in two 1922 Broadway shows. A brief Black Bottom craze, originating from the Apollo Theater, swept
dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity. By 1927, the Lindy Hop, a dance based on Breakaway
and Charleston and integrating elements of tap, became the dominant social dance. Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was
set to stride piano ragtime jazz. The Lindy Hop remained popular for over a decade, before evolving into Swing dance. These
dances, nonetheless, were never mainstreamed, and the overwhelming majority of people continued to dance the fox-trot, waltz
and tango throughout the decade.
A gangster is a criminal who is, or at some point almost invariably becomes, a member of a persistent violent crime organization,
such as a gang. As an adjective it can be used as an unflattering depiction of the violent and devious methods commonly used
by mobsters, and the derived form gangsterism implies such methods as practice or habit. The term gangster is most commonly
used in reference to members of the criminal organizations associated with the American offshoot of the Italian Cosa Nostra,
the Mafia (sometimes called the Mob), and the American prohibition, such as the Chicago Outfit and the Five Families, and
individuals such as Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel.
The term flapper in the 1920s referred to a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair,
listened to the new Jazz music, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. The flappers
were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles,
and otherwise flouting conventional social and sexual norms.
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| Actress Alice Joyce, 1926 |
The term flapper first appears in Britain, though the etymology is disputed. It may be in reference to a young bird flapping
its wings while learning to fly, or it may derive from an earlier use in northern England of flapper to mean "teenage
girl" (whose hair is not yet put up), or "prostitute".
While many in the United States assumed at the time that the term flapper derived from a fashion of women wearing galoshes
unbuckled so that they could show people their bodies as they walked, the term was already documented as in use in the United
Kingdom as early as 1912. From the 1910s into the 1920s, flapper was a term for any impetuous teenage girl, often including
women under 30. Only in the 1920s did the term take on the meaning of the flapper generation style and attitudes, while people
continued to use the word to mean immature.
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