American culture went through a lot of changes in the 1920’s most notably being the new rich upper class, the lucky ones that had achieved the “American Dream”, but there also being a different change, the change in the morals and values of the people in the 1920’s. There are many ways that this corruption of morals and focus on material wealth can be seen, sports being one of them. Instead of competitive women golfing being who a competition of who is the best, “play excluded minority and most middle-class women” (Source C Turner). Golf tournaments became a competition of which rich or influential woman was better at golf instead who was actually better at the sport. This alone should be enough to see into the shift of culture in the 1920’s …show more content…
We later on learn that “ He's the man who fixed the world series back in 1919.” (pg 73) This statement just ties all the richness and corruptness altogether, He is a gambler who is living a good life after he fixed the world series. Again a sport is being used to associate corruption with people and how these characters show no sympathy for others and would ruin other people's life for their own benefit. Cheating, lying, stealing, all these corrupt and horrible morals is what is valued in the 1920’s. It is not said out loud, and people may not know that they're worshiping these corrupt morals but they are in every sense. When people look up to these rich people and want to be like them, they are essentially looking up to these horrible morals, Fitzgerald seems to be making the cases through his use of sports that it is impossible to achieve success unless you first give up your morals, your sense of dignity and empathy to chase the wealth and twisted sort of fame that the common people of America
In Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain, author David E. Kyvig, creates historical account of the Great Depression, and the events leading up to it. Kyvig’s goal in writing this book was to show how Americans had to change their daily life in order to cope with the changing times. Kyvig utilizes historical evidence and inferences from these events and developments to strengthen his point. The book is organized chronologically, recounting events and their effects on American culture. Each chapter of the book tackles a various point in American history between 1920 and1939 and events are used to comment on American life at the time. While Kyvig does not exactly have a “thesis” per se, his main point is to examine American life under a microscope, seeing how people either reacted, or were forced to react due to a wide range of specific events or developments in history, be it Prohibition, the KKK, or women’s suffrage.
As a nation coming out of a devastating war, America faced many changes in the 1920s. It was a decade of growth and improvements. It was also a decade of great economic and political confidence. However, with all the changes comes opposition. Social and cultural fears still caused dichotomous rifts in American society.
America as a Divided Society in the 1920s America was born from immigrants and during the 1920's it was called a. melting pot due to the increase in social, political and economic. differences from all these new races. During the 1920's, America went. through a number of test cases to determine to what extent America was. divided.
The legendary beginnings of golf in the United States can be traced back to the mid-1600s. One of the first published references to golf in America was in 1659 referring to the ban on golf in the streets of Albany, New York. The next substantial reference to the game comes from Charleston, North Carolina in 1786. At that time, a local Charleston newspaper ran a story about the formation of the Harleston Green Golf Club. The Harleston Green remained in operation for approximately twenty-five years, closing about the time of the War of 1812. Around the same time period, approximately1795, another golf club opened in Savannah, Georgia. References to this golf club continued until 1811 again apparently closing just before the beginning of the war. The War of 1812 served to destroy the desire to play golf. It wasn’t until the late 1870s, well after the Civil War ended, that there was a resurgence of golf in the United States.
Considered as the defining work of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925, when America was just coming out of one of the most violent wars in the nation’s history. World War 1 had taken the lives of many young people who fought and sacrificed for our country on another continent. The war left many families without fathers, sons, and husbands. The 1920s is an era filled with rich and dazzling history, where Americans experienced changes in lifestyle from music to rebellion against the United States government. Those that are born into that era grew up in a more carefree, extravagant environment that would affect their interactions with others as well as their attitudes about themselves and societal expectations. In this novel, symbols are used to represent the changing times and create a picture of this era for generations to come. The history, settings, characters, and symbols embedded in The Great Gatsby exemplify life in America during the 1920s.
Sports have changed a lot since 1920, and most of everything in a good way. The main thing that has happened is the rights that blacks and women got. Now there are more and more people playing sports than ever.
The wall street crash was bad for every one in America at the time and
Fitzgerald used several patterns to develop the theme surrounding the lost dream. One such pattern included the emergence corruption in relation to honesty. We first witness the symbolic aspects of this when we meet Jordan Baker. We learn through Nick that she is a golfer and he further indulges that “at her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers-a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round.”(p. 62) Golf is universally known as the game a truth, a game in which the players record their own performances and are trusted. Through this example we can interpret that all honesty has been destroyed, and cheating is now abundant. Also, it is learned that America’s pastime, baseball, was also corrupted. “Meyer Wolfshiem? He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.” (p. 78) This is significant because a game that was created in America, the land of the honest and the free where the dream first came alive has been tainted. This notion suggests that even the simplest of realities and recreations have long lost their innocence. Fitzgerald even implies that those who serve and protect us have also been corrupted. We learn that Tom has bribed the police. These same men who are known as the cities finest have also had their sincerity tarnished by the same greed that has tarnished the dream.
In the 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s the WASP was seen as unjust and cruel by many European immigrants in America. Every single one of those terms however was necessary for full acceptance into the American mainstream: white, Anglo-Saxon (from northern Europe although the Irish are the exception) and Protestant. In the nineteenth century America was undergoing a dramatic transformation; the rise of industrialization, a massive influx of immigrants and urbanization caused racism to become a powerful force in American culture, affecting all parts of the political spectrum. American culture became obsessed with crude and cruel racial and ethnic stereotypes in literature, the arts and in the press.
In the years to come the players would slowly develop rules for the game. Golf began to take shape as the game played today in the 1800’s. “Golf in the first half of the century was still largely an informal game: there was almost no distinction between amateurs and professionals, and matches were set up primarily to bet on, bets made between players and spectators.” (Pearson, History of the Game of Golf) The elitist members of the clubs used these matches to help set up the rules used in today’s game. Peasants were only allowed to play under special circumstances, “The artisans may play on Sunday after raking the bunkers, but they’re not allowed at any time to walk in front of the clubhouse.” (Arscott, Golf: A Very Peculiar History) Other than this the course and golf club was only available to the elite citizens that would spend weekends and holidays playing golf and other
When a person hears about the “Roaring Twenties”, flappers are one of the first aspects of the era that first comes to mind. Many flappers embodied similar traits to actress Clara Bow who could be considered the “epitome of flappers”. In several of her films such as Black Oxen and It, Bow flaunts both her flapper style which consisted of bobbed hair, shorter dresses, and showing more skin, but also her “sex appeal” and defiance of being “ladylike” and the typical standards of women at the time. Her personal life was also different from other women as she had several love affairs and revealed her terrible childhood to the public. But why did flappers like Clara Bow have such a huge impact in the 1920s and how do they affect the modern world
The nineteen twenties was a period of time where spending money and having fun was routine. Their lifestyles led to the twenties being recognized as the Roaring Twenties. The decade was well known for their style. Fashion had entered the modern era. Women began doing away with restricting fashions and started wearing comfortable clothing. Although women were changing appearances in a more comfortable way, there were many women known as flappers that according to the still modern living people, were unacceptably dressed.
The 1920s were arguably the most galvanizing decade in the history of United States. This decade was known for enormous change and inspired by modernism ("American Art, Pop Culture & Literature of the 1920s.") Because the 1920s were an exciting and historic time with all the different art, culture, literature and much more, one can see why this time period was called the “roaring 20s.”
Life during the 1800s in America was tough for everybody. There were rich factory and plantation owners that didn’t have much trouble but every farmer and his family worked themselves to the bone just to survive day to day. When the Civil War started, living conditions became far more difficult for every American. Civilian life in the North wasn’t nearly as dire as in the South. The Union blockades in 1863 caused food and supply shortages in the South. Southerners invented substitutes for coffee, tea, and other foods, which they normally imported from Europe. Many plantations switched from growing cotton to raising grain and livestock. In some states, cotton production was limited. Many men joined the army or were drafted while the women were left at home to work and support their family. During the battles that were near the towns there were casualties and plenty of wounded, and children would leave the safer walls of their homes to watch. Armies would intrude on farms, destroy fences, confiscate animals, and turn
...al 1922. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not biased for or against the rich in writing this book, he was simply trying to chronicle the lives and times of the early part of the 20’s. His lack of a bias is what makes his book such an accurate description of the era that he wrote about. This book should be considered “required reading” because it introduces the reader to what life was like for the rich at that time, as well as the general mood that pervaded the decade. It speaks of concepts such as bootlegging, gambling, and “new money”, ideas that previously were not commonly written of. F. Scott Fitzgerald can be considered an authority on the twenties because he lived in the twenties with the type of people that were described in his book.