Entertainment And Fads In The 1920's

The 1920s was filled with music, entertainment, pop culture, and fads. Due to the influx of cash during the 1920s, also known as the “Roaring Twenties”, and many advancements in technology, consumerism became very large and important which led to many people having many sources of entertainment and opportunities with music and fads. The 1920s was filled with non stop action and new inventions and was the start of many new beginnings. From jazz to radios and to flagpole sitting, the 1920s was definitely the time to be alive.

The time period from the end of World War I until the start of the Depression in 1929 is known as the “Jazz Age”. Although older generations found jazz music immoral, jazz continued to be popular in America. This certain

type of music became known as the “Devil’s Music” by the people who found jazz music rebellious and threatening. “Jazz was different because it broke the rules -- musical and social. It featured improvisation over traditional structure, performer over composer, and black American experience over conventional white sensibilities” (“The Devil’s Music: 1920s Jazz”).
One great, and very popular, source of entertainment was Broadway.

“The 1920's were Broadway's prime years, with over 50 new musicals opening in just one season” (“1920s Music: Jazz, Ragtime, and Musicals”). During the 1920s, a popular source of entertainment were radios. With the influx of money, many people could afford radios. Families would gather around at night and listen to the radio together for entertainment. After the radio became a big hit, hundreds of radio stations were created and consisted of the news, serial stories, and political speeches. Play-by-play descriptions of sporting events were also brought to the homes of many by radios. “As the popularity of “moving pictures” grew in the early part of the decade, movie "palaces" capable of seating thousands sprang up in major cities” (“Movies, radio, and sports in the 1920s”). Silent films became very popular throughout the 1920s. One of the most popular actors in silent films was a man named Charlie Chaplin. The first movie with sound was called a “talkie” and was released in 1927. Another great source of entertainment was sports. The most popular sport during the 1920s was baseball. Other popular sports that were played in the 1920s were basketball, boxing, and football. One of the most popular sports heros was baseball player, George Herman Ruth, also known as “Babe Ruth”. “He was immensely popular and attracted large crowds, and hit sixty home runs in 1927” (“Entertainment of the

1920’s”).
“Pop culture during the 1920's was shown by things like the emergence of the flapper, automobiles, jazz music, movies, and nightclubs” (“Entertainment, Music, Pop Culture, & Fads of the 1920's”). The automobile contributed greatly to pop culture as it granted independence to people. Automobiles allowed people to easily travel from rural areas to cities and back. With all the independence automobiles gives you, it made alcohol possible in the 1920s by allowing easy travel for the bootleggers. “Prohibition was signed into law in 1919, and took effect in 1920. It gave rise to a new culture of criminal businessmen: bootleggers and gangster crime bosses who began to dominate entire cities with their illegal booze, racketeering, prostitution, gambling, etc.” (“1920s Pop Culture - Are You Really Going to Sit On the Top of That Flagpole?”). The 1920s was filled with all sorts of illegal business and prostitution, mainly found in in larger cities.
There were many different crazy fads in the 1920s, from barnstorming to flagpole sitting. Barnstormers were stunt pilots that performed tricks. Their stunts were very dangerous because they would do stunts “from chasing an airplane down in a automobile and grabbing onto a rope ladder attached to the plane's wing, to hanging on for dear life while the plane does aerial tricks, barnstormers did it all” (“1920s Pop Culture - Are You Really Going to Sit On the Top of That Flagpole?”). The crazy people that took part in the fad of pole sitting would climb to the top of a tall pole and sit on a little platform on the top for as long as they possibly could. The fad was started by a stunt actor named Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly. His initial sit was in 1924, on top of a flag pole, and lasted for thirteen hours and thirteen minutes. People who took on this dangerous fad set records for as long as fifty one days. Although we still have dance marathons to this day, they were a little different in the 1920s and were very popular. The people participating in the dance marathons would dance for a certain time period, have a certain time period to rest, and then keep on dancing. The dance marathons would continue until there was one couple left dancing. Some of the dance marathons would last for months at a time. Another fad that was popular in the twenties was a game called Mah Jongg. “The object of the game was to put all of the tiles in a random order, and then try to get rid of all of them by matching similar shaped tiles” (“Roaring 20’s”). The game originated in China and eventually found its way to the United States in the twenties and became a very popular fad.
In conclusion, many different things contributed to what the 1920s became. From “immoral” jazz music to radio broadcasting to illegal business to barnstormers, the 1920s was definitely a crazy time but a great time to be alive with all the new beginnings and opportunities the twenties had to offer. If it wasn’t for the influx of money, new inventions, and the mass consumerism, it would not be anything like it was.