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Kids learn about the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression including how they got their name, what they were, who lived there, how big were they, hobos, soup kitchens, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions.
WATCH: America: The Story of Us on HISTORY Vault
What Caused the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incentivizing farming in the Great Plains.

The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. These acts led to a massive influx of new and inexperienced farmers across the Great Plains.

Many of these late nineteenth and early twentieth century settlers lived by the superstition "rain follows the plow." Emigrants, land speculators, politicians and even some scientists believed that homesteading and agriculture would permanently affect the climate of the semi-arid Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming.

Manifest Destiny

This false belief was linked to Manifest Destiny -an attitude that Americans had a sacred duty to expand west. A series of wet years during the period created further misunderstanding of the region's ecology and led to the intensive cultivation of increasingly marginal lands that couldn't be reached by irrigation.

Rising wheat prices in the 1910s and 1920s and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I encouraged farmers to plow up millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, corn and other row crops. But as the United States entered the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. In desperation, farmers tore up even more grassland in an attempt to harvest a bumper crop and break even.

Crops began to fail with the onset of drought in 1931, exposing the bare, over-plowed farmland. Without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation-especially in the Southern Plains.

When Was the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl, also known as "the Dirty Thirties," started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer.

Severe drought hit the Midwest and southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further exacerbating the environmental disaster.

By 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land had been rendered useless for farming, while another 125 million acres-an area roughly three-quarters the size of Texas-was rapidly losing its topsoil.

Regular rainfall returned to the region by the end of 1939, bringing the Dust Bowl years to a close. The economic effects, however, persisted. Population declines in the worst-hit counties-where the agricultural value of the land failed to recover-continued well into the 1950s.

'Black Blizzards' Strike America

During the Dust Bowl period, severe dust storms, often called "black blizzards," swept the Great Plains. Some of these carried topsoil from Texas and Oklahoma as far east as Washington, D.C. and New York City, and coated ships in the Atlantic Ocean with dust.

Billowing clouds of dust would darken the sky, sometimes for days at a time. In many places, the dust drifted like snow and residents had to clear it with shovels. Dust worked its way through the cracks of even well-sealed homes, leaving a coating on food, skin and furniture.

Some people developed "dust pneumonia" and experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing. It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from the condition. Estimates range from hundreds to several thousand people.

On May 11, 1934, a massive dust storm two miles high traveled 2,000 miles to the East Coast, blotting out monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Capitol.

The worst dust storm occurred on April 14, 1935. News reports called the event Black Sunday. A wall of blowing sand and dust started in the Oklahoma Panhandle and spread east. As many as three million tons of topsoil are estimated to have blown off the Great Plains during Black Sunday.

An Associated Press news report coined the term "Dust Bowl" after the Black Sunday dust storm.

New Deal Programs

President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a number of measures to help alleviate the plight of poor and displaced farmers. He also addressed the environmental degradation that had led to the Dust Bowl in the first place.
WATCH: How Artists Helped End the Great Depression
As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress established the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project in 1935. These programs put local farmers to work planting trees as windbreaks on farms across the Great Plains. The Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) developed and promoted new farming techniques to combat the problem of soil erosion.

Okie Migration

Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma-during the 1930s. It was one of the largest migrations in American history.

Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. Many of them, poverty-stricken, traveled west looking for work. From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California. A third settled in the state's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.

These Dust Bowl refugees were called "Okies." Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California. Many of them lived in shantytowns and tents along irrigation ditches. "Okie" soon became a term of disdain used to refer to any poor Dust Bowl migrant, regardless of their state of origin.
READ MORE: How the Dust Bowl Made Americans Refugees in Their Own Country

Dust Bowl in Arts and Culture

The Dust Bowl, and the suffering endured by those who survived it, captured the hearts and imaginations of the nation's artists, musicians and writers.

John Steinbeck memorialized the plight of the Okies in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Photographer Dorothea Lange documented rural poverty with a series of photographs for FDR's Farm Securities Administration, and artist Alexandre Hogue achieved renown with his Dust Bowl landscapes.

Folk musician Woody Guthrie, and his semi-autobiographical first album Dust Bowl Ballads of 1940, told stories of economic hardship faced by Okies in California. Guthrie, an Oklahoma native, left his home state with thousands of others looking for work during the Dust Bowl.

Sources

FDR and the New Deal Response to an Environmental Catastrophe. Roosevelt Institute.
About The Dust Bowl. English Department; University of Illinois.
Dust Bowl Migration. University of California at Davis.
The Great Okie Migration. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Okie Migrations. Oklahoma Historical Society.
What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment.
The Dust Bowl. Library of Congress.
Dust Bowl Ballads: Woody Guthrie. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
The Dust Bowl. Ken Burns; PBS.

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The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.

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US History: The Great Depression for Kids

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Kids learn about the Great Depression including its causes, the New Deal, Hoovervilles, Bonus Army, daily life, stock market crash, crime, entertainment, legacy, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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Kids learn about the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression including how they got their name, what they were, who lived there, how big were they, hobos, soup kitchens, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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When the first settlers crossed the American plains in the mid-to-late 1800s, the vast landscape must have seemed endless. So much fertile land to be ranched or farmed. Although being a farmer or rancher was hard work, it was a satisfying way of life for many people.

In the 1920s, grain prices dropped and many farmers had to farm more land just to earn as much money as they had before. Farmers throughout the Midwest stripped the prairie-lands to make more farms.

Some people warned that the land couldn't remain fertile if it was used this way. When faced with a hungry family, though, few farmers listened to these warnings. Then high temperatures and drought caused the crops to die.

The Earth became rock hard. Strong winds came and blew the hard earth away as dust. There were no trees or plants to hold it in place.

On April 14, 1935, a huge dust storm rose. It went on for hundreds of miles and moved quickly across the United States, covering anything in its path in thick, black dust. The sky was as dark as night. The dust storm dropped 12 million tons of dust on Chicago and went all the way to New York City. This day was known as Black Sunday.

Fun Facts about Dust Bowl for Kids

Dust storms called Black Rollers frequently blew across the landscape. The dust storms could be 10,000 feet high.

No one was safe from the storms. The dust invaded homes and barns. It got into people's eyes, noses and lungs. Many children and the elderly died from dust pneumonia.

Farm animals choked to death during the dust storms. Cars and even buildings were covered in dust.

After Black Sunday, many people gave up farming and moved west looking for better opportunities. This was a sad, hard time.

The U.S. government put plans in place to save the grasslands. The government planted more grass and trees and restricted farming practices.

Dust Bowl Vocabulary

1. Grain prices: the price farmers could get for selling their grain

2. Black Sunday: the date of the largest dust storm

3. Dust Bowl: the area affected by the dust storms. Includes Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico.

4. Pneumonia: infection of the lungs

All about Dust Bowl Video for Kids

Watch this awesome Dust Bowl video for kids:

A video slideshow of pictures of the Dust Bowl with music about the disaster.

Dust Bowl Q&A

Question: Could this disaster happen again?

Answer: Yes. Currently farmers in South America and Africa are rapidly cutting down or burning rain forests to make more farmland. As the land becomes deforested, many of the same problems appear.

Enjoyed the Easy Geography for Kids all about Dust Bowl info? Take the FREE & fun Dust Bowl quiz and download FREE worksheet all about Dust Bowl for kids. For lengthy info click here.

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When the first settlers crossed the American plains in the mid-to-late 1800s, the vast landscape must have seemed endless. So much fertile land to be ranched or farmed. Although being a farmer or rancher was hard work, it was a satisfying way of life for many people.

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Kids learn about the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression including how they got their name, what they were, who lived there, how big were they, hobos, soup kitchens, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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The worst drought (lack of rain) in U.S. history hit the southern Great Plains in the 1930s. High winds stirred up the dry soil. This caused huge dust storms that ruined farmland. The affected region came to be known as the Dust Bowl. It included southeastern Colorado, western Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico.

Human mistakes made the drought worse. During World War I (1914-18) farmers planted new fields of wheat. Their plows removed grasses that had held the soil in place. Cattle grazing on ranches removed more grass. The loss of the grass cover loosened the soil. Winds blew it away in dust storms called "black blizzards." The storms blocked out the Sun and piled dirt in drifts.

During the drought, fields produced only one-fourth as much wheat and corn as before. Farmers struggled even more because the drought came during the Great Depression. The depression was a time of great economic hardship. People whose farms were ruined could not find other jobs. Many moved to California, where farms were still operating.

The U.S. government helped the Dust Bowl area recover. Government programs planted grass and trees. A government agency taught farmers better farming methods. Near the end of the 1930s rainfall finally increased. By the early 1940s the fields were productive again.

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The worst drought (lack of rain) in U.S. history hit the southern Great Plains in the 1930s. High winds stirred up the dry soil. This caused huge dust storms that ruined...

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Great Depression - Hoovervilles for Kids and Teachers

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Life in most Hoovervilles was grim. Men tried to find day work, or even work for a few hours. Women tried to keep things as clean as possible, repaired clothes and made food stretch. Kids did not go to school, but hunted through junk piles and garbage in the nearby towns, looking for things to bring back to their shanty.

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Kids learn about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression including when and where it took place, the dust storms, drought, Black Sunday, Okies, government aid, and migration to California. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Shanty Town Facts for kids: Fast Fact Sheet
Fast, fun facts and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) about the Shanty Town for kids.

What were the Hoovervilles (Shanty Town) of the Great Depression? Hoovervilles were the nickname given to a Shanty Town during the Great Depression and consisted of camps of makeshift shacks or tents set up on unused or public lands.

Who lived in a Hooverville or Shanty Town? The people who lived in a Hooverville or Shanty Town were men, women and children, black and white, from all walks of life, who had been evicted from their homes and made homeless due to unemployment in the Great Depression.

Why was the Shanty Town called a Hooverville? The Shanty Town was given the sarcastic nickname 'Hooverville' after President Herbert Hoover who Americans blamed for the Great Depression

Shanty Town Facts for kids The following fact sheet contains interesting facts and information on Shanty Town and Hoovervilles.

Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids

Small camps and sites in towns sprang up in any available space. The picture opposite shows a small site in Manhattan, New York.

Shanty Town Fact 10: As the Great Depression deepened people protested and launched hunger marches. WW1 veterans formed what was called the Bonus Army and 40,000 people descended on Washington D.C. and set up makeshift camps on areas such as the Anacostia Flats.

● The Floors of the shacks were often made of dirt, clay or mud
● Access to safe drinking water was limited and only available from ponds and rivers
● The sanitation facilities were totally inadequate - latrines were dug in ditches
● Tents and makeshift shacks provided inadequate shelter during inclement weather conditions

Continued...

Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids

Facts about the Shanty Town for kids : Hoovervilles
The following fact sheet continues with facts about the Shanty Town and Hoovervilles for kids.

Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids

The state described as 'absolute poverty' has been described as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information". The inhabitants of the Hoovervilles and shantytowns in the 1930s were deprived of many of these basic needs - for additional facts refer to Shanty Town Fact 14: Poverty in the Great Depression

● Homeless people set up camp at an empty reservoir - now the Great Lawn at Central Park. It was called "Hoover Valley" and the shacks were referred to as "Depression Street". It was demolished in April 1933 when work on the reservoir landfill resumed
● Other shantytowns in New York were given their own names:
● ● "Hardlucksville" was at the end of 10th Street on the East River
● ● "Camp Thomas Paine" was set up along the Hudson in Riverside Park
● Red Hook, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City also had its own shantytown

Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids

Shanty Town Facts (The Hoovervilles) for kids
For visitors interested in the history of the Great Depression refer to the following articles:

Shanty Town Facts for kids: Hoovervilles - President Herbert Hoover Video
The article on the Shanty Town provides detailed facts and a summary of one of the important events during his presidential term in office. The following Herbert Hoover video will give you additional important facts and dates about the political events experienced by the 31st American President whose presidency spanned from March 4, 1929 to March 4, 1933.

Shanty Town Facts: Hoovervilles

● Interesting Shanty Town Facts for kids and schoolsSummary of the Shanty Town in US historyShanty Town facts and Hoovervilles a major event in US historyHooverville and Shanty Town FactsFast, fun facts about the Shanty TownForeign & Domestic policies of President Herbert Hoover
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● Herbert Hoover Presidency and Hoovervilles and Shanty Town Factsfor schools, homework, kids and children

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Shanty Town Facts for kids: Fast Fact Sheet Fast, fun facts and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) about the Shanty Town for kids. What were the Hoovervilles (Shanty Town) of the Great Depression? Hoovervilles were the nickname given to a Shanty Town during the Great Depression and consisted of camps of makeshift shacks or tents set up on unused or public lands.

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Riding the Rails

Many people forced off the farm heard about work hundreds of miles away ... or even half a continent away. Often the only way they could get there was by hopping on freight trains, illegally. More than two million men and perhaps 8,000 women became hoboes. At least 6,500 hoboes were killed in one year either in accidents or by railroad "bulls," brutal guards hired by the railroads to make sure the trains carried only paying customers. Finding food was a constant problem. Hoboes often begged for food at a local farmhouse. If the farmer was generous, the hobo would mark the lane so that later hoboes would know this was a good place to beg. Millie Opitz remembers hoboes coming to her neighborhood.
The list of people who rode the rails includes many later became famous –

Novelist Louis L'Amour

TV host Art Linkletter

Oil billionaire H. L. Hunt

Journalist Eric Sevareid

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

All, at one time, had been hoboes, looking for work.
Riding the rails was dangerous. The bulls were hired to keep hoboes off trains, so you couldn't just go to a railroad yard and climb on. Most hoboes would hide along the tracks outside the yard. They'd run along the train as it gained speed, grab hold and jump into open boxcars. Sometimes, they missed. Many lost their legs or their lives. As the train was reaching its destination, the hoboes had to jump off before a new set of bulls to arrest them or beat them up.

But no amount of clubbing or shooting could keep all of the hoboes off the trains. In many cases, the hoboes had no other choice but to hop a freight and look for work.

Walter Ballard was one young man who became a hobo. He remembers the Depression getting so bad that his family didn't have enough to eat. At least in the hobo jungles, they would share food with each other. Walter remembers the bulls. "I been hijacked by them railroad bulls in the yards, and they get rough. See, there was so many of us on the rails, they couldn't let you congregate in one town." But at least one time, in Chadron, Nebraska, there were so many hoboes on a train that the brakeman gave up.
"There was so many people on it, it looked like blackbirds," Walter said. "Believe it or not, when we got ready to go that old brakeman hollered, 'All aboard!' just like it was a passenger train. Then we felt at ease."

Surprisingly, after all the danger and the rough conditions, Walter enjoyed the experience. "I loved it," he said. "It'll get in your blood. You're not agoing anywhere, you don't care, you just ride. It's paid for. You're going to eat, that was more than you was doing at home, probably."

Hopping freights became so common that in 1933 Warner Brothers studio – at the time run by Nebraska Darryl F. Zanuck – produced a film called "Wild Boys of the Road" to try to scare young people away from riding the rails. In the film, a boy falls on the track and loses his leg to an oncoming train. The celebrated director William Wellman completed the film for Zanuck.

Written by Bill Ganzel of the Ganzel Group. First written and published in 2003.

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Riding the Rails during the Great Depression

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Riding the Rails Many people forced off the farm heard about work hundreds of miles away ... or even half a continent away. Often the only way they could get there was by hopping on freight trains, illegally. More than two million men and perhaps 8,000 women became hoboes.

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Kids learn about the causes of the Great Depression including the stock market crash, struggling farmers, debt, oversupply, banks, world trade, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: First New Deal for Kids

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Kids learn about the First New Deal during the Great Depression including FDR's First Hundred Days, banking reform, the stock market, repealing prohibition, public works, farm programs, and emergency relief. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: Second New Deal for Kids

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Kids learn about the Second New Deal during the Great Depression including Social Security, works progress, labor relations, housing programs, results of the New Deal, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: The Stock Market Crash for Kids

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Kids learn about the Stock Market Crash at the start of the Great Depression including before the crash, major causes, the crash and what happened, when the market recovered, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: Daily Life in the City for Kids

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Kids learn about daily life in the city during the Great Depression including food, soup kitchens, Hoovervilles, clothing, entertainment, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: Daily Life on the Farm for Kids

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Kids learn about daily life on the farm during the Great Depression including food, school, dust storms, migration, clothing, entertainment, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: Entertainment for Kids

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Kids learn about entertainment during the Great Depression including radio, movies, sports, interesting contests, marathon dancing, and fun facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of jazz trumpet player Louis Armstrong including his early life in New Orleans, learning to play the trumpet, the nickname Satchmo, moving to Chicago, and fun facts.

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Biography

Amelia Earhart
from the Los Angeles Daily News

Occupation: Aviator

Born: July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas

Died: She disappeared on July 2, 1937 over the Pacific Ocean. She was declared dead on January 5, 1939

Best known for: Being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

Biography:

Where did Amelia Earhart grow up?

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. Her father, Edwin, was a lawyer who worked for the railroad. She spent a lot of her childhood playing with her younger sister Muriel.

Growing up Amelia and her sister had all sorts of adventures. They collected insects and frogs. They liked to play sports including baseball and football. Amelia even learned to shoot a .22 rifle and used it to kill rats in her Dad's barn.

Amelia's first "flight" was when she was just seven years old. With the help of Muriel and her uncle she made a homemade roller coaster. After crashing dramatically she told her sister that it "was just like flying".

When Amelia was eleven years old, in 1908, she saw one of the Wright Brothers first airplanes at the Iowa State Fair. She had no interest in flying and didn't think much of the plane at the time.

Before Flying

After graduating from high school, Amelia wasn't sure what she wanted to do. She first went to the Ogontz School in Pennsylvania, but dropped out to become a nurse's aide tending wounded soldiers from World War I. Then she studied to become a mechanic, but soon was back in school studying for a career in medicine. Eventually she decided to go into medical research. That is, until she took her first plane flight.

First Time Flying

On December 28, 1920 Amelia and her father visited an air show in California. Amelia went on her first plane flight that day. She later said that "I knew I had to fly" as soon as the plane was just a few hundred feet off the ground.

Amelia worked hard and, together with some money from her mother, she was able to pay for flying lessons. Eventually she purchased her own plane. A bright yellow airplane she nicknamed the "Canary". She also got her pilot's license and set a new altitude record for female pilots of 14,000 feet.

Amelia Earhart awaits transatlantic flight 1928
by Wide World Photos

First Woman to Cross the Atlantic

In 1928 Amelia was invited to take part in a historic flight across the Atlantic. Together with pilot Bill Stultz and co-pilot Slim Gordon, Amelia flew across the Atlantic Ocean in the airplane Friendship. Amelia was the navigator on the flight. On June 18, 1928 after twenty one hours of flying, the plane landed in Wales. She was the first woman to make the flight across the Atlantic.

Earhart was received back in the United States as a hero. They had a ticker tape parade for her in New York City and she even got to meet President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

Crossing the Atlantic Solo

Amelia was not satisfied, however. She wanted to make the same trip across the Atlantic, but this time she wanted to pilot the plane and make the flight by herself. On May 20, 1932 she took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland aboard a bright red single engine Lockheed Vega airplane. She intended to make the same flight that Charles Lindbergh had made five years before and fly to Paris, France.

The flight was very dangerous. There was bad weather, thick clouds, and often her windshield and wings were covered with ice. Fourteen hours later she had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, but had to cut the flight short, landing in a cow pasture in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Amelia became only the second person after Charles Lindbergh to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo. She received many awards including becoming the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress.

Aviator

Amelia continued to fly over the next several years. She broke many records including being the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California. Amelia wrote and gave speeches about flying and women's rights.

World Flight

Although she was the most famous woman pilot in the world, Earhart wasn't satisfied and wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. On June 1, 1937 Amelia and Fred Noonan, her navigator, took off from Miami, Florida. They flew a number of flights, eventually getting all the way across Africa and Asia to New Guinea in the South Pacific. On July 2nd they took off from New Guinea to fly to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, but they were never seen from again.

Amelia Disappears

The United States government searched for Amelia and her plane for several weeks, but they could not find them. There have been a lot of theories about what happened to the flight, but no one really knows and her plane has never been found.

Fun Facts about Amelia Earhart

Amelia went by the nicknames Meeley and Millie. Her sister Muriel was called Pidge.

She married her book publisher, George Putnam, in 1931.

When Amelia landed in Ireland after her solo Atlantic flight, the farmer asked her where she was from. When she answered that she was from America, he wasn't quite sure he believed her.

Howland Island is a mile and a half wide and one mile long. It is located in the Pacific Ocean 2,556 miles from New Guinea. A lighthouse was built to the memory of Amelia Earhart on Howland Island.

In 1935 she became the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City and from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey.

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Kids learn about the biography of Amelia Earhart, aviator and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the United States. Kids learn about his biography and life story.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover including his early career, joining the Bureau, fighting gangster, forming the FBI, anti-communism, secret files, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Kids learn about the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady to FDR and civil and human rights activist.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States. Kids learn about his biography and life story.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of baseball legend Babe Ruth including his early years, how he got his nickname, a great pitcher, joining the Yankees, home run champion, records, and fun facts.

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US History: The Roaring Twenties for Kids

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Kids learn about the Roaring Twenties including booming industry, jazz music, women's rights, cultural change, the end of World War I, stock speculation, the Great Depression, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: End and Legacy for Kids

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Kids learn about the end of the Great Depression including what caused it to end and its legacy such as the New Deal, public works, and other changes to the country and the world. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Great Depression: Timeline for Kids (ducksters.com)

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Kids learn about the timeline of the Great Depression including major events such as the stock market crash of 1929, the New Deal, bank failures, unemployment, the repeal of prohibition, Black Sunday, and more. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Kids learn about the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution including giving women the right to vote, the long ratification process, the background and history, and interesting facts.

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Kids learn about how the stock market works including what stock is, the stock exchange, examples, investing in business, bull vs. bear markets, and interesting facts.

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This page has a list of almost all the jazz artists mentioned on this website (there might be some artists mentioned only once who aren't listed here).

Choose the artist you want to know about, then click on the link to go to a page about that artist.

If you don't know where to start, or would like to know who the great jazz artists are, then click here.

The page for each jazz artist is split into at least three parts:

If the name of the jazz artist is difficult to say, then their will be also be a box telling you how to say the name.

Most 'fact' boxes have the following information:

Date of birth.

Date of death (unless the jazz artist is still alive!).

Where the jazz artist is buried (unless the jazz artist is still alive!).

A photo of the jazz artist's grave (or a second picture of the jazz artist if he/she is still alive).

A list of some well-known pieces or singles.

A list of some great recordings.

A list of some interesting facts.

Finally, the videos can normally be described as follows:

One video of the jazz artist playing some of his (or her!) music. Often this video is very old. And it may only have pictures instead of a movie.

Another video of the jazz artist himself (or herself), or a modern video of someone else playing music by the jazz artist.

Choose the jazz artist you wish to know more about:
A: B: C: D: E: F: G: H: J: K: M: O: P: S:
Picture credits:

A jazz artist doing what he does best!. This is a photograph of Nicholas Payton at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2007. The image may be used freely providing one credits the photographer (the user Infrogmation on Wikipedia). Click here for the source of this image, along with the relevant copyright information.

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This page has a list of almost all the jazz artists mentioned on this website (there might be some artists mentioned only once who aren't listed here). Choose the artist you want to know about, then click on the link to go to a page about that artist.

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Part of the Roaring Twenties

Date

1920s-1930s

Location
United States

Participants

Jazz musicians and fans

Outcome

Increased popularity of jazz music in the United States

The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles rapidly gained nationwide popularity in the United States. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz. Originating in New Orleans as mainly sourced from the culture of the African diaspora, jazz played a significant part in wider cultural changes in this period, and its influence on popular culture continued long afterwards. The Jazz Age is often referred to in conjunction with the Roaring Twenties, and in the United States, it overlapped in significant cross-cultural ways with the Prohibition Era. The movement was largely affected by the introduction of radios nationwide. During this time, the Jazz Age was intertwined with the developing youth culture. The movement also helped start the beginning of the European Jazz movement.

Background

The term jazz age was in popular usage prior to 1920. In 1922, American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald further popularized the term with the publication of his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the Black-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. New Orleans provided a cultural humus in which jazz could germinate because it was a port city with many cultures and beliefs intertwined. In the city, the development of jazz was influenced by Creole music, ragtime, and blues.

Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". In the beginning of the 20th century, dixieland jazz developed as an early form of jazz. In the 1920s, jazz became recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of Black-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. From Africa, jazz derived its rhythm, "blues", and traditions of playing or singing in one's own expressive way. From Europe, jazz derived its harmony and instruments.

Louis Armstrong brought the improvisational solo to the forefront of a piece. Jazz is generally characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

Prohibition

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. In the 1920s, the laws were widely disregarded, and tax revenues were lost. Well-organized criminal gangs took control of the beer and liquor supply for many cities, unleashing a crime wave that shocked the U.S. This prohibition was taken advantage of by gangsters such as Al Capone, and approximately $60 million (equivalent to $1,130,972,222 in 2021) in illegal alcohol was smuggled across the borders of Canada and the United States. The resulting illicit speakeasies that grew from this era became lively venues of the "Jazz Age", hosting popular music that included current dance songs, novelty songs and show tunes.

By the late 1920s, a new opposition mobilized across the U.S. Anti-prohibitionists, or "wets," attacked prohibition as causing crime, lowering local revenues, and imposing rural Protestant religious values on urban America. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933. Some states continued statewide prohibition, marking one of the latter stages of the Progressive Era.

Speakeasies/records

Formed as a result of the eighteenth amendment, speakeasies were places (often owned by organized criminals) where customers could drink alcohol and relax or speakeasy. Jazz was played in these speakeasies as a countercultural type of music to fit in with the illicit environment and events going on. Jazz artists were therefore hired to play at speakeasies. Al Capone, the famous organized crime leader, gave jazz musicians previously living in poverty a steady and professional income. Thaddeus Russell, in A Renegade History of the United States, states: "The singer Ethel Waters fondly recalled that Capone treated her 'with respect, applause, deference, and paid in full.'" Also from A Renegade History of the United States, "The pianist Earl Hines remembered that 'Scarface [Al Capone] got along well with musicians. He liked to come into a club with his henchmen and have the band play his requests. He was very free with $100 tips." The illegal culture of speakeasies lead to what was known as "black and tan" clubs which had multiracial crowds.

There were many speakeasies, especially in Chicago and New York. New York had, at the height of Prohibition, 32,000 speakeasies. At speakeasies, both payoffs and mechanisms for hiding alcohol were used. Charlie Burns, in recalling his ownership of several speakeasies employed these strategies as a way to preserve his and Jack Kriendler's illegal clubs. This includes forming relationships with local police. Mechanisms that a trusted engineer created include one that when a button was pushed, tongue blocks under shelves of liquor would drop, making the shelves drop back and liquor bottles fall down a chute, break, and drain the alcohol through rocks and sand. An alarm also went off if the button was pushed to alert customers of a raid. Another mechanism used by Burns was a wine cellar with a thick door flush with the wall. It had a small, almost unnoticeable hole for a rod to be pushed in to activate a lock and open the door.

From 1919, Kid Ory's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings. The year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers. Chicago, meanwhile, was the main center developing the new "Hot Jazz", where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson. Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924.

The same year, Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist, leaving in 1925. The original New Orleans style was polyphonic, with theme variation and simultaneous collective improvisation. Armstrong was a master of his hometown style, but by the time he joined Henderson's band, he was already a trailblazer in a new phase of jazz, with its emphasis on arrangements and soloists. Armstrong's solos went well beyond the theme-improvisation concept, and extemporized on chords, rather than melodies. According to Schuller, by comparison, the solos by Armstrong's bandmates (including a young Coleman Hawkins), sounded "stiff, stodgy," with "jerky rhythms and a grey undistinguished tone quality." The following example shows a short excerpt of the straight melody of "Mandy, Make Up Your Mind" by George W. Meyer and Arthur Johnston (top), compared with Armstrong's solo improvisations (below) (recorded 1924). (The example approximates Armstrong's solo, as it does not convey his use of swing.)

Armstrong's solos were a significant factor in making jazz a true 20th-century language. After leaving Henderson's group, Armstrong formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, which included instrumentalist's Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), and wife Lil on piano, where he popularized scat singing.

Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers. There was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette's orchestra and Paul Whiteman's orchestra. In 1924, Whiteman commissioned Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, premiered by Whiteman's Orchestra. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald opined that Rhapsody in Blue idealized the youthful zeitgeist of the Jazz Age. By the mid-1920s, Whiteman was the most popular bandleader in the U.S. His success was based on a "rhetoric of domestication" according to which he had elevated and rendered valuable a previously inchoate kind of music. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson's band, Duke Ellington's band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club in 1927) in New York, and Earl Hines' Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928). All significantly influenced the development of big band-style swing jazz. By 1930, the New Orleans-style ensemble was a relic, and jazz belonged to the world.

Several musicians grew up in musical families, where a family member would often teach how to read and play music. Some musicians, like Pops Foster, learned on homemade instruments.

Urban radio stations played African-American jazz more frequently than suburban stations, due to the concentration of African Americans in urban areas such as New York and Chicago. Younger demographics popularized the black-originated dances such as the Charleston as part of the immense cultural shift the popularity of jazz music generated.

Swing in the 1920s and 1930s

The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Harry James, Jimmie Lunceford, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw. Although it was a collective sound, swing also offered individual musicians a chance to "solo" and improvise melodic, thematic solos which could at times be complex "important" music.

Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians and black bandleaders recruit white ones. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups. In the 1930s, Kansas City Jazz as exemplified by tenor saxophonist Lester Young marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues used small combos, uptempo music and blues chord progressions, drawing on boogie-woogie from the 1930s.

The introduction of large-scale radio broadcasts enabled the rapid national spread of jazz in 1932. The radio was described as the "sound factory." Radio made it possible for millions to hear music for free - especially people who never attended expensive, distant big city clubs. These broadcasts originated from clubs in leading centers such as New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. There were two categories of live music on the radio: concert music and big band dance music. The concert music was known as "potter palm" and was concert music by amateurs, usually volunteers. Big band dance music is played by professionals and was featured from nightclubs, dance halls, and ballrooms.

Musicologist Charles Hamm described three types of jazz music at the time: black music for black audiences, black music for white audiences, and white music for white audiences. Jazz artists like Louis Armstrong originally received very little airtime because most stations preferred to play the music of white American jazz singers. Other jazz vocalists include Bessie Smith and Florence Mills. In urban areas, such as Chicago and New York, African-American jazz was played on the radio more often than in the suburbs. Big-band jazz, like that of James Reese Europe and Fletcher Henderson in New York, attracted large radio audiences.

Elements and influences

Young people in the 1920s used the influence of jazz to rebel against the traditional culture of previous generations. This youth rebellion of the 1920s included such things as flapper fashions, women who smoked cigarettes in public, and radio concerts. Dances like the Charleston, developed by African Americans, suddenly became popular among the youth. Traditionalists were aghast at what they considered the breakdown of morality. Some urban middle-class African Americans perceived jazz as "devil's music", and believed the improvised rhythms and sounds were promoting promiscuity.

Role of women

With women's suffrage-the right for women to vote-at its peak with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, and the entrance of the free-spirited flapper, women began to take on a larger role in society and culture. With women now taking part in the work force after the end of the First World War there were now many more possibilities for women in terms of social life and entertainment. Ideas such as equality were very popular during the time and women seemed to capitalize on these ideas during this period. The 1920s saw the emergence of many famous women musicians, including Bessie Smith. Bessie Smith also gained attention because she was not only a great singer but also an African-American woman. She has grown through the ages to be one of the most well respected singers of all time and inspired later performers such as Billie Holiday.

Lovie Austin (1887-1972) was a Chicago-based bandleader, session musician (piano), composer, singer, and arranger during the 1920s classic blues era. She and Lil Hardin Armstrong often are ranked as two of the best female jazz blues piano players of the period.

Piano player Lil Hardin Armstrong was originally a member of King Oliver's band with Louis, and went on to play piano in her husband's band the Hot Five and then his next group called the Hot Seven. It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that many women jazz singers, such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, were recognized as successful artists in the music world. Another famous female vocalist who attained stardom at the tail-end of the Jazz Age was Ella Fitzgerald, one of the more popular female jazz singers in the United States for more than half a century and later dubbed "The First Lady of Song". She worked with all the jazz greats of the era, including Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman. These women were persistent in striving to make their names known in the music industry and to lead the way for many more women artists to come.

Influence of middle-class white Americans

The birth of jazz is credited to African Americans. But it was modified to become socially acceptable to middle-class white Americans. Those critical of jazz saw it as music from people with no training or skill. White performers were used as a vehicle for the popularization of jazz music in America. Although jazz was taken over by the white middle-class population, it facilitated the mesh of African American traditions and ideals with white middle-class society.

Beginnings of European jazz

By the 1920s jazz had spread around the world. According to The New York Times in 1922:

Jazz latitude is marked as indelibly on the globe as the heavy line of the equator. It runs from Broadway along Main Street to San Francisco: to the Hawaiian Islands, which it has lyricized to fame; to Japan, where it is hurriedly adopted as some new Western culture; to the Philippines, where it is royally welcomed back as its own; to China where the mandarins and even the coolies look upon it as a helpful sign that the Occident at last knows what is music; to Siam, where the barbaric tunes strike a kindred note and come home to roost; to India, where the natives receive it dubiously, while the colonists seize upon it avidly; to the East Indies, where it holds sway in its elementary form - ragtime; to Egypt, where it sounds so curiously familiar and where it has set Cairo dance mad; to Palestine, where it is looked upon as an inevitable and necessary evil along with liberation; across the Mediterranean, where all ships and all shores have been inoculated with the germ; to Monte Carlo and the Riviera, where the jazz idea has been adopted as its own enfant-chéri; to Paris, which has its special versions of jazz; to London, which long has sworn to shake off the fever, but still is jazzing; and back again to Tinpan Alley, where each day, nay, each hour, adds some new inspiration that will slowly but surely meander along jazz latitude.

As only a limited number of American jazz records were released in Europe, European jazz traces many of its roots to American artists such as James Reese Europe, Paul Whiteman, and Lonnie Johnson, who visited Europe during and after World War I. It was their live performances which inspired European audiences' interest in jazz, as well as the interest in all things American (and therefore exotic) which accompanied the economic and political woes of Europe during this time. The beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz began to emerge in this interwar period.

British jazz began with a tour by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919. In 1926, Fred Elizalde and His Cambridge Undergraduates began broadcasting on the BBC. Thereafter jazz became an important element in many leading dance orchestras, and jazz instrumentalists became numerous. Very soon, the resulting music craze in the United Kingdom led to a moral panic in which the threat of jazz to society was exemplified by Scottish artist John Bulloch Souter's controversial 1926 painting The Breakdown. The painting has been described as embodying the fears of Western civilization towards jazz music, and the painting was later destroyed by its author to placate critics who insisted the work should be burned.

The European style of jazz entered full swing in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, which began in 1934. Much of this French jazz was a combination of African-American jazz and the symphonic styles in which French musicians were well-trained; in this, it is easy to see the inspiration taken from Paul Whiteman since his style was also a fusion of the two. Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt popularized gypsy jazz, a mix of 1930s American swing, French dance hall "musette", and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel; the main instruments were steel-stringed guitar, violin, and double bass. Solos pass from one player to another as guitar and bass form the rhythm section. Some researchers believe Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti pioneered the guitar-violin partnership characteristic of the genre which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records in the late 1920s.

Criticism of the movement

During this time period, jazz began to get a reputation as being immoral, and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old cultural values and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring Twenties. Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote: "... it is not music at all. It's merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion." The media too began to denigrate jazz. The New York Times used stories and headlines to pick at jazz: Siberian villagers were said by the paper to have used jazz to scare off bears, when in fact they had used pots and pans; another story claimed that the fatal heart attack of a celebrated conductor was caused by jazz.

Classical music

As jazz flourished, American elites who preferred classical music sought to expand the listenership of their favored genre, hoping that jazz would not become mainstream. Controversially, jazz became an influence on composers as diverse as George Gershwin and Herbert Howells.

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Part of the Roaring Twenties Date 1920s-1930s Location United States Participants Jazz musicians and fans Outcome Increased popularity of jazz music in the United States The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles rapidly gained nationwide popularity in the United States.

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20 Popular Foods that Americans ate in the Roaring 20s

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For starters, the 1920s was dubbed “the roaring 20s” because it was a period of revolution and prosperity. Most of the popular food in the 1920s can be made with the same ingredients you use today for various dishes.

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The Roaring 20s was a time in history when many Americans moved to cities.

The total wealth of the Americans during the 1920s doubled, and Americans became wealthier.

People in the US bought the same goods, listened to the same music. They also danced in the same way and talked very similarly.

Some were uncomfortable with this new culture. But in big cities, these things were exciting.

On the afternoon of November 8, 1918, people in New York City were dancing. People threw confetti out the window. They were happy because World War I had ended. Keep reading to learn more Roaring 20s facts.

After World War I, there were three Republican presidents. They took a cautious approach to align business and government interests.

The government during these Republican administrations shared the culture of being "materialistic" and seeing corporations as good. The government did not have many policies that were stricter during this time.

People in the US started to buy cars and use electricity more when the economy improved. People also liked using telephones and watching movies.

Read more about World War I
The Roaring 20s

The 1920s was a decade of prosperity, but there were also times when people did not have enough food. It was called the Roaring 20s or Jazz Age because people liked to drink alcohol, listen to jazz music and wear nice clothes.

People were no longer focused on the hardships of war. They were more interested in famous people like sports heroes and movie stars. They enjoyed cheering for their home team and going to new buildings like movie theaters and gigantic stadiums.

In 1920, the average person would live to be 54 years old. Students spent 75 days in school each year instead of 180 days we spend today in school every year.

African American people fought for equal rights throughout the 1920s. They looked into why African Americans were being denied their voting rights, and there was also a lot of violence against them, including the Tulsa massacre in 1921.

In the 1920s, people were apprehensive about immigrants and people from other countries. This led to a law that restricted immigration. The law said that some people couldn't come because they weren't "good" enough for the country. Some people who were not welcome were Eastern Europeans and Asians, while others like Northern Europeans and those from Great Britain could still come.

Two events happened that changed America's future. The Nineteenth Amendment was passed. This was very important because all women finally had the right to vote, just as men. Then the first commercial radio broadcast was heard from KDKA in Pennsylvania. People would gather around a radio to listen to the news, comedy shows, and music.

Before, people did not pay much attention to the ads. But during the 1920s, people did because they saw how it helped them buy things. The ads told everybody how to live their lives and what products they wanted. Ads sold people "their dreams."

In 1912, only 16% of American households had electricity. This went up by the 1920s to 63%. That means that people could have vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and washing machines.

The most important product was a car. The Ford Model T cost $260 in 1924. Cars could be put together in just 93 minutes rather than half a day in the 1920s. By the end of the decade, one-fifth of Americans drove automobiles. They might utilize their automobile for leisure and travel.

In the 1920s, a couple of sociologists interviewed high school students about what they disagreed with their parents on. The most common disagreements were:

going out on nights during the week

grades at school

spending money

using the car

In 1929, people spent 20% of their earnings on phonographs, furniture from factories, radios, and electric appliances. This was not enough for many people. They borrowed money to buy these things.

Prohibition in Roaring 20s

National prohibition of alcohol lasted from 1920 to 1933. The Volstead Act made the amendment. It was illegal to sell alcohol with more than 0.5% alcohol after that, so people just went to places that were not legal. Gangsters and other criminals controlled them.

The government could not enforce prohibition well even though there was an early success, such as reduced arrests for drunkenness, people who still wanted to drink found ways to do so.

During the decade, there were a lot of problems with people making and selling alcohol illegally. This included "bootlegging" (selling illegal alcohol), operating "speakeasies" (stores or nightclubs that sold alcohol), and smuggling alcohol.

The Prohibition laws encouraged criminal activity. Gangsters like Al Capone made 60 million dollars every year from bootlegging and speakeasies.

By the end of 10 years, Al Capone controlled all of the speakeasies. He also ruled on bootlegging from Canada to Florida. Other crimes were linked to criminal activity in Chicago and other cities, even theft and murder.

Prohibition ended when Franklin Roosevelt ran for President and called for prohibition to be repealed. He won, and Congress adopted a resolution that would change the Constitution. It was for a 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th Amendment.

Flappers

During the 1920s, many women were young and free. Women who did this at that time often did things that people found shocking, dangerous, or wrong. It is now believed that these women were the first generation of independent American women. They broke barriers in economic, political, and sexual freedom for women.

Multiple things were happening that led to the rise of flappers. One reason is that more women were in the workforce during World War I, and they wanted to keep their higher-paying jobs when they came back.

In 1920, women got the right to vote. Margaret Sanger made contraception for women, so they gained more control of their bodies and decided when to have babies. More women got rights in the early 1920s.

Henry Ford made cars for everybody. He wanted to help people get around easily. This helped grow cities because people could drive the cars into the city. Many women became the first car drivers.

The classic image of a flapper is a young woman who parties a lot. They smoked, drank alcohol, and danced at jazz clubs. Flappers had a freedom that was shocking to the morality of many people.

Flappers wore dresses that showed their legs but were not tight. They liked shoes with high heels and stopped wearing corsets. Flappers liked short hair like the bob style. They put makeup on their face and rouge, lipstick, and mascara on their eyes.

Jean Patou brought knit swimwear to women. This new style led to a more relaxed, natural silhouette for women's clothes.

Designers Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli also had an impact on how women dressed by inventing no-nonsense lines. These designers made the first flirtier designs that emphasized a woman's body shape in a new way.

Utah tried to pass a law that would make the length of women's skirts longer. Virginia tried to ban clothes that showed too much of a woman's throat. Ohio tried to ban form-fitting clothes. Women wearing clothes that were not "appropriate" were removed from beaches by police.

In the 1920s, more women started going to colleges. They wanted to learn with men. But they didn't have the same jobs as men. The coed emerged in this period because women were now attending colleges and universities just like men.

Art and Literature in Roaring 20s Era

The 1920s was a good time for the arts, music, and writing. People liked art deco, clothes for women changed to be bolder, and jazz became popular.

This was also a good time for writers because there were two different groups of writers: The Lost Generation and the Harlem Renaissance. The Lost Generation is a term used to describe people who came out of World War I and were unhappy with the world. It usually means American writers that include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a famous writer before he wrote "The Great Gatsby" in 1925. He was famous because of his book "This Side of Paradise." The press at the time said that Fitzgerald created the flapper, but he did not mention them in the book.

During the 1920s, African-American authors and artists created a lot of art. It was called "the Harlem Renaissance." The art was also called "the New Negro Movement." Some well-known authors were Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Virginia Houston.

Jazz was the most popular music. Lots of musicians from New Orleans moved to other cities where they could play jazz. Because of this, different styles developed in different places. Jazz became very popular because it was played in speakeasies and because new recording devices made it sound better. There were a lot of famous jazz stars including Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Hollywood was booming during this period. It made new types of film, like silent films. The movies were cheap, and people liked to watch them.

The End of the Jazz Age

In 1929, the stock market crashed, and there was a lot of lost value. People lost money, and America went out of its prosperity. The Great Depression started then.

The twenties were the first modern decade in the United States. Many of its social and cultural revolutions will continue in the following decades.

Sources

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten all the way up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Roaring 20s Facts and History - History for Kids

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The Roaring 20s was a time in American history that saw a lot of changes to society, wealth, and culture. Click for more facts for kids!

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School

1930s: School was considered a luxury for low- and middle-income children. Schools were overpopulated, underfunded, and an estimated 20,000 schools in America closed. Transportation was an issue-there were no buses or cars so children had to walk often long distances. Racism was so prevalent that many schools were segregated. Roosevelt's New Deal promised for greater access to education, but failed on many accounts. During the Depression, many children took jobs to support the family rather than attend school.
Fun fact: In 1937, Chicago schools used the radio for instruction during the polio outbreak! This was the first time technology was used for virtual education.

Today: Children today are required to attend school from kindergarten through 12th grade and have many options-from home and online education, to public, charter, and private school options. Students in Minnesota generally have access to transportation and segregation has been outlawed nationally since 1964.

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A Child's Life in the 1930s Compared to Today | Children's Theatre Company

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The nation's largest, most acclaimed theatre for young people, creating experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire. Located in Minneapolis, MN.

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Kids learn about President Roosevelt's fireside chats during World War II and the Great Depression. These thirty speeches were used to help the American people understand what the government was doing.

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Back toBiographies

Occupation: Physicist

Born: March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany

Died: April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey

Best known for: Founder of modern physics and the formula E=MC2

Overview and Interesting Facts

Albert Einstein is considered one of the most important scientists in world history. His discoveries changed the course of modern physics establishing the field of relativity and also contributing in the area of quantum mechanics. He is most famous for his Theory of General Relativity and the equation "E=mc²."

Albert Einstein
Author: Orren Jack Turner

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879 where he grew up and attended grade school. He later moved to Switzerland where he attended university. After gaining fame for his "Miracle Year" papers, he eventually returned to Germany as a professor until Hitler gained power in 1933. As a Jew, Einstein could no longer safely live in Germany so he moved to the United States where he remained until his death in 1955.

Having lived through two world wars, Einstein was a pacifist who cared deeply about preventing war in the future. Although his discoveries led to the creation of the nuclear bomb, Einstein fought to have nuclear weapons eliminated. Einstein was also passionate about civil rights, individualism, and the protection of freedom throughout the world.

Albert Einstein lecture, 1921
Author: Ferdinand Schmutzer

Interesting Facts About Albert Einstein

His birthday, March 14, is also known as "Pi" day because 3/14 makes up the first three digits of the number pi (3.14).

When a young Einstein was introduced to his new baby sister, he thought that she was a toy his parents had bought for him. After looking her over for a few minutes he responded "where are the wheels?"

Einstein's parents initially wanted to name him "Abraham" but, according to Albert, they eventually thought the name sounded "too Jewish" and opted for another "A" name, "Albert."

While working at the patent office, Einstein found he could get his daily job done in just a few hours. This left the rest of the day open for him to work on his own scientific theories.

Einstein and two of his best friends formed a discussion group they jokingly called the Olympia Academy where they debated physics theories and philosophy.

When his son Hans Albert announced that he wanted to be an engineer Einstein replied "I think it's a disgusting idea."

In 1921, the United States Senate debated the Theory of Relativity while Einstein was visiting the United States.

Einstein chose to exchange letters with Sigmund Freud in 1932 to discuss politics and war. Freud was also a known pacifist. Einstein suggested in his letters that the only way to end war was to have an international organization with more power than the current League of Nations.

When Einstein discovered that the Germans had put a $5,000 bounty on his head he replied "I didn't know it was worth that much!"

He once had a pet parrot named Bibo.

The FBI gathered 1,427 pages of information while investigating Einstein to determine if he was a communist. Einstein wasn't a communist and no incriminating evidence was found. Oddly enough, Einstein did unknowingly have an affair with a Soviet spy. Fortunately for him, the FBI didn't discover the affair despite their ongoing investigation.

When asked if he believed in immortality Einstein responded "No. And one life is enough for me."

Einstein was once playing violin in a quartet that included a famous violin virtuoso. When Einstein's timing got off the frustrated virtuoso stopped playing and said "What's the matter professor, can't you count?"

He nicknamed his violin Lina.

Einstein loved to walk, but didn't drive. His wife Elsa once said "The professor does not drive. It's too complicated for him."

Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, 1931
Source: Photoplay magazine

Albert Einstein Biography Contents

1. Overview

2. Growing up Einstein

3. Education, the Patent Office, and Marriage

4. The Miracle Year

5. Theory of General Relativity

6. Academic Career and Nobel Prize

7. Leaving Germany and World War II

8. More Discoveries

9. Later Life and Death

10. Albert Einstein Quotes and Bibliography

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Back toBiographies Occupation: Physicist Born: March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany Died: April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey Best known for: Founder of modern physics and the formula E=MC2 Albert Einstein is considered one of the most important scientists in world history.

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Kids learn about Henry Ford's biography including his early life, the founding of the Ford Motor company, and how he helped to develop the assembly line for mass production.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of aviator Charles Lindbergh including his early years, learning to fly, the famous flight across the Atlantic, the Spirit of St. Louis, the kidnapping, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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Kids learn about jazz music including what it is, improvisation, where it first started, the Jazz Age, jazz terms and slang, influences, and fun facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.