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Something to Think About was a silent drama released in 1920. The film was the highest-grossing film of that decade making $9.16M. The main stars of the film are actors Elliot Dexter and Gloria Swanson. The film was directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

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Flappers were known as young energetic women who did "untraditional" things based on previous traditions and culture. Their style consisted of Flapper dresses, bob-style haircuts, and lots of cosmetics. They were seen as stylish party girls who smoked, drank, danced at Jazz clubs, and exercised sexual freedom. They are considered to be the first generation of independent American women.

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From 1920 - 1933 a nationwide ban was put on the production, import, and sale of alcohol. While this was put in place to benefit people, it ended up being a massive failure. The ban led to major corruption; crime increased, alcohol became dangerous to consume due to illegal production, and the court and prison system was starting to fall apart.

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Behind "West End Blues" by Louis Armstrong 

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Behind "West End Blues" by Louis Armstrong 

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"West End Blues" is one of the most famous songs in the history of Jazz Music. With this song, Louis was able to lay the groundwork for all of Jazz music and led the way for other solo artists to be considered true artists. The song was written by King Oliver about New Orleans West End; a picnic and entertainment area located on Lake Pontchartrain. Armstrong really brought the song to life with his outstanding trumpeting accompanied by instrumentals by the Hot Five.

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The fight for Women's rights began many years before the 1920s, but it wasn't until then that the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women all the same rights under citizenship that men had.

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Women's Rights Movement Begins

The campaign for women's suffrage began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and '30s, most states had extended the franchise to all white men, regardless of how much money or property they had.

At the same time, all sorts of reform groups were proliferating across the United States- temperance leagues, religious movements, moral-reform societies, anti- slavery organizations-and in many of these, women played a prominent role.

Meanwhile, many American women were beginning to chafe against what historians have called the "Cult of True Womanhood": that is, the idea that the only "true" woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family.

Put together, all of these contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen of the United States.

Seneca Falls Convention

In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists-mostly women, but some men-gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss the problem of women's rights. They were invited there by the reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

Most of the delegates to the Seneca Falls Convention agreed: American women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," proclaimed the Declaration of Sentiments that the delegates produced, "that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

What this meant, among other things, was that they believed women should have the right to vote.

Civil Rights and Women's Rights During the Civil War

During the 1850s, the women's rights movement gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War began. Almost immediately after the war ended, the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment to the Constitution raised familiar questions of suffrage and citizenship.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, extends the Constitution's protection to all citizens-and defines "citizens" as "male"; the 15th, ratified in 1870, guarantees Black men the right to vote.

Some women's suffrage advocates believed that this was their chance to push lawmakers for truly universal suffrage. As a result, they refused to support the 15th Amendment and even allied with racist Southerners who argued that white women's votes could be used to neutralize those cast by African Americans.

In 1869, a new group called the National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. They began to fight for a universal-suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Others argued that it was unfair to endanger Black enfranchisement by tying it to the markedly less popular campaign for female suffrage. This pro-15th-Amendment faction formed a group called the American Woman Suffrage Association and fought for the franchise on a state-by-state basis.

Gallery: The Progressive Campaign for Suffrage

This animosity eventually faded, and in 1890 the two groups merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the organization's first president.

By then, the suffragists' approach had changed. Instead of arguing that women deserved the same rights and responsibilities as men because women and men were "created equal," the new generation of activists argued that women deserved the vote because they were different from men.

They could make their domesticity into a political virtue, using the franchise to create a purer, more moral "maternal commonwealth."

This argument served many political agendas: Temperance advocates, for instance, wanted women to have the vote because they thought it would mobilize an enormous voting bloc on behalf of their cause, and many middle-class white people were swayed once again by the argument that the enfranchisement of white women would "ensure immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained."

Did you know? In 1923, the National Woman's Party proposed an amendment to the Constitution that prohibited all discrimination on the basis of sex. The so-called Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified.

Winning the Vote at Last

Starting in 1910, some states in the West began to extend the vote to women for the first time in almost 20 years. Idaho and Utah had given women the right to vote at the end of the 19th century.

Still, southern and eastern states resisted. In 1916, NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt unveiled what she called a "Winning Plan" to get the vote at last: a blitz campaign that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations all over the country, with a special focus on those recalcitrant regions.

Meanwhile, a splinter group called the National Woman's Party founded by Alice Paul focused on more radical, militant tactics-hunger strikes and White House pickets, for instance-aimed at winning dramatic publicity for their cause.

World War I slowed the suffragists' campaign but helped them advance their argument nonetheless: Women's work on behalf of the war effort, activists pointed out, proved that they were just as patriotic and deserving of citizenship as men.

Finally, on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. And on November 2 of that year, more than 8 million women across the United States voted in elections for the first time.

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Women's Suffrage - The U.S. Movement, Leaders & 19th Amendment

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The women's suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

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The 1920s was a transformative decade for New York. This podcast goes in-depth about the man known for embodying this decade's spirit, Jimmy Walker, the previous Mayor of New York.

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PODCAST For the first part in our New York City in the Roaring Twenties summer mini-series, we're hitting the town with "Beau James," New York's lively and fun-loving mayor Jimmy Walker.

And the king of it all was Jimmy Walker, elected mayor of New York City just as its prospects were at their highest. The Tin Pan Alley songwriter-turned-Tammany Hall politician was always known more for his grace and style than his accomplishments. His wit and character embodied the spirit (and the spirits) of the Roaring '20s.The 1920s were a transformational decade for New York, evolving from a Gilded Age capital to the ideal of the modern international city. Art deco skyscrapers reinvented the skyline, reorienting the center of gravity from downtown to a newly invigorated Midtown Manhattan. Cultural influences, projected to the world via radio and the silent screen, helped create a new American style.

Join us for an after-midnight romp with the Night Mayor of New York as he ascends to the most powerful seat in the city and spends his first term in the lap of luxury. What could possibly go wrong?

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you .... by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We're also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well - through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help! We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month. Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you'd like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too - Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor. We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!
Walker having his morning coffee at his home on 6 St. Lukes Place (pictured below)

Jimmy Walker with Charles Lindbergh in 1927, in the midst of a ticker tape parade after his non-stop ride from Long Island to Paris.

Walker so enjoyed throwing public events for famous people that he was frequently parodied for it. In 1932 Vanity Fair pictured him giving a lavish welcome - to himself.

Harry McDonough with The Elysian Singers from 1905, singing Walker's big hit "Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May."

The dashing fashion plate, pictured here most certainly on his way to yet another vacation.....

....perhaps his European vacation! He's pictured here in 1927, strolling the streets of Venice with a few hundred people behind him.

A picture of Jimmy, actually at work! He's swearing in the new fire commissioner James J. Dorman in 1926.

Mayor Jimmy Walker with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald at yet another welcoming ceremony, broadcast on the radio.

Another British visit, this time from Mrs Foster Welch, Mayor of Southampton.

In another Pathe video, Jimmy Walker visits Ireland and the former home of his father.

During Walker's extraordinary rise, New York was becoming an entirely new city in the 1920s with construction projects on virtually on every block. Even in front of the Hotel Commodore (pictured here in 1927), which was, for a time, the home of Jimmy Walker.

Park Avenue (at 50th Street) in 1922.

Park Avenue at 61st Street in 1922. The rich flocked to this newly developed street of apartment complexes, making it the new center of wealth.

And now, for a little glamour, a few shots of Yvonne Shelton, then Betty Compton, Walker's two most famous girlfriends (who he wooed while married to wife Janet).

She most famously starred in 1927's Broadway production of Oh Kay! starring Gertrude Lawrence. Here's Lawrence singing a famous song from that show:

IN TWO WEEKS: Chapter Two of our series on the Roaring '20s, rewinding back to the beginning of the decade and introducing you to another icon of the Jazz Age. Who will it be?

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Jimmy Walker, Mayor of the Jazz Age (NYC and the Roaring '20s Part One) - The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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PODCAST For the first part in our New York City in the Roaring Twenties summer mini-series, we're hitting the town with "Beau James," New York's lively and fun-loving mayor Jimmy Walker. And the king of it all was Jimmy Walker, elected mayor of New York City just as its prospects were at their highest.