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Coolidge became president in 1923 after President Harding died in office.

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Jacob Lawrence - Bar & Grill

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American Authors after WWI

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World War I, originally called the Great War, resulted in more than nine million deaths. The official starting point was the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. However, this was simply the spark that lit a tinder keg of overbuilt armies, im…

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Everyday Life

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America in the 1910s & 1920s - Footage only - HD

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'The Penitent' (1922) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

In the year 1920, American women were granted the right to vote. Following the passage of 19th amendment came the famous flappers - women flippant to social standards. Poet and author Edna St. Vincent Millay effectively encapsulates the newfound feminist attitudes expressed in the 1920s in ' The Penitent ' (1922), a poem that relays the author's own ambivalence toward unconstrained 'sins.'

'The Weary Blues' (1925) by Langston Hughes

An artistic and cultural movement that took place after WWI and into the middle of the 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance attracted black artists of multiple genres to what was considered the mecca of New York, Harlem. 'Droning a drowsy syncopated tune' on Lenox Avenue, the subject in ' The Weary Blues ' (1925) exemplifies the aesthetic and thematic qualities present in much of the artistic works of the Harlem Renaissance. By writing rhythmically engaging stanzas that parallel the rhythm of the blues, iconic Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes both frames and constrains the subject of his poem through the very music he renders. In doing so, Hughes encapsulates the irony of being a black entertainer in the affluent Roaring Twenties where music is both a source of constraining labor and expression.

'The Tropics in New York' (1922) by Claude McKay

Also a literary artist of prominence during the Harlem Renaissance, poet Claude McKay was born in Jamaica in 1889. ' The Tropics In New York ' (1922) is an insightful work that evokes the nostalgia McKay and other immigrants experienced upon settling far from home in New York in the 1920s. By utilizing imagery reminiscent of his Jamaican homeland to describe a setting in NYC, McKay communicates the forlorn experience of being an immigrant through the occurrence of memory.

'The Second Coming' (1919) by William Butler Yeats and 'The Wasteland' (1922) by T.S. Elliot

' The Second Coming' (1919) by William Butler Yeats and ' The Wasteland' (1922) by T.S. Eliot are pivotal works of literature that express the disillusionment of a society left in shambles after World War I (1914-1918). While their pieces differ vastly different in style, both poets seem to utilize the poem itself, an amalgamation of symbols within the chaos, to decipher a future capable of framing the heinous acts of the First World War.

'Wall Street at Night' (1918) and 'The Ghetto' (1918) by Lola Ridge

Lola Ridge set herself apart from her contemporaries not only through her political activism and radical beliefs but also through the subject matter of her long-form poetry. Born in Dublin in 1873 and raised in New Zealand, Ridge immigrated to the United States at the age of 34 to eventually settle in the Lower East Side of NYC. First published in 1918, ' The Ghetto' brings attention to the harsh urban realities faced by the immigrants of the Lower East Side tenements. Included in Ridge's first book of poetry, The Ghetto and Other Poems, ' Flotsom ' speaks to the historical and visual reality of NYC. A beautiful concoction of transient city scenes where 'High over Broadway/ A far-flung sign/ Glitters in indigo darkness,' 'Flotsom' speaks to the beauty, rhythm and contradictions of life in the city near and into the dawn of the 1920s.

'Dance of Death' (1929) by Federico Garcia Lorca

' Dance of Death ' (1929) Federico Garcia Lorca, one of the most preeminent Spanish poets of the 20th century, expresses a surreal reaction to moving to NYC in the summer of 1929. In the poem, Lorca finds traces the journey of a conceptual mask throughout various parts of the city. From Wall Street to Broadway, the mask and the dance of death it partakes in allows Lorca to narrate a morbid yet vivacious take on the city during the 1920s.

'Autumn Dusk at Central Park' (1920) by Evelyn Scott

' Autumn Dusk at Central Park ' (1920) by modernist author and poet Evelyn Scott is a fluid and lyrical narration where objects and people seem to wane under the descent of the sun. With strong imagery and precise diction, the poem not only provides insight into the perceived splendor of a location iconic to New York City but is also an example of imagism, a poetic movement and strand of modernism that gained prominence in the early 20th century.

'The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad' (1921) by Wallace Stevens

Before pursuing a law degree at the New York School of Law, poet Wallace Stevens worked at the New York Evening Post. During this tenure it is said the poet spent his free time exploring the city and chronicling his observations in a journal. In the poem ' The Man Whose Pharnyx Was Bad ' (1921) Stevens expresses the moods of living in a 'metropole' of 'stirring poets' that fail to sleep. By utilizing seasonal imagery, Stevens portrays the city as a center victim to ephemeral summers and inevitable winters. In doing so, Stevens manages to capture the familiar yet eternal elements of NYC during the 1920s still recognized and felt today.

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'The Penitent' (1922) by Edna St. Vincent Millay In the year 1920, American women were granted the right to vote. Following the passage of 19th amendment came the famous flappers - women flippant to social standards. Poet and author Edna St.

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Timeline of Interesting Dates

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Overview Video

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Different Dances of Roaring 20s

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1920s dances featuring the Charleston, the Peabody, Turkey Trot and more

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The Roaring Twenties: Definition and Facts | HISTORY

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The Roaring Twenties were a period of rapid economic growth and social change. Read about flappers, Prohibition, the Harlem Renaissance and more.

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"What a Wonderful World"

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Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 4, 1901. He was raised by his mother Mayann in a neighborhood so dangerous it was called “The Battlefield.” He only had a fifth-grade education, dropping out of school early to go to work. An early job working for the Jewish Karnofsky fami…

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Armstrong in 1928

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Knee Drops - Louis Armstrong And His Hot Five - Okeh Metal Mother

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Sample

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Some books are flashes in the pan, read for entertainment and then left on a bus seat for the next lucky person to pick up and enjoy, forgotten by most after their season has passed. Others stick around, are read and re-read, are taught and discussed. sometimes due to great artistry, sometimes due to luck, and sometimes because they manage to recognize and capture some element of the culture of the time.

In the moment, you often can't tell which books are which. The Great Gatsby wasn't a bestseller upon its release, but we now see it as emblematic of a certain American sensibility in the 1920s. Of course, hindsight can also distort the senses; the canon looms and obscures. Still, over the next weeks, we'll be publishing a list a day, each one attempting to define a discrete decade, starting with the 1900s (as you've no doubt guessed by now) and counting down until we get to the (nearly complete) 2010s.

Though the books on these lists need not be American in origin, I am looking for books that evoke some aspect of American life, actual or intellectual, in each decade-a global lens would require a much longer list. And of course, varied and complex as it is, there's no list that could truly define American life over ten or any number of years, so I do not make any claim on exhaustiveness. I've simply selected books that, if read together, would give a fair picture of the landscape of literary culture for that decade-both as it was and as it is remembered. Finally, two process notes: I've limited myself to one book for author over the entire 12-part list, so you may see certain works skipped over in favor of others, even if both are important (for instance, I ignored Dubliners yesterday so I could include Ulysses today), and in the case of translated work, I'll be using the date of the English translation, for obvious reasons.

For our third installment, below you'll find 10 books that defined the third decade of the 1900s-a decade that, as you may notice, the literary world is still particularly obsessed with.

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Christie's first published novel-and the first to feature her mega-famous creation Hercule Poirot-was released to wide acclaim (somewhat surprised acclaim, considering it was a first novel by an unknown) in 1920, helping to usher in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, not to mention the enduring love affair that millions of fans would have with Christie's work. According to the flap copy of the first edition, Christie wrote it after accepting a bet-that she couldn't write a mystery novel in which the reader could spot the murderer before the detective. Everyone agrees that she won. Now she's one of the best selling, widely translated, and most influential novelists of all time-but it all started here.

Eliot's masterpiece is widely considered to be one of the most important works of Modernist literature, not to mention 20th-century literature in general. The book-length poem, which Louis Menand describes as "a collage of allusion, quotation, echo, appropriation, pastiche, imitation, and ventriloquism," but also "a report on the condition of postwar Europe," didn't sell particularly well (330 copies in the first six months), but the Cambridge academics seized upon it, and with Eliot's other works, used it as the basis for creating the modern English department.
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

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If we're counting by literary influence, Ulysses was biggest book of the 20s by far-the most important Modernist text and certainly one of the most important novels ever written. " Ulysses," T. S. Eliot told Virginia Woolf, "destroyed the whole of the 19th century. It left Joyce himself with nothing to write another book on. It showed up the futility of all the English styles." For her part, Woolf wasn't always convinced, but did sing its praises in her essay " Modern Fiction," calling it "undeniably important . . . The scene in the cemetery, for instance, with its brilliancy, its sordidity, its incoherence, its sudden lightning flashes of significance, does undoubtedly come so close to the quick of the mind that, on a first reading at any rate, it is difficult not to acclaim a masterpiece. If we want life itself, here surely we have it."

If any book could challenge Ulysses for the top spot in literary history, it's Proust's seven-volume masterpiece about memory, In Search of Lost Time, the first book of which was translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and published in English for the first time in 1922. In fact, in 2013 Edmund White called it "the most respected novel of the 20th century," and noted that "in the last 30 years Proust has superseded Joyce." Either way, like Ulysses, it is a widely influential, much-discussed, probably under-read, classic exemplar of the decade in literature, a text that reverberates through to much of our art today.

Yet another Modernist masterpiece for this list, this one also a significant text of the Harlem Renaissance, notable for its experimental style, which blends poetry, prose, and drama to illuminate the lives of African Americans living under Jim Crow. Though it received positive-if sometimes baffled-reviews from contemporary critics, the book did not find widespread success in the decade of its publication. "The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites," wrote Langston Hughes in his 1926 essay " The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."

"Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are," say the Negroes. "Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you," say the whites. Both would have told Jean Toomer not to write Cane. The colored people did not praise it. The white people did not buy it. Most of the colored people who did read Cane hate it. They are afraid of it. Although the critics gave it good reviews the public remained indifferent. Yet (excepting the work of Du Bois) Cane contains the finest prose written by a Negro in America. And like the singing of Robeson, it is truly racial.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
Now it's considered one of the most important books of the Harlem Renaissance, and a Modernist classic, particularly notable for its formal flexibility and enduring influence on later works.

Given its enduring cultural relevance, it's impossible to ignore this Great American Novel, and its influence on the way we imagine the 1920s in this country, despite the fact that in the actual 1920s, it wasn't considered so great. Sure, readers loved This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned, but The Great Gatsby represented something of a fall from grace. "Fitzgerald's Latest A Dud" read the headline of a review in the New York World. Other reviewers were less critical but unenthusiastic, and by the time Fitzgerald died in 1940, the book had sold fewer than 25,000 copies. Now it sells 500,000 copies a year, if mostly to disgruntled students. It was WWII that rescued Gatsby from obscurity. The US government developed a program to send cheap paperback books to soldiers, and of the 1,227 titles chosen, one of them was The Great Gatsby. The program was wildly popular- by some estimates more than a million soldiers read the novel-and Fitzgerald's reputation soared. It hasn't slowed down yet.

You could argue (or at least I would) that To the Lighthouse (1927) is the more formally exciting-and even the better-book, that Orlando (1928) is decidedly more fun, and that A Room of One's Own (1929) is the most widely and continually influential (or at least glibly quoted) but I think it's safe to say that Mrs. Dalloway is the most loved. At least, that's my read after surveying the Literary Hub office, the internet, and the members of my own personal family. It was also very well regarded in its time-in a contemporary review in the New York Times, John W. Crawford wrote:

Among Mrs. Woolf's contemporaries, there are not a few who have brought to the traditional forms of fiction, and the stated modes of writing, idioms which cannot but enlarge the resources of speech and the uses of narrative. Virginia Woolf is almost alone, however, in the intricate yet clear art of her composition. . . . Clarissa is . . . conceived so brilliantly, dimensioned so thoroughly and documented so absolutely that her type, in the words of Constantin Stanislavsky, might be said to have been done "inviolably and for all time."

Despite all the competition, Mrs. Dalloway is a standout work in a standout career, a hallmark of the Modernist movement, and a splendid, wrenching, subtle psychological novel, beloved in its day and beloved now.

The title poem of Langston Hughes' first collection is still one of his most famous, weaving language and jazz together as in all the best of his work, and he's probably the most important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. "It's the poems that speak of being "Black like me"- black still being fighting words in some quarters-that prove especially moving," wrote Kevin Young in an introduction to a 2014 edition of the book.

Hughes manages remarkably to take Whitman's American "I" and write himself into it. After labeling the final section "Our Land," the volume ends with one of the more memorable lines of the century, almost an anthem: "I, too, am America."

Offering up a series of "Dream Variations," as one section is called, Hughes, it becomes clear, is celebrating, critiquing, and completing the American dream, that desire for equality or at least opportunity. But his America takes in the Americas-including Mexico, where his estranged father moved to flee the color line of the United States-and even the West Coast of Africa, which he'd also visited. His well-paced poetry is laced with an impeccable exile.
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)
A groundbreaking collection from an iconic American artist.

Hemingway's outsize influence and literary fame began with the publication of The Sun Also Rises, his first proper novel, and hasn't abated much in the 90 years since. "No amount of analysis can convey the quality of The Sun Also Rises," the New York Times purred in the year of its release.
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
It is a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame. Mr. Hemingway knows how not only to make words be specific but how to arrange a collection of words which shall betray a great deal more than is to be found in the individual parts. It is magnificent writing, filled with that organic action which gives a compelling picture of character. This novel is unquestionably one of the events of an unusually rich year in literature.

In the years after, some writers would diligently copy his sparse, "athletic" prose, and others would fly descriptively in the opposite direction, but almost everyone would develop an opinion on him, and at least some degree of knowledge of him. He's still, decades after his death, as beloved a literary celebrity as he was during his lifetime.

We'll round out this gutting (for me-I've had to cut so many!) list of literary giants with everyone's least favorite postman, whose stream-of-consciousness masterpiece is one of the most difficult, important, complex, and lionized works of American literature-our best, not-so-humble contribution to the High Modernist era. Faulkner won the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature for "his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel."

See also: D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920), Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920), F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920), Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (1920), Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity (1922), Emily Post, Etiquette (1922), F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party (1922), Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922), William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923), Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement (1923), Robert Frost, New Hampshire (1923), Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with Russia (1924), Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (1924), E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924), Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924), Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy (1925), Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro (1925), Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Thornton Wilder, Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927), Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928), Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point (1928), Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall (1928), Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1929), Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929), Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (1929), Henry Green, Living (1929), Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929), Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Nella Larsen, Passing (1929), etc.

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A Century of Reading: The 10 Books That Defined the 1920s

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Some books are flashes in the pan, read for entertainment and then left on a bus seat for the next lucky person to pick up and enjoy, forgotten by most after their season has passed. Others stick around, are read and re-read, are taught and discussed.

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The 1920s saw changes in Women's Rights.

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The first "de facto" Woman President of the United States

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Unofficially, America has already had what might be called a First Lady President - at least according to some historians and biographers of the controversial woman in question. And she certainly was not elected by anyone except, arguably her husband, who made their union official on December 18, 1915.

That happy occasion gave no clue that, in just three short years, Edith Bolling Galt - the widow of a Washington, D.C. jewelry store owner marrying the widowed incumbent President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson - would be accused of running the country.

Edith's inherited wealth and status from her first marriage

The second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson seemed the least likely of women to seize control of the ultimate power to satisfy some personal desire for recognition. Born in 1872 to an impoverished family from mountainous western Virginia, she was a distant descent from Pocahontas. Never an intellect, she decided to leave Mary Washington College because her dormitory room was too cold. She instead followed an older sister and proceeded to the nation's capital where she quickly married a much older man from a family that owned and ran the city's oldest jewelry store.

As Mrs. Norman Galt, she gave birth to a son but the baby boy died within a few days. After 12 years of marriage, Edith found herself widowed but also wealthy. She began making frequent trips to Europe, where she developed a taste for the haute couture of the Parisian designer Worth. And when in Washington, she made a splash by becoming the first woman in town to drive her own car.

Despite her wealth and what one wag dubbed "kittenish" good looks, Edith was barred from the echelons of capital high society simply because her wealth derived from a retail store, and she was snobbishly marked as "trade." All that changed one chilly day in the early spring of 1915.

It was love at first sight for Edith and Wilson

Edith had been out with her friend Altrude Gordon, then dating Cary Grayson, the White House physician. Among his wards were not only President Woodrow Wilson, who was still mourning the death of his wife Ellen but also the president's cousin Helen Bones, who lived in the White House as a companion to him. That day, Bones had joined Gordon and Edith on a relaxing but muddy hike. She coaxed them back to the White House for some warm tea. As Edith put it, she "turned a corner and met my fate."

For Wilson it was love at first sight. Soon a presidential limousine hummed most nights outside Edith's door, ready to slip her over for romantic suppers while the next morning presidential messengers delivered suggestive love notes that flatteringly sought her apolitical opinion on issues ranging from the trustworthiness of Cabinet members to finessing diplomats as a war in Europe began to rapidly expand.

If Edith was overwhelmed when the president insisted they get married, his political advisors were downright alarmed. Not only was Wilson entrusting this woman he'd only met three months earlier with classified information, he was up for re-election in 1916. Marrying Edith barely a year after his first wife's death, they feared, would lead to his defeat. They crafted a plan. They would generate a series of fake love letters as if written from Wilson to a Mary Peck with whom he had conducted a real love affair of the heart, and leak it to the press. It would humiliate Edith and she would flee.

Edith became a trusted advisor to Wilson

Except, she didn't. She married the president and remembered those who had tried to rid him of her. Wilson won another term and, in April 1917, led the U.S. into World War I. By then, Edith never left his presence, working together from a private, upstairs office. He gave her access to the classified document drawer and secret wartime code, and let her screen his mail. At the president's insistence, the first lady sat in on his meetings, after which she gave him withering assessments of political figures and foreign representatives. She denied his advisors access to him if she determined the president couldn't be disturbed.

At war's end, Edith escorted Wilson to Europe so he could help negotiate and sign the Treaty of Versailles and present his vision of a League of Nations to prevent any future world wars. When the Wilsons returned to the U.S., the honors of the old world gave way to the sober reality that the president would face enormous resistance among Senate Republicans in having his version of the League approved.

Wilson suffered a massive stroke and Edith stepped in

Exhausted, he nevertheless insisted on crossing the country by train to sell them on the idea, in October 1919. There was little enthusiasm. He pushed harder. Then, he collapsed from physical exhaustion. Rushed back to the White House, he suffered a massive stroke. Edith found him unconscious on the floor of his bathroom. It was soon apparent to all that Wilson could not fully function.

Edith firmly stepped in and began making decisions. Consulting with physicians, she would not even consider making her husband resign and have the vice president take over. That would only depress her Wilson. Her loving dedication to protect him by whatever means were necessary might have been admirable for a love story, but in declaring that she only cared about him as a person, not as a president, Edith revealed a selfish ignorance leading her to decide that she and the President came before the normal functioning of the executive branch of government.

The first move in establishing what she called her "stewardship" was to mislead the entire nation, from the cabinet and Congress to the press and the people. Vetting the carefully crafted medical bulletins that were publicly released, she would only permit an acknowledgment that Wilson badly needed rest and would be working from his bedroom suite. When individual cabinet members came to confer the president, they went no further than the first lady. If they had policy papers or pending decisions for him to review, edit or approve, she would first look over the material herself. If she deemed the matter pressing enough, she took the paperwork into her husband's room where she claimed she would read all the necessary documents to him.

It was a bewildering way to run a government, but the officials waited in the West Sitting Room hallway. When she came back to them after conferring with the president, Mrs. Wilson turned over their paperwork, now riddled with indecipherable margin notes that she said were the president's transcribed verbatim responses. To some, the shaky handwriting looked less like that written by an invalid and more like that of his nervous caretaker.

This is how she described the process she undertook:

"So began my stewardship. I studied every paper, sent from the different Secretaries or senators, and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband."

She held her 'stewardship' for 17 months

Luckily, the nation faced no great, looming crisis for the period of what some dubbed her "regency" of one year and five months, from October 1919 until March 1921. Still, some of her confrontations with officials had serious consequences. When she heard that the secretary of state had convened a cabinet meeting without Wilson's permission, she considered it an act of insubordination, and he was fired.

The most damaging irony, however, came as a result of Mrs. Wilson's insistence that a minor British Embassy aide be fired for a bawdy joke he'd cracked at her expense - or else she would refuse the credentials of an ambassador who had come to specifically help negotiate for President Wilson's version of the League of Nations. The ambassador refused to do so and soon returned to London. For all of the protection she had provided for her husband as a person, Edith may well have damaged what he had dreamed for as a legacy.

Until her death in 1961, the former first lady insisted that she never assumed the full power of the presidency, at best she used some of its prerogatives on behalf of a husband.

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Edith Wilson: The First Lady Who Became an Acting President - Without Being Elected

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Unofficially, America has already had what might be called a First Lady President - at least according to some historians and biographers of the controversial woman in question. And she certainly was not elected by anyone except, arguably her husband, who made their union official on December 18, 1915.

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(in the 1920s) a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior.

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Overview & Timeline

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Timeline of Events

1920: A recession began in January. The highest marginal tax rate was 73% for those earning more than $1 million.﻿﻿ Almost 70% of federal revenue came from income taxes.﻿﻿

1921: Warren Harding became president. The recession ended in July without any intervention. Congress increased the corporate tax rate from 10% to 12.5%. The Emergency Immigration Act restricted the number of immigrants to 3% of the 1910 U.S. population.

1922: Harding reduced the top income tax rate from 73% to 58%.﻿﻿

1923: Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president after Harding died from a heart attack while on a speaking tour in San Francisco. His motto was "The business of America is business." The Supreme Court revoked the minimum wage for women in Washington, D.C. A recession began in May. The stock market began a six-year bull run.﻿﻿

1924: The recession ended in July. The Revenue Act of 1924 lowered the top rate to 46%, according to the Tax Foundation.﻿﻿

1925: Top tax rate lowered to 25%. The corporate tax rate increased to 13%. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover warns Coolidge about stock market speculation. Most countries returned to the gold standard. More than 25% of families owned a car.

1926: A mild recession began in October. The corporate tax rate increased to 13.5%. Robert Goddard invented the liquid propulsion rocket, creating a U.S. advantage in defense. More than 2 million farmers moved to the cities, but only 1 million city folk moved to rural areas.﻿﻿

1927: The recession ended in November after the Fed lowered the discount rate from 4% to 3.5% in September.﻿﻿ Charles Lindbergh flew solo from New York to Paris on May 20-21.

1928: Stock prices rose 39%. To stop speculation, the Fed raised the discount rate from 3.5% to 5%.﻿﻿ It also sold securities to banks as part of its open market operations. That removed cash from their reserves. Other countries responded by raising rates, even though they were still rebuilding from World War I.

1929: Herbert Hoover became president. He lowered the top income tax rate to 24% and the top corporate tax rate to 12%.﻿﻿ The Great Depression began in August, as the economy started shrinking. In September, the stock market reached its peak. The stock market crashed on Oct. 24. During those same months, the Graf Zeppelin completed the first around-the-world flight.

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The Economy in the 1920s and What Caused the Great Depression

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1920: A recession began in January. The highest marginal tax rate was 73% for those earning more than $1 million.﻿﻿ Almost 70% of federal revenue came from income taxes.﻿﻿ 1921: Warren Harding became president. The recession ended in July without any intervention. Congress increased the corporate tax rate from 10% to 12.5%.

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History Brief: Speakeasies (Roaring Twenties)

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Podcast
EXCELLENT LISTEN

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While Prohibition was successful in closing the saloon, it didn't quench America's thirst. Enterprising bootleggers found more ways to provide more alcohol to parched Americans - so much that there was finally enough supply to meet demand. New drinking establishments popped up across the nation: speakeasies.

Forced underground, these new types of saloons operated under new rules, too. Women drank right alongside the men, and both black and white patrons danced together to Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, all while local cops shrugged or were paid off to look the other way.

But the Feds hadn't turned their backs on the bootleggers. They went undercover, arresting thousands in stings that some claimed were entrapment. Increasingly, Federal agents took the job of enforcing Prohibition seriously. They had to; the business of illicit alcohol was growing dangerous - and violent.

To learn more about Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith and the problems involved in the enforcement of Prohibition, check out Professor David J. Hanson's, "Alcohol Problems and Solutions," is an excellent resource.

If you want to read more about the raids on Prohibition-era speakeasies in New Orleans, this "Intemperance" map by Hannah C. Griggs is an amazing resource that shows every single raid over in that city. For New York speakeasies, Michael Lerner's Dry Manhattan is a thorough investigation of that city. Queen of the Nightclubs by Louise Berliner is also a fun read.

To learn more about Harlem and the generation gap in the 1920s, Terrible Honesty by Ann Douglas is required reading.

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‎American History Tellers: Prohibition - Speakeasy on Apple Podcasts

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‎While Prohibition was successful in closing the saloon, it didn't quench America's thirst. Enterprising bootleggers found more ways to provide more alcohol to parched Americans - so much that there was finally enough supply to meet demand. New drinking establishments popped up across the nation: spe...

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The start of "This Little Thing of Ours" for Italian-Americans.

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The term "organized crime" didn't really exist in the United States before Prohibition. Criminal gangs had run amok in American cities since the late 19th-century, but they were mostly bands of street thugs running small-time extortion and loansharking rackets in predominantly ethnic Italian, Jewish, Irish and Polish neighborhoods.

In fact, before the passing of the 18th Amendment in 1919 and the nationwide ban that went into effect in January 1920 on the sale or importation of "intoxicating liquor," it wasn't the mobsters who ran the most organized criminal schemes in America, but corrupt political "bosses," explains Howard Abadinsky, a criminal justice professor at St. John's University and author of Organized Crime.

"The gangs were thugs in the employ of the political machines," says Abadinsky, intimidating opposition candidates and funneling votes to the boss. In return, the politicians and police chiefs would turn a blind eye to illegal gambling and prostitution rings.
READ MORE: Al Capone
But the underworld power dynamics shifted dramatically with the onset of Prohibition and the overnight outlawing of every bottle of beer, glass of wine and shot of booze in America. With legitimate bars and breweries out of business, someone had to step in to fuel the substantial thirst of the Roaring Twenties. And no one was better equipped than the mobsters.

Mobsters Hired Lawyers

The key to running a successful bootlegging operation, Abadinsky explains, was a paramilitary organization. At first, the street gangs didn't know a thing about business, but they knew how to handle a gun and how to intimidate the competition. They could protect illegal breweries and rum-running operations from rival gangs, provide security for speakeasies and pay off any nosey cops or politicians to look the other way.

It wasn't long before the mobsters were raking in absurd amounts of money and it was bosses and cops who were taking the orders. As the money kept pouring it, these formerly small-time street thugs had to get smart. They had to hire lawyers and accountants to launder the millions in ill-gotten cash piling up each month. They had to start thinking about strategic partnerships with other gangs and shipping logistics and real estate investment.

"They had to become businessmen," says Abadinsky. "And that gave rise to what we now call organized crime."

Before Prohibition, criminal gangs were local menaces, running protection rackets on neighborhood businesses and dabbling in vice entrepreneurship. But the overwhelming business opportunity of illegal booze changed everything. For one thing, sourcing and distributing alcohol is an interstate and even international enterprise. Mobsters couldn't work in isolation if they wanted to keep the liquor flowing and maximize profits.

"Suddenly gang leaders are making deals with each other," says Abadinsky, forging mutual protection pacts across state and international borders, and across ethnic lines, to ensure that shipments of illegal alcohol poured freely into the big cities.

"These are very violent people who are used to solving problems by killing them, but eventually they sit down and say, 'We'll guarantee peace in your area if you guarantee peace in our area.' That's called syndicated crime, this cooperation between criminal groups," says Abadinsky. "In the absence of Prohibition, we wouldn't have had the kind of syndicated criminality that occurred. Prohibition was the catalyst."

Turf Wars Turn Deadly

In the 1920s, Charles "Lucky" Luciano was famous for bringing together some of New York's biggest Italian and Jewish mobsters to dominate the city's bootlegging business. In Chicago, Johnny Torrio kept a fragile peace between his Italian-run bootlegging operation in the city's South Side and the Irish and Polish gangs working the North Side. But it didn't last. By the time Torrio's protege Al Capone took over, it was an all-out turf war. In the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, Capone's men dressed as police officers and gunned down seven of the rival gang's henchmen.
READ MORE: See the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 in Color
Some of the biggest and most lucrative Prohibition-era bootlegging operations imported illegal booze from Canada via the Great Lakes. Underworld profiteer Arnold Rothstein, famous for fixing the 1919 World Series, ran shipments of alcohol through Lake Ontario, over to the Hudson River and down into the thousands of speakeasies of New York City. And the Mayfield Road Gang in Cleveland became famous for its rum-running speedboats criss-crossing Lake Erie.

Kingpins Made Millions Each Year

The demand for illegal beer, wine and liquor was so great during the Prohibition that mob kingpins like Capone were pulling in as much as $100 million a year in the mid-1920s ($1.4 billion in 2018) and spending a half million dollars a month in bribes to police, politicians and federal investigators.

Making money was easy, says Abadinsky. The hard part was figuring out what to do with all the cash. Money laundering was another way in which organized crime was forced to get far more organized. When gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931, loads of Prohibition-era mob money was funneled into the new casinos and hotels. Underworld accountants like Meyer Lansky wired money to brokers in Switzerland who would cover the mobster's tracks and reinvest the cash in legitimate business. Others, like Capone, weren't as savvy and got sent up river on tax evasion charges.

When Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, the cash grab was over, but the sophisticated black-market business schemes and money-laundering tactics of organized crime were here to stay. The biggest gangs shifted their operations away from alcohol and into secondary businesses like drugs, gambling and prostitution. They also profited greatly from the Great Depression.

"The gangs had cash in a cash-starved economy," says Abadinsky. "If you wanted to set up a legitimate business, have to go to organized crime. Loansharking becomes a major industry."

In hindsight, it's clear that Prohibition, a national temperance campaign aimed at reforming America's worst tendencies, that gave birth to one of the nation's worst criminal traditions.
READ MORE: The Night Prohibition Ended

Fact Check

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How Prohibition Put the 'Organized' in Organized Crime | HISTORY

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Before the 18th amendment made alcohol into a high-demand illegal item, criminal gangs in the United States were mostly small and local.

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Famous Bootlegger of 1920s
Credited for the formation of American Mafia

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Primary Source News Article

Before World War I, cars were seen as a luxury item. Not anymore thanks to Ford.

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Favorite Car From 1920s

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Primary Source Documents

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Primary Source Documents

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Movies, radio, and sports in the 1920s (article) | Khan Academy

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In the 1920s, radio and cinema contributed to the development of a national media culture in the United States.

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Birth of Golden Age of Radio

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Silent Films were the new wave.

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Silent Movies for kids - Pie Fight! (Charlie Chaplin)

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Learn about the man who became synonymous with Silent Film

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Childhood

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th, 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field.

Charlie was thrown on his own resources before he reached the age of ten as the early death of his father and the subsequent illness of his mother made it necessary for Charlie and his brother, Sydney, to fend for themselves.

Having inherited natural talents from their parents, the youngsters took to the stage as the best opportunity for a career. Charlie made his professional debut as a member of a juvenile group called "The Eight Lancashire Lads" and rapidly won popular favour as an outstanding tap dancer.

Beginning of his career

When he was about twelve, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as "Billy" the page boy, in support of first H. A. Saintsbury and then William Gillette in different productions of "Sherlock Holmes". At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company.

He scored an immediate hit with American audiences, particularly with his characterization in a sketch entitled "A Night in an English Music Hall". When the Fred Karno troupe returned to the United States in the fall of 1912 for a repeat tour, Chaplin was offered a motion picture contract.

He finally agreed to appear before the cameras at the expiration of his vaudeville commitments in November 1913; and his entrance in the cinema world took place that month when he joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company. His initial salary was $150 a week, but his overnight success on the screen spurred other producers to start negotiations for his services.

At the completion of his Sennett contract, Chaplin moved on to the Essanay Company (1915) at a large increase. Sydney Chaplin had then arrived from England, and took his brother's place with Keystone as their leading comedian.

The following year Charlie was even more in demand and signed with the Mutual Film Corporation for a much larger sum to make 12 two-reel comedies. These include "The Floorwalker", "The Fireman", "The Vagabond", "One A.M." (a production in which he was the only character for the entire two reels with the exception of the entrance of a cab driver in the opening scene), "The Count", "The Pawnshop", "Behind the Screen", "The Rink", "Easy Street" (heralded as his greatest production up to that time), "The Cure", "The Immigrant" and "The Adventurer".

Gaining independence

When his contract with Mutual expired in 1917, Chaplin decided to become an independent producer in a desire for more freedom and greater leisure in making his movies. To that end, he busied himself with the construction of his own studios. This plant was situated in the heart of the residential section of Hollywood at La Brea Avenue.

Early in 1918, Chaplin entered into an agreement with First National Exhibitors' Circuit, a new organization specially formed to exploit his pictures. His first film under this new deal was "A Dog's Life". After this production, he turned his attention to a national tour on behalf of the war effort, following which he made a film the US government used to popularize the Liberty Loan drive: "The Bond".

His next commercial venture was the production of a comedy dealing with the war. "Shoulder Arms", released in 1918 at a most opportune time, proved a veritable mirthquake at the box office and added enormously to Chaplin's popularity.

He followed "Shoulder Arms" with "Sunnyside" and "A Day's Pleasure", both released in 1919. In April of that year, Chaplin joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corporation. B.B. Hampton, in his "History of the Movies" says:

"The corporation was organized as a distributor, each of the artists retaining entire control of his or her respective producing activities, delivering to United Artists the completed pictures for distribution on the same general plan they would have followed with a distributing organization which they did not own. The stock of United Artists was divided equally among the founders. This arrangement introduced a new method into the industry. Heretofore, producers and distributors had been the employers, paying salaries and sometimes a share of the profits to the stars. Under the United Artists system, the stars became their own employers. They had to do their own financing, but they received the producer profits that had formerly gone to their employers and each received his share of the profits of the distributing organization."

(Note: The comments on each film outlined below are taken from articles by David Robinson. We strongly recommend you read the full articles by following our links, since they provide many more insights on Chaplin's life and work.)
However, before he could assume his responsibilities with United Artists, Chaplin had to complete his contract with First National. So early in 1921, he came out with a six-reel masterpiece: The Kid, in which he introduced to the screen one of the greatest child actors the world has ever known - Jackie Coogan.

Later in 1921, he released "The Idle Class", in which he portrayed a dual character. Then, feeling the need for a complete rest from his motion picture activities, Chaplin sailed for Europe in September 1921. London, Paris, Berlin and other capitals on the continent gave him tumultuous receptions.

After an extended vacation, Chaplin returned to Hollywood to resume his picture work and start his active association with United Artists. Under his arrangement with U.A., Chaplin made eight pictures, each of feature length, in the following order:

The Masterpiece Features

A Woman of Paris was a courageous step in the career of Charles Chaplin. After seventy films in which he himself had appeared in every scene, he now directed a picture in which he merely walked on for a few seconds as an unbilled and unrecognisable extra - a porter at a railroad station. Until this time, every film had been a comedy. A Woman of Paris was a romantic drama. This was not a sudden impulse. For a long time Chaplin had wanted to try his hand at directing a serious film.

Chaplin generally strove to separate his work from his private life; but in this case the two became inextricably and painfully mixed. Searching for a new leading lady, he rediscovered Lillita MacMurray, whom he had employed, as a pretty 12-year-old, in The Kid. Still not yet sixteen, Lillita was put under contract and re-named Lita Grey.

Chaplin and Lita Grey sign the contract for The Gold Rush

Chaplin quickly embarked on a clandestine affair with her; and when the film was six months into shooting, Lita discovered she was pregnant. Chaplin found himself forced into a marriage which brought misery to both partners, though it produced two sons, Charles Jr and Sydney Chaplin.

The Circus won Charles Chaplin his first Academy Award - it was still not yet called the 'Oscar' - he was given it at the first presentations ceremony, in 1929. But as late as 1964, it seemed, this was a film he preferred to forget. The reason was not the film itself, but the deeply fraught circumstances surrounding its making.

Chaplin was in the throes of the break-up of his marriage with Lita Grey; and production of The Circus coincided with one of the most unseemly and sensational divorces of twenties Hollywood, as Lita's lawyers sought every means to ruin Chaplin's career by smearing his reputation. As if his domestic troubles were not enough, the film seemed fated to catastrophe of every kind.

In the late 1960s, after the years spent trying to forget it, Chaplin returned to The Circus to re-release it with a new musical score of his own composition. It seemed to symbolize his reconciliation to the film which cost him so much stress.

City Lights proved to be the hardest and longest undertaking of Chaplin's career. By the time it was completed he had spent two years and eight months on the work, with almost 190 days of actual shooting. The marvel is that the finished film betrays nothing of this effort and anxiety.

Even before he began City Lights, the sound film was firmly established. This new revolution was a bigger challenge to Chaplin than to other silent stars. His Tramp character was universal. His mime was understood in every part of the world. But if the Tramp now began to speak in English, that world-wide audience would instantly shrink.

Chaplin boldly solved the problem by ignoring speech, and making City Lights in the way he had always worked before, as a silent film. However he astounded the press and the public by composing the entire score for City Lights.

The premieres were among the most brilliant the cinema had ever seen. In Los Angeles, Chaplin's guest was Albert Einstein; while in London Bernard Shaw sat beside him. City Lights was a critical triumph. All Chaplin's struggles and anxieties, it seemed, were compensated by the film which still appears as the zenith of his achievement and reputation.

Chaplin was acutely preoccupied with the social and economic problems of this new age. In 1931 and 1932 he had left Hollywood behind, to embark on an 18-month world tour. In Europe, he had been disturbed to see the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation.

He read books on economic theory; and devised his own Economic Solution, an intelligent exercise in utopian idealism, based on a more equitable distribution not just of wealth but of work. In 1931 he told a newspaper interviewer, "Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work".

In Modern Times Chaplin set out to transform his observations and anxieties into comedy. The little Tramp - described in the film credits as "a Factory Worker"- is now one of the millions coping with the problems of the 1930s, which are not so very different from anxieties of the 21st century - poverty, unemployment, strikes and strike breakers, political intolerance, economic inequalities, the tyranny of the machine, narcotics.

When writing The Great Dictator in 1939, Chaplin was as famous worldwide as Hitler, and his Tramp character wore the same moustache. He decided to pit his celebrity and humour against the dictator's own celebrity and evil. He benefited - if that is the right word for it, given the times - from his "reputation" as a Jew, which he was not - (he said "I do not have that pleasure").

In the film Chaplin plays a dual role -a Jewish barber who lost his memory in a plane accident in the first war, and spent years in hospital before being discharged into an antisemite country that he does not understand, and Hynkel, the dictator leader of Tomania, whose armies are the forces of the Double Cross, and who will do anything along those lines to increase his possibilities for becoming emperor of the world. Chaplin's aim is obvious, and the film ends with a now famous and humanitarian speech made by the barber, speaking Chaplin's own words.

The idea was originally suggested by Orson Welles, as a project for a dramatised documentary on the career of the legendary French murder Henri Désiré Landru - who was executed in 1922, having murdered at least ten women, two dogs and one boy.

Chaplin was so intrigued by the idea that he paid Welles $5000 for it. The agreement was signed in 1941, but Chaplin took four more years to complete the script. In the meantime the irritating distractions of a much-publicised and ugly paternity suit had been compensated by his brilliantly successful marriage to Oona O'Neill.

In the late 1940s, America¹s Cold War paranoia reached its peak, and Chaplin, as a foreigner with liberal and humanist sympathies, was a prime target for political witch-hunters. This was the start of Chaplin's last and unhappiest period in the United States, which he was definitively to leave in 1952.

Not surprisingly, then, in choosing his next subject he deliberately sought escape from disagreeable contemporary reality. He found it in bitter-sweet nostalgia for the world of his youth - the world of the London music halls at the opening of the 20th century, where he had first discovered his genius as an entertainer.

With this strong underlay of nostalgia, Chaplin was at pains to evoke as accurately as possible the London he remembered from half a century before and it is clear from the preparatory notes for the film that the character of Calvero had a very similar childhood to Chaplin's own. Limelight 's story of a once famous music hall artist whom nobody finds amusing any longer may well have been similarly autobiographical as a sort of nightmare scenario.

Chaplin's son Sydney plays the young, talented pianist who vies with Calvero for the young ballerina's heart, and several other Chaplin family members participated in the film. It was when on the boat travelling with his family to the London premiere of Limelight that Chaplin learned that his re-entry pass to the United States had been rescinded based on allegations regarding his morals and politics.

Chaplin therefore remained in Europe, and settled with his family at the Manoir de Ban in Corsier sur Vevey, Switzerland, with view of lake and mountains. What a difference from California. He and Oona went on to have four more children, making a total of eight.

With A King in New York Charles Chaplin was the first film-maker to dare to expose, through satire and ridicule, the paranoia and political intolerance which overtook the United States in the Cold War years of the 1940s and 50s. Chaplin himself had bitter personal experience of the American malaise of that time.

To take up film making again, as an exile, was a challenging undertaking. He was now nearing 70. For almost forty years he had enjoyed the luxury of his own studio and a staff of regular employees, who understood his way of work. Now though he had to work with strangers, in costly and unfriendly rented studios. The film shows the strain.

A Countess from Hong Kong

In 1966 he produced his last picture, "A Countess from Hong Kong" for Universal Pictures, his only film in colour, starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando. The film started as a project called Stowaway in the 1930s, planned for Paulette Goddard. Chaplin appears briefly as a ship steward, Chaplin's son Sydney once again has an important role, and three of Chaplin's daughters have small parts in the film. The film was unsuccessful at the box office, but Petula Clark had one or two hit records with songs from the soundtrack music and the music continues to be very popular.

Last Years

Chaplin's versatility extended to writing, music and sports. He was the author of at least four books, "My Trip Abroad", "A Comedian Sees the World", "My Autobiography", "My Life in Pictures" as well as all of his scripts. An accomplished musician, though self-taught, he played a variety of instruments with equal skill and facility (playing violin and cello left-handed).

He was also a composer, having written and published many songs, among them: "Sing a Song"; "With You Dear in Bombay"; and "There's Always One You Can't Forget", "Smile", "Eternally", "You are My Song", as well as the soundtracks for all his films. Charles Chaplin was one of the rare comedians who not only financed and produced all his films (with the exception of "A Countess from Hong Kong"), but was the author, actor, director and soundtrack composer of them as well.

He died on Christmas day 1977, survived by eight children from his last marriage with Oona O'Neill, and one son from his short marriage to Lita Grey.

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Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th, 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field.

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Alexander Fleming and his accidental discovery

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The accident that changed the world - Allison Ramsey and Mary Staicu

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First Transatlantic Flight
New York Times Article (Primary Source)

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Paris, May 21 -- Lindbergh did it. Twenty minutes after 10 o'clock tonight suddenly and softly there slipped out of the darkness a gray-white airplane as 25,000 pairs of eyes strained toward it. At 10:24 the Spirit of St. Louis landed and lines of soldiers, ranks of policemen and stout steel fences went down before a mad rush as irresistible as the tides of ocean.

"Well, I made it," smiled Lindbergh, as the little white monoplane came to a halt in the middle of the field and the first vanguard reached the plane. Lindbergh made a move to jump out. Twenty hands reached for him and lifted him out as if he were a baby. Several thousands in a minute were around the plane. Thousands more broke the barriers of iron, rails round the field, cheering wildly.
Lifted From His Cockpit
As he was lifted to the ground Lindbergh was [text unreadable] with his hair unkempt, he looked completely worn out. He had strength enough, however, to smile, and waved his hand to the crowd. Soldiers with fixed bayonets were unable to keep back the crowd.

United States Ambassador Herrick was among the first to welcome and congratulate the hero.

A New York Times man was one of the first to reach the machine after its graceful descent to the field. Those first to arrive at the plane had a picture that will live in their minds for the rest of their lives. His cap off, his famous locks falling in disarray around his eyes, "Lucky Lindy" sat peering out over the rim of the little cockpit of his machine.
Dramatic Scene at the Field
It was high drama. Picture the scene. Almost if not quite 100,000 people were massed on the east side of Le Bourget air field. Some of them had been there six and seven hours.

Suddenly a message spread like lightning, the aviator had been seen over Cherbourg. However, remembering the messages telling of Captain Nungesser's flight, the crowd was skeptical.

"One chance in a thousand!" "Oh, he cannot do it without navigating instruments!" "It's a pity, because he was a brave boy." Pessimism had spread over the great throng by 10 o'clock.

The stars came out and a chill wind blew.
Watchers Are Twice Disappointed
Suddenly the field lights flooded [text unreadable] glares onto the landing ground and there came the roar of an airplane's motor. The crowd was still, then began to cheer, but two minutes later the landing glares went dark for the searchlight had identified the plane and it was not Captain Lindbergh's.

Stamping their feet in the cold, the crowd waited patiently. It seemed quite apparent that nearly every one was willing to wait all night, hoping against hope.

Suddenly- it was 10:16 exactly- another motor roared over the heads of the crowd. In the sky one caught a glimpse of a white gray plane, and for an instant heard the sound of one. Then it dimmed , and the idea spread that it was yet another disappointment.

Again landing lights glared and almost by the time they had flooded the field the gray-white plane had lighted on the far side nearly half a mile from the crowd. It seemed to stop almost as it hit the ground, so gently did it land.

And then occurred a scene which almost passed description. Two companies of soldiers with fixed bayonets and the Le Bourget field police, reinforced by Paris agents, had held the crowd in good order. But as the lights showed the plane landing, much as if a picture had been thrown on a moving picture screen, there was a mad rush.
Soldiers and Police Swept Aside
The movement of humanity swept over soldiers and by policemen and there was the wild sight of thousands of men and women rushing madly across half a mile of the not too even ground. Soldiers and police tried for one small moment to stem the tide, then they joined it, rushing as madly as anyone else toward the aviator and his plane.

The first people to reach the plane were two workmen of the aviation field and half a dozen Frenchmen.

"Cette fois, ca va!" they cried. (This time it's done.)

Captain Lindbergh answered: "Well, I made it."

An instant later he was on the shoulders of half a dozen persons who tried to bear him from the field. The crowd crushed about the aviator and his progress was halted until a squad of soldiers with fixed bayonets cleared a way for him.

It was two French aviators- Major Pierre Weiss and Sergeant de Troyer -- who rescued Captain Lindbergh from the frenzied mob. When it seemed that the excited French men and women would overwhelm the frail figure which was being carried on the shoulders of a half dozen men, the two aviators rushed up with a Renault car and hastily snatching Lindy from the crowd, sped across the field to the commandant's office.

Then followed an almost cruel rush to get near the airman. Women were thrown down and a number trampled badly. The doors of the small building were closed, but the windows were forced by enthusiasts, who were promptly ejected by soldiers.
Five Minutes of Cheering for Nungesser
Spurred on by reports spread in Paris of the approach of the aviator, other thousands began to arrive from the capital. The police estimate that within half an hour after Captain Lindbergh landed there were probably 100,000 storming the little building to get a sight of the idol of the evening.

Suddenly he appeared at a window, waving his helmet. It was then that, amid cheers for him, came five minutes of cheering for Captain Nungesser.

While the gallant aviator was resting in the Aviators' Club part of the crowd turned toward his airplane. It had landed in the pink of condition. Before the police could intervene the spectators turned souvenir mad, had stripped the plane of everything which could be taken off, and some were even cutting pieces of linen from the wings when a squad of soldiers with fixed bayonets quickly surrounded the Spirit of St. Louis and guarded it while mechanics wheeled into a shed, but only after it had been considerably marred.

While the crowd was waiting, Captain Lindbergh was taken away from the field about midnight, to seek a well-earned repose.

The thing that Captain Lindbergh emphasized more than anything else to the American committee which welcomed him and later to newspapermen, was that he felt no special strain.

"I could have gone one-half again as much," he said with conviction.
Excited Crowds Block Paris Traffic
Not since the armistice of 1918 has Paris witnessed a downright demonstration of popular enthusiasm and excitement equal to that displayed by the throngs flocking to the boulevards for news of the American flier, whose personality has captured the hearts of the Parisian Multitude.

Thirty thousand people had gathered at the Place de Opera and the Square de Havre, near St. Lazare station, where illuminated advertising signs flashed bulletins on the progress of the flier. In front of the office of the Paris Matin in the Boulevard Poissonniere the crowds quickly filled the streets, so that extra police details had the greatest difficulty in keeping the traffic moving in two narrow files between the mobs which repeatedly choked the entire street.

From the moment when the last evening editions appeared, at 6:30 o'clock, until shortly after 9 there was a curious reaction, due to the fact that news seemed to be at a standstill. The throngs waited, hushed and silent, for confirmation.

It was a tense period when the thought in every mind was that they were witnessing a repetition of the deception which two weeks ago turned victory into mourning for the French aviators Nungesser and Coli. Suppose the news flashed from the Empress of France that the American flier was seen off the coast of Ireland proved false, as deceiving as the word flashed that Nungesser's White Bird had been sighted off Nova Scotia.
Wait Tensely for News
During a long, tense period no confirmation came. The people stood quietly, but the strain was becoming almost unbearable, permeating through the crowd. Pessimistic phrases were repeated. "It's too much to think it possible." "They shouldn't have let him go." "All alone, he has no chance if he should be overcome with exhaustion."

To these comments the inevitable reply was, "Don't give up hope. There's still time."

All this showed the French throng was unanimously eager for the American's safety and straining every wish for his ultimate victory.

A French woman dressed in mourning and sitting in a big limousine was seen wiping her eyes when the bulletins failed to flash confirmation that Lindbergh's plane had been sighted off Ireland. A woman selling papers near-by brushed her own tears aside exclaiming:

"You're right to feel so, madame. In such things there is no nationality -- he's some mother's son."

Something of the same despair which the crowds evinced two weeks ago spread as an unconfirmed rumor was circulated that Lindbergh had been forced down. Soon after 9 o'clock this was turned to a cheering, shouting pandemonium when Le Matin posted a bulletin announcing that the Lindbergh plane had been sighted over Cherbourg.
Crowd Delirious With Joy
The crowd applauded and surged into the street, halting traffic in a series of delirious manifestations which lasted for ten minutes with cries of "Vive Lindbergh," "Vive l'Americain." The news was followed by a general rush for taxicabs and subway stations, thousands being seized simultaneously with the idea of going to Le Bourget to witness the arrival of the victorious airman.

All roads leading toward the air field were jammed with traffic, though thousands still clung to their places before the boulevard bulletin boards. Other throngs moved toward the Etoile, lining ways of access to the hotel where it had been announced the American's rooms were reserved, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the international hero, the first to make Paris from New York by air, as he passed in triumph from the airdrome.
Landing Excited Crowd to Frenzy
Ovation after ovation followed the news of Lindbergh's startling progress through France, the crowds steadily augmenting until they filled the entire block. The throng was estimated at 15,000 people. After Cherbourg word was flashed that the plane had traversed Louvirs, then the outskirts of Paris.

In a perfect frenzy the huge crowd hailed the announcement that Lindbergh had landed at Le Bourget. Straw hats sailed in the air, handkerchiefs fluttered and a roar of cheers and clapping spread through the throng and was carried along down the boulevards, where the crowds seated in the cafe terraces rushed into the streets and joined in the demonstration. The cheering was renewed again and again.
Stars and Stripes Wildly Applauded
From the tops of motorbuses, stopped in the traffic, joyful figures demonstrated their glee, the police abandoning their efforts to restrain the throng and joining in the general elation.

From the first recheering of "Vive l'Americain" rolled up a mighty shout, "The flags," the same cry which two weeks ago gave rise to the false rumor of an anti-American demonstration, when it was falsely reported that a mob demanded the removal of the American flag from the Matin office.
"Vive l'Americain" the Cry
For several minutes this cry was renewed until the proprietor of a motion picture house unfurled a little American flag, which was greeted with cheer upon cheer and which became the mightiest pro-American demonstration seen in France since the days of the war, when, as the Yankee troops landed, three large American flags beside the French Tricolor hung from Le Matin's window in the glare of searchlights.

There could be no mistaking the sincerity of these cheers which were prolonged as a Frenchman in the crowd rushed up to the American demonstrators, wringing their hands in congratulations.

Extra papers telling the tale of the American's triumph in bulletin form sold as fast as the newsmen could distribute them.

The throng slowly dispersed in a general procession toward Montmartre, where many hundreds were to spend the remainder of the night in a celebration.
Flier's Navigation Called Uncanny
What appealed to the French aviators as the uncanny part of Captain Lindbergh's performance was his lack of navigating instruments. Old and experienced airmen, in conversations during their wait for him said he had one chance in a thousand because, while he might head in a given compass direction in leaving America, the winds might put him many hundreds of miles out of his path.

Guesses were made that he might land in Spain, in Portugal, in Northern Africa or in Ireland or even Norway. But the flier landed at Le Bourget as simply as you please and as accurately as if he had half a dozen navigators aboard.
Traffic to Le Bourget in Record Jam
When the news of Captain Lindbergh's arrival reached Paris tens of thousands of people started for Le Bourget Field. They met the crowds starting to come home and there ensued the worst traffic tangle the French Capital has had. The police estimate that 12,000 automobiles became involved in the tangle and many of the cars did not get back to the city until after 3 o'clock this morning.

For two hours there was a hopeless mix-up with no movement in any direction. The emergency traffic police brought from Paris worked nearly all night in straightening out the mess.

French papers estimated that at midnight 150,000 people were trying to get to or from Le Bourget and there were frequent exhibitions of temper which acted as a great contrast to the enthusiastic joy which greeted the arrival of the American hero.

Soon after Lindbergh landed an employe of the Bourse telegraph office arrived with more than 700 cablegrams for him, but the employe was unable to get within half a mile of the addressee.

<< Return to Article Index

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May 21, 1927-Lindbergh Does It! To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours; Flies 1,000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet; Cheering French Carry Him Off Field

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Paris, May 21 -- Lindbergh did it. Twenty minutes after 10 o'clock tonight suddenly and softly there slipped out of the darkness a gray-white airplane as 25,000 pairs of eyes strained toward it. At 10:24 the Spirit of St.

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Video footage

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Charles Lindbergh - From New York to Paris 1927

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Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic on May 20-21, 1927 is seen as one of the most important events of the 20th century, but memories have dimmed and, in an age when jet airplanes routinely cross the Atlantic Ocean with hundreds of passengers, we have lost sight of its significance.

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Is it making a comeback today?

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Examples That Americans Can Still See Today

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A series of posters which celebrates six of the best Art Deco buildings in the United States; and this article - which was written for HomeAdvisor - gives more details about them.

I have been given express written permission to use the images and the verbatim text from the aforementioned article in this article. With articles such as this one, I sometimes add brief notes - but I am not knowledgeable enough about them to add much value to the information which is already here.

Six Examples of Art Deco Buildings in the United States

Art Deco was a glamorous European design style that grew out of the waning Art Nouveau movement in the first decades of the twentieth century. Manifesting through new trends in architecture and interior design, the movement perfectly captured the spirit of the age: hope, progress and jazz!

Naturally, when Art Deco made it across the Atlantic, Americans made the style their own. American Art Deco also appropriated elements of pre-Columbian, Aztec, and Mayan design. They escalated the style into the massive skyscrapers that were to become the nation's signature as images of the roaring twenties introduced the rising superpower to the rest of the world.

1. Rego Park Jewish Center - Queens, New York

Built for a growing local Jewish population just after the Second World War, this synagogue is instantly recognizable from the outside by its colorful mosaic. This mosaic details scenes from the Old Testament, created by Hungarian-born artist A. Raymond Katz. Inside, three tall windows blend Hebrew calligraphy with the abstract colors and shapes for which Art Deco is known - a meeting of cultures across time.

2. Civic Opera Building - Chicago, Illinois

The Civic Opera House is an early (1929) example of Art Deco. You can almost see the moment where the style takes over from Art Nouveau in the gilt cornices and Austrian crystal chandeliers of the foyer. The 45-story office tower flanked by two 22-story wings gives the building, from the outside, the appearance of a vast throne.

3. The Union Terminal - Cincinnati, Ohio

Sheltered by the largest half-dome in the western hemisphere, this monumental train station was built at a cost of $41 million and opened in 1933. Breathtaking mosaics by Winold Reiss commemorate 15 local businesses in intricate detail, providing relief to the classic geometrics of the arched roofs.

4. The U-Drop Inn - United States Highway 66, Shamrock, Texas

Midway along the iconic highway 66, the Tower Station and U-Drop Inn rose up from the desert in 1933 to provide food and gas to weary travelers. A shift in traffic patterns nearly saw the end of the building in the 1950s, but it stands strong today. LED strips replaced the neon ribbon and a Tesla charging station was added to power the travel-stop into the future.

5. Paramount Theater - Oakland, California

The Paramount is a monument to collaborative creativity, unifying the efforts of a diverse team of artists into a consistent vision. Architect Timothy Pflueger is known for his iconic cinema designs, and the Paramount stands out as an Art Deco-flavored building that rejects all that came before it. It finds, instead, its own timeless style.

6. Hotel Breakwater South Beach - Miami, Florida

The ocean blue and flamingo pink of the Hotel Breakwater might seem like archetypal Art Deco colors, but the building wasn't painted like this until the Miami Vice art department turned up in the 1980s. The ziggurat design and clean lines of the hotel are relatively modest, which is what makes it such a smart contrast for a district that is already rich with naturally-occurring forms and colors.

Summary

Art Deco - which is a shortened version of Arts Décoratifs from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which occurred in Paris in 1925 - combined many different international styles with fine craftsmanship and rare and expensive materials to create what was then a uniquely modern aesthetic. Regardless of culture, examples of Art Deco appeared in many countries around the world in many forms: buildings, cars, art, jewelry, trains, and even everyday electronics and appliances as only some of many examples. It has become a classic representation of luxury, exuberance, glamour, and faith in social and technological progress from a bygone era - most notably, from the 1910s through the early 1940s.

Today, Art Deco is still a celebrated style which exudes its own identity - so much so that ongoing efforts to preserve classic examples of it continue to be ongoing. Thankfully, many of these classic buildings remain.
Despite the Chrysler Building in New York being one of the most famous and iconic examples of buildings in the Art Deco style in the United States, it did not place on the list in this article. Photograph ©2011 by Brian Cohen.

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Six Examples of Art Deco Buildings in the United States - The Gate

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A series of posters which celebrates six of the best Art Deco buildings in the United States; and this article - which was written for HomeAdvisor - gives more details about them. I have been given express written permission to use the images and the verbatim text from the aforementioned article in this article.

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Great example of 1920s - 1930s architecture

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The Deadliest Terror Attack On Wall Street

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Biggest increase in membership since 1860s

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How Prohibition Fueled the Rise of the Ku Klux Klan | HISTORY

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100 years ago, the KKK began terrorizing Catholic immigrants in the name of Prohibition.

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Famous Chicago Gangster
Featured on cover of New York Times

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Cover of "Life" Magazine in 1920s

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A time of great competitiveness

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The Roaring Twenties are famous for many things, one of the most often forgotten is 1920s sports.

"I have only one superstition, touch all the bases when I hit a home-run."

It was a new era of heroes and goats.

From the Black Sox scandal of 1919, the historic home runs records of Babe Ruth, player Red Grange and coach Knute Rockne's domination in football, Jack Dempsey's vicious knock-outs, and Man o'Wars brilliant races, the sports of the 1920s have become legendary to fans around the world. This was "The Golden Age" of sports in America.

Newspapers turned sports into an American pastime and gave relief to an American public searching for some relief after the atrocities of World War 1.

Sportswriters became the character delivering the news to a public that couldn't get enough.

Baseball "America's Pastime"

Babe Ruth owned 1920s sports. He was the hard drinking, hard swinging hero of the Yankees' "Murderer's Row".Along with Lou Gehrig, Ruth put together one of the most impressive baseball careers of all time.

And he did it in an era before television, steroids, free agency and million dollar contracts. This quote from W.O. McGeehan,

"Babe Ruth with his bat pounded baseball back into popularity [after the Black Sox scandal]. He swings with utmost sincerity. When he hits the ball it goes into wide-open spaces. When he misses, he misses with vehement sincerity."
"The Babe" embodied the spirit of 1920s sports, and The Roaring Twenties. In his day, he was revered as a hero in the streets of New York and played the perfect spoil tot he straight-laced nature of his New York Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig.

1920s Sports':Football

Halfback Red Grange and Notre Dame coach Knute Rockney, led football bravely into a new era. College football was wildly popular, thanks in large part to many young men and women entering Universities in post-war America.

College football made money, profiting 21 million dollars for the Universities every year. Grange played for the University of Illinois and was known as "The Galloping Ghost" because of his uncanny ability not to be tackled. His elusiveness, size and power won him the honor of the "Greatest College Football Player of All Time" 80 years after he graduated from college.

Here's how Red Grange's running style was described:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame Eluding all who reach and clutch; A gray ghost thrown into the game That rival hands may never touch; A rubber bounding, blasting soul Whose destination is the goal.

1920s Sports':Boxing

The 1920s was owned by boxer Jack Dempsey. He, like Ruth, embodied the spirit of the Roaring Twenties with his bare-knuckled upbringing in Colorado and the way he would soak his face in brine to make his skin leathery and chew pine gum to strengthen his jaw.

Dempsey headlined the first million dollar gate at any sporting event in 1921, when he defended his World Title against George Carpentier. Dempsey was known for the amount of power in his menacing right hand, strengthened by the years he spent as a miner in Colorado.

1920s Sports':Horse Racing

Man o'War was the unquestioned king of the horses, winning races by an absurd margin of 100 lengths. In his career "Big Red" as he was known, won 20 of 21 races he started, losing only to a horse appropriately named "Upset".

He never won the Triple Crown because his owner felt he was too young to run a Mile and a quarter track. He spent 22 years at stud and sired his own Triple Crown winner, War Admiral.

Man o'War is widely regarded as the greatest racehorse in history.

1920s Sports':Tennis

Before John McEnroe graced the sport of tennis with his dramatic antics on the court, there was "Big" Bill Tilden of the 1920s. Known for his flair, his antics, the dramatic way he played the game. Bill Tilden was an actor on the court as much as he was a player.

He was so self-absorbed he even bankrolled plays, with him playing the lead character, of course. His matches were often dramatic because he played poorly to make them seem more exciting than they needed to be. He would often leave his sweater on for a few games, then take it off to make his fabulous comeback. Tilden was one of the forgotten characters of 1920s sports.

Helen Wills was one of the first female 1920s sports stars. She won her first title in 1923, when she was 17 years old.

She was the spoil to Tilden's expressive and dramatic nature, Wills was known as "Little Miss Poker Face" because of the business-like way she played the sport.

1920s Sports':Swimming

The 1920s was known for it's strange stunts like flagpole sitting, and barnstorming. When American, Gertrude Ederle swam across the English Channel in 1926, she not only became the first woman to do it, but her time of 14 hours and 31 minutes was nearly 2 hours faster than any man had ever completed the feat.

At the time, Ederle's feat was known as "the greatest sports story in the world."

1920s Sports': Golf

efore Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicholas created their legends, there was Bobby Jones.

In the span of 8 years, Jones won 13 national championships, both in Europe and the United States. He was the original hot headed golfer, known to either play brilliantly, or to implode on the course. When playing poorly he even, at times, picked up his ball and quit.

Despite his temper Bobby Jones became an idol for the American public which loves his sense of style, his fearlessness in playing golf shots impossible to anyone less talented.

In the Golden Era, 1920s sports were still in their infancy. While still big businesses, sports had a sense of innocence that was starting to show its cracks, case in point, the Black Sox scandal of 1919. However the legends of 1920s sports remain legends today because of the way they played their respective games.

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1920s Sports: A Golden Age of Competition

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The Roaring Twenties are famous for many things, one of the most often forgotten is 1920s sports. "I have only one superstition, touch all the bases when I hit a home-run." It was a new era of heroes and goats.

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"The Great Bambino"
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/ruth-babe

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In 1921, Kathleen Lowrie, came in the, making an impact on the women sports association as well. She served as Chair of the Department of Women's Physical Education from 1921 to 1953. She was responsible for building a strong sports program in sports at Wooster.

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What women wore while playing sports during 1920s

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Primary Source - Political Cartoons

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Evolution being taught in classrooms was discouraged

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The Scopes Monkey Trial Is the Blockbuster Event of 1925 (feat. Bradley Whitford) - Drunk History

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Overview

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These African American leaders left a lasting mark with their contributions in music, art, literature and so much more.

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The Harlem Renaissance began in 1917 and ended in 1937 with the publication of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

During this time, writers emerged to discuss themes such as assimilation, alienation, pride, and unity. Below are several of the most prolific writers of this time period-their works are still read in classrooms today.

Events such as the Red Summer of 1919, meetings at the Dark Tower, and everyday lives of African Americans served as inspiration for these writers who often drew from their Southern roots and Northern lives to create lasting stories.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is one of the most prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. In a career that began in the early 1920s and lasted through his death in 1967, Hughes wrote plays, essays, novels, and poems.

His most notable works include "Montage of a Dream Deferred," "The Weary Blues," "Not Without Laughter," and "Mule Bone."

Zora Neale Hurston's work as an anthropologist, folklorist, essayist, and novelist made her one of the key players of the Harlem Renaissance period.​

In her lifetime, Hurston published more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays as well as four novels and an autobiography. While poet Sterling Brown once said, "When Zora was there, she was the party," Richard Wright found her use of dialect appalling.

Hurston's notable works include "Their Eyes Were Watching God," "Mule Bone," and "Dust Tracks on the Road."Hurston was able to complete most of these works because of the financial help provided by Charlotte Osgood Mason, who helped Hurston to travel throughout the south for four years and collect folklore.

Jessie Redmon Fauset

Jessie Redmon Fauset is often remembered for being one of the architects of the Harlem Renaissance movement for her work with W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson. However, Fauset was also a poet and novelist whose work was widely read during and after the Renaissance period.

Her novels include "Plum Bun," "Chinaberry Tree," and "Comedy: An American Novel."

Historian David Levering Lewis notes that Fauset's work as a key player of the Harlem Renaissance was "probably unequaled" and he argues that "there is no telling what she would have done had she been a man, given her first-rate mind and formidable efficiency at any task."

Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.

Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr. wrote plays, essays, and poetry.

In the last seven years of Cotter's life, he wrote several poems and plays. His play "On the Fields of France"was published in 1920, a year after Cotter's death. Set on a battlefield in Northern France, the play follows the last few hours of the lives of two army officers-one Black and the other white-who die holding hands. Cotter also wrote two other plays, "The White Folks' Nigger" as well as "Caroling Dusk."

Cotter was born in Louisville, Kentucky, as the son of Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr., who was also a writer and educator. Cotter died of tuberculosis in 1919.

Claude McKay

James Weldon Johnson once said, "Claude McKay's poetry was one of the great forces in bringing about what is often called the 'Negro Literary Renaissance." Considered one of the most prolific writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay used themes such as African American pride, alienation, and desire for assimilation in his works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

McKay's most famous poems include "If We Must Die," "America," and "Harlem Shadows."

He also wrote several novels including "Home to Harlem," "Banjo," "Gingertown," and "Banana Bottom."

Watch Now: Overview of The Harlem Renaissance

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The Harlem Renaissance began in 1917 and ended in 1937 with the publication of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God." During this time, writers emerged to discuss themes such as assimilation, alienation, pride, and unity. Below are several of the most prolific writers of this time period-their works are still read in classrooms today.

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Examples of music from Harlem Renaissance

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Influential Musicians of the Harlem Renaissance

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"Strange Fruit", "Civilization", "Blue Moon", "Solitude"

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Billie Holiday - "Strange Fruit" Live 1959 [Reelin' In The Years Archives]

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Hotspot of African-American Culture in New York

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The Cotton Club
Red Hot 1930's Cotton Club Show 16 mm reel found of censored black dancers orgy! It's Cotton Club Girls Gone Wild! Best scenes are at the end! Meant for the trash, and never meant to be seen! Elegant black show girls ditch Opera for Jazz as they get seduced by a hot jazz tune. But it doesn't stop there! Soon the girls are half naked in the dark with the men... WOW WOW !! and then ,,, well I can't describe any more or you might get turned on! You've never seen this kind of action from the 1930s main stream Hollywood before! It is so slickly produced that it almost passed the Hays Code, but not the "dancers orgy" at the end. You will see it all here! Brilliant 1930s titillation! Now its your turn to get some RED HOT HEAT! Stars: Dorothy Salter and Maurice Rocco.
The Cotton Club was a New York City night club located first in the Harlem neighborhood and then in the midtown Theater District. The club operated from 1923 to 1940, most notably during America's Prohibition Era. The club was a whites-only establishment even though it featured many of the best black entertainers and jazz musicians of the era including Lena Horne, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Lottie Gee, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters. During its heyday, the Cotton Club served as a hip meeting spot featuring regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays which featured celebrity guests such as Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Sophie Tucker, Paul Robeson, Al Jolson, Mae West, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Langston Hughes, Judy Garland, Moss Hart, and Mayor Jimmy Walker, among others.
History
In 1920, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson opened the Cotton Club under the name "Club Deluxe" on the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in the heart of the Harlem district. Owney Madden, a prominent bootlegger and gangster, took over the club in 1923 while imprisoned in Sing Sing and changed its name to the Cotton Club." A deal was arranged between the two that allowed Johnson to still be the club's manager. Madden "used the cotton club as an outlet to sell his #1 beer to the prohibition crowd." (While the club was closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor, it reopened without trouble from the police). A man by the name of Herman Stark became the stage manager from then on. The site chosen for the downtown Cotton Club was ideal. It was a big room on the top floor of a building on Broadway and Forty-eight Street, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue meet - an important midtown crossroads, and in the heart of the Great White Way, the Broadway Theater District. While Herman Stark and the club's owners were quite certain the club would do well in its new location, they realized that depended on a smash-hit opening show.

The Cotton Club was a "Whites-only" foundation. The club reproduced the racist imagery of the times, often depicting blacks as savages in exotic jungles or as "darkies" in the plantation South. The club imposed a more subtle color bar on the chorus girls whom the club presented in skimpy outfits: they were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific," which meant that they had to be at least 5 feet 6 inches tall, light-skinned, and under twenty-one years of age. The skin color of the male dancers was more varied."Black performers did not mix with the club's clientele, and after the show many of them went next door to the basement of the superintendent at 646 Lenox, where they imbibed corn whiskey, peach brandy, and marijuana."{The Harlem Renaissance, Steve Watson} Ellington was expected to write "jungle music" for an audience of whites. What Ellington contributed to the Cotton Club is priceless and is summed up perfectly in this 1937 New York Times excerpt: "So long may the empirical Duke and his music making roosters reign - and long may the Cotton Club continue to remember that it came down from Harlem." The prices for customers were high so the performers had very high salaries. {pg 76,The Harlem Reader, Duke Ellington}.
The Prime Years Cotton Club on 125th Street in New York City, December 2013.
Nonetheless, the club also helped launch the careers of Fletcher Henderson, who led the first band to play there in the year 1923, and Duke Ellington, whose orchestra was the house band there from December 4, 1927 to June 30, 1931. In 1927, the first revue with Duke Ellington was called 'Rhythmania' and featured Adelaide Hall, who had just recorded several songs with Ellington including ' Creole Love Call'. Their recording of ' Creole Love Call' became a worldwide hit. The club not only gave Ellington national exposure through radio broadcasts originating there (first through WHN, then over WEAF and after September 1929 through the NBC Red Network - WEAF was the flagship station for that network - on Fridays), but enabled him to develop his repertoire while composing not only the dance tunes for the shows, but also the overtures, transitions, accompaniments, and "jungle" effects that gave him the freedom to experiment with orchestral colours and arrangements that touring bands rarely had. Ellington recorded over 100 compositions during this era. Eventually, in deference to a request by Ellington, the club slightly relaxed its policy of excluding black customers.

Cab Calloway's orchestra brought its Brown Sugar revue to the club in 1930, replacing Ellington's orchestra after its departure in 1931; Jimmie Lunceford's band replaced Calloway's in 1934, while Ellington, Armstrong, and Calloway returned to perform at the club in later years. The most lavish revue in the Cotton Club's thirteen-year history opened on Broadway on September 24, 1936. Robinson and Calloway headed a roster of some 130 other performers. The club was also the first show business opportunity for Lena Horne, who began there as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Dorothy Dandridge performed there while still one of The Dandridge Sisters, while Coleman Hawkins and Don Redmanplayed there as part of Henderson's band. Tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr. (as part of the Will Mastin Trio), and the Nicholas Brothers starred there as well.

The club also drew from white popular culture of the day. Walter Brooks, who had produced the successful Broadway show Shuffle Along, was the nominal owner. Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, one of the most prominent songwriting teams of the era, and Harold Arlen provided the songs for the revues, one of which, " Blackbirds of 1928", starring Adelaide Hall featured the songs " I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and "Diga Diga Doo", produced by Lew Leslie on Broadway.

In 1934, Adelaide Hall starred at the Cotton Club in 'Cotton Club Parade', the biggest grossing show that ever appeared at the club. The show opened on 11 March and ran for eight months, attracting over 600,000 paying customers. The score was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler and featured the classic song 'Ill Wind'. During Hall's performance of 'Ill Wind', to add authenticity to the production, a dry ice machine was used on stage to create a fog effect. It was the first time such equipment had been used on a stage. Featured on the bill was the 16-year-old Lena Horne.

The club was closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot in Harlem the previous year. Photographer Carl Van Vechtenvowed to boycott the club for having such racist policies in place.{The Harlem Renaissance, Steve Watson} The Cotton Club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th. In fact a 1937 New York Times article writes, "The Cotton Club has climbed aboard the Broadway bandwagon, with a show that is calculated to give the customers their money's worth of sound and color - and it does." That year Stark agreed to pay tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson $3,500 a week, the highest salary ever paid to a black entertainer in a Broadway production, and more money than had ever been received by any individual for a night club performance.

It closed for good in 1940, under pressure from higher rents, changing tastes and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners. The Latin Quarter nightclub opened in its space and the building was torn down in 1989 to make way for a hotel. All in all, the Broadway Cotton Club was a highly successful blend of old and new. The site may have been new, the décor may have been slightly different, but once a patron entered and was comfortably seated, he knew he was in a familiar place.

Jazz writer James Haskins wrote in 1977, "Today, there is a new incarnation of the Cotton Club which sits on the most western end of the 125th Street under the massive Manhattanville viaduct. The windowless block of a building has a less dramatic display out front but seems to be popular with tourists for Sunday jazz brunches."
Other Branches
A Chicago branch of the Cotton Club was run by Ralph Capone and a West Coast branch of the Cotton Club existed in Culver City, California in the late 1920s and early 1930s, featuring performers from the original Cotton Club such as Armstrong, Calloway and Ellington. A newer club has opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In Popular Culture
The Cotton Club is a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which offers a playboy history of the club in the context of race relations in the 1930's and the battles between Madden, Dutch Schultz, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, Lucky Luciano, and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. It is discussed in the 2001 Ken Burns PBS documentary, .

The Cotton Club was briefly depicted in the 1997 movie featuring Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, and Andy Garcia. The club, frequented by Dutch Schultz (Roth), was the site of a confrontation between Schultz and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson (Fishburne).

A fictionalized version of the club, renamed the Cotton Pickers Club, also appears in the James Cagney film .

The video for the 1983 song " Joanna" by Kool & the Gang features the eponymous Joanna reminiscing back to her days as a dancer at the Cotton Club.

In an episode of the hit Disney Channel TV show Ant Farm, the main character wakes up as Ella Fitzgerald and she sings in the Cotton Club.

After Midnight is a 2013 Broadway musical revue about the music of Duke Ellington 's years at the famed Harlem nightclub.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Club

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Red Hot 1930's Cotton Club Show 16 mm reel found of censored black dancers orgy! It's Cotton Club Girls Gone Wild! Best scenes are at the end! Meant for the trash, and never meant to be seen! Elegant black show girls ditch Opera for Jazz as they get seduced by a hot jazz tune.

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Primary sources from Harlem Renaissance

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

Teacher's Guide

To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides: Analysis Tool and Guides

A tremendous explosion of creativity rocked the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, and it took the name of the New York City neighborhood of Harlem.

Historical Background

The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, was a period of great cultural activity and innovation among African American artists and writers, one that saw new artists and landmark works appear in the fields of literature, dance, art, and music. The participants were all fiercely individualistic talents, and not all of them saw themselves as being part of a movement. But in time writers such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes; painters like Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden; and musicians and composers such as Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith became widely known as members of the Harlem Renaissance.

Much of the foundation of the Harlem Renaissance was laid by earlier generations of African American educators, students, and intellectuals. In the decades following the Civil War, many racial barriers to education were removed, and African Americans took advantage of the new educational opportunities in great numbers. Dozens of African American colleges and universities were founded, and African American professors and other intellectuals took increasingly public roles. By the early 1900s, intellectual leaders like W.E.B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson were writing, lecturing, and being published in journals such as Crisis and The Messenger.

At the same time, African Americans were moving in huge numbers from the South to northern industrial cities, like New York, where they could find work and escape some of the institutionalized discrimination and mistreatment caused by the South's Jim Crow laws. Innovative young African American writers, painters, and musicians began gathering in a number of neighborhoods in Manhattan, including Harlem and Greenwich Village, working together and developing new ideas, and in the years after World War I they gained national attention.

Some of the most prominent works created during the Harlem Renaissance were in the field of literature. Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Langston Hughes produced novels, poetry, short stories and memoirs.

Hurston produced important work in a number of fields. An anthropologist and folklorist, she studied with the eminent anthropologist Franz Boaz at Columbia University, and used the music and stories that she collected as a folklorist to inform her novels, plays, and other books, including Mules and Men and Their Eyes Were Watching God. She also performed music based on her folkloric research, and has left a number of recordings along with her manuscripts.

Langston Hughes, best known as a poet, also wrote plays, a novel, short stories, and an autobiography. Many of his poems were set to music by African American composers, and he collaborated with Zora Neale Hurston on a play, Mule Bone. Another artist who achieved great things in a number of fields was the multitalented Paul Robeson. An honor student and All-American athlete while at Rutgers University, Robeson went on to graduate from Columbia University Law School, and soon after became a famed concert singer, recording artist, stage and film actor. He was an impassionedadvocate of political causes, and his performance tours and activism took him around the world.

Harlem was a center for musical and theatrical performance as well as literary work, as musicians drawn by the neighborhood's nightlife collaborated with writers, artists, and each other to create original works. Some of this work drew on musical forms that had grown from the African American experience-gospel, jazz, and blues. Other African American musicians worked in classical forms. Bessie Smith was a legendary blues singer, Marian Anderson broke ground as a classical contralto, and Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington took jazz to new levels of innovation.

Eubie Blake was a prolific composer of the Harlem Renaissance, and was one of the creators of the musical revue Shuffle Along. This show was written and produced by African Americans, opened in New York in 1921 to great success, ran for one year in New York, and then toured for an additional two years. The visual arts also were part of the Harlem Renaissance. Among the best-known artists of the period were Aaron Douglas, Laura Wheeler Waring, Edward Harleston, and the painter and collage artist Jacob Lawrence.

Suggestions for Teachers

Ask students to examine the newspaper pages. How do they convey connections between the African American community in New York City-the principal setting of the Harlem Renaissance-and African Americans in other areas? What is the importance of these connections?

Multiple drafts of Langston Hughes' poem "The Ballad of Booker T" offer opportunities to explore not only the writing process, but also the poet's thinking process. Compare two drafts and consider the changes that Hughes made; compare an early draft to the final copy. How did the changes he made shape the effect of the poem? What do the changes and his other notations reveal about his thinking and writing processes? Students can apply what they learn about revisions to their own work: ask them to write a descriptive paragraph or a short poem and then revise it over several days, dating each version.

Read "The Whites Invade Harlem" and consider what point Levi Huber is making. After students read the entire document, direct them to focus on a single paragraph and analyze the techniques the writer uses to make his point. Why might he have taken that approach? Students may apply the techniques to their own writing about a current artistic or cultural phenomenon. Students may study the photographs taken by Carl Van Vechten and analyze his style and artistic choices. What qualities or characteristics of each subject was he emphasizing? How did he use poses, backgrounds, props and focus to create the overall impression? Students might search the Library of Congress digital collections to find photographs by other photographers of the people Van Vechten photographed, and compare the choices those photographers made with the choices Van Vechten made. Students might also select a few people in the school and experiment with portrait photography. They should be prepared to discuss the choices they made in setting up and taking the photographs.

Ask students to examine the documents related to Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, and Eubie Blake. Have students look for connections with African American culture in the years preceding the twentieth century. Ask students to consider subject matter and writing/musical style. What is the significance of these connections? Have students find more information about the music of the artists portrayed in photographs-Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Marian Anderson. How does their work compare to music composed or performed by African Americans in earlier eras?

Additional Resources

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The Harlem Renaissance | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

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My favorite artist from 1920-1940

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Ella & Ink Spots - Into Each Life

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Ella Fitzgerald and The Inkspots - Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall