The Roaring Twenties were the post-World War I era of prosperity and new opportunities. The economy was booming, and the middle class was enjoying a higher standard of living. With unprecedented prosperity, technology, and leisure like no decade before it, the 1920s America roared, soared, and was never bored.

Before World War I, the country remained culturally and psychologically rooted in the 19th century. However, in the 1920s, America seemed to break its wistful attachments to the recent past and usher in a more modern era. The most vivid impressions of that era are flappers and dance halls, movie palaces and radio empires, Prohibition, and speakeasies. Scientists shattered the boundaries of space and time, aviators made men fly, and women went to work. The country was confident and rich. But the 1920s were an age of extreme contradiction. The unmatched prosperity and cultural advancement were accompanied by intense social unrest and reaction. The same decade that bore witness to urbanism and modernism also introduced the Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, nativism, and religious fundamentalism. America stood at a crossroads between innovation and tradition. Many Americans were looking boldly ahead, but just as many were gazing backward, to cherished memories of a fabled national innocence.

Beginning in major cities, the movement quickly spread nationwide, marked by a sense of novelty and a break from tradition. It was driven by new technologies such as automobiles, motion pictures, and radio, as well as innovative music, fashion, and architecture.

The decade before survived the First World War and the deadly global influenza pandemic, bringing about a cynical post-war mindset: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.”

At the same time, the temperance movement gained prominence, leading to well-intentioned laws that unintentionally turned ordinary citizens into lawbreakers.

The 1920s saw the large-scale development and use of automobiles, telephones, films, radio, and electrical appliances in the lives of millions in the Western world.

Aviation rapidly evolved into a major business, spurred by its growth. The media, supported by the emerging mass-market advertising industry, which fueled consumer demand, highlighted celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars. Cities rallied around their home teams, filling newly built cinemas and large sports stadiums. Jazz music flourished, the flapper fashion redefined the modern look for women, and Art Deco reached its peak. American women gained the right to vote, empowering many young women and giving them a newfound sense of independence.

When the decade ended in 1929 with the stock market crash, Americans were left wondering what had happened.

The business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that the establishments continued to flourish nationwide. In major cities, speakeasies could often be elaborate, offering food, live bands, and floor shows. Unlike the previous legal saloons, speakeasies were not subject to pre-Prohibition controls and welcomed women as patrons.

Despite the emergence of bootleggers and speakeasies and the glamour associated with drinking illegally, the temperance movement succeeded in significantly reducing Americans’ consumption of alcohol.

Economic and Technological Boom

By the dawn of the 1920s, a decade of economic growth and widespread prosperity was driven by the recovery from wartime devastation and deferred spending. The Second Industrial Revolution transformed the United States into a global economic power and drew millions of Americans to cities. With a concurrent rise in immigration, the 1920 U.S. census was the first in which the majority of the population lived in urban areas. Although World War I had strained the country’s finances, the fact that the United States had entered the war late and that the fighting took place overseas helped it secure a more dominant economic position relative to its European allies.

During this time, the American economy continued to accelerate. One reason was the expansion of electricity throughout the country, and its widening use in factories led to increased productivity. Also contributing to the economic boom were mass production methods, such as the assembly line, which spurred growth in the automobile industry. Mass production made technology affordable to the middle class. The automotive, film, radio, and chemical industries took off during this time. Passenger car numbers more than tripled, which in turn stimulated the expansion of transportation infrastructure and the oil and gas industries.  There was also a boom in construction and in the rapid growth of consumer goods such as automobiles and electricity.

With electricity also came a range of new household appliances, such as the refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, and washing machine, and the increased availability of credit made it possible for many Americans to afford them.

Between 1922 and 1929, the country’s real gross national product increased by nearly 40%, and the unemployment rate remained low.

The growth of the advertising industry and the development of sophisticated marketing techniques also helped create demand for these and other products in an expanding mass-media landscape.

Actress Clara Bow was the on-screen embodiment of the flapper, and her off-screen life mirrored her films. She made 15 movies in 1925 alone, capturing the spirit of the “flaming youth” and becoming the “IT” Girl of the 1920s.

During this era, Americans generally became more fashion-conscious as fashion trends spread beyond the upper classes. Men’s clothing also went through changes. Men wore their hair short and slicked back. Raccoon coats, patent leather shoes, bow ties, and fedoras were the epitome of men’s style. Like the rise in women’s hemlines, men’s hemlines also rose, in the form of knee-length knickers influenced by Britain’s Prince of Wales, whose good looks and style were regularly featured in the American press.

Fashion was influenced by matinee idols–a craze for male theater or film stars adored by female fans.

The African American community, particularly that of the Harlem Renaissance–a golden age of African American music, literature, and art that took place in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, also placed great emphasis on stylishness. The conk hairstyle–created with a hair straightener made from lye–was trendy among African American men and was popularized by musician Cab Calloway, a jazz singer, songwriter, and bandleader.

Social Change

The 1920s also brought about social changes for women in the United States. Women entered the workforce in significant numbers during World War I, filling jobs vacated by men sent to war and taking new roles that aided the war effort. Their contributions galvanized support for the suffrage movement, which culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Many women remained in the workforce after the war, especially as industrialization expanded opportunities. Young women who were employed in cities enjoyed unprecedented economic independence, and the increased use of contraception, with the country’s first birth control clinic opened in 1916, provided sexual freedom as well. Perhaps the most enduring symbol of the Roaring Twenties was that of the flapper, the emancipated “New Woman” who bobbed her hair, wore loose, knee-length dresses, smoked and drank in public, and was more open about sex.

In a rapidly modernizing world, young people guided creative movements that often defied convention. Jazz music, which had developed into an exciting style defined by improvisation and swinging rhythms, became the dominant sound of the new generation. (Its prominence earned the era another nickname, the Jazz Age, popularized by the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.) The vitality of jazz was part of a broader flourishing of African American art and culture known as the Harlem Renaissance, which was centered in New York City but reverberated far beyond it. Fitzgerald himself was a leading figure of the Lost Generation, a group of writers whose work captured the era’s decadence and spoke to the disillusionment of many who came of age during World War I.

Women’s Suffrage

Many countries expanded women’s voting rights, such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, India, and various European countries, between 1917 and 1921. This influenced many governments and elections by increasing the number of voters (though not doubling it, since many women did not vote in the early years of suffrage, as evidenced by the large drop in voter turnout). Politicians responded by focusing more on issues of concern to women, especially peace, public health, education, and children’s status. On the whole, women voted much like men, except they were more interested in peace, even when it meant appeasement.

The Lost Generation was composed of young people who emerged from World War I disillusioned and cynical about the world. The term usually refers specifically to American literary notables who lived in Paris at the time. Famous members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, who wrote novels and short stories that criticized the materialism they perceived as rampant in this era.

Art Deco

Art Deco was the design and architectural style that marked the era. Originating in Europe, it spread to the rest of Western Europe and North America by the mid-1920s. It was a glamorous, modern design movement symbolizing luxury, progress, and the Jazz Age’s exuberance, characterized by bold geometric shapes, streamlined forms, rich materials such as chrome, lacquer, exotic woods, vibrant colors, and influences from ancient Egypt and machine-age aesthetics, appearing in skyscrapers, fashion, cars, furniture, and jewelry, reflecting the era’s optimism and fascination with technology and speed.

During the Art Nouveau period, posters usually advertised theatrical productions or cabarets. In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, focusing attention on the advertised product. The images became simpler, more precise, more linear, and more dynamic, often set against a single-color background.

In the U.S., one of the more remarkable buildings in this style was the Chrysler Building, which at the time was the tallest building. The forms of Art Deco were pure and geometric, though the artists often drew inspiration from nature. In the beginning, lines were curved, though rectilinear designs would later become increasingly popular.

By 1928, many major studios, including Paramount and MGM, began converting to sound films, with Warner Bros. releasing Lights of New York, the first all-talking feature. The animated short Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse, also debuted that year. For much of that year, Warner Bros. dominated the talking film market, prompting other studios to rapidly adopt sound technology. Columbia Pictures released its first talking feature in February 1929, and in May, Warner Bros. introduced On with the Show!, the first all-color, all-talking film. Silent film production ceased soon after, with The Poor Millionaire being the last silent feature released in April 1930.

Warner Bros. ended the decade by unveiling On with the Show in 1929, the first all-color, all-talking feature film.

Dance

Dance clubs became very popular in the 1920s. Dance clubs across the U.S. sponsored dancing contests in which dancers invented, tried, and competed with new moves. Professionals honed their tap dance and other dance skills throughout the stage circuit across the United States. With the advent of talking pictures, musicals became all the rage, and film studios flooded the box office with lavish musicals. The representative was the musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, which became the decade’s highest-grossing film. Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles. Several entertainment venues attracted people of all races. The Cotton Club featured black performers and served a white clientele, while the Savoy Ballroom served a mostly black clientele. Some religious moralists preached against “Satan in the dance hall” but had little impact.

The most popular dances throughout the decade were the foxtrot, waltz, and American tango. However, a variety of eccentric novelty dances were developed, including the Breakaway and the Charleston, both based on African American musical styles and rhythms, such as the widely popular blues. Charleston’s popularity exploded after its feature in two 1922 Broadway shows.

A brief Black Bottom craze, originating from the Apollo Theater, swept dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity.

By 1927, the Lindy Hop, a dance based on the Breakaway and Charleston and integrating elements of tap, had become the dominant social dance. Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was set to stride piano ragtime jazz. The Lindy Hop later evolved into other Swing dances. These dances, nonetheless, never became mainstream, and the overwhelming majority of people in Western Europe and the U.S. continued to dance the foxtrot, waltz, and tango throughout the decade.

Dance music came to dominate all forms of popular music by the late 1920s. Dance clubs’ popularity peaked in the late 1920s and reached into the early 1930s.

Automobiles

Before World War I, cars were a luxury good. In the 1920s, mass-produced vehicles became commonplace in the U.S. and Canada. The 1927 Ford Motor Company discontinued the Ford Model T after selling 15 million units. It had been in continuous production from October 1908 to May 1927. The company planned to replace the old model with the Ford Model A. The decision was a reaction to competition. Due to the commercial success of the Model T, Ford had dominated the automotive market from the mid-1910s to the early-1920s. In the mid-1920s, Ford’s dominance eroded as competitors caught up to its mass production system. They began to surpass Ford in some areas, offering models with more powerful engines, new convenience features, and styling.

Only about 300,000 vehicles were registered in Canada in 1918, but by 1929, there were 1.9 million. By 1929, the United States had just under 27,000,000 motor vehicles registered. Automobile parts were being manufactured in Ontario, near Detroit, Michigan. The automotive industry’s influence on other segments of the economy was widespread, jump-starting industries such as steel production, highway building, motels, service stations, car dealerships, and new housing outside the urban core.

Ford opened factories around the world and proved a strong competitor in most markets for its low-cost, easy-maintenance vehicles. General Motors, to a lesser degree, followed. European competitors avoided the low-price market and concentrated on more expensive vehicles for upscale consumers.

Professional baseball player “Babe” Ruth was a huge celebrity, and his fame went way beyond the game. He led the Yankees to seven World Series championships and was a home run champion for 12 seasons. His hitting prowess not only made him a millionaire for the Yankees franchise, but he was also credited with “saving” baseball from national disgrace after the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. In addition to being an amazing ballplayer, Ruth was a colorful character, and newspapers endlessly reported on him. Following the 1919 Black Sox scandal, the game saw a rapid pace, more home runs, and the construction of new, larger concrete-and-steel stadiums.

By the end of the decade, the teams for the next 30 years had been established. Until expansion arrived in the 1960s, the league itself changed little for over three decades, until the Dodgers and Giants moved west.

D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. The Great Gatsby, often considered the novel that personifies the social, cultural, and political tensions of the 1920s, wasn’t a bestseller upon its release. It did not become popular until the 1950s, decades after its first publication and the death of its author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street became a publishing phenomenon in 1921.

This decade’s literature examines how culture, society, politics, race, gender, and sexuality changed. Other popular books included All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which recounts the horrors of World War I and the deep detachment from German civilian life many men returning from the front felt; This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the post-World War I era, portrays the lives and morals of youth; and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, about a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s.

The 1920s also saw the widespread popularity of the pulp magazine. Printed on cheap pulp paper, these magazines offered affordable entertainment to the masses and quickly became among the most popular media of the decade. Many prominent writers of the 20th century got their start writing for pulp magazines, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, and H. P. Lovecraft. Pulp fiction magazines would last in popularity until the 1950s.

Travel & Health

Steamship travel among the middle class also took off during the era. New immigration laws significantly cut the flow of immigrants to the U.S. in the 1920s. Facing a huge loss of income, steamship companies converted their steerage spaces into low-cost cabins marketed to middle-class tourists. While the wealthy continued to sail in style, those in the middle class, for the first time, found themselves on luxury liners with more pleasant second-class and third-class accommodations. Steamship lines also began to experiment with cruising—leisure trips to scenic spots around the world. The U.S. economy was booming, and steamship travel among the middle class became the thing to do.

Another fad among the average American was visiting a health resort, usually a thermal underground mineral spring or “hot spring,” where they could “take the water.” The automobile, which became much more affordable by the 1920s thanks to Henry Ford’s assembly line manufacturing, now made it possible for city dwellers to drive out to the country to visit these spas. White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and Mineral Wells, Texas, were popular destinations with luxury hotels and posh amenities. In 1924, Franklin D. Roosevelt went to a spa town in Georgia for his paralytic illness, and it was he who would rename the town Warm Springs and bring it fame as the “Little White House” years later. For fashionable East Coasters, it was Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, which had the luxurious Grand Union Hotel, mineral waters, and a race track. For those living in the middle of the country, in cities like Chicago, Illinois, it was Hot Springs, Arkansas. Railroads and highways brought droves of people to Hot Springs for health-related ailments and relaxation, and it became a place for celebrity sightings, including the Chicago White Stockings baseball team and Al Capone. Taking the waters became less fashionable toward the end of the decade, as the discovery of penicillin for certain diseases and the financial crisis of the Great Depression took hold.

Ku Klux Klan

Urbanization reached a milestone in the 1920 census, the results of which showed that slightly more Americans lived in urban areas, towns, and cities, populated by 2,500 or more people, than in small towns or rural areas. However, the nation was fascinated by its great metropolitan centers, which contained about 15% of the population. The cities of New York and Chicago vied in building skyscrapers, and New York pulled ahead with its Empire State Building. The basic pattern of the modern white-collar job was set during the late 19th century, but it now become the norm for life in large and medium-sized cities. Typewriters, filing cabinets, and telephones brought many unmarried women into clerical jobs. By the end of the decade, one in five workers in Canada were women. Interest in finding jobs in the ever-growing manufacturing sector of U.S. cities had become widespread among rural Americans.

Changing Role of Women

The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 granted women the right to vote, marking a significant achievement for American feminists seeking political equality. This ultimately created a generational divide between the “new” women of the 1920s and previous generations. Prior to the amendment, many believed that women could not successfully balance careers and families. However, in the 1920s, more women began to aspire to both, fueled by expanding higher education opportunities.

With the achievement of suffrage, feminists like the National Woman’s Party refocused their efforts, proposing the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and advocating against sex-based discrimination. Many women, however, began to challenge traditional definitions of womanhood rather than pursue political goals.

The 1920s saw the rise of co-ed education as women entered large colleges, often seeking suitable husbands. Despite greater sexual freedom and private courtship, women mostly took classes focused on home and family. The “feminine mystique” emerged, suggesting that women wanted to marry, stay home with children, and wield purchasing power to enhance their families and homes.

Women’s Sexuality

The 1920s were a period of social revolution as society changed, as inhibitions faded, and youth demanded new experiences and greater freedom from old controls. Young women, especially, began staking claim to their own bodies and took part in a sexual liberation of their generation.

Many of the ideas that fueled this change in sexual thought were already circulating in New York intellectual circles before World War I. Thinkers claimed that sex was not only central to the human experience, but also that women were sexual beings with human impulses and desires, and restraining these impulses was self-destructive. By the 1920s, these ideas had permeated the mainstream.

Chaperones waned in importance as “anything goes” became a slogan for youth taking control of their subculture. A new woman was born—a “flapper” who danced, drank, smoked, and voted. This new woman cut her hair, wore make-up, and partied. She was known for being giddy and taking risks. Women gained the right to vote in most countries. New careers opened for single women in offices and schools, with salaries that helped them to be more independent. With their desire for freedom and independence came a change in fashion. One of the more dramatic post-war changes in fashion was the silhouette of women’s clothing: dress length shifted from floor length to ankle- and knee-length, becoming bolder and more seductive. The new dress code emphasized youth: Corsets were left behind and clothing was looser, with more natural lines. The hourglass figure was no longer popular, and a slimmer, boyish body type was considered appealing. The flappers were known for this and for their high spirits, flirtation, and recklessness when it came to the search for fun and thrills.

Organized Crime

During the 19th century, vices such as gambling, alcohol, and narcotics had been popular throughout the United States in spite of not always being technically legal. Enforcement against these vices had always been spotty. Indeed, most major cities established red-light districts to regulate gambling and prostitution despite the fact that these vices were typically illegal. However, with the rise of the progressive movement in the early 20th century, laws gradually became tighter, with most gambling, alcohol, and narcotics outlawed by the 1920s. Because of widespread public opposition to these prohibitions, especially alcohol prohibition, a significant economic opportunity arose for criminal enterprises. Organized crime blossomed during this era, particularly the American Mafia. After the 18th Amendment went into effect, bootlegging became widespread. So lucrative were these vices that some entire U.S. cities became illegal gaming centers, with vice actually supported by local governments. Notable examples include Miami, Florida, and Galveston, Texas. Many of these criminal enterprises would long outlast the Roaring Twenties and ultimately were instrumental in establishing Las Vegas as a gambling center.

American Politics

The 1920s saw dramatic innovations in American political campaign techniques, based on new advertising methods that had worked so well selling war bonds during World War I.

The 1920 presidential campaign was the first to be heavily covered by the press and to receive widespread newsreel coverage, and it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of Hollywood and Broadway stars, who traveled to Marion, Ohio, for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife. Some of these included Al Jolson, Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford. Business icons Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone also lent their support to Harding’s campaign. On election night, November 2, 1920, commercial radio broadcast coverage of election returns for the first time. Announcers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, read telegraph ticker results over the air as they came in. This single station could be heard over most of the Eastern United States by the small percentage of the population that had radio receivers.

The ever-genial Harding stacked his Cabinet with cronies from Ohio. He let his attorney general sell pardons and pledges of government non-interference to the highest bidders, looked the other way while his Secretary of the Interior accepted almost $400,000 in kickbacks in exchange for a long-term lease on oil-rich federal lands at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. In the meantime, he adhered to a limited, conservative vision of government, pressing for lower taxes and less regulation.

Despite his limitations, Warren Harding was widely admired by the American electorate. When he died halfway through his term, the public offered up a great outpouring of sorrow and sympathy. It was only in the following months that Warren Harding’s countrymen learned of their late president’s extramarital affairs and scandal-ridden administration.

Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated as president after Warren G. Harding’s sudden death in 1923, and he was re-elected in 1924 in a landslide against a divided opposition. Coolidge used the new medium of radio and made radio history several times while president: his inauguration was the first presidential inauguration broadcast on radio, and on February 12, 1924, he became the first American president to deliver a political speech over the air. Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928.

Decline of Labor Unions

During World War I, unions experienced rapid growth. However, after a series of major strikes in industries such as steel and meatpacking failed, the labor movement entered a long period of decline. Membership in unions decreased even as employment levels rose. Radical unionism nearly collapsed primarily due to federal repression during the war, enforced through the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.

The 1920s marked a significant downturn for the labor movement. Union membership and activities sharply declined during this decade of economic prosperity, a period marked by a lack of leadership within the movement and widespread anti-union sentiment from both employers and the government. Unions found it increasingly difficult to organize strikes. For example, in 1919, over 4 million workers—representing 21% of the labor force—participated in approximately 3,600 strikes. In contrast, by 1929, only about 289,000 workers (1.2% of the workforce) staged around 900 strikes. Additionally, unemployment rarely dropped below 5% during the 1920s, and most workers did not experience significant wage losses.

Wall Street Crash of 1929

The Dow Jones Industrial Stock Index had continued its upward move for weeks, and, coupled with heightened speculative activity, it gave the impression that the growing market of 1928 to 1929 would last forever.

The “Roaring Twenties” of the previous decade had been a time of industrial expansion in the U.S., and much of the profit had been invested in speculation, including in stocks. Many members of the public, disappointed by the low interest rates offered on their bank deposits, committed their relatively small sums to stockbrokers. By 1929, the U.S. economy was showing signs of trouble: the agricultural sector was depressed by overproduction and falling prices, forcing many farmers into debt, and consumer-goods manufacturers had unsellable output due to low wages and thus low purchasing power. Factory owners cut production and fired staff, further reducing demand. Despite these trends, investors continued to buy shares in areas of the economy where output was declining, and unemployment was rising, so stock prices greatly exceeded their real value.

The Wall Street crash began in October 1929 with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange. On October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, stock prices on Wall Street collapsed when 16.4 million shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

It triggered a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression, which lasted until 1939 and put millions of people out of work worldwide throughout the 1930s. It was the most devastating crash in the country’s history.