The+New+Popular+Culture

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We are surrounded by popular culture - movies and celebrities, music and dance, fashion and fads, and other interests made popular by the media. In the 1920s, the flapper became a symbol of popular culture. A flapper was a young woman who dressed and acted unconventionally. She was a new woman for a new time.

 Flappers liked to have fun in ways that would have been unthinkable for women in the past. They drove cars. They did the Charleston, a popular, fast-paced dance accompanied by loud jazz. They even smoked cigarettes - a habit that was frowned upon, not because of the health risks (as it would be today) but because it was considered unladylike.

1. It was clear times were changing. What fashions, technology or activities today, show that times are changing? Give a reason for each fashion, technology or activity you provide.

 The Charleston was a HUGE dance craze in the 1920's. Flappers everywhere did the Charleston at night clubs and dances. Check out the video below...it shows the dance itself, but the music tells it's own story. It was like nothing else before it. media type="youtube" key="ZJC21zzkwoE?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Here is another video of the Charleston! media type="youtube" key="TRveIIe4uAs" height="315" width="420"

 Fun fact! Mr. Maggiacomo's Nonna (Grandmother) is 101 years old. Her family came to Canada from Sicily in 1919 and settled in Toronto. As she was from a wealthy family (until the Depression!) she often took trips to New York in her late teens where she shopped for the latest fashions and danced to the latest music. Mr. Maggiacomo has seen photos of her on these trips, and he says at least someone from his family was cool!

 In the 1920s, radio was brand new. It quickly became a popular form of entertainment. Powerful transmitters broadcast American radio programs into Canada, sometimes drowning out smaller Canadian stations. By 1929, about 80 percent of the radio programs heard by Canadians came from south of the border. Along with American radio came American popular culture. A new kind of music called jazz filtered into Canadian homes. Radio announcers used the new American slang of the era. Some of these terms that originated in the 1920s are still used today - for example, do you know what a "gate crasher" is, or what it means to be "hip"?

2. Think of where your favourite music comes from. Is it mostly American or Canadian? About how much would be American do you think? 20 percent? 50 percent? Estimate how much. 3. If 80 percent of everything we watched or listened to was American, would there be a problem with that? What do you think it might be?

Film

 Canada did have its own silent film industry in the early 1920s. However, after the "talkies" were invented in 1927, five major American studios soon produced about 90 percent of all feature films. Movie theatres sprang up across Canada to show these Hollywood productions.

The first fully "talking" movie was "The Jazz Singer" featuring Jazz great Al Jolson. Here's a clip... media type="youtube" key="bkyvstNrkHo?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

In one of the youtube comments someone states that when his grandmother first saw this film in the theatre everyone looked around for the singer, thinking of course that there HAD to be one in the room with them!

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> In the 1930s, the Canadian government created two institutions to lessen the American influence over Canadian media - the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the National Film Board (NFB). It was felt that Canada needed it's own popular culture (music and entertainment). These two organizations are still with us today (I've heard Hockey Night in Canada is quite popular!). They provide film and radio with a Canadian perspective. We'll learn more about this when we get to the 1930's.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> The End of Prohibition

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> Early in the 20th century, liquor was very cheap and problems caused by alcohol all too common. The Temperance movement, led by women's activists like Nellie McClung, worked to have alcohol banned or strictly controlled. During the war many people felt that it was wrong to drink when the troops were sacrificing so much. Between 1915 and 1917, every province except Quebec passed prohibition laws. They banned the sale of alcohol, except for religious or medical purposes. (One sympathetic doctor in Manitoba prescribed a daily dose of whisky to 5800 patients in one month!)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> People tired of prohibition after the Great War, and one by one the provinces cancelled it between 1920 and 1930. However, prohibition remained in force in the United States until 1933. "Rum-running" between "wet" provinces and "dry" ones, and between Canada and the U.S., caused a crime wave in the 1920s. Chicago mobster Al Capone was a big player in the illegal liquor trade across the Canadian border. It is rumoured that Al Capone spent a summer hiding out from the law in Quadeville, Ontario. You can look it up! Mr. Maggiacomo grew up nearby in Boulter, Ontario. There isn't much going on up there now, and in the 1920's it was a very isolated area.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> Even with the easing of prohibition laws and the new, more open popular culture, the 1920s remained a much more conservative decade than we are used to today. For example, in Ontario a series of "Sunday laws" enacted before the Great War forbade people from working, shopping, selling goods, doing business, participating in sports, or even bathing in a public place on Sundays. Even into the 1990's it was illegal for many stores to open on Sundays in Ontario. Now you can shop 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

<span style="background-color: #e9e7e7; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">4. Imagine you were a soldier coming home from World War 1, why do you think they would not want prohibition? <span style="background-color: #e9e7e7; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">5. a) Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing that we can shop anytime we want now? Why? <span style="background-color: #e9e7e7; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">b) Find someone else in the class with the opposite answer to you. Copy their answer down (AFTER you've done yours!).

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">All Finished? Go to this LINK and write down how many slang phrases from the 1920's that you recognize! We'll be sharing when you're finished so make sure your list is complete.