10.4 Cultural Innovations

I. Popular Culture

A. Economic prosperity provided Americans with shorter work hours and more leisure time

MOVIE “PALACES” WERE BUILT TO

ENHANCE THE MOVIE GOING EXPERIENCE

The movie palaces had vast & opulent accommodations including imperial staircases, kingly restrooms, gilded ornaments, marble staircases, crystal chandeliers, & ceilings painted with epic murals.

I. Popular Culture…

B. Golden age of Hollywood began in 1927 with the production of the first “talkie” The Jazz Singer

I. Popular Culture…

C. Mass media of the 1920s helped unify the nation & spread new ideas & attitudes

I. Popular Culture…

D. Americans eagerly followed sports & sports figures

Helen Wills

Bobby Jones

On the battlefield, in the factory production line, at home in a city apartment, and increasingly even in the business world the individual was becoming lost in a welter of the hive. The sporting field was one of the few remaining areas of pure individual expression where success or failure depended precisely upon individual physical and intellectual prowess. And if the masses themselves could not or would not participate directly they could at least, by a process of identification, salute the old virtues. - George E. Mowry, The Twenties: Fords, Flappers, & Fanatics

BASEBALL, FOOTBALL, BOXING, TENNIS, GOLF AND OTHER SPECTATOR SPORTS GAINED HUGE FOLLOWINGS IN THE 1920s

Babe Ruth Oscar Charleston

Jack Dempsey

Gertrude Ederle

Babe Ruth

•He was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

•He was the first player to hit over 30, 40 and 50 home runs in one season

•Hit 60 home runs in the 1927 season

•Member of the original American League All-Star team in 1933

•In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball

•In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth No. 1 in its list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players. “Every strike brings me closer to the next

homerun.” Babe Ruth

Oscar Charleston

•His career batting average was .353 and he regularly finished among league leaders in both homeruns and stolen bases

•He served as a player and/or manager for the ABCs, Chicago American Giants, St. Louis Giants, Harrisburg Giants, Philadelphia Hilldales, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and other Negro League teams

•In 1999, he ranked Number 67 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players

Jack Dempsey

•Boxer who held the world heavyweight title between 1919 and 1926

•Widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight champion of all time

•Twenty-six of his opponents were knocked out in round one

Gertrude Ederle

•In 1926, at the age of 19, she swam across the English Channel (35 miles) in 14 hours and 30 minutes (2 hours faster than any of the five men who swam it before her)

•She was one of the first women that helped disprove the belief that women were physically inferior to men

"When somebody tells me I cannot do something, that's when I do it," GERTRUDE EDERLE

Helen Wills• One of the greatest female tennis

players of all time• Won 31 Grand Slam titles

during her career, including seven singles titles at the U.S. Championships, eight singles titles at Wimbledon, and four singles titles at the French Championships.

• Won two Olympic gold medals in Paris in 1924

Bobby Jones• Won his first U.S. Open in 1923,

and then went on to win 13 major championships in 20 attempts

• He was the first player to win the double (both the U.S. Open and the British Open) in the same year, 1926

• Only player ever to have won the Grand Slam in the same year