The Roaring Twenties

The term, "Roaring Twenties", came about because after the war, America started to prosper. After struggling through World War I, America breathed a sigh of relief and took to the streets. They shopped more, drove in cars and went out to movies. Women were freer to dress differently and actually drive their own cars. Lots of Jazz musicians became popular and couples often went out to dance. Because of a lot of technical and industrial advancements, most mills and plants started using electrical power, which caused a boom in the economy. Assembly lines were created in factories. This created a lot of jobs. In the automobile industry it made it easier and faster to produce cars, which made the big companies like Ford, able to lower prices and increase wages of their employees. Although there were these new things, most of the wealth in America was still contained in the upper class of society. Farmers who had made a lot of money off government contracts during the war, suffered because those contracts came to an end. The middle class really had a hard time financially.

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The other thing that caused the middle class and some others to struggle was the new appeal in advertising. Before the Twenties, advertising had been dull and in black and white. Advertisers started using colorful ads and took ideas from the World War I campaigns and tried to get at people's emotions through the ads. It worked and made people buy a lot more. Consumers were encouraged to start to buy on credit. New appliances like vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and irons began to be seen in homes, which changed the way people lived. But, people also spent more money than they earned which kept the middle class down a lot. Still people continued to buy and go out more often.

Since cars became more popular, businesses having to do with automobiles started to grow. More gas stations popped up as people started driving more outside of cities. More suburbs started to develop, as people were able to spread out more. Roads were built. America was expanding. Flight also became a new form of transportation. The Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart were household names. Movies replaced vaudeville shows, sports personalities started becoming more popular and music came into homes with the radio coming into the American culture. Art Deco was the new modern art and flappers, who were dancers, were seen on many stages and in shows.

Most Americans were happy with all these refreshing changes, but there were some that thought things were over the top and there was a push to go back to more traditional things in the way of pushing immigrants back to their home countries and with Prohibition, which was the "total ban of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages." Immigrants caused many Americans to feel moral disorder and discord and they looked down on the immigrants and wanted