Inventions Of The 1920s

The 1920’s brought new inventions, a new economy, a new culture, new threats, and new laws which all influenced the nickname of the Roaring Twenties. The invention of the assembly line by Henry Ford in 1913 began the automobile industry in America leading to a boom in the industrial industries. The moving assembly line became a standard for most American factories allowing mass production of products including cars, appliances, furniture, and clothing. With the inventions of the electric motor, washing machine, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and ranges, woman’s housework decreased permitting an increase in leisure time allowing them to become involved in the feminist movement.
After acquiring woman’s suffrage in 1920, the National Woman's
With the illegalization of alcohol, speakeasies rose in popularity and with them jazz and blues music. Born in New Orleans, jazz spread north t first to St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago then to New York City with the migration of African-Americans. Blues, an authentic national folk music, performed by many including Louis Armstrong, gained widespread popularity around the world. The literature of the era also flourished. Famous authors including Claude McKay and Langston Hughes described the racial injustices and tragedies, Sinclair Lewis “satirized the values of small-town America as dull, complacent, and narrow minded” (Divine, et al. 744), H.L. Mencken “mocked everything he found distasteful in America” (Divine, et al 744), and Sherwood Anderson and John Dos Passos illustrated the undermining of American values of craftsmanship by machines. Female authors also became more prevalent. Edith Wharton depicted the lives of early aristocrats, Willa Cather and Ellen Glasgow focused on the stories of the Midwest and South, and Zona Gale directed her attention to America’s unmarried women. Simultaneously, popularity in sports expanded. Both men and women spectated at golf tournaments, boxing events, baseball games, and college football