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1920S

The 1920s was a decade of substantial economic, social, and cultural change. There was an increasingly vast extent to which the First World War and consumerism affected United States society during this period. Rugged individualism and an accelerated sense of American nativism were just miniscule factors of the variation that was occurring at the time.
Unlike earlier boom periods which had involved large expenditures for capital investments such as railroads and factories, the prosperity of the 1920s depended heavily on the sale of consumer products. Purchases of items such as automobiles, television sets, and furniture were made possible by installment payment credit. The availability of consumer credit expanded tremendously during the 1920s, even though the idea was not new. Consumer interest and demand was spurred by the great increase in professional advertising using newspapers, magazines, radio, billboards, and other media. It was a great period where innovation and progression were key goals of the country. Document D emphasizes just that; the materialistic mentality of the nation was encouraged by technological advancements that not only increased the ideal of conspicuous consumption, where people were buying on credit, installment plans, speculation, and easy purchase, but it also increased production which therein decreased salaries as Document C visualizes. This is why it was called the “Roaring 20s”, a time of ups and downs in the sense of prosperity.
Improved technology and urbanization led to a sharp rise in the standard of living, traditional American moral standards regarding premarital sex and marital fidelity were questioned for the first time, women moved from the Cult of Domesticity to a more assertiveness toward emancipation, and blacks went through migration, renaissance, and a social advancement. All social and cultural aspects of the 1920s that helped shape the period. Fannie Hurst’s article in the New York Times voiced the fact that...