This Is Why The 1920s Were GREAT

The home movie footage is from the Prelinger Archive.
Check out my blog: unpublishedhistory.wordpress.com
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Follow me on Twitter: / the1920schannel
0:00 Intro
1:06 Flappers & Women's Rights
2:53 Jazz, Blues, And Country
4:35 Crazes
9:17 Art Deco
10:22 Radio
12:15 Movies & Movie Palaces
16:20 Literature
16:54 Harlem Renaissance
17:44 Sports
20:09 Prosperity
21:27 Outro

[@footballlvnlady]

My grandparents got engaged in 1924 and married in 1925. I have a picture of their engagement. My grandfather is sitting on the running board of a Model T. My grandma is sitting on his lap. She has her arm around my grandpa’s neck. They are both laughing.

[@susiefairfield7218]

Always liked the picture of my Grandmother from the 20s, she wasn't a flapper, but she did follow her heart and make her own decisions, for which, I am truly grateful

[@bluebox2000]

And she may have been a Suffragist. Unfortunately the derogatory term "suffragette" is what is more commonly used today out of ignorance.

[@GlennDuke-yc5ky]

Flappers fascinate me. Too bad about the vote!

[@sevenandthelittlestmew]

They called my grandmother Bobbie, because she burned her hair trying to curl it with an iron, and had to cut it in a bob. She kept it cut like that the rest of her life. 😊

[@Dpb-236]

I am a Korean in the 1920s in America, where I always feel a faint longing. Ever since I was young, I really wanted to know and liked that time. Currently, I am very interested in the 1910s, from just before World War I to about 12-13 years in 1926.

[@daguard411]

Thanks for noting the best blues singer ever, Bessie Smith. Thankfully I found so much of her music for free to download from the Library Of Congress.

[@scottlarson1548]

My father's grandparents grew up in late twenties. They told me they had good times but the Great Depression tainted any good memories they had of the decade and they never wanted to talk to me about it. They told me I would be better off learning about the 1930s because that's when they found out what was really happening in the U.S.

[@PungiFungi]

The Great Depression indeed brought the 1920s to a crashing end and I am sure some people viewed it as a form of divine punishment for the "debauchery" that the country was indulging in.

[@CrossOfBayonne]

​@PungiFungi And then World War II, The children of the 1920s were the soldiers of that conflict

[@RevLeigh55]

My grandmother was born in 1908. She was a flapper and I love how beautiful her clothing is in pictures. I recall her putting on 78 records and playing 20s music. She showed me the Charleston. Her dates in the 1920s usually involved bootleg hooch. She and my grandfather married in 1927.

[@Corgis175]

My mother was born in 1923 and taught me the Charleston in the 1960's.

[@Zebred2001]

I'd really like to see you post a video explaining your personal interest in the 1920's. It always fascinates me how people came to develop their passions.

[@user-eh1gv5ld5o]

Your voice is literally dripping with your love and admiration for the 1920s! Great video, as always 🙂

[@anthonythomas1504]

I was 14 in 1969. My great grandmother (b1904) was still alive. One Saturday morning she and I were watching Soul Train and she shouted: they're doing the Black Bottom! The BB is more a dance routine than eg, The Twist or Charleston. The BB is akin to a Cake Walk in that both derive from minstrels and both were considered politically incorrect by the 1950s and beyond.

[@JJONNYREPP]

This Is Why The 1920s Was GREAT 0426am 7.6.24 RKO Pictures had an art deco logo....

[@mickeyconnor830]

Thanks for the vid! Enjoying while sipping my morning coffee. 😊 The 20s really do seem like they would've been some of the best years to be alive in America. I'm glad you create this kind of content so that we can all enjoy even a small view of the times. ❤

[@alenahubbard1391]

If you were well off, and white, and straight, and male.

[@t-mar9275]

It was a great decade for diabetics after 1922, with the discovery of a practical method to produce insulin. Prior to that, diabetes was a death sentence. Insulin was arguably the greatest medical advance of the 1920s.'

[@mackbolan5126]

Don't forget penicillin.

[@t-mar9275]

@@mackbolan5126 I didn't forget penicillin but made a conscientious decision not to include it, as it didn't have any impact on society until it was mass produced in the 1940s. Insulin, on the other hand, was being mass produced in late 1923 and had a huge effect on mid and late 1920's society.

[@user-ts4bb8uc9r]

I love the fashion from that era especially the silk gowns wedding dresses every bride had a huge bouquet of flowers fabulous 😍😍😍😍

[@sirchadiusmaximusiii]

Great job man. Always impressed by your work.

[@bucksdiaryfan]

If you like the 20s, I recommend Scorcese's "Boardwalk Empire" -- pretty good drama that's very authentic to the time, they even have the huge dollar bills... when Buscemi's character peels a couple off for his wife I wondered how he could fit those bills in his pocket!

[@neil6958]

The 1920s, such a different different era.✈🛩

[@hippiechick2112]

You do wonderfully to educate us on the decade. My great-grandparents grew up during this time and it helps me to understand their world. Thank you.

[@IVWOR]

Цікаве інформативне та пізнавальне відео. Дякую ❤️

[@Gravitythief]

Excellent video! Your videos where you read a magazine or newspaper article are great, but I absolutely love your original videos - they are so well done! Thanks for all of the videos you make and post!

[@JJONNYREPP]

This Is Why The 1920s Was GREAT 0417am 7.6.24 her taking masses of drugs, attending speakeasies... ahahaha..... nice. I'd have walked out with her.

[@edwardj64]

One of the greatest things about the 1920s was America's manufacturing dominance during that time. The majority of radios, cars, appliances and gadgets were manufactured in factories throughout the country. A lot of urban centers and places no longer associated with manufactured products were the beating heart of modernity and the new technological age. The way the demand for iPhones, laptops, or OLED TVs (to say nothing of many cars) today are met by manufacturers in the far East, it must have been something when the latest and the greatest came from Detroit, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Trenton, and the like.

[@brennocalderan2201]

I'd go back to the 1920s for a short vacation before coming back. Spending the days at a farm upstate New York or the Hollywood hills sounds amiable.

[@glennso47]

The Charleston Dance was a thing I associate with the movie It’s A Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed’s characters did that dance during the movie.

[@danhurst9048]

This is an excellent,informative video with great photos and clips...PLEASE keep them coming

[@ShinigamisBlade]

Im excited to see the oppoaite video! But I do want to request you do a video exclusively on the types of dances and actually show them 😆 that would be really fun!

[@charlestaylor3195]

I find it fascinating, it's the first time we've been able to easily compare and investigate what we did a century ago. It wasn't really that long ago.

[@glennso47]

In Rockford Illinois we have a movie palace called The Coronado that is now a performing arts center since it was renovated and reopened in the early 2000s

[@marksadler4104]

My grandmother from the UK was in New York in the 1920s, have an amazing photograph of her from that time

[@alandesouzacruz5124]

I really like the 1920s and the 1930s especially polish tango

[@rebeccawhite7448]

This was a great, fun and informative show💞Thank You 🙏🏻💐

[@janerkenbrack3373]

I'm going to defend Tunney in the supposed "long count" controversy. It wasn't actually a long count, but rather a regular count that started late. It started late because of the rules of the match. Dempsey was required to go to a neutral corner after he knocked down Tunney, as opposed to his traditional habit of standing over the downed fighter to hit him as he tried to stand, as he had famously done to Jess Willard. By the rules, the ref would not begin the count until the other fighter stepped to a neutral corner. The time it took for Dempsey to follow this rule accounts for all of the lost time in that incident. Tunney could have gotten up earlier. A close watching of the film shows clearly that Tunney had risen to a one leg crouch, with one knee still on the mat, and was watching the ref count and waiting until 9 to stand. This is still a practice in boxing, and many matches have a mandatory 8 count any time a fighter hits the mat. Two things to take away. First, that any delay in the time from knockdown to resumption of fighting was caused by Dempsey. And second, Tunney could have risen sooner, had that delay not happened. Gene Tunney was the better boxer.

[@JJONNYREPP]

This Is Why The 1920s Was GREAT 0415am 7.6.24 charlie chaplin talkies..... amazed.

[@zero_bs_tolerance8646]

Thank you. Enjoyed, as always.

[@magdlynstrouble2036]

The art/design style you described from 1925 on was called the Streamline Style or Art Moderne. Art Deco coexisted, but it was more feminine, with round roses, fountains, weeping willows, peacocks, fans, etc. It had a debt to Art Nouveau of the prior decades. Streamline/Moderne was based on speed, the zig zag, skyscrapers, machines. Both styles incorporated Egyptian motifs.

[@markbaston8147]

Most of the movies i own are silent. They were truly wonderful years for cinema.

[@rhobot75]

This one takes the cake!

[@truecrimeboozer]

0:20 Absolutely! Unless you wanted a beer 😆

[@user-os7xc5ob5t]

This was great. I always love seeing your posts. Woulda been a great time to be alive!

[@janethammond5925]

There was so much about the 1920s that was iconic, which you covered here. I'm fascinated by that decade...love the swing music and atmosphere of the 40's too. But there's something about the joyous freedom of the 20's which is only comparable to the hippy/bohemian movement of the 1960's I think. Or maybe that's just me. 😊

[@pammienakh]

Loved this video. Thank you!

[@pisceanbeauty2503]

You have a great channel! Looking for the bad things about ‘20s companion piece.

[@staleovenberg127]

This was very well-produced, a good voice and good pace. I'll hereby subscribe.

[@J.M.Chadwick6]

Excellent presentation - as always!

[@user-ts4bb8uc9r]

I love the silent movies too😊

[@PC-tz6kb]

You do a wonderful show & I love it! Thank you for educating, entertaining & making me laugh. I have been subbed for quite some time & I always enjoy your show.

[@vilstef6988]

A really excellent overview of the decade! Thanks! A question. What is the music on the video opening? I rather like it.

[@The1920sChannel]

The song is “Sweet Mama” by Duke Ellington (1929 version) :)

[@kidmohair8151]

I shall await your "This is Why the 1920s Weren't Great" instalment.

[@JJONNYREPP]

This Is Why The 1920s Was GREAT 0429am 7.6.24 they seem to have done away with prestige movies nowadays....

[@glennso47]

I just watched it on this channel. It was very interesting to see the good stuff and things that were not so good about the 20s.

[@glennso47]

A rock band called the Bangles had a song called Walk like An Egyptian in the 80s I believe.

[@meshgraphics]

Cool video. Very informative

[@IanMichael-pj7fz]

This was excellent!!

[@williamharvey8895]

You forgot airships,

[@wa1ufo]

Yes! The Graf Zeppelin trip around the world! It was amazing! 🌝🌈😎🇺🇸

[@ronaldalbertansley579]

My grandmother was a teenager in the 1920s and she did some bad things like smoking and drinking as a teenager in the 1920s !

[@nola281]

My great grandmother was born in 1905 snd 17, 1922, she was a divorced single mother. Her first husband married another woman with her marriage license. She was a flapper then. I've seen pictures of her and I'm the copy of her. She passed nine months before i was born. I was given her name and from what I was told we're not that different.

[@SamanthaN92]

The 1920's is one of my favorite eras after the Edwardian era 💖

[@james_baker]

great channel. 😻

[@glennso47]

Have you ever heard of Max Raabe and the Palace Orchestra? They are a German orchestra that plays a lot of songs that were popular in the American 1920s and the Weimar period in Germany. Check them out on KZbin. They are in the style of the big bands of the era.

[@lawriefoster5587]

As always, wonderful!! I wonder what your graduate studies will be on!!!

[@The1920sChannel]

I’ll continue in history, and probably also do some museum studies!

[@glennso47]

Thanks for sharing about Felix the Cat. Felix was a major movie star long before Mickey Mouse came along. He was the first character to exhibit a human like personality so I understand.

[@nallo69]

Good work! I really enjoyed it. Well....a little sugar coated I must admit. So I’ll wait for your post on the other side of the decade. Congrats

[@Mr19thcenturyman]

Automobiles came of age. Closed cars became the norm.

[@weylguy]

My father had lots of stuff he kept in the garage that was made in the 1920s. I never got over how well they were made, with brass and other metals, and even the then-new Bakelite plastic was neat. Now everything is cheap plastic and designed to wear out quickly, requiring you to buy another. On the other hand, the 1920s was an age of extreme decadence, Jim Crow and stupid behaviors like flagpole sitting.

[@Sneakycat1971]

Hello good man, I like your channel and I have a request. Could you do your effective research and make a video about the stock market boom of the mid 1920s? I would like to know about how people got excited about the stock market and started participating in it. It was the biggest stock market participation by retail investors.

[@sarahs5340]

🤍 Art Deco

[@DocsChannel]

The Black Bottom (we don't say it anymore but...) was called the Negro Charleston in parts of the country... racism sucks but made it less talked about in the 30's and 40's and made it fade away. This of course is based on South Eastern ladies born in the 00's and 10's

[@DocsChannel]

If anyone has differing knowledge I would love to hear it. Big fan of 20's dance and food.

[@andrewom679]

Racism is merely in group preference that was demonized by communists such as Leon Trotsky to set their opponents against one another. You are one of the useful idiots doing that for them. You could have a functional civilization, but you can't do that if someone who hates you might call you a racist. That would be a fate worse than death, wouldn't it?

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Great video. I bought a Art Deco TV stand, looks great. Modernism has no style, 20s was all style.

[@calvinguile1315]

I would love to see an episode on animation and cartoons, and comic strip characters, I loved seeing Felix the cat in this episode ❤ when I think of the 20s, Felix is one of the first things I think of…

[@davidmartin8211]

It is to easy to cherry pick historical nuggets from any era. Don't forget: the financial exuberance led to the 1929 stock market crash. Prohibition led to an increase in crime and corruption. On the other hand, I remember seeing a picture of my great-grandmother, who lived in a rural area of the United States, with short hair and a typical late 1920s hat. Eg . The flapper style!!

[@The1920sChannel]

I’ll be covering the bad aspects of the 1920s in a video early next month as well ;)

[@davidmartin8211]

@@The1920sChannel I look forward to seeing a video about prohibition, bank robbers, and The moral decay brought up out by jazz!!

[@jakevendrotti1496]

​@@davidmartin8211I'll be looking for Jim Crow. Politics. Economics.

[@Nunofurdambiznez]

I Don't WANT to know the "bad things"!! This video is perfect!

[@jakevendrotti1496]

How irresponsible. History includes the whole truth. I'll be goddamned if my great-grandchildren look at my life and think it was a peach. Let them know all of it. Not just movie clips from when I was alive, films I never even saw. Grow up.

[@kerrygriffin578]

I read in a National Geographic that you could buy a Radio for like $500. that would be like 5 Grand today!

[@SagesseNoir]

Duke Ellington. I saw him in 1970s

[@chesthoIe]

1:56 "She could be labelled a flapper..." without even one single solitary flap.

[@John-wg6xw]

Always great videos! FYI, When you sign off you should be saying "So long for now all you Sheiks and Sheba's!" and not "Sheiks and Gals" . 😊

[@michaelmcgee8543]

interesting!

[@DescendantDroog]

What is the source of the image of the group at 4:20? Its a striking one

[@1952jodianne]

The ideal, most beautiful flapper of the silver screen: obviously, Louise Brooks.

[@debbiem9218]

People seemed to have so much more money back in the twenties but that was before the government imposed all these taxes on us. The twenties seemed to be such a "free" time in that everyone seemed so easy going, well to me anyway. I love watching your vides, thanks for making them!

[@62Madison]

I ❤ Felix the Cat, who became the world’s first TV star in 1926.

[@derekroberts6654]

I often wondered why a lot of bluesmen in those times were blind?? Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon, Blind Boy Fuller…

[@aariley2]

The crazes were the way to drown out the horrors and tremendous loss in WWI. Same thing happened in the 1950's.

[@glennso47]

Rock music of the 50s and 60s .

[@Sokrabiades]

No section on cars or suburbanization?

[@maxlinder5262]

It was the end of a War & the beginning of freedom for the American woman ....then there was no stopping ....😊.. just my opinion... Thank you for extending the video .... That was a great asset.....

[@glennso47]

Breakfast cereals started using sports celebrities to advertise their products.

100 years lateer and we are still talking about them so it must have been great LOL

[@johnspooner7020]

Great for some not others

[@user-tp6fo7im3d]

the 1920's was when people discovered fun.

[@tinyxylophone5182]

Do the raccoon! I know that sheet music

[@jahirareyes1102]

And of course this view of the 1920s is almost fully American-centric which is no problem really as it is understandable that the roaring 20s is understood more in American terms.The only other countries iam certain about something similar like this occurring is perhaps France and Germany ,other western countries are quite absent in all this and far less non western countries.Also,the 1920s in America women's movement i suppose it failed because the later decades didnt show any real progression so much,so yeah...

[@glennso47]

Later people thought TV was magic.

[@glennso47]

Would flappers be similar to the “flower children “ of the 1960s-70s? Also feminists?

[@JustABowlOfCherries]

I really enjoyed this gay video!

[@MarcusZepeda]

1:26 umm the Victorian era ended in 1901. so the flappers weren't worry about Victorian gender roles, and by the way, there was still strict gender roles in the 1920s

[@alternateunreleasedshellac505]

The Gay 1920s!

[@MrEab2010]

if you were white, largely male and rich.

[@BubbeParker]

Weimar Republic: "What was so great about it?"

[@senior_ranger]

Roaring Twenties --- and 100 years later we have what I call the Whoring Twenties.

[@andrewom679]

One begat the other.

[@brennocalderan2201]

Most likely because of some girls were getting frisky back then.

[@jahirareyes1102]

@@brennocalderan2201 yeah... except it didnt really have contraceptives for unmarried women so.... well abortion was an option an unsafe one at the time .

[@hanschristianbrando5588]

The 20th century rocked. The 21st century sucks (so far).

[@MrBlackbass59]

I love to learn about history. But, unfortunately, all eras of US history are severely tainted by RACISM! That being said, I enjoy all historical information.

[@bucksdiaryfan]

When you do your "Bad Things of the 1920s" don't forget to emphasize that America has a racist past! I love PBS, but they shoehorn that fact into EVERY historical documentary... hell I was watching the Space Race and they got it in there several times... the Space Race!! Its almost becoming a cliche -- yes PBS we know that! Mea culpa mea culpa! (because no other country has ever had racists)

[@jonathanzuckerman520]

The 1920’s were great because of the Great Gabbo who could throw his voice while drinking water, smoking a cigarette, and eating a lot of unhealthy food his Doctor wouldn’t approve of. And his dummy, Otto.

[@fredfarmer5952]

.... for White people