I found an effective way to study for history:
Why the 1920s were cool/important• -flapper skirts
• -Women’s liberation
• -jazz & black people!
o Harlem renaissance- Louis Armstrong & Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes
o Black people started loving themselves
• -people actually like going to school.
• The north finally gets some black people. <3
• -speakeasies
o c’mon you know it was the bee’s knees
• -ban on alcohol abuseË more alcohol abuse
o gangsta-ism ‡ Al Pacino
• -it was when it became okay to hate Russians & Italians. (kidding. Geez)
o -Red Scare‡ Sacco & Venzetti- “If you could execute me 2 times and I could be reborn two other times. I would live again to do what I have done already.” –Bartolomeo Venzetti
• When “going on strike” wasn’t lame or cliché
o Boston Police Strike- police want raises. Police don’t get a raise cuz Calvin doesn’t like people who demand what they want. Calvin replaces them and gives the new workers their benefits.
o Steel Mill Strike- US steel corporation (sep 1919)‡ workers are pissed cuz working conditions suck. No one wanted to stop so the wickedness went on until January despite pleas from Woodrow himself‡ labor unions had bad images thanks to big corporations’ propaganda
o Coal Miners’ Strike- successful 27% increase in wage
o But unfortunately, labor movements lose appeal cuz people were immigrants & immigrants can’t exactly say “Qu’est-ce que nous desirons? L’argent beaucoup!” when the person next to them is like “yo man. I want some money. Please?” Farmers were used to self reliance. Oh yeah, and labor people didn’t like black people.
• All we hear is Radio Ga-Ga
• We also like Magazines and Newspapers‡ cuz now we can all read.
• Cities are cool now. But you know, not everyone fits in. sigh
But then there was that thing that everyone liked, but kind of didn’t trust. It was called… a credit card.
