The Roaring 20's
A time of Jazz and Prohibition
The 1920s were marked by economic prosperity, advances in technology and culture, and changing social roles.
Prohibition
During Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages were illegal. Prohibition was supposed to lower crime and corruption, lower taxes needed to support prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. Instead, Alcohol became more dangerous to consume, organized crime blossomed, and courts and prisons systems became overloaded.
Famous People of the 20's
F. Scott Fitzgerald
A novelist and chronicler that coined the term "Jazz Age". He is famous for depicting the 20's in "The Great Gatsby".
Charles Lindbergh
An American pilot famous for the first solo, non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927 in the Spirit of St. Louis.
Al Capone
A leader of organized crime in Chicago in the late 1920s. Most famous gangster involved in gambling, the illegal sale of alcohol, and prostitution.
The Harlem Renaissance
Originally called the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance was a literary and intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s. With racism still rampant and economic opportunities scarce, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to African Americans in the early twentieth century.