Portal:1920s

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The 1920s Portal


The 1920s (pronounced "nineteen-twenties" often shortened to the "'20s" or the "Twenties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1920, and ended on December 31, 1929. In America, it is frequently referred to as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age", while in Europe the period is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Twenties" because of the economic boom following World War I (1914–1918). French speakers refer to the period as the "Années folles" ("crazy years"), emphasizing the era's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.


The 1920s saw foreign oil companies begin operations in Venezuela, which became the world's second-largest oil-producing nation. The devastating Wall Street Crash in October 1929 is generally viewed as a harbinger of the end of 1920s prosperity in North America and Europe. In the Soviet Union, the New Economic Policy was created by the Bolsheviks in 1921, to be replaced by the first five-year plan in 1928. The 1920s saw the rise of radical political movements, with the Red Army triumphing against White movement forces in the Russian Civil War, and the emergence of far-right political movements in Europe. In 1922, the fascist leader Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy. Other dictators that emerged included Józef Piłsudski in Poland, and Peter and Alexander Karađorđević in Yugoslavia. First-wave feminism made advances, with women gaining the right to vote in the United States (1920), Albania (1920), Ireland (1921), and with suffrage being expanded in Britain to all women over 21 years old (1928).


In Turkey, nationalist forces defeated Greece, France, Armenia and Britain in the Turkish War of Independence, leading to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the earlier proposed Treaty of Sèvres. The war also led to the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate. Nationalist revolts also occurred in Ireland (1919–1921) and Syria (1925–1927). Under Mussolini, Italy pursued a more aggressive domestic and foreign policy, leading to the nigh-eradication of the Sicilian Mafia and the Second Italo-Senussi War in Libya respectively. In 1927, China erupted into a civil war between the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China (ROC) and forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Civil wars also occurred in Paraguay (1922–1923), Ireland (1922–1923), Honduras (1924), Nicaragua (1926–1927), and Afghanistan (1928–1929). Saudi forces conquered Jabal Shammar and subsequently, Hejaz.


A severe famine occurred in Russia (1921–1922) due to the combined effects of economic disturbance because of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, exacerbated by rail systems that could not distribute food efficiently, leading to 5 million deaths. Another severe famine occurred in China (1928–1930), leading to 6 million deaths. The Spanish flu pandemic (1918–1920) and Russian typhus epidemic (1918–1922), which had begun in the previous decade, caused 25–50 million and 2–3 million deaths respectively. Major natural disasters of this decade include the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake (258,707~273,407 deaths), 1922 Shantou typhoon (50,000–100,000 deaths), 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (105,385–142,800 deaths), and 1927 Gulang earthquake (40,912 deaths).


Silent films were popular in this decade, with the highest-grossing film of this decade being either the American silent epic adventure-drama film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ or the American silent war drama film The Big Parade, depending on the metrics used. Sinclair Lewis was a popular author in the United States in the 1920s, with his books Main Street and Elmer Gantry becoming best-sellers. Best-selling books outside the US included the Czech book The Good Soldier Švejk, which sold 20 million copies. Songs of this decade included "Mack the Knife" and "Tiptoe Through the Tulips".

During the 1920s, the world population increased from 1.87 to 2.05 billion, with approximately 700 million births and 525 million deaths in total. (Full article...)

First edition of The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926 by Scribner's, with dust jacket illustrated by Cleon (Cleo Damianakes). The Hellenistic jacket design "breathed sex yet also evoked classical Greece".

The Sun Also Rises is the first novel by the American writer Ernest Hemingway. It portrays American and British expatriates who travel along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work" and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner's. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print.

The novel is a roman à clef: the characters are based on people in Hemingway's circle and the action is based on events, particularly Hemingway's life in Paris in the 1920s and a trip to Spain in 1925 for the Pamplona festival and fishing in the Pyrenees. Hemingway converted to Catholicism as he wrote the novel, and Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera notes that protagonist Jake Barnes, a Catholic, was "a vehicle for Hemingway to rehearse his own conversion, testing the emotions that would accompany one of the most important acts of his life." Hemingway presents his notion that the "Lost Generation"—considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably damaged by World War I—was in fact resilient and strong. Hemingway investigates the themes of love and death, the revivifying power of nature and the concept of masculinity. His spare writing style, combined with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, demonstrates his "Iceberg Theory" of writing. (Full article...)
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Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Credit: Bain News Service

A portrait of Lillian Gish from 1921. Gish was one of the first female movie stars, called "The First Lady of American Cinema", starting in 1912 and continuing to appear in films until 1987. The American Film Institute named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time and awarded her a Life Achievement Award, making her the only recipient who was a major figure in the silent era. Remarkably, she never won an Academy Award for her work, although she did receive a Special Academy Award in 1971.

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Jolson in 1929

Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, Yiddish: אַסאַ יואלסאָן; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, actor, and vaudevillian.

He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer". Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". (Full article...)

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