Download
1 / 65
650 likes | 800 Vues
The New Mass Culture. Objectives… Explain how movies & other vehicles of mass culture created a new national community. Describe how the new media of communication reshaped American culture in the 1920s. Intro. “Roaring Twenties” captured the explosion of sound and images in the era.
E N D
The New Mass Culture Objectives… Explain how movies & other vehicles of mass culture created a new national community. Describe how the new media of communication reshaped American culture in the 1920s.
Intro • “Roaring Twenties” captured the explosion of sound and images in the era. • Connects Americans to the new culture of consumption. • Celebrity emerges and redefines “normal” and the ideal of “the good life” for all of America.
Social norms… A belief or value that is common to members of a particular culture. Social norms are often referred to as “the way we do things around here” and are the standards for appropriate social behaviors. The established norms within a society maybe reflected in dress, language and social habits culture.
Movie-Made America • Nickelodeons • Industry moves to Hollywood • Big studios produce longer, more expensive feature films • Founded and controlled by European immigrants • The studio system based on the industrial principles • Combined production, distribution, and exhibition
Movie-Made America • New themes • Musicals • Gangster films • Comedies • Wall Street Investment
Movie-Made America • The cult of celebrity • Studio publicity, fan magazines, & gossip columns • Mansions, cars, parties, and escapades • “liberated” social themes celebrating youth, athleticism, and consumption • Influenced dress, hairstyle, speech, and romance
Rural America • Threat to traditional sexual morality • Attacked Hollywood’s permissiveness • Censorship boards grow • Hollywood counters
Will Hays President of the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America Midwestern Republican with Protestant respectability What did Will Hays say about movies and the consumer culture?
Hollywood’s Effect • Hays understood the relationship between Hollywood and the growth of consumerism. • “Hollywood is the stimulant to trade”
Westinghouse • November 1920 Presidential election returns • KDKA begins nightly broadcasts • Sale of cheap WWI radios • By 1923, 600 stations and 600,000 radios sold • Live music, college lectures, church services, and news and weather reports • Links rural America with the larger national community of consumption.
Who paid for radio programs? • Radio equipment manufacturers • Newspapers • Department stores • State universities • Cities • Ethnic societies • Labor unions • Churches
How did it change? • By the end of the 20s, commercial, or toll, broadcasting emerges • GE • Westinghouse • RCA (Radio Corporation of America) • AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph) • Advertisers pay, consumers listen • AT&T leases its lines to create radio networks • 1926 NBC (National Broadcasting Co.) • 1928 CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System)
Radio Broadcasting • What was America listening to on the radio? • Variety shows hosted by vaudeville comedians • “Blackface” minstrel entertainment of The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show (1928) • American music • C&W, blues, & jazz • Baseball & college football • 1930 = 600 stations = 12 m homes (40%)
New Forms of Journalism • Tabloid • NY Daily News • Convenient to read • Photos & illustrations • Terse, lively style emphasizing sex, scandal & sports
New Forms of Journalism • Spread across US to Chicago, Denver, & LA • Audience of millions • Poorly educated • Working-class, city dwellers • 1st or 2nd generation immigrants • Gossip column • Walter Winchell • Secret lives of famous people
New Forms of Journalism • Chains • Hearst, Gannett, & Scripps-Howard • 1930, Hearst controls 14% • 1 in 4 Sunday papers is owned by Hearst • Standardization contributes to the growth of the national consumer community
Advertising Modernity • Reflects and encourages growing importance of consumerism • Follows the success of the CPI • Total ad volume jumps $1.4 billion in 1919 to $3 billion in 1929 • Scientific approach using market research and language of psychology • Focus becomes the needs, desires and anxieties of consumer vs. quality of the product
Advertising Modernity • Advertising celebrated consumption as a positive good! • Therapeutic • Physical • Psychic • Emotional well-being • Other popular strategies • Appeals to nature, medical authority or personal freedom
The Phonograph & Recording Industry • Convenient, permanently grooved disc recordings transformed the popular music business and became a major source of music in the home. • Dance crazes like the Charleston • 1921 = 200 companies = 2 million records produced = annual sales over $100 million • Radio competes for listeners • Radio discovers regional and ethnic markets
The Phonograph & Recording Industry • Americans begin to hear musical styles and performers who were previously isolated from the national limelight. • The combo of records and radio started an extraordinary cross-fertilization of American musical styles that continues today.
Sports & Celebrity • Athletes join movie stars in defining the new culture of celebrity. • Rich, famous, glamorous, and sometimes rebellious • Sports enter a new corporate phase • Biggest was baseball • “Black Sox” scandal • Hero of baseball is Babe Ruth • 1920 Boston Red Sox trade him to NY Yankees • “The Sultan of Swat”
Babe Ruth Bigger than life on and off the field Product endorsement 1927 = 60 HRs 1930 = $80,000.00 salary
Baseball monopoly • 1922 Supreme Court rules in favor of owners in anti-trust lawsuit giving them absolute control over their players. • 1890s’ “gentleman’s agreement” among owners excludes African Americans from the major leagues.
Charles Lindbergh • 1920 - First to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean • NY to Paris in 33 ½ hours • A magnetic compass & air speed indicator to guide • 100,000 greet him in Paris
Amelila Earhart • 1932 solo flight across Atlantic • 1937 disappears trying to fly around world
