Postwar Social Change

1. Postwar Social Change

2. Changes in Society After WWI • Jazz Age • The 1920s saw the creation of Jazz music • African American musicians combined Western harmonies with African rhythms • The use of improvisation allowed for endless subtle variations in rhythm and beat • Spawned such famous musicians as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington

3. Women’s Lives • The time after WWI saw the disillusionment of many young people • Women began to reject the strict morals of the Victorian Era • Liberated young women, flappers, shocked with their short skirts, bobbed hair, and bright red lipstick • Flappers were the minority • Labor saving devices gain popularity • Washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and canned foods lighten women’s burdens

4. Women’s Rights Activists • Most women saw limited progress during the postwar era • Forced to leave the jobs they held during the war • Women began to stand up for their right through the use of picketing and protests • Jane Addams • Margaret Sanger • Women gained suffrage in most Western countries • Women like Lady Nancy Astor and Miriam Ferguson held public office

5. Reactions to the Jazz Age • Not everyone approves • Prohibition takes place in America • A ban on alcoholic substances • Explosion in crime • Speakeasies run by the mafia start popping up • Gangsters like Al Capone get rich off of illegal dealings

6. Christian Fundamentalist Movement • Members believed that all the events in the bible are literally true • Utilized traveling preachers and the radio to spread the word • Scopes Monkey Trial • In 1925 John T. Scopes was tried for teaching evolution in a Tennessee classroom • Found guilty • Hurt the fundamentalist movement

7. The New Literature • The Lost Generation • Comprised of individuals who were disillusioned after WWI • The name referred to Gertrude Stein’s friends who lived in Paris • Famous individuals like F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and Ernest Hemmingway (The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea)

8. Harlem Renaissance • Harlem NY the hub of all the activity • African American writers expressed their pride in their unique culture • Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson were just two of the famous writers from this cultural explosion

9. Literature of the Inner Mind • Writers experimented with stream of consciousness • Reader is exposed to the narrator’s feelings and thoughts without imposing any logic or order • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

10. New Scientific Theories New scientific discoveries challenged the long held conceptions about the nature of the world

11. Marie Curie • Polish-born French scientist • Found that the atoms of certain elements spontaneously release charged particles • Led to great scientific discovery • Eventually died of radiation poisioning

12. Albert Einstein • German born physicist • Theory of Relativity • Measurements of space and time are not absolute, but are determined by the relative positioning of the observer • Scientists used this theory and Curie’s work to create atomic fusion and eventually the atomic bomb

13. Alexander Fleming • In 1928, Scottish born Fleming accidentally discovers Penicillin • Scientists use this discovery to create antibiotics

14. Sigmund Freud • Austrian physician- Father of Psychoanalysis • Suggests the subconscious mind drives human behavior • Learned social norms help to check powerful urges, but there’s constant tension because of this • psychoanalysis

15. Modern Art and Architecture Artists began to reject traditional styles and began experimenting with new colors, lines, and shapes

16. Henri Matisse • Utilized bold, wild strokes of color and odd distortions to produce works of strong emotion • He and fellow artists outraged the public • Dubbed fauves, or wild beasts, by critics

17. Les toits de Collioure Luxembourg Gardens Woman with a Hat

18. New Directions in Painting • Pablo Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque created cubism • Painted three-dimensional objects as complex patterns of angles and planes

19. Violin and Candlestick By: Georges Braque Three Musicians By: Pablo Picasso Fruitdish and Glass By: Georges Braque Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

20. Abstract Art • Vaslily Kandinsky and Paul Klee moved even further from representing reality in their paintings • Their artwork was abstract, composed of only lines, colors, and shapes On White By: Vasily Kandinsky

21. Dada Movement • The dada movement burst onto the scene after the war • The dadaists reject traditional conventions and believed there was no sense or truth in the world • Jean Arp and Max Earnst • Meant to shock and disturb viewers

22. L'Ange du Foyeur By Max Earnst Cloud Shepherd Jean Arp

23. Surrealism • Cubism and dada both helped to inspire surrealism • Attempted to portray the workings of the unconscious that attempted to portray the workings of the unconscious mind • Rejected rational thought, which had produced the horrors of WWI • Salvador Dali

24. The Persistence of Memory By Salvador Dali Still Life Moving Fast By Salvador Dali

25. New Styles of Architecture • The famous Bauhaus school in Germany influenced architecture by blending science and technology with design • Buildings feature glass, steel, and concrete and have little ornamentation • Frank Lloyd Wright

26. Fallingwater The Guggenheim Wright designed window in Robie House