1920s: America Enters the Modern Age J-303

The vibrant history of the 1920s is depicted in magazine and newspaper articles, government documents, advertisements, photos, cartoons, and profiles of the colorful people and events of the “Jazz Age.” Introduce your students to prohibition and flappers, “Sacco and Vanzetti,” the Klan, Emily Post, sports heroes and issues of the era. Historian: Christine Scriabine. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:

Broadsheets

• The Prosperity Era
• Modernism in Literature, Art and Thought
• Life in the Twenties
• Popular Culture
• The Political Climate

1920s Timeline Historical Documents

• Maps on the suburbanization of Connecticut, 1920-30.
• Art Deco: the style of the 20s.
• Excerpt from Emily Post’s Etiquette, 1922.
• Article: “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” 1926.
• The other America.
• Excerpt from Fred E. Burgess’ Memoirs of Eighty Years of Farming.
• “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism,” by Hiram Wesley Evans, 1926.
• “The Sacco and Vanzetti Cases,” by Elizabeth G. Evans, 1921.
• American Civil Liberties Union report, 1923.
• Selections from “The Censorship in Boston,” 1929.
• “The War in Passaic,” by Mary Heaton Vorse, 1926.
• Map, U.S. Highway 101, Los Angeles, CA, 1926.
• 1920s sports album.
• 1920s ad book compiled from various magazines, c. 1927.
• Front page of Variety, Wednesday, October 30, 1929.

Study Guide / Lesson Plan – Reproducible Activities