A unit of the 1920s can provide many opportunities for students to apply their understanding of these interpretative frameworks.
Historians disagree on the degree of prosperity in the 1920s, the role of advertising, and the nature of the “popular culture” of the decade. For each topic, it is best, I believe, to identify a historiographical issue which is also a contemporary issue of concern to your students. Take, for example, the first questions posed at the beginning of this unit:
To what degree was this decade a prosperous one? Which Americans shared in the prosperity?
Many urban students could care less about prosperity in the 1920s, but put the issue in terms of their own lives (“Do people who work hard usually get ahead? Are poor people responsible for their own poverty? Is it true that America’s poor are not really poor?”) and lively, semi-scholarly debate will result—about both the 1920s and contemporary society. Comparing quotes from different sources can start both debate and historical investigation. Even low-level students can understand the difference between these two quotes:
During President Coolidge’s administration, the country, except for the farmers, enjoyed great prosperity. Business activity and profits increased, and the incomes of many people rose. The Coolidge years were often referred to as “The Golden Twenties.” (
This is America’s Story
, p. 677)
The twenties were, indeed, golden, but only for a privileged segment of the American population. (
The Lean Years
, p. 47)
Students can be motivated to use a simple exercise in quantitative history to help decide for themselves which of the above statements is more valid (see Lessons 2 and 3 in the next section of this paper.) Discussion of modern poverty and affluence will follow naturally.
The second half of this unit—the nature of advertising and installment buying—can also be discussed in a contemporary as well as historical context. The Lynds saw installment buying as “facilitating the rise to new standards of living” (
Middletown
, pp. 81-83). This is a triumphalist perspective. Stuart Ewen, a conflict historian influenced by both Marxism and structural-functionalism, takes a completely different perspective. Noting a 286-percent growth rate of industrial corporations between 1922 and 1929, Ewen claims “the average manufacturing wage-earner showed a wage increase of only 14 percent during this same period.” (
Captains of Consciousness
, p. 30) He views installment selling as a way to deal with this discrepancy. Not surprisingly, Ewen views advertising as another attempt to create a false consciousness among workers and get them to “accept the foundations of modern industrial life.” (pp. 42-43) Far from being a vital concomitant of the free enterprise system, as many laissez-faire conservatives would claim, advertising to Ewen is a manipulative device. Here again we have a historiographical issue which affects all secondary school students every day of their lives. This topic also represents a golden opportunity to present basic principles of good consumerism.
Popular culture, the third issue of this unit, is a very broad topic. It could include sports, dance, music, games, architecture, movies, etc. A variety of approaches can be used in the teaching of popular culture. In this unit, the focus will be on socioeconomic and ethnic tastes in popular culture, especially music. Record-listening will be the main teaching methodology employed, and jazz and ragtime the main kinds of music studies. Was jazz “one great interracial collaboration,” as Alain Locke puts it, or were white jazzmen merely feeble imitators of an art form which emanated from Africa and found its way to Harlem through the plantations of the ante-bellum South? By listening to the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and others, students can begin to speculate on the relationship between Afro-American culture and the larger American culture in both the past and the present. This type of speculation will be much easier if your students are familiar with the music of prior historical periods.
With sports, the focus should be on socioeconomic rather than ethnic differences in both participation and audiences. Starting with the present may be helpful. Ask your students if they think there is a difference in the incomes of those who attend baseball games, tennis matches, and golf tournaments. If this question is too abstract to begin with, start with biographical sketches of prominent 1920s athletes.
These three issues—prosperity, consumerism, and popular culture—are the central themes of my unit. In the following section, I will present two weeks of lesson plans.