1. The Period Between the Wars The Roaring Twenties

4. Causes and Effects of World War I

10. Gertrude Ederle Swims the English Channel Gertrude Ederle (1906 - ), who was born on October 23, 1906, was a superb swimmer. Not only did she win three Olympic medallions and break several records, but to top it all off, she went on to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel. When she swam the 21 miles on August 6, 1926, Ederle was only nineteen. Her time: 14 hours and 31 minutes - good enough to beat the previously set men's record.

14. Popular Radio Shows

19. Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923), was elected president in 1920 by a people weary of wartime restraints and world problems. His supporters expected him to turn back the clock and restore the more carefree atmosphere of the days before World War I (1914-1918). Harding, an easygoing newspaper publisher and senator, encouraged this belief by campaigning on the slogan of "Back to Normalcy." Actually, Americans would probably have elected any Republican candidate to the White House in 1920 in protest against the policies of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. They opposed particularly Wilson's definition of American ideals and his unwillingness to accept any changes in his plan for a League of Nations. They wished to reduce their responsibilities in world affairs and to resume their normal activities with as little bother as possible. It was easier to praise "normalcy" than to produce it during the Roaring Twenties. The word meant so many different things to different people. Some were rebels. They danced in cabarets, drank bootleg gin, and poked fun in novels and plays at “normal” American life. Others, reacting against the rebels, wanted to standardize thought and behavior. They persecuted radicals, tried to enforce prohibition, and fought to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools. With so many crosscurrents at work in American society, Harding was unable to assert himself and provide a vision for the nation. The popularity of Harding's administration was damaged by the short but severe depression of 1921. Within two years, the Teapot Dome oil scandal and other graft in governmental agencies destroyed faith in his administration. Harding became aware of this widespread corruption early in 1923. Historians almost unanimously rank Harding as one of the weakest presidents. But these historians have recognized that the very qualities that made him weak also made him appealing in 1920. He failed because he was weak-willed and a poor judge of character. Nan Britton, a pretty blond thirty years younger than the President, was given a job in Washington, D.C., so that she could be near Harding. The two often met in the Oval Office, and their affair continued until Harding's death. Harding was the sixth president to die in office. He was succeeded by his vice president, Calvin Coolidge.

51. The Sacco & Vanzetti Case 1927 Nicolo Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti

57. Evolutionary Cartoons

58. Evolutionary Cartoons

59. Flapper style An advert for lipstick

60. The Flapper The flapper, whose antics were immortalized in the cartoons of John Held Jr., was the heroine of the Jazz Age. With short hair and a short skirt, with turned-down hose and powdered knees - the flapper must have seemed to her mother (the gentle Gibson girl of an earlier generation) like a rebel. No longer confined to home and tradition, the typical flapper was a young women who was often thought of as a little fast and maybe even a little brazen. Mostly, the flapper offended the older generation because she defied conventions of acceptable feminine behavior. The flapper was "modern." Traditionally, women's hair had always been worn long. The flapper wore it short, or bobbed. She used make-up (which she might well apply in public). And the flapper wore baggy dresses which often exposed her arms as well as her legs from the knees down. However, flappers did more than symbolize a revolution in fashion and mores - they embodied the modern spirit of the Jazz Age.

61. Fundamentalists vs. the Flappers

67. Al Capone Al Capone was one of the most famous and powerful gangsters in United States history. During the 1920's, he built a criminal empire in Chicago that became the model for present-day organized-crime operations. Capone was known as Scarface because his left cheek once had been slashed in a fight. In spite of his reputation, Capone was treated as a celebrity. He was often seen riding in an armored limousine to theaters and sports arenas, where he entertained guests in private boxes. Alphonse Capone was born on Jan. 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, to poor Italian immigrants. The original family name was sometimes spelled Caponi. About 1920, Capone came to Chicago to work for a racketeer. A series of gangland shootings soon left the violent and clever Capone in control of much of the city's large-scale criminal activities. His gang dominated liquor, gambling, and prostitution rackets. It fought off rival gangs with submachine guns, and corrupted police and politicians with bribes. Capone gunmen were blamed for the murder of seven members of the Bugs Moran gang in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, but this charge was never proved. In 1931, a federal jury convicted Capone of income tax evasion. The IRS had been gathering tax evasion information on Capone for some time through a hired agent, Eddie O'Hare. O'Hare ran Capone's dog and race tracks and told the IRS where they could find Capone's financial records. On November 24, Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in Federal prison, fined $50,000, charged $7692 for court costs, and $215,000 in back taxes for tax evasion. The agent in charge of the case was Melvin Purvis. After eight years in prison, Capone retired to his mansion near Miami, Florida. Capone died in Florida on Jan. 25, 1947, from complications due to syphilis.

74. Quick Facts • The U.S. gross national product (GNP) rose to $71.6 billion. In 1910, it had been $30.4 billion. (1920) • American writer Sinclair Lewis, or Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951), publishes Main Street . (1920) • In New York, George Gershwin's (1898 - 1937) Rhapsody in Blue is performed. (1924) • Harold Ross founds the New Yorker . (1925) • Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 - 1961) publishes his book, The Sun Also Rises . (1925) • Walt Disney (1901 - 1966) presents Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie , a cartoon complete with sound. Disney provided the voice of the soon-to-be famous mouse. (1928) • Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 - 1961) publishes A Farewell to Arms . (1929) • Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977) stars in The Kid , his first full-length film. Other notable actors at the time included Douglas Fairbanks (1883 - 1939) and Mary Pickford (1893 - 1979).

77. Josephine Baker

80. Satchmo Louis Armstrong The dynamic and mesmerizing music of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington is forever etched in jazz history. He was a songwriter, composer and acclaimed performer that helped shape modern music as we know it. Louis Armstrong was born in a poor section of New Orleans known as “the Battlefield” on August 4, 1901. By the time of his death in 1971, the man known around the world as Satchmo was widely recognized as a founding father of jazz – a uniquely American art form. His influence, as an artist and cultural icon, is universal, unmatched, and very much alive today. Through the years, Louis entertained millions, from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in Corona. Despite his fame, he lived a simple life in a working-class neighborhood. To this day, everyone loves Satchmo – just the mention of his name makes people smile. The Duke

81. Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. Bessie started out as a street musician in Chattanooga. In 1912 Bessie joined a traveling show as a dancer and singer. The show featured Pa and Ma Rainey, and Smith developed a friendship with Ma. Ma Rainey was Bessie's mentor and she stayed with her show until 1915. Bessie then joined the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit and gradually built up her own following in the south and along the eastern seaboard. By the early 1920s she was one of the most popular Blues singers in vaudeville. In 1923 she made her recording debut on Columbia, accompanied by pianist Clarence Williams. They recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues." The record sold more than 750,000 copies that same year, rivaling the success of Blues singer Mamie Smith (no relation). Throughout the 1920s Smith recorded with many of the great Jazz musicians of that era, including Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman and Louis Armstrong. Her rendition of "St. Louis Blues" with Armstrong is considered by most critics to be one of finest recordings of the 1920s. Bessie Smith was one of the biggest stars of the 1920s and was popular with both Whites and African-Americans, but by 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style and the Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster. In 1933 she recorded for the last time under the direction of John Hammond for Okeh. The session was released under the name of Bessie Smith accompanied by Buck and his Band. Despite having no record company Smith was still very popular in the South and continued to draw large crowds, although the money was not nearly as good as it had been in the 1920s. Bessie had started to style herself as a Swing musician and was on the verge of a comeback when her life was tragically cut short by an automobile accident in 1937. While driving with her lover Richard Morgan (Lionel Hampton's uncle) in Mississippi their car rear-ended a slow moving truck and rolled over crushing Smith's left arm and ribs. Smith bled to death by the time she reached the hospital. John Hammond caused quite a stir by writing an article in Downbeat magazine suggesting that Smith had bled to death because she had been taken to a White hospital and had been turned away. This proved not to be true, but the rumor persists to this day.