About the Author

Born-September 24, 1896 Died-December 21, 1940 Married Zelda Sayre Famous works include

-The Great Gatsby

-The Beautiful and the Damned

-Tender is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Impact on Society Fitzgerald named the

1920’s “The Jazz Age” Wrote screenplays for

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Created the The Great

Gatsby which is said to be the most accurate description of the 1920’s

The Jazz Age

• Prohibition was in effect• Dances such as the Charleston were

popular• Popular sayings included 23 Skidoo,

Bee’s Knees• Economy was in a

“Boom”

World War I World War I ended in 1918.

Disillusioned because of the war, the generation that fought and survived has come to be called “the lost generation.”

The Roaring Twenties

America seemed to throw itself headlong into a decade of madcap behavior and materialism, a decade that has come to be called the Roaring Twenties.

The New Woman

• Among the rules broken were the age-old conventions guiding the behavior of women. The new woman demanded the right to vote and to work outside the home.

• Symbolically, she cut her hair into a boyish “bob” and bared her calves in the short skirts of the fashionable twenties “flapper.”

The Flappers• Flappers were women

who rebelled against the fashion and social norms of the early 1900’s.

• They married at a later age and drank and smoked in public

• Flappers were known for their carefree lifestyles.

• YouTube Flapper

Flapper Fashion • Flappers dressed in

shapeless dresses that came to the knee.

• Dresses were made to look “boy-like”

• Gender bending was common. Women would try to make themselves look more man-like.

Prohibition Another rule often broken was the

Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, or Prohibition, which banned the public sale of alcoholic beverages from 1919 until its appeal in 1933.

Speak-easies, nightclubs, and taverns that sold liquor were often raided, and gangsters made illegal fortunes as bootleggers, smuggling alcohol into America from abroad.

Prohibition YouTube

Gambling Another gangland activity was illegal

gambling.

Perhaps the worst scandal involving gambling was the so-called Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were indicted for accepting bribes to throw baseball’s World Series.

The Automobile The Jazz Age was also an era of reckless

spending and consumption, and the most conspicuous status symbol of the time was a flashy new automobile.

Advertising was becoming the major industry that it is today, and soon advertisers took advantage of new roadways by setting up huge billboards at their sides.

Both the automobile and a bizarre billboard play important roles in The Great Gatsby.

The American Dream• Gatsby is the ideal

image of one who has achieved the American Dream.

• The American Dream is the concept widely held in the United States of America, that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity.

Old Money Vs. New Money New Money: Someone who has

achieved the American Dream

Not as respected in the 1920’s

Old Money: Money from family

wealth Born rich Not earned through

work done by yourself

Respected above all in the 1920’s