(PP. 10-14) Literature S2: Introduction → Prohibition and its Discontents (ACADEC '25-'26)

Who illustrated the cover of The Great Gatsby?

Francis Cugat

What describes the cover made by Francis Cugat?

A blue-black sky punctuated by neon lights and dominated by the floating lips and eyes of a mysterious woman

When did the movie version of The Great Gatsby release?

2013

Who directed the movie version of The Great Gatsby?

Baz Luhrmann

Who starred in The Great Gatsby movie?

Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan

Who said that The Great Gatsby has become part of America’s “Iconographic lingua franca”?

Cultural critic Greil Marcus

Who coined “The Jazz Age”?

Fitzgerald

What were well-dressed men and women called in the 1920s?

“Sheiks” and “flappers”

What instruments did bands play in jazz clubs?

Pianos, trumpets, and upright basses

What are examples of dapper gangsters?

Al Capone and John Dillinger

What did Al Capone and John Dillinger wield?

Tommy Guns

What is the most visually recognizable period in American history, besides the 1920?

The 1960s

What were the memorable pictures of counter-culture in the 1960s?

“Flower children” and “hippies”

Who created “Where there’s smoke there’s fire”?

Russell Patterson

What does “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” depict?

A fashionably dressed flapper

When did America enter WWI?

April 6, 1917

What period is notable for experiencing the highest rates of inflation ever seen in U.S. history?

1916-1920

How much did prices rise by between 1916 to 1920?

80%

From what month onward did prices begin to drop?

June 1920

How much did car ownership increase by in the 1920s?

Tripled

What came with increased car ownership?

They needed gas stations, cheap and accessible lodging, and new entertainment

What resulted in the birth of the “motel” or the motor hotel?

The want for cheap and accessible lodging

What new forms of entertainment were born from the increase in car ownership?

Athletic events, movie theaters, and public musical performances

What do scenes about cars often revolve around in The Great Gatsby?

The size, shape, and operation of the luxurious vehicles

When was Harding’s administration?

1920-23

When was Coolidge’s administration?

1923-29

In what year had the census defined over half of the country as living in an urban area?

1920

How did the U.S. Census define an urban area?

Any place with a population over 2,500

What was NYC’s population in 1920?

5.6 million

How much larger was NYC’s population than the entire U.S. population in 1790?

1.5 times

Who made “Home to Harlem”?

Claude McKay

When was “Home to Harlem” published?

1928

Who made “Manhattan Transfer”?

John Dos Passos

When was “Manhattan Transfer” published?

1925

Who made “Passing”?

Nella Larson

When was “Passing” created?

1929

What do Home to Harlem, Manhattan Transfer, and Passing have in common?

They detailed the complex and occasionally violent daily lives of African Americans and immigrants in NYC

Who created “The Age of Innocence”?

Edith Wharton

When was “The Age of Innocence” published?

1920

What does The Age of Innocence explore?

NYC’s wealthy upper class

Where did a number of Black Americans move to?

Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Detroit

When was the “First Great Migration”?

1910-40

When was the “Second Great Migration”?

1940-70

What percentage of the population in 1920 was either an immigrant or was the child of an immigrant?

45%

Who said that the Roaring Twenties were “the time of the reborn KKK, immigration restriction legislation, and pseudo-scientific racism as well as one of the periods when concern about ethnicity was most evident on the surface of national life.”

Scholar Peter Gregg Slater

Who researched pseudo-scientific racism?

Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard

Since when had Prohibition been the law of the land?

January 16, 1920

What was the 18th Amendment enforced by?

The Volstead Act

What did the Volstead Act do?

Empowered the federal government to arrest and prosecute citizens for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol, but not its consumption or the purchase of some of the required ingredients to make alcohol at home

What books have bootlegging as a major plot point?

The Great Gatsby, Manhattan Transfer, and The Thin Man

Who published “Manhattan Transfer”?

John Dos Passos

Who published “The Thin Man”?

Dashiell Hammett

When was “The Thin Man” serialized?

1933

When was “The Thin Man” made into a major film?

1934

How did Hollywood portray bootleggers?

Compelling but dangerous criminals

Why did Hollywood portray the FBI’s “G Men” as noble heroes?

They were under pressure from J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

What were the moral categories of Hollywood enforced by?

Hays Code

What were the Hays Code?

A set of strict, conservative production standards adopted by the major studios beginning in 1930

When did “The Public Enemy” come out?

1931

Who starred as Tom Powers in “The Public Enemy”?

James Cagney

Who is Tom Powers?

A gangster who works his way up through the criminal underworld only to meet a violent and tragic end

Who is “The Public Enemy“‘s moral center?

Tom Powers’ brother Mike

In what ways is The Great Gatsby famous?

Both as a book and as the symbol of a specific historical period, instantly recognizable to generations of readers

What did sheiks and flappers drink while in saloons or speakeasies?

Gin

Where did sheiks and flappers drink gin during the 1920s?

Saloons or speakeasies

What was the period 1920 to 1929 defined by?

Young and hip urbanites trying out new gender roles and taking in the thrills of cultural and aesthetic revolutions

What major issues that defined American life did authors write about in the 1920s?

How to make sense of the violence of WWI and how to navigate a world filled with new technologies, changing social arrangements, and diversifying populations

What general factors impacted what Fitzgerald wrote about?

The social, political, and literary movements of the 1920s

What did the social, political, and literary movements of the 1920s impact in Fitzgerald?

What he wrote about, how he wrote about it, and how his writing was received

Understanding what will help us understand what aspects of the 1920s The Great Gatsby doesn’t explore?

Understanding the historical context of the 1920s

What questions were involved with the major changes of the Jazz Age?

What values defined the country and how the story of a rapidly changing world was told

Would the average American at the beginning of 1920 believe that the decade would be a period of excess and affluence?

No

What was WWI known as during the time it was happening?

The Great War

What did WWI wartime expenditures help fuel?

Inflation

What often happens whenever an economy experiences an artificial injection of money?

Inflation

What’s an example for when an economy experiences artificial injection of money?

When the government purchases significant amounts of a product for a military enterprise or when the government distributes money to stimulate consumer spending

What is consumer culture?

A national emphasis on spending money and acquiring material goods

What did many novelists seek to do when consumer culture was “in”?

Represent, explore, and critique the U.S.’s newfound obsession with consumption

What came with new inventions in the 1920s?

New opportunities for employment

Where did many Americans find themselves employed because of inventions in the 1920s?

Manufacturing sectors producing new domestic conveniences like early forms of refrigerators and washing machines

When was the rapid electrification of the U.S.?

The early 20th century

What did the rapid electrification of the U.S. in the early 20th century bring?

New jobs and increasing consumer demand for leisure items like radios and teh creation and distribution of entertainment

What really made the 1920’s “roar”?

Technological developments, along with significant cultural changes

What describes both the Harding and Coolidge administration?

Ideologically and administratively consistent

What general factors were the 1920s defined more by, instead of political upheavals?

Technological, cultural, and demographic changes

What was one of the most transformative of the changes of the 1920s?

An increased access to disposable income and consumer goods for many (but not all) Americans

What did 1920 represent?

The beginning of a gradual improvement in the nation’s economic outlook and the arrival of a new period of urbanization

What is urbanization?

The concentration of more and more Americans in cities

In the 1920s what did more and more novels portrayed?

The life of city-dwellers as they tried to navigate the complicated realities of the newly dominant urban lifestyle

Why did Black Americans move from the South to major cities?

To escape the violence and institutionalized discrimination of the Jim Crow Era or in pursuit of work in northern industrial centers

What did the Great Migration generally bring, instead of just people?

Customs, culture, and art

When was Nella Larsen photographed?

1928

What was one of the first major moments in American history where Black artists helped define the national cultural character?

The Great Migration

How was the Harlem Renaissance made possible?

The increasing number of African-American artists who were able to find work, community, and security in major urban areas in the North

What policies did cities often adopt that restricted the growth and infrastructural integrity of Black neighborhoods?

Redlining

In retrospective account of the 1920s, what is often underappreciated or even erased?

The contributions of African Americans

Who directly contributed to many of the artistic innovations and revolutions that defined the 1920s?

European immigrants

What organizations did immigrants experience vicious backlash from?

Anti-immigrant, racist, and nativist organizations

What did Peter Gregg Slater point out about the Roaring Twenties?

“The time of the reborn KKK, immigration restriction legislation, and pseudo-scientific racism as well as one of the periods when concern about ethnicity was most evident on the surface of national life.”

What often directly influenced artists of the 1920s?

Racism and ethnocentrism