Jazz Age City Life Flashcards

Flashcards about urban trends, population shifts, city planning, art, culture and entertainment during the Jazz Age. Topics include architecture, fashion and the Harlem Renaissance.

Urban Trends (Jazz Age)

Urban areas were important locations for the development of Jazz Age art, architecture, and popular culture.

Population Shifts in the 1920s

Included in-migration to cities from rural areas, movement of African Americans from the rural South to industrial cities (Great Migration), and continued foreign immigration.

The Great Migration

The movement of approximately six million African Americans from the rural South to urban areas between 1915 and 1970.

Immigration in the Early 20th Century

Shaped the culture, landscape, and languages of American cities, with an estimated 26 million new immigrants entering the country in the fifty years leading up to the Jazz Age.

Immigration Quotas

Established in the 1920s through legislation passed in 1921, 1924, and 1929, leading to a decline in immigration after decades of high influx.

Progressive Era Policies

Shaped urban America during the 1920s, emphasizing regulation and government intervention to address issues like political corruption, pollution, and poverty.

Urban Studies

An academic discipline formalized in the 1920s by Ernest W. Burgess and Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, focusing on urban systems and communities.

Zoning Laws

Used to manage urban sprawl, create orderly cities, and segregate industrial areas from residential areas, influencing building shape, height, and type.

New York City’s “Setback” Law of 1916

A zoning ordinance that required buildings to be set back from the lot line to increase light on the streets, contributing to the “pyramidal” skyscraper trend.

Art Deco

An architectural and decorative arts style reflected a new direction for architecture and the applied arts, including furniture, lighting, textiles, jewelry, tableware, and metalwork.

Chrysler Building Style

Art Deco details that make it one of the most iconic buildings on the Manhattan skyline.

Flapper

A characteristic stereotype of the Jazz Age who were young, liberated women, who wore the latest trends and frequented jazz clubs in big cities.

New Woman

The notion of a liberated woman who emerged in the late nineteenth century as women took advantage of educational opportunities and moved into more public roles.

Harlem Renaissance

A movement where Black arts, theater, and literature in this period explored the diversity of Black American experiences.

New Negro Movement

A movement named after an anthology of criticism, fiction, poetry, and art compiled by the sociologist and philosopher Alain Locke (1925) describing an upwardly mobile, educated, affluent, and self-determining Black population.

Prohibition Era in the US

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution went into effect in 1920, beginning an almost fourteen-year period when it was illegal to manufacture, sell, or import spirits, beer, and wine.

Speakeasies

Underground clubs serving illegal liquor, emerged as new sites of urban entertainment in response to prohibition.

Social History in Art

A type of representation like Benton did in his art that explores how historical events interface with the lives of ordinary people.