U.S. Social Science Resource Guide 2025–2026: Radio, Movies, Sports, and Consumer Culture in the 1920s

Installment Buying & Ford’s Change of Heart

• Pre-1927 stance:
  • Henry Ford criticized the “spell of salesmanship,” installment buying, and easy credit for turning a “frugal, savvy people into a nation of suckers.”
  • Ford feared buying on credit eroded character and encouraged spending money “not yet earned.”
• Reversal with the Model A (late 1927):
  • Ford embraced consumer credit to stay competitive.
  • Historians describe this as Ford “accommodating himself to the new consumerism.”
• Wider cultural anxiety:
  • National Association of Credit Men press release warned installment plans “encourage a condition that hurts the human morale.”
  • Critics feared aggressive sales, harsh debt collection, and distortion of financial markets.

Mass Communication: Radio

The Broadcasting Revolution

• 1920: Radio a small, niche, point-to-point (mainly naval / military) industry.
• By late 1920s: A \$1-billion global industry dominated by U.S. firms.
• David Sarnoff (American Marconi, 1916 memo):
  • Envisioned a “Radio Music Box”—single cabinet receiver, adjustable frequencies, vacuum-tube amplification, loudspeaker.
  • Predicted music, baseball scores, lectures in the living room.
• Technological catalysts after WWI:
  • Rapid advances in wireless and vacuum-tube receivers enabled mass “broadcasting.”
• First true station: Dr. Frank Conrad’s garage broadcasts (suburban Pittsburgh).
  • Westinghouse secured first U.S. “broadcasting license,” created KDKA.
  • KDKA aired 1920 Harding–Cox election returns live.
• Station Growth:
  • End of 1921: 26 stations.
  • 1922: 508 new stations.
  • 1926: >700 stations.
• Receiver production:
  • 41 million radios built 1920–1940.
  • First “Radio Music Box” sets in 1922 priced \$50–\$100.
  • RCA’s Radiola: no external antenna, superior sound, ease of use.
  • Sales \$60 million (1922) → \$358 million (1924).
  • 1925: 2.5 million U.S. sets; by 1929 virtually every household owned one.

Corporate Dominance: RCA & NBC

• Formed when GE & AT&T bought American Marconi; fulfilled President Wilson’s wish for U.S. global wireless domination.
• Owen Young (ex-GE) headed RCA; Sarnoff later became president (1930).
• Vertical integration: manufacturing, international radiotelegraph circuits, content creation.
• Founded National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
• Acted as “quasi-official agent of national interest”; built networks in Latin America & Asia with State Dept. aid.

Radio’s Cultural Impact

• United diverse Americans via simultaneous listening; living-room focal point.
• Popular content:
  • Play-by-play sports (baseball, boxing).
  • Live classical music, daily weather, nightly news.
  • Fifteen-, thirty-, sixty-minute serials: mysteries, soap operas, sitcoms.
• Fostered a shared national culture while nurturing regional/ethnic sub-cultures.
• Precedent for TV: NBC, ABC, CBS all began as radio “broadcasting” networks.
• Advertising evolution:
  • Early model: corporate sponsorships (e.g., Eveready Hour on WEAF).
  • Transition to jingles & spot ads.

Regulation: “The Constitution of the Air”

• Station crowding/interference prompted federal action.
• Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce, 1921–1928):
  • Held annual White House radio conferences (1922–1925).
  • Used outdated Radio Act of 1912 to mediate disputes until courts curtailed authority.
• Federal Radio Act of 1927:
  • Principle: “Ether is a public medium; use must be for the public benefit.”
  • Created five-member Federal Radio Commission (FRC): licensing, frequency allocation, power limits, hours, indecency rules.
  • Precursor to FCC; framework later applied to TV & internet.
• International Conference (1927): 76 nations; treaties on wavelengths & shared principles.

Political Dimensions

• Woodrow Wilson saw radio as “perfect liberal democratic medium”—modern town square with plural voices.
• Advantages for politicians: reach audiences larger than rallies, reduced travel; intimate “voice in the home.”
• Hoover’s caution: “Radio lends itself to propaganda far more easily than the press”; worried about fascist & communist misuse.
• Early cases of demagoguery:
  • Father Charles Coughlin (“Radio Priest”): began 1926 local broadcast, 1930 nationwide via CBS.
  • Shifted from sermons to populist, anti-Communist, anti-Semitic attacks on FDR’s New Deal.
• FDR’s response: “fireside chats” (Depression & WWII); masterful use of radio for public confidence.

Mass Entertainment: Movies

Hollywood’s Rise

• Pre-1920s motion-picture tech already mature; WWI crippled European studios, U.S. ascendant.
• Nickelodeons (\$0.05) gave way to ornate, air-conditioned “movie palaces” (\$0.30 admission, thousands of seats, live organs & intermission acts).
• Appeal: escape, especially for women—temporary “bath in elegance and dignity.”

Attendance & Economics

• 1923: 15,000 theaters; 50 million weekly attendance.
• 1930: 100 million weekly—≈\frac{2}{3} of Americans visit weekly; even \frac{2}{3} of Chicago Mother’s Aid recipients attended.
• Southern lag until post-WWII.
• Budget inflation: \$25{,}000–\$50{,}000 early 1920s → millions by decade’s end.
• Popular genres: Westerns, gangster, epic historical, romance, slap-stick comedy.

Star System & Celebrity Culture

• Studios signed actors to multi-picture deals; PR engineered star images.
• Icons:
  • Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Bagdad, 1924), Rudolph Valentino (The Sheik, 1926): exotic masculine sex appeal.
  • Mary Pickford (“America’s Sweetheart”): negotiated \$1 million contract (1916); co-founded United Artists with Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith.
  • Clara Bow (“It Girl,” film It 1927): flapper archetype; referenced by Taylor Swift (song 2024).
• Hollywood promoted glamour, romance, affluence; stars became advertising faces.
• Tabloids & fan magazines fed appetite for gossip.

Technological Disruption: Talkies

• The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros., Oct. 1927): semi-autobiographical Al Jolson film, synchronized sound; hailed as first hit “talkie.”
• Consequences:
  • Rapid obsolescence of silent film.
  • Consolidation: Warner Bros. and Fox acquired rivals’ production, distribution, theaters.
  • By 1930: 8 studios controlled 95\% of U.S. production despite Justice Department scrutiny.

International Reach & Cultural Imperialism

• Silent format transcended language barriers.
• 1925 market share of American films: 95\% in Britain/Canada, 80\% in South America, 70\% in France.
• Kodak (Rochester, NY): produced 75\% of global film stock; U.S. firms owned 50\% of world theaters.
• European backlash—Germany, Britain, France enacted protectionist quotas; faced U.S. diplomatic pressure and Hollywood lobbying, most measures diluted.
• Magazine quip: “The sun never sets on the British Empire and the American motion picture.”

Sports & Leisure Boom

General Trends & Fads

• Increased leisure time; mass media amplified interest.
• Golf:
  • Inspired by Bobby Jones (amateur, 13 majors 1923–1930).
  • By 1929: 4,000 courses; 3 million golfers.
• Tennis: William Tilden world No. 1 amateur 1920–1925 → public embrace.
• Basketball: thriving in Brooklyn, rural Indiana; ethnic-based club teams (South Philadelphia Hebrew All-Stars, Polish Detroit Pulaskis); no major pro league yet.
• Miniature golf: 30,000 courses by late 1920s.
• Fad timeline:
  • Mah-Jong craze 1924.
  • Crossword mania 1925.
  • Flag-pole sitting craze 1929—youth competed for endurance; Baltimore mayor praised “grit and stamina.”

Women in Sport

• Gertrude Ederle (Aug 6, 1926): first woman to swim English Channel; beat men’s record by 2 hours; fame, endorsements, yet lingering gender stigma.

Baseball

• Post-1919 Black Sox scandal recovery → firmly “national pastime.”
• Cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago had multiple teams; others in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Washington.
• Segregated Negro Leagues thrived.
• Babe Ruth (“Babe,” “Sultan of Swat”): charismatic, quotable; 1927 Yankees, 60 HRs (record for decades), World Series champs.

College Football

• Formerly targeted by reformers, now big-business amateur sport.
• Universities erected massive stadiums (e.g., University of Illinois Memorial Stadium).
  • Nov 1925: 65,000 fans watched Red Grange score 5 TDs vs. Michigan; NY Times lauded performance.
• 1930 revenue: \$21.5 million (>$\$4.5 million above MLB).
• Sports fandom emerged as lucrative commodity and identity marker.

Synthesis & Broader Significance

• Automobiles, radios, movies, and sports illustrate intertwined rise of consumer culture, mass media, and leisure in the 1920s.
• Vertical integration (Ford, RCA, Hollywood studios) showcased new corporate strategies for dominance.
• Government stepped in (Federal Radio Act) when unregulated growth threatened public interest.
• Mass media created national idols (Babe Ruth, Clara Bow) and platforms for both democratic engagement (FDR’s fireside chats) and demagoguery (Father Coughlin).
• U.S. cultural exports (Hollywood, RCA networks) extended “soft power,” triggering foreign protectionism concerns.
• Installment credit, advertising, and celebrity endorsement reinforced consumerism, while critics warned of moral & financial risks.
• Innovations of the 1920s$$ laid groundwork for later technologies (television, internet) and modern marketing, entertainment, and political communication models.