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The Roaring 20s Mini-DBQ
Read each document excerpt and answer the accompanying questions.
Document 1: Roaring 20's - Digital History
The 1920s was a decade of exciting social changes and profound cultural conflicts. For many Americans, the
growth of cities, the rise of a consumer culture, the upsurge of mass entertainment, and the so-called "revolution
in morals and manners" represented freedom from the restrictions of the country's Victorian past. Gender roles,
hairstyles, and dress all changed profoundly during the 1920s. But for many others, the United States seemed to
be changing in undesirable ways. The result was a "cultural civil war," in which a society clashed bitterly over
such issues as foreign immigration, evolution, the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, women's roles, and race.
The 1920s was the first decade to have a nickname: "Roaring 20s". It was a decade of prosperity and indulgence,
and of jazz bands, bootleggers, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, and marathon dancers. It
was, in the popular view, the Roaring 20s, when the younger generation rebelled against traditional taboos while
their elders engaged in a lot of speculation. It was known as the "Roaring 20s" for a variety of reasons - a
reference to jazz, the economic growth, and luxurious lifestyle many indulged in.
1. What are some of the ways American culture changed in the 1920s? List 5.
2. What was the nickname for the decade of the 1920s? Why did it have that nickname?