An illuminated advertisement for Citroën appeared on the Eiffel Tower every night from 1925 to 1934.
Although New York was rising as a new wellspring of cultural influence, Paris remained one of the world’s foremost–if not the foremost–cultural centers.
American jazz, American entertainers, and American tourists were now part of the scene, but so were the Ballets Russes and Maurice Chevalier. And the designs of Coco Chanel were the height of fashion.
“Galop infernal” from Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) Composed in 1858 by Jacques Offenbach. Public domain. Public domain recording. Source.
Photograph of the original Broadway production of Show Boat.
For as long as there has been theatre–and there has always been theatre–music has often accompanied the performance in one form or another.
But the 1920s saw the emergence of a new kind of blending of theatre and music. Not the sugary frivolity of musical theatre nor the weighty drama of grand opera, but the musical: a play with popular songs, but one in which the music and the story are equal partners.
The Marx Brothers pose inside a garbage can for this 1932 Time magazine cover.
During the Roaring Twenties, New York City grew to become the world’s largest city, and the center of American industry, finance, art, and culture.
This period saw the establishment of two new, influential magazines, Time and The New Yorker, and the wisecracking circle of writers at The Algonquin Roundtable influenced a generation.
Theatrical poster for the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, France had the world’s largest motion picture industry, but it was soon overtaken by the USA, which had a larger population that was particularly enthusiastic about the new medium.
By the Roaring Twenties, 80% of the world’s films were being produced in the United States. The industry grew and film stars became rich and celebrated. But there was a backlash from those who believed the film industry was weakening the nation’s moral fiber.
“Spanish Music” and “Hurry Music” from Sam Fox Moving Picture Music, Volume 1 Composed in 1913 by J.S. Zamecnik. Public domain. Performed by Richard Frohlich and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source and Source.
The Bauhaus School. The building was designed by Walter Gropius.
Monument to those killed in the Kapp Putsch of 1920, designed by Walter Gropius. The Nazis called it “degenerate art” and destroyed it in 1936.
The German Republic guaranteed freedom of expression, in stark contrast to the authoritarian rule of Kaiser Wilhelm. Life in Germany became freer. Arts and culture flourished. Attitudes toward sex and sexuality became more liberal.
And Berlin filled with new ideas and avant-garde art in a way no one had never been before. For a few years, from roughly 1925-1933, Germany’s capital was one of the most important, perhaps the most important, center of culture in the Western world.
“At the Jazz Band Ball” Composed in 1917 by Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields. Public domain. Performed by the Dixieland Jazz Ensemble of the United States Coast Guard Band. Public domain recording. Source.
String Quartet No. 2 in F# minor Composed in 1908 by Arnold Schönberg. Public domain. Performed by The Carmel String Quartet and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
Chancellor Winston Churchill, headed for the House of Commons on budget day, 1929. With him are his wife Clementine, daughter Sarah, and son Randolph. This would be the fourth and final time Churchill presented the budget to the Commons as chancellor.
Winston Churchill couldn’t campaign in the 1922 general election, because he was recovering from abdominal surgery. He lost his seat in that election, and found himself (as he later put it) “without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix.”
But Churchill returned to the Commons in 1924, now sitting with the Conservative Party for the first time in twenty years. And no one was more surprised than he when he was named chancellor of the exchequer.
Lydia Lopokova, shown with her husband, John Maynard Keynes.
History seemed to teach that reestablishing convertibility between British pounds and gold at the prewar rate was the key to British economic recovery, as well as protecting the status of the pound as the world’s most reliable currency.
But not everyone agreed—in particular, John Maynard Keynes, an intellectual gadfly who argued that the role of central banks should not be to preserve gold convertibility, but to regulate the money supply to keep prices steady.
This NBC publicity photo shows Freeman Gosden (l.) and Charles Correll clowning around on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Amos ‘n’ Andy in 1938.
The RCA partners: GE, Westinghouse, and AT&T eventually settled their disputes over the booming business of radio. A new corporation, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created to manage the business of radio broadcasting and would buy up AT&T’s broadcasting business. The phone company would in the future limit its involvement in the radio business to supplying phone lines to connect radio stations.
The introduction of radio networks changed American entertainment and culture by, among other things, homogenizing it. Entertainers in New York could make good money performing over NBC; entertainers elsewhere were unlikely to get radio work at all. Radio entertainment was at first mostly music, although not jazz, which was largely banned from the airwaves. Later, radio experimented with drama, plays meant not to be seen, but to be listened to. In 1928, the first hit radio series appeared. The good news was: it pioneered a new form of entertainment, with a set cast of characters experiencing new adventures every week, and proved audiences could and would follow the story. The bad news was: It was Amos ‘n’ Andy.
Hungarian Dance No. 5 Composed in 1869 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain. Performed by the Fulda Symphonic Orchestra and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Source.
The Barber of Seville Composed in 1816 by Gioachino Rossini. Public domain. Public domain recording. Source.
Advertisement for the opportunity to listen to the Dempsey-Carpentier world championship fight from a theater, brought to you by radio.
Prodded by the US Navy, the General Electric Company bought out Marconi Wireless’s US subsidiary and formed a new corporation along with other US companies that owned useful radio patents, including Westinghouse Electric and American Telephone and Telegraph. The new corporation was dubbed the Radio Corporation of America, and universally known by its initials: RCA.
The complex RCA deal took two years to complete, from 1919 to 1921. In 1919, RCA’s mission was seen to be wireless communication. But in 1920 Westinghouse, on its own, first demonstrated that there was a consumer market for radio receivers, provided customers had radio broadcasts to listen to. By 1921, when the RCA merger was complete, the mission of the company had completely changed. Radio was the new craze. But with so much money up for grabs, everyone wanted a piece of the action.
Music from the Sam Fox Silent Move Book Public domain. From RF Media and the Texas Radio Theatre Company, used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
Radio station KDKA remodeled their studio in late 1922. Note the use of drapery on the walls and ceiling to dampen reverb.
Radio was originally conceived as a means for two-way communication without wires; that is, as a means to send telegrams or make telephone calls wirelessly.
As early as 1916, David Sarnoff, an employee of Marconi Wireless’s US subsidiary suggested a whole other use for radio: as a means of distributing entertainment. He called it a “radio music box.” No one took him seriously until KDKA in Pittsburgh announced the 1920 Presidential election results live on election night—a convincing demonstration of the potential of the new medium.
“The Japanese Sandman” Composed in 1920 by Richard A. Whiting. Public domain. Performed by Paul Whiteman and His Ambassador Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.
