What Do the 1920s mean to me now?

After taking this course, I have come to realize what the 1920s were. Yes, people view them like the roaring 20s but do they know how much was created and was foundational to life that we know now? After reading and researching the 1920s through my classmate’s blog posts and my blog posts and articles for the class, I have concluded many things happened in this decade more jammed-packed than I thought. I remember looking at the list of topics from the 1920s on Wikipedia to choose my subjects. And I was shocked by the variety of choices in the United States and worldwide. Everything from Einstein delivering his theories of relativity in Europe and America to the rise of synchronized sound and the birth of Mickey Mouse. When entering this course, I viewed the 1920s as stereotypical flappers and big house parties, just like everyone believes that the events filled the 1920s. I recently listened to a Taylor Swift song that refers to Gatsby. This is just an example of the only people who know of what happened in the 1920s is a Gatsby styled party. I was glad that I could take this class to deepen my understanding of the 1920s. Many significant events happened during the 1920s, such as the development of television and penicillin. The 1920s were also intricate and detailed. Not many people know off the top of their head. We see our modernized televisions in our homes, and we look at movies but do we think of what came beforehand? Not a lot of people would know when the television was invented. Overall, this course has made me look into history a little deeper with a historian viewpoint of either cause of other events that happened after the 1920s or inventions that would forever change the course of life.

Many of the events that I saw or researched before getting an in-depth introduction to them, I believed that they happened. Midway through the course, I had the most significant revelation that these people’s events happened 100 years ago. It is sad to see the recognition and the credibility of some of these events die. Like how often do people think about the Yankees in the year 1923? Probably not a lot. Only select parts of the Yankees in the 1920s stuck, such as building the new stadium and Babe Ruth. When people see a Disney film, do they think of Steamboat Willie and how Disney has come along since the 1920s? Do they think of how complex and courageous Disney had to make one of the first synchronized films? These are examples of people only think of if they research and take an in-depth view of some of these topics. This phenomenon may not happen to most people, depending on what they study. This was another aspect of the class that I enjoyed. I enjoyed narrowing in on some of these subjects and finding more about them because I already had some fondness for them somehow.

Roberta Carbah

I am a Ramapo senior who is majoring in Elementary Education. I am taking this course because I want to be certified in Social Studies at the middle school level. I graduated from Bergen Community College in the Spring of ’19 with an associate’s in Early Childhood Education. Currently, I am working  at Starbucks as a Shift Supervisor until I obtain my degree from Ramapo.