A New Perspective on the 1920s

Now that the semester is coming to an end and I have thoroughly explored and researched the “Roaring Twenties”, I can say with confidence that my perspective on the decade has changed. In my initial post about the 1920s, I mentioned that the decade was much more than one big party with jazz music and flappers. While this idea still holds true, I underestimated the abundance and diversity of the events, movements, and people within the 1920s.

Most notably, I can say with confidence that I no longer have such an Americanized view on the decade. Throughout elementary school, high school, and oftentimes college, history is taught through an American perspective. As a result, there is a great emphasis on events that happened in America or affected the country in some way. While conducting my research for each post, I learned that the 1920s was much more than just a decade of great change for America. Although that statement seems obvious, students have a tendency to focus on America because that is really all we learned about in history classes. Even though my blog posts do fall into the same pattern, the topics encouraged me to do research outside of what was happening in America at the time. Overall, I believe that an international perspective and a less stereotypical idea of the decade were missing from my original ideas. 

With this in mind, if I had to pick one word to describe the entire decade, I would choose the world “dynamic”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word dynamic is used to describe something that is “marked by usually continuous or productive activity or change”. From both an international perspective and an American perspective, the word dynamic seems to describe the 1920s perfectly. From the very beginning of the decade to the very last second in 1929, there was not a moment of rest. In many different ways, what occurred during the 1920s would change the course of the world forever. From technological advancements and scientific discoveries to cultural movements and establishments of new governments, the 1920s was chaotic and constantly changing. It is difficult to pinpoint a single defining event or movement that characterized the decade because there were just so many things going on.

Given that I now have a new understanding of “Roaring Twenties”, when talking about the decade in the future, I will be sure to avoid making the same mistakes I did in the past. Instead of generalizing the decade, I would emphasize that there is so much more to the 1920s than just what happened in America. There is an entire world’s history that American students, teachers, and citizens seem to forget about. In my future conversations, I will also make sure that I bring up and talk about lesser known events, movements, and people that happened in America. Since the 1920s was such a dynamic time, there is no need to constantly talk about Prohibition, flappers, and jazz music. While these were important and life might have been different without them, there is just so much more to discover and learn about.