Part of the Collection:
Many Americans spent the 1920s in a great mood. Investors flocked to a rising stock market. Companies launched brand-new, cutting-edge products, like radios and washing machines. Exuberant Americans kicked up their heels to jazz music, tried crazy stunts, and supported a black market in liquor after Prohibition. A popular expression of the time asked, “What will they think of next?”
Browse some photographs from “the age of permanent prosperity.”
Grauman’s Chinese Theater radiates glamour at the premiere of a Hollywood movie in 1927. Silent movie stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were investors in the theater.
|California Historical Society/Chamber of Commerce;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_02.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_02_t.jpg|As people look on, a policeman measures the distance between a woman’s knee and her bathing suit.
|Library of Congress;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_03.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_03_t.jpg|Charles Lindbergh, a celebrity after his solo, non-stop transatlantic flight in May 1927, stands before his famous plane, the Spirit of St. Louis.
|Courtesy Lindbergh Foundation;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_04.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_04_t.jpg|John Reynolds, the daredevil known as the “human fly,” displays his talent on the flagpole of New York’s Times-Herald building.
|Library of Congress;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_05.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_05_t.jpg|Louis Armstrong, one of the greatest musicians of the Jazz Age, poses with his band, the Hot Five.
|Courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives at Queens College;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_06.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_06_t.jpg|Americans went car-crazy in the Twenties. Henry Ford poses with the first Ford model and the ten millionth automobile his factory produced.
|Library of Congress;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_07b.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_07_t.jpg|Wing walking was one of the Twenties’ ultimate stunts. Eddie Herzog and Bennie Thrash perform over Fresno, California in 1923.
|Courtesy Fresno County Public Library Collection;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_08.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_08_t.jpg|Joe Kennedy, patriarch of the famous political family, relaxes in style. Kennedy famously made a fortune in the 1920s and cleverly cashed out before the Crash.
|Courtesy John F. Kennedy Memorial Library;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_09.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_09_t.jpg|Moviegoers in front of Warners’ Theater pose for a photo at the premier of “Don Juan,” starring John Barrymore, in 1926.
|National Archives;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_10.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_10_t.jpg|A woman demonstrates her garter flask, developed in response to Prohibition.
|Library of Congress;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_11.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_11_t.jpg|Crowds pack the stands to watch Yankee slugger Babe Ruth play the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park.
|SDN-068149, Chicago Daily News Negatives Collection, Chicago Historical Society;http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_12.jpg|http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/uploads/special_features/photo_gallery/crash_gallery_12_t.jpg|A mob of bathers enjoys the beach at Lake Michigan.
|National Archives
My American Experience
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