Entertainment in the 1920s
Entertainment played a large part in the lifestyle of people living in the 1920s. This included literature, movies, music, sport and various other forms of entertainment.
There was a dramatic change in the style of writing in the 1920s, and many authors struggled to evolve with these changes and were disappointed with the change since the old times, while others had a positive opinion on this and were grateful for this change towards their writing career.
Reading was a favourable pass time in the decade of the 1920s. Reading was most predominantly done during the colder times of the year as this is when other activities were restricted. During the current 1920s time the only form of gaining knowledge was through reading; whether that is through newspapers, magazines or books. Reading played a large part in a person’s education. Magazines contained many short stories or ongoing issues of stories. Children’s books were also made and were printed with many illustrations.
Movies were very popular in the 1920s. They were very exciting for the people who had just experienced the dark times of the world war. Movies were a huge success as were the movie artists who earned a lot of money from their job. The first movies of the 1920s were silent, with no sound except for a live musical accompaniment which was usually there. These movies had a huge entertainment value and soon there was also sound added into the movie so the music played with the movie and there was no need for live musicians to be in time with the movie. In these times there were smaller movie theatres called Nickelodeons.
After this the technology had developed some more and had now allowed for the next advancement in movies, talking. Before this there was no way to have talking in movies other than displaying the text of what somebody was saying during the scene. With this advancement, viewers could hear people saying their dialogue.
Music was similarly a big portion of the 1920s’ entertainment. At this time, jazz music became popular and people danced to this new upbeat style. Jazz was in its early stages and started off through dance and marching bands from most concerts happening in this decade. People used phonographs (turntables) and the later invention of the radio, which also revolutionised the music industry. Many people also had different opinions about jazz music, and thought that this upbeat style was the “devil’s music”. Most dance music at this time was blues-type tunes which later evolved into the clearly different and more distinct style of jazz.