Life in the 1920s

• • 20s was a loud and preposterous time
  • War was over
  • People were able to afford things
• A Booming Economy

  • Greatest economic boom in history
  • American companies invested in Canada’s natural resources and manufactuingidustries
  • Automobiles and radios had the greatest impact on social and economic lives of Canadians
• Canadian Political Leaders

  William Lyon Mackenzie King, liberals, Compromised to please the majority

  Arthur Meighan, conservative, Did not compromise and was in favor of high taxes
• Canadian Inventions:

  • Frederick Banting doctor from Toronto who created the formula for insulin. Research was initially done with dogs but the first human (14 yo Leonard Thompson) was injected in 1922 and results were successful
  • Alexander Graham Bell: from Brantford, ONT, invented the telephone. Final model took years to be perfected. By 1929, 3 out of 4 families had one
• • Flappers: women broke social rules and hung with men at clubs all night and danced, drank, smoke, cut their hair short, wore provocative clothing and danced the Charleston
• • Jazz clothing surfaced in 1919 as a new music called JAZZ was first being performed. Jazz suit, identified by its extremely trim, tight/pinched look, was worn in the theatrical profession.
• • Jazz influences: Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong
  • Popular dances: Charleston, Black Bottom, The Shimmy
  • Silent films used orchestra music and Talkies were movies where characters began to speak in the movie
  • Harry Houdini was a famous magician in the 1920s
  • Sports in  the 1920s in Canada centered on participation 
  • Babe Ruth (baseball), The Edmonton Grads (women’s basketball team)
• • Moonshine = illegal alcohol
  • Bootleggers = those who sold it^^
  • Speakeasies + blind pigs = places to buy it
• The Automobile - The Model T:

  • Automobile production boomed as cars could be built cheaper and more durable due to Ford’s mass production assembly lines
• Group of Seven

  • J.E.H MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Franklin Carmichael, Arthur Lismer, F.H Varley, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, influenced by Tom Thompson, interpretive style
  • Famous painting the Canadian landscape, contributed to the growing sense of Canadian identity
• Suffrage Movement

  • Women protesting for equal rights like the right to vote and paid work