new industrial research
labs - AT&T, GE
DuPont synthetic fiber -
1920s, rayon
1934 Wallace Carothers -
nylon.
1920s & 30s age
of new
materials, plastics - 1935 Plexiglas.
Toys of 1920s –
model airplanes, Erector sets;
May 20, 1927 Charles
Lindbergh, “Spirit of St. Louis”.
non-stop NY-Paris
–
solo;
"Lucky
Lindy."
Big technological
changes actually began back in 19thC - telephone, electricity & automobile;
radio, movies;
1919-1929, GNP rose 39%,
manufacturing output almost doubled, & corporate profits almost
doubled. Workers wages average 25%
higher in 1929 than 1919.
taller skyscrapers.
1917 20% of US homes
electrified; 1940, 90%.
1924 65,000 mechanical
refrigerators; 1934 ten million.
1910 1 car for every 184
people; 1930 1 car for every 5.
New technology –
mass production of culture & entertainment:
Radio:
1896 Guglielmo Marconi -
Morse code “wireless telegraph”.
“like
magic”,
1912
Titanic.
amateur radio fraternity
- “listening in.”
exploratory
listening, technical
skill.
“It’s Great
to be a Radio Maniac”: “Your wits, learning and resourcefulness are matched
against the endless perversity of the elements.”
“DXing", pull
in far-away stations – “distance fiends” or “DX
hounds”
- “How far did you hear last night?
A ten year-old girl in Michigan brings in New York, Denver, Atlanta,
Dallas, and other distant stations.”
“I can travel over
the US and yet remain at home.”
1916 David Sarnoff,
“I have in mind a plan of development which would make radio a household
utility in the same sense as a piano or phonograph. The idea is to bring music into the house by
wireless.”
1920, Westinghouse -
“KDKA
Pittsburgh”.
1922, more than 200
radio stations in US; 1926 almost 700.
“There is radio
music in the air every night, everywhere.
Anybody can hear it at home on a receiving set which any boy can put up
in an hour.”
Radio craze 1920-1924.
Westinghouse 25,000 sets per month.
Listeners did “not sit packed closely, row on row, in stuffy
discomfort endured for the delight of the music. The good wife and I sat there quietly and comfortable alone
in … our own home… and drank in the harmony coming three hundred
miles to us through the air.”
Early 1920s, programming
local – newspapers, colleges, socialists, department stores & ham
radio operators; unions, churches;
News - 1925 Scopes
"Monkey Trial".
NBC 1926, CBS
1927;
1926 World Series
Collier’s: radio would bring
“mutual understanding to all sections of the country, unifying our
thoughts, ideals, and purposes, making us a strong and well-knit people.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
–
1920s “Jazz Age”.
Movies:
1800s still photography
- daguerrotypes.
George Eastman -
1888 Kodak,
first camera for amateurs - "You Press the Button, We Do the
Rest".
Edison 1887 patent
"kinetoscope"
("moving view") The invention “does for the eye what the
phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproducing of things
in motion and in… a form… cheap, practical, and
convenient.”
“studio” in
West Orange, NJ
NY City 1894,
kinetoscope
parlor.
“automatic
vaudeville” or the “penny vaudeville” – “A Busy
Day at the Corset Models”.
Louis & August
Lumiere - projector.
Edison
“Vitascope”.
1896 music hall NY -
New
York Times “triumph” - films “almost the acme of realism.”
1905, nickelodeons.
1907, 200
nickelodeons Manhattan;
Adolph Zukor, Marcus
Loew, William Fox, Harry Warner, and Lewis Selznick.
“the poor man’s
amusement”, “workingman’s theater”.
“leisure
revolution”
“If I ever go to
Berlin or Paris I will know what the places look like…. I know what a
fight in an alley in Stamboul looks like… I know a lot of the pictures
are fakes, but what of it? It
costs only five cents.”
1910 26 million
people, 30%
pop’n, movies each
week.
1920 fifty million,
15,000
theaters.
- 1920s movie
palaces - air-conditioning.
"talking
picture" 1927 "The Jazz Singer" - Al Jolson.
1930, over 13,000
theaters sound equipment.
color films 1935, (end
1940s, still only 12% in color);
1920s & 1930s - 100
million tickets per week.
- 1920s consumer culture - credit
financing;
1919-1929, annual
production of washing machines doubled, 66% of urban population.
1920 20% homes had flush
toilets, 1930 50%.
75% of radios, 60%
cars installment
plan.
Urbanization - 1920s
over
50% Americans in cities & towns.
1918-1941, "Machine
Age" – new devices, new materials, new environments, new
processes.
1920s
prosperity.
1923 Calvin Coolidge
"The
business of America is business."
Coolidge: government
"hands
off" approach to business;
Herbert Hoover –
government promotion & coordination;
Hoover West Branch IA
1874;
Stanford – mining
engineering;
Work Australia,
China.
heyday of US
engineering;
engineer as expert
–
key to social improvement – engineers’
responsibility;
age 40, millionaire
- the
"Great Engineer".
WWI head of Food
Administration
organizing famine relief
for Europe, - “Great Humanitarian”.
Secy Commerce 1921-1928;
over 1000 conferences on
ways to cut waste in industry,
standardization.
Encouraged radio -
assigning
frequencies.
promoted aviation,
cutting airmail rates, promoting improvement of airports.
early tests of
television.
1928 election -
landslide
for Hoover & promise of business prosperity.