The American Journey © 2012

Chapter 24: The Jazz Age

Web Activity Lesson Plans

"The Jazz Age"

Introduction
In this chapter students learned about the Jazz age. They learned about the political extremes, social changes, and new types of entertainment. This web activity provides students with more knowledge about jazz, the music of the roaring twenties.

Lesson Description
Students will learn about jazz and its role in American life. After reading the articles and answering questions associated with the articles, they will use the knowledge to explain how jazz was widely accepted by the youth of America but was not as popular with the older generation.

Instructional Objectives

1. The student will be able to explain jazz and its role in the 1920s.
2. The student will be able to use the information they learn to explain the importance of jazz to the youth of the 1920s.

Student Web Activity Answers

1. There was a lot of prosperity during the "Roaring Twenties." The nation's wealth doubled, there was an increase in manufacturing, and most people had electricity in their homes. People made more money and spent it on new technology like the washing machine, the refrigerator, the vacuum, radios, and automobiles. There was some social growth too, like women getting the right to vote.
2. Rural locations that did not receive jazz bands were able to listen to music through the radio and the phonograph.
3. Many who lived in small-town America did not like jazz music because they found it annoying, a cause of loose morals, and a source of dislocation from the younger generation. Some thought that the dancing the music inspired was having an impact on our national character. Others disliked jazz because of its origins, claming that it was created in objectionable places.
4. Louis Armstrong
5. High school boys, who would go watch Louis Armstrong perform.
6. Answers may vary but could state that jazz music was free and unscripted, inspiring a feeling of freedom and independence. With the turmoil of the Red Scare and the political restrictions as a result of Prohibition, the youth of America felt a need to break free and jazz provided that outlet.