CITY LIFE IN THE 1920'S
Making life easier: The 1920s consisted of social, political, artistic, and cultural change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities as opposed to rural areas. Due to all of the new technological advances in the cities, it made peoples' live much more easier.
Indoor plumbing and modern sewer systems also changed city life. Not only did all of these factors make it extremely appealing to the people, but it made it easier, especially on the women.
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Cities/rural areas:Unlike rural areas, cities had electricity. It allowed families to communicate easier with people that were far away from them. Appliances made women's' lives easier too. They could get more things done at once, making it faster and more efficient.
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Here, a man says something about how rural areas were lacking what cities had in the 1920's. "The prosperity of the 1920s was not universal. In 1920, nearly half the nation's population still resided in rural areas, dependent upon agriculture for survival. And the Roaring Twenties were unkind to America's farmers....Rural electrification increased at a snail's pace, with more than 90 percent of American farms still lacking power into the 1930s. The proportion of farms with access to a telephone actually fell during the Roaring Twenties."
Below, a man discusses how life changed in Nebraska due to all of the technological changes in the 1920's:
"The character and quality of life changed dramatically in Nebraska during the 1920s….The effects of technological change were most obvious in the cities. By the 1920s most small cities had paved streets, municipal electricity and water systems, telephone systems, streetlights, and sewage systems… The homes of most urban Nebraskans had running water and indoor plumbing…Electricity appeared in homes on a grand scale during the 1920s, at first for illumination but by the end of the decade for washing or sewing machines, irons, toasters, mixers, and vacuum cleaners…Refrigerators began to replace iceboxes for short-term food preservation, and electric fans began to cool hot summer days.
"The character and quality of life changed dramatically in Nebraska during the 1920s….The effects of technological change were most obvious in the cities. By the 1920s most small cities had paved streets, municipal electricity and water systems, telephone systems, streetlights, and sewage systems… The homes of most urban Nebraskans had running water and indoor plumbing…Electricity appeared in homes on a grand scale during the 1920s, at first for illumination but by the end of the decade for washing or sewing machines, irons, toasters, mixers, and vacuum cleaners…Refrigerators began to replace iceboxes for short-term food preservation, and electric fans began to cool hot summer days.
CITY MORALS AND BEHAVIOR:
Unlike small populated cities and rural areas, big cities began to lose their morals and act very different from how they use to. Women began to change their status' in society. Women had more freedom, and they began to take advantage of it. They would have romantic relations with men in public, drink, and do other things. Women in rural areas appalled this behavior and acted more conservative.
In the two pictures below, you can clearly see that the women in the cities dressed and acted vwery differently from the women in rural areas to to the living standards changing in the city in the 1920's.