The Great Crash

Life in the Roaring Twenties had to be amazing. What with wealth running around like stray dogs, parties all day and all night, and just social and fashionable flair. A whole new type of persona revealed itself in the 20s - the flappers. Young, Western woman with "short" (knee-length) skirts, and bobbed hair. Rebels against the restraints that previous generations had against women. Life was just a beautifully rich and enjoyable thing in the 20s. Until the Jazz Age came to an end.

Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, marks the official first day of the The Great Crash. The stock markets dropped so rapidly that the vast majority of people who had invested their money in the stock market lost everything and more because they had purchased on margin. When buying stock on margin, the investors only pay for a small portion of what the actual stock costs. So when stocks were liquidated, the investors lost the interest they occurred from the stock and also were indebted to the institutions from which they borrowed the money for the stock in the first place.

Regardless of how or why the crash happened, it did, and it was HUGE. It affected everyone. And when I say everyone, I legitimately mean EVERYONE. Some people were filthy rich one morning and penniless and in debt by evening. Poor people were even poorer than they were before. The repercussions of the stock market crash had a presence across the world. Almost every country in the entire world went through a recession at the same time that America did. This fact points to the obvious high position that the US had in worldwide standing.

When examining the media through which the Stock Market Crash was reported, we see thoroughness and repetitiveness that is only apparent with extremely important stories i.e. World War I. I am pleased to say that I am impressed with the seriousness with which media in the late 20s handled the Great Depression. Without primary sources such as the newspapers that were actually written during the Crash, how would future generations be able to understand exactly what happened?

Media in the 20s is different from media in today's day and age. The most obvious of reasons is that news is presented through a multitude of different outlets, referred to as multimedia. This blog is a great example of that. Media in the 20s was reported by the reporters; a small portion of the actual American population. These days, any one that wants to be a reporter can be one. Had the Stock Market Crash occurred today, millions of blogs would be written and published with a variety of different opinions as to why the crash occurred, what should have been different, what will be different, what should be done now, and how to deal with the predicament we, as Americans, have put ourselves in. There would also be podcasts and radio shows and television casts that would all have an influence over someone's opinion of the situation.

The Jazz Singer- 1927

The Jazz Singer was the first American film on record to have dialogue. Even though there were only a couple minutes of spoken dialogue in it, the significance of it was so important. The star of the film was Al Jolson, who was a prominent entertainer. He was also credited for introducing African-American music to white audiences later in his life. Early in his lifetime he became known for fighting against black discrimination in Broadway shows. Samson Raphealson wrote “The Day of Atonement” in pursuit of a professional literary career which is a short story based on a young Jew named Jakie Rabinowitz. “The Day of Atonement” was based off of Al Jolson’s life. Later, Raphaelson evolved the story in a stage play (The Jazz Singer). The show premiered on Broadway in September of 1925 and instantly became a hit. Warner Bros. obtained the movie rights to the play officially on June 4, 1926. The premiere of The Jazz Singer was October 6, 1927 at the Flagship Theatre in New York City. This date was strictly for show business purposes because Yom Kippur was the next day and that is what the plot of the movie is centered around. All six of Jolson’s musical numbers had to be on separate reels with each of them having an accompanying sound disc. So even though the film was on eighty-nine minutes long, there were fifteen reels as well as fifteen sound discs to manage. The projectionist had to be able to thread each reel very quickly and in order. The least mistake by the projectionist with a reel or sound disc could mess up the entire film. The dialogue sound left a lasting legacy in the film industry and the plot of the story did as well.