Roaring Twenties & the Prohibition Annotated Bibliography

Moving forward to 1920s, the documentary will then talk about the social, cultural, and technological developments that influenced American society and culture during this period. Special focus must be given to the working class, relating their social mobility to their economic success and consumption lifestyle.

To illustrate the men and women of the Roaring Twenties, each group would be discussed in relation to a specific social issue that is considered significant and controversial to American society during that time.

For the women, a controversial would be the emergence of 'women empowerment' in the form of through sexual awareness and education. This issue can be discussed two-fold: one side asserting that sexual education is empowering to women of the '20s, while the other side opposing this position, claiming that sex education can actually lead to obscene thoughts and acts (Wheeler, 2000:180). Middle class women were especially active in pursuing or contradicting the campaign for sex education among women, a reflection of their newfound social freedom as a result of their society's economic prosperity.

Audience will get to familiarize themselves with the men of the '20s through the issue of the Prohibition and proliferation of saloons ("speakeasies"). These issues will form the male culture of the Roaring Twenties, in the same way that sex education and empowerment influenced the female culture of the American society during this period. Using the prohibited consumption of alcohol ('moonshine') and popularity of saloons among male consumers, the documentary will highlight how, as the statist approach argued, alcohol drinking and the saloons led to the moral disintegration of the society, particularly among working class men. The Prohibition further intensified and contributed to the quick disintegration of the morals of the society.Alcohol consumption, highly occurring among males, led them to patronize saloons, which, in turn, promoted not only excessive alcohol consumption, but also socialization and 'establishing' intimate relationships with women, married or otherwise (McBee, 1999:86).

After showing thee 'highs' (economic prosperity and social freedom) and 'lows' (moral disintegration) of the Roaring Twenties, it is also important to put the audience again into yet another context that would establish the period's place in American history as a "social revolution," happening after the First World War and acting as the precedent for the Great Depression (Price, 1999).

References

McBee, R. (1999). "He likes women more than he likes drink and that is quite unusual': working-class social clubs, male culture, and heterosocial relations in the United States, 1920s-1930s." Gender & History, Vol. 11, No.1.

Price, S. (1999). "What made the Twenties roar?" Scholastic Update, Vol. 131, Issue 10.

Stricker, F. (1983). "Affluence for whom? -- Another look at prosperity and the working classes in the 1920s." Labor History, Vol. 23.

Wheeler, L. (2000). "Rescuing sex from prudery and prurience: American women's use of sex education as….....