American Depression
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In the 1920 we see a full emergence of modern culture in America. The new culture extolled the virtues of modernity, pleasure, leisure, and consumption. It reflected the needs of an industrial economy. Supported by advertising and installment buying, the culture of leisure and consumption offered spectator sports, movies, popular music, radio and sex. The new culture entailed new views of gender, family life, and youth and placed renewed on the old values of individualism in an increasingly organized society.
In the 1920's many Americans, encouraged by big business, increasingly defined life as the pursuit of pleasure. People were invited to seek gratification through the consumption of goods and services. In addition to higher wages workers had more free time. For salaried, middle class workers, the annual vacation had become a tradition. Although blue-collar workers seldom enjoyed a vacation, they spent less time on the job...