Contents What Is Popular Culture Children’s Entertainment Film and Light Entertainment Music The Printed Word Art and Design Wartime Propaganda Fashion Changing Times What Did the 1900s and 1910s Do for Us Timeline Best of an Era Find Out More Glossary Index
What Is Popular Culture What do you enjoy doing in your free time Do you enjoy watching a movie or some television Or perhaps you like reading a good book or flipping through the pages of a magazine to find out about the latest fashions Chances are that a lot of other people like the same movies television programs books or magazines as you This makes these pastimes part of a popular culture The word culture can be used in many ways but in this book we mean culture to be the arts such as movies music books and design Culture can also include elements that are part of everyday life such as travel and the clothes people wear Popular culture really came into being with the introduction of mass communication such as television and radio In the years between 1900 and 1919 mass communication was just beginning This was an exciting time of inventions and technological advances Can you imagine a world without television Well that was our world during this time
Television wasn’t widely introduced until the 1920s Going to a movie theater was a new experience in the early 1900s since movies were only available to the general public in about 1896 1 Can you imagine what it would have been like to see your first moving picture as they were called then projected onto a big screen Where does popular culture start Popular culture might vary in different countries or there might be trends that appeal to lots of people around the world Sometimes an advance in technology means that an item such as the car will become more affordable This will have an impact on how people live their lives A new car means that traveling to see friends or relatives may become a lot easier Many new cars on the road may also mean traffic jams and an increase in pollution Sometimes trends such as designer fashion start with the elite A new look is then adapted to make it accessible and affordable to the mainstream public The reverse of this might also happen A trend might start with a particular subgroup of people and spread to become widely popular For example ragtime and jazz developed within the
African American community During the early 1900s racism among the wealthy social elite and throughout society caused people to view blacks and their culture as taboo However ragtime and jazz soared to popularity among the elite and other groups The appeal of movie theaters spread around the world and they became a key part of popular culture This crowd is waiting to enter a kinema an old spelling of cinema in London England in 1918
