Between 1900 and 1930, American popular culture underwent a transformation characterized by the development of national popular culture and its commercialization. Popular culture refers to cultural activities and products that appeal to broad audiences. It includes popular literature, radio broadcasting, popular music, popular dance and theater, sports and recreation, some decorative arts, and motion pictures. During the first three decades of the century, corporations increasingly turned out cultural productions for popular consumption to make a profit. This led to tensions between a popular culture created by people themselves and popular culture created by commercial interests. The transformation of popular culture into a broad-based national phenomenon occurred as a result of economic, social, demographic, and technological changes of the emerging industrial age.
The rise of modern popular culture was made possible by the tremendous growth of American cities, the emergence of the urban middle class, changing social values in regard to leisure, technological advances, and a rise in real wages for almost all workers. As the urban population exploded early in the 20th century, cities became the sites in which popular culture was created and consumed. Easy access to large audiences gave cultural producers such as movie makers and amusement park owners an economic incentive to produce products that catered to these new audiences. In addition, corporations were growing in size and required increasing numbers of white-collar workers. These workers, many of whom were children of immigrant parents, earned enough money to afford movies and plays, and they had the time in which to do so. A new ethos in regard to leisure activities also was emerging, as middle-class Americans rejected traditional beliefs that restricted their use of leisure time. Wage workers also were improving their standard of living. Better wages meant that, for the first time, many wage earners and their families could afford new public amusements. Finally, the improved abilities to transmit information over wire and through the air brought different regions into closer contact than had ever been possible. Chains of vaudeville theaters and national sports leagues gave many Americans common experiences. All of these developments helped transform popular culture into a national culture that often cut across ethnic, social, and regional groupings.
As producers of popular culture tailored their offerings to appeal to a broad audience, the cultural differences between these groups diminished. In doing so, popular culture helped Americanize the millions of immigrants who came to America. At the same time, some forms of popular culture reinforced group differences, as each group interpreted popular culture among themselves. Popular culture thus could simultaneously diminish cultural differences and help maintain them. In Vaudeville theaters, for example, audiences often consisted of a cross-section of urban society. Members of these audiences joined in a unifying activity that brought people of numerous backgrounds together. At the same time, there was a hierarchy of theaters determined by the cost of a ticket. The more expensive theaters tended to be downtown while less expensive theaters operated in working-class immigrant neighborhoods. The performances often catered to the audience, creating different versions of popular culture within the same cultural institution. The same dynamic occurred in public amusement parks such as Wonderland and Luna Park at Coney Island, New York. The crowds that streamed out of New York City to Coney Island consisted of all ethnic and class backgrounds, and they all shared some of the experiences at the parks. There were, however, different sections of Coney Island, differentiated by the cost of food and lodging. Thus, a popular culture activity could be both unifying and divisive.
Baseball serves as an informative example of how popular culture emerged out of the new industrial urban environment. Americans had been playing baseball since before the Civil War. Only in the 20th century, however, did it become the national phenomenon that it still is today. Baseball’s increased popularity was due to a variety of factors. First, the sheer number of urban residents who could attend games provided a potential audience. Second, it appealed to urban Americans as a throwback to simpler times. Going to a baseball field with its green grass provided an opportunity to spend the afternoon in an environment that reminded city residents of the recent rural past. The players came from a variety of backgrounds, which
Luna Park at Coney Island, N. Y. (Library of Congress)
Made it possible for any fan to find players that they related to because of their ethnic identity. Baseball’s popularity rose from more than these factors, however. Seizing upon a money-making opportunity, the team owners built larger stadiums and relied on marketing to attract audiences. One marketing strategy was the creation of the star system in which team owners marketed their best players to attract audiences. It made many players household names.
Motion pictures emerged during this time to take their place at the center of popular culture. The first motion pictures to be marketed to a public audience purely for entertainment purposes were shown in nickelodeons in large cities. The nickelodeons were commercial spaces that contained anywhere from five to 50 viewing machines. Patrons dropped their five cents in a coin slot and watched a brief film. The subjects of these films ran anywhere from acrobatics and animal acts to films of men and women kissing.
The films did not have sound. The nickelodeons quickly became the most popular form of entertainment in America’s cities and provided the basis for the nascent MOViE INDUSTRY. The novelty of the motion picture combined with the affordability appealed to a broad audience.
A combination of audience desire for longer films and entrepreneurs’ realization of the money to be made led to the development of big screen films. The first films that were shown on a screen in front of audiences were exhibited as educational films in traveling shows. Entrepreneurs realized that there was money to be made from the urban audiences who attended vaudeville shows. Vaudeville theaters began to show motion pictures as part of the show. By the 1910s, movies had separated from vaudeville, and motion picture theaters began to spring up in cities.
Changes in the quality and type of films increased their popularity. Initially, films consisted of short clips. The appeal of these was limited, once the novelty wore off. To meet the demand for more meaningful films, filmmakers began to make films that told a story. The first film to tell a story was the 1903 Great Train Robbery. The quality of early films in terms of technology and filmmaking left much to be desired. The 1915 Birth of a Nation, a racist account of reconstruction after the Civil War, was a turning point in filmmaking. It used new lighting techniques and acting techniques to make a more realistic representation. It made more money than any film of its time and helped revolutionize filmmaking. By the 1920s, motion pictures had become the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. Movie stars such as Mary Pickford became household names as the movie studios used the same star system as baseball teams did to market their films and the entire industry.
Radio was another element of popular culture that developed from commercial interests. Although the technology was invented in the late 19th century, radio did not occupy a significant space in American culture until after World War I when the commercial possibilities of radio were first realized. The first radio broadcasting stations were set up by the companies that manufactured radio equipment. General Electric, Westinghouse, and American Telegraph and Telephone all realized that they could sell more radio equipment if the public had something to listen to. Initially this was all done on a local basis. The radio owners living near Pittsburgh, for example, could listen to the first permanent station, KDKA, created by Westinghouse in 1920, but audiences outside of the listening area could not. In addition, all the programming was local, consisting of music, Broadway plays, and news among other things. The programming was sporadic, because the local stations did not have access to large amounts of music and other entertaining programs. Programming changed in the mid-1920s with the establishment of the network system. The National Broadcasting Corporation and the Columbia Broadcasting System provided their affiliate stations a certain amount of programming each day. The local stations filled the remaining airtime. The network system helped nationalize popular culture, because radio listeners all over were listening to the same program. Moreover, the national programs were sponsored by the manufacturers of certain products, which then became household names. This helped create a national market for some products. The first radio program to put all these trends together was the Arnos ’n Andy show, which premiered in 1929. Thus the 1920s were only the beginning of radio’s important role in popular culture.
A range of different genres characterized popular literature during the first decades of the century. As books became more affordable in soft covers and literacy spread, literature became more popular. Best sellers came from a number of different genres. Sentimental novels such as Pol-lyanna and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, religious books, historical fiction, westerns such as The Virginian, sensationalist exposes such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and detective mysteries all found their way onto the bestseller lists. Pulp fiction also emerged as a form of popular literature. Named for the cheap paper stock on which they were printed, these magazines appealed to specialized audiences with serial and short stories off all sorts. They sold for 10 cents. Initially, they included a variety of story types, but by 1910 magazines began to specialize. Some were detective fiction magazines, others Westerns, while others published love stories. By the mid-1920s, some of the pulp magazines had circulations of 500,000.
Dance crazes were another form of entertainment that became a part of popular culture. The ability to publish sheet music in large quantities helped spread music and the dances that often accompanied specific songs. In the 1920s, radio helped spread both the songs and dances. Many of the dance crazes appealed to youths because they allowed them to engage in close physical contact. The dance crazes of the pre-World War I years included the turkey trot, grizzly bear, and the bunny hug, all of which allowed close physical contact. After the war, dances such as the Charleston and the Lindy Hop became national phenomena as Americans embraced the fast-paced dances that accompanied the fastpaced lifestyle that helped define the decade.
Changes in popular music accompanied the various dance crazes. The most significant development in music was jazz. Evolving from a combination of the blues, ragtime, and brass band music, jazz was America’s only unique musical form. Prior to the rise of jazz, European orchestra music dominated the American music scene. A few American composers were writing pieces for orchestras, sentimental art songs, dances for keyboards, and songs for vaudeville. It was not until the rise of jazz, however, that an American form of music emerged. The Great Migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities played an integral role in the development of jazz. The migration brought both musicians and an audience to the urban North, where commercial record producers helped popularize jazz.
By the end of the 1920s, popular culture had taken its modern form. Popular wants and commercial possibilities helped create a popular culture that was also a mass culture. This dynamic has led some to question whether popular culture rises from the people or is created by commercial enterprises seeking a profit from mass consumption. During the years from 1900 to 1930, commercial interests began to dominate the production of popular culture. It is important to remember, however, that the individual still made the daily choices that decided which cultural products and activities were truly popular.
Further reading: M. Thomas Inge, ed., Concise Histories of American Popular Culture (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982); David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993); Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements, Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986).
—Michael Hartman
World History
