(1930s FASHION)

1930s History

The term "swing dance" is commonly used to refer either to a group of dances developing in response to swing music in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, or to lindy hop, a popular partner dance today. While the majority of swing dances began in African American communities as vernacular African American dances, there were a number of forms which developed within Anglo-American or other ethnic group communities. Balboa is one of the most commonly cited examples. Though they technically preceded the rise of swing music, and are commonly associated with Dixieland jazz which developed in New Orleans in the south of the United States, dances such as the Black Bottom, charleston and tap dance are still considered members of the swing dance family. These sorts of dances travelled north with jazz to cities like New York, Kansas City, and Chicago in the Great Migration (African American) of the 1920s, where rural blacks travelled north to escape persecution, Jim Crow laws, lynching and unemployment in the South during the Great Depression. Swing Dancing from the Movie Twiced Blessed The history of swing dates back to the 1920's, where the black community, while dancing to contemporary Jazz music, discovered the Charleston and the Lindy Hop. On March 26, 1926, the Savoy Ballroom opened its doors in New York. The Savoy was an immediate success with its block-long dance floor and a raised double bandstand. Nightly dancing attracted most of the best dancers in the New York area. Stimulated by the presence of great dancers and the best black bands, music at the Savoy was largely Swinging Jazz. One evening in 1927, following Lindbergh's flight to Paris, a local dance enthusiast named "Shorty George" Snowden was watching some of the dancing couples. A newspaper reporter asked him what dance they were doing, and it just so happened that there was a newspaper with an article about Lindbergh's flight sitting on the bench next to them. The title of the article read, "Lindy Hops The Atlantic," and George just sort of read that and said, "Lindy Hop" and the name stuck. In the mid 1930's, a bouncy six beat variant was named the Jitterbug by the band leader Cab Calloway when he introduced a tune in 1934 entitled "Jitterbug". With the discovery of the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug, the communities began dancing to the contemporary Jazz and Swing music as it was evolving at the time, with Benny Goodman leading the action. Dancers soon incorporated tap and jazz steps into their dancing. In the mid 1930's, Herbert White, head bouncer in the New York City Savoy Ballroom, formed a Lindy Hop dance troupe called Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. One of the most important members of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers was Frankie Manning. The "Hoppers" were showcased in the following films: "A Day at the Races" (1937), "Hellzapoppin" (1941), "Sugar Hill Masquerade" (1942), and "Killer Diller" (1948). In 1938, the Harvest Moon Ball included Lindy Hop and Jitterbug competition for the first time. It was captured on film and presented for everyone to see in the Paramount, Pathe, and Universal movie newsreels between 1938 and 1951. Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 September 27, 1965) was an American actress and sex symbol who rose to fame in the silent film era of the 1920s. Bow was renowned for her sexual magnetism and became known around the world as the It girl, where "It" was commonly understood to mean sex appeal. She was regarded as a quintessential flapper.Bow was born in a tenement in Brooklyn, New York, the only surviving child of a dysfunctional family afflicted with mental illness, poverty, and physical and emotional abuse. She was the third child born to her parents; the first two children, also daughters, were short lived, one lived for 2 hours, the other lived for two days. Bow's mother, hoping that her third child would also die at birth, didn't bother with a birth certificate Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 April 12, 1981), best known as Joe Louis and nicknamed The Brown Bomber, a long-time resident of Detroit, Michigan, is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxing champions who has ever lived. He held the title for over 11 years, recording 25 successful defenses of the title. In 2003, Ring Magazine rated Joe Louis No. 1 on the list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. In 2005, Louis was named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization. He participated in 27 heavyweight championship fights, a record which still stands. In the turbulent era before World War II, he became a national hero for both black and white America. Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Swing uses a strong anchoring rhythm section which supports a brass section including saxophones, trumpets, and trombones; medium to fast tempos; and a "lilting" swing time rhythm. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise a new melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of bandleaders such as Benny Goodman's was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1945. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive. The Dirty 30s! is a dark, gritty, hopeless place where conflict is brewing across both oceans. It is a stark contrast to the previous decade, the Roaring 20s, which was a period of unprecedented growth and opportunity. It is in this world you now stand, but you can find your own opportunities if you can avoid the pitfalls and the dangers. Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming. The epic film which was set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, starred Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland. It told a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern point of view. It was awarded eight Academy Awards, a record that would stand for years. In 1998 The American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list, it was ranked #4, although in the 2007 10th Anniversay edition of that list, it was dropped two places to #6. It has sold more tickets than any other film in history. It is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today it is considered one of the most popular and greatest films of all time, and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood. Bertrand Russell was born at the height of Britain's economic and political ascendancy. When he died almost a century later, the British Empire had all but vanished, its power had been dissipated by two world wars and its imperial system had been brought to an end. Among his post Second World War political activities, Russell was a vigorous proponent of nuclear disarmament, antagonist to communist totalitarianism and an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Previously he had been imprisoned and deprived of his Fellowship of Trinity College as a vigorous peace campaigner and opponent of conscription during the First World War, visited the emerging Soviet Union which subsequently met with his disapproval and campaigned vigorously against Adolf Hitler in the 1930s as well as being an accomplished mathematician. Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character appearing in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop series of films produced by Max Fleischer and released by Paramount Pictures. With her overt sexual appeal, Betty was a hit with theater-goers, and despite having been toned down in the mid-1930s, she remains popular today.Betty Boop made her first appearance on August 9, 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. She was originally designed by Grim Natwick, a veteran animator of the silent era who would become lead director and animator for the Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney studios. The character was modeled after Helen Kane, the famous popular singer of the 1920s and contract player at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons. By direction of Dave Fleischer, Natwick designed the original character in the mode of an anthropomorphic French poodle. The character's voice was first performed by Margie Hines, and was later provided by several different voice actresses including Kate Wright, Ann Rothschild (a.k.a. Little Ann Little), Bonnie Poe, and most notably, Mae Questel who began in 1931 and continued with the role until 1938. During her prime, it was not uncommon to see big name musical guests making appearances in her cartoons. Some of these were: "I'll be glad when you're Dead, You Rascal You" (1932), featuring Louis Armstrong, "Minnie the Moocher" (1932), featuring Cab Calloway, and one of my favorites "Snow White" (1933) featuring Cab Calloway doing the song  "Saint James Infirmary Blues". In the 1930's, Betty Boop was made into dolls, toys, and other collectibles. Her popularity declined for several decades, but then, in the 1980's she began to become popular again. Now, as she becomes more popular, there are many products and collectables available. Some of the items I have are dolls, ceramics, T-shirts, posters, watches,and more. Almost anything you can think of, is now available. I think that Betty is as popular now, as she has ever been.

In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of the The Kate Smith Hour radio program, and the sketch was first performed for a national radio audience that March. The routine may have been further polished before this broadcast by burlesque producer John Grant, who became the team's writer, and Will Glickman, a staff writer on the radio show.  Glickman may have added the nicknames of then-contemporary baseball players like Dizzy and Daffy Dean to set up the routine's premise. This version, with extensive wordplay based on the fact that most of a fictional baseball team's players had "strange nicknames" that seemed to be questions, became known as "Who's on First?" By 1944, Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted. Abbott and Costello performed "Who's on First?" numerous times in their careers, rarely performing it the same way twice. Once, they did the routine at President Roosevelt's request. The routine was featured in the team's 1940 film debut, One Night in the Tropics. The duo reprised the bit in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties, and it is that version which is considered their finest recorded rendition. They also performed the routine numerous times on radio and television (notably in The Abbott and Costello Show episode "The Actor's Home"). Women and children wait in a bread line in England Superman is one of our culture's most enduring and recognizable cultural icons, the inspiration for countless imitators, and a perennial American role model. Superman embodies all our hopes and dreams, and our deepest fears. He is a man who is blessed with extraordinary superpowers many wish they could have. But this seemingly invincible superman can be felled when exposed to a tiny, green rock Kryptonite. This tragic flaw only scratches the surface of Superman's many paradoxes and dualities. His journey from the printed page onto the silver screen has made it extremely hard to pin down the man behind the "S". Swing, like several other styles of 20th Century popular music, has its origins in African rhythms. Traditional West African music brought to the United States and elsewhere by enslaved Africans hybridized with western music to eventually create a distinct style. The first recordings labeled swing style date from the 1920s, and come from both the United States and the United Kingdom. They are characterized by the swing rhythm already at that time common in jazz music, and a distinctive lively style which is harder to define. Although swing evolved out of the lively jazz experimentation that began in New Orleans and that developed further (and in varying forms) in Kansas City and New York City, what is now called swing diverged from other jazz music in ways that distinguished it as a form in its own right. The men were demanding that a steel works be built to bring back jobs to their town, as Palmer's shipyard in Jarrow had been closed down in the previous year. The yard had been Jarrow's major source of employment, and the closure compounded the problems of poverty, overcrowding, poor housing and high mortality rates that already beset the town. In October 1936, a group 200 men from the north-eastern town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London. They wanted Parliament, and the people in the south, to understand that they were orderly, responsible citizens, but were living in a region where there were many difficulties, and where there was 70 per cent unemployment - leading one of the marchers to describe his home town in those days as '...a filthy, dirty, falling down, consumptive area.' During the 1920s and early 1930s, the dance form of jazz was popular. This style used sweet and romantic melody accompanied by lush, romantic string orchestra arrangements. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written ,and vocals would be sung sweetly (often in a tenor voice). Swing music abandoned the string orchestra and used simpler, "edgier" arrangements that emphasized horns and wind instruments and improvised melodies. Swing, like several other styles of 20th-century popular music, has its origins in African rhythms. Traditional West African music brought to the US and elsewhere by enslaved Africans hybridized with western music to eventually create a distinct style. The first recordings labeled race records date from the 1920s, and come from both the United States and the United Kingdom. They are characterized by an improvised style, a smaller number of musicians, a lack of strings and a distinctive lively style which is harder to define, now known as swing rhythm. Since these recordings were mainly produced by minorities with limited resources, the recordings were often made with sub-standard equipment such as the acoustic recording method. Many of these records are extremely rare, as they did not sell well with mainstream audiences. Although swing evolved out of the lively jazz experimentation that began in New Orleans and that developed further (and in varying forms) in Kansas City and New York City, what is now called swing diverged from other jazz music in ways that distinguished it as a form in its own right. The styles of jazz that were popular from the late teens through the late 1920s were usually played with rhythms with a two beat feel, and often attempted to reproduce the style of contrapuntal improvisation developed by the first generation of jazz musicians in New Orleans. In the late 1920s, however, larger ensembles using written arrangements became the norm, and a subtle stylistic shift took place in the rhythm, which developed a four beat feel with a smoothly syncopated style of playing the melody, while the rhythm section supported it with a steady four to the bar. Emily Wilding Davison (1872 June 8, 1913) was an activist for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She died when she was struck by King George V's horse at the Epsom Derby. Davison was born in Blackheath, London, and had a university education, having studied first at Royal Holloway College in London. She later studied English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and obtained first-class honours in her final exams, though women were not at that time admitted to degrees at Oxford. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1906, and immediately involved herself in their more militant activities. She was arrested and imprisoned for various offences, including a violent attack on a man she mistook for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George. She went on hunger strike and was force-fed in Holloway prison, where she threw herself down an iron staircase as a protest. She landed on wire netting 30 feet below, which saved her, however she suffered some severe spinal damage. Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 22 November 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Huxley was a humanist but was also interested towards the end of his life in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank. He was also well known for advocating and taking LSD, including on his death bed. The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940), caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation or other techniques that prevented erosion. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, soil dried, became dust, and blew away eastwards and southwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to California, and much of the soil was deposited in the Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s, large dust storms ravaged the Great Plains. This area was labeled the Dust Bowl" and the period was called the "dirty thirties". The Dust Bowl consisted of 100 million acres in the panhandles of Texas , Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Tarzan has been called one of the best-known literary characters in the world. In addition to more than two dozen books by Burroughs and a handful more by authors with the blessing of Burroughs' estate, the character has appeared in films, radio, television, comic strips, and comic books. Numerous parodies and pirated works have also appeared. Science fiction author Philip José Farmer wrote Tarzan Alive!, a biography of Tarzan utilizing the frame device that he was a real person. In Farmer's fictional universe, Tarzan, along with Doc Savage and Sherlock Holmes, are the cornerstones of the Wold Newton family. Even though the copyright on Tarzan of the Apes has expired in the United States of America, the name Tarzan is still protected as a trademark of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Also, the work remains under copyright in some other countries where copyright terms are longer. Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; (March 23, 1905 May 10, 1977) was an Academy Award-winning American actress. The American Film Institute named Crawford among the Greatest Female Stars of All Time, ranking her at number 10. Starting as a dancer on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in 1925 and played in small parts. By the end of the '20s, as her popularity grew, she became famous as a youthful flapper. At the beginning of the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled that of fellow MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. She was often cast in movies in which she played hardworking young women who eventually found romance and financial success. These "rags to riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences. Women, particularly, seemed to identify with her characters' struggles. By the end of the decade, Crawford remained one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars, and one of the highest paid women in the U.S.

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