1930s Fashion

1930s History

1930s Music

John Dillinger went from small time crook to America's Most Wanted after an ill-fated bank robbery left a police officer dead. By modern standards, Dillinger's crimes seem relatively tame, but being named Public Enemy No. 1gave him legendary status. Born in Indianapolis on June 22, 1903, John Herbert Dillinger Jr. grew up on Cooper Street near the Massachusetts Avenue railroad tracks on the Northeastside. When he was a teen-ager, his father, a grocer, moved the family to Mooresville, a small farming community near Indianapolis' Southwestside. It was there that Dillinger committed his first recorded crime -- a car theft. In 1924, Dillinger and an ex-con pal held up a 65-year-old Mooresville grocer. But the shopkeeper fought back, and Dillinger was caught and convicted, spending the next nine years in prison. In 1933, Dillinger committed a string of bank robberies throughout the Midwest and broke out of jail twice with the help of his gang. His "gang" was made up of various prison acquaintances and girlfriends. Sometimes as many as six associated with Dillinger. "Baby Face" Nelson was at one time a member of Dillinger's gang. The first escape was in Ohio, and the second time was in Crown Point, Ind., using a carved wooden handgun. They were well equipped with machine guns, bulletproof vests and fast cars. In January 1934, Dillinger's gang killed East Chicago police officer William O'Malley during a holdup of the First National Bank. Dillinger was placed in the Lake County Jail at Crown Point. He escaped, stole the sheriff's car and drove across the Illinois state line to Chicago. In doing so, he violated federal law and brought himself to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dillinger shot his way out of numerous FBI traps from St. Paul, Minn. to St. Louis and escaped the FBI at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin. That incident was bungled by the FBI, which mistakenly shot three innocent people, killing one. The entire gang escaped. Dillinger made a mockery of the FBI by eluding capture so many times that director Hoover took it personally. Hoover systematically eliminated Dillinger's gang one by one. Hoover labeled Dillinger "Public Enemy No. 1" and placed a $15,000 price on his head, forcing Dillinger to keep a low profile. Anna Sage, the infamous "woman in red", with whom Dillinger had been living in a Chicago brothel, betrayed Dillinger. Chicago FBI chief Melvin Purvis was tipped off by Sage that Dillinger would be seeing the movie "Manhatten Melodrama" at the Biograph Theater on Chicago's Northside. Sage wore a red dress to alert the FBI that the man she was with was Dillinger. On July 22, 1934, 15 FBI agents surrounded the theater. Once Purvis identified Dillinger, the agents closed in. Dillinger pulled a gun and the agents opened fire, killing Dillinger. Just three bullets struck Dillinger. The fatal shot passed through the back of his neck and exited just under his right eye. He was shot twice in the chest; one bullet passed through the tip of his heart. Embalming took place in Chicago at the Cook County morgue before thousands of curious onlookers under the premise that "John Dillinger's fate might be a lesson to the world." Dillinger's body was brought back to Mooresville, Ind., where nearly 10,000 people waited to view his body. Funeral services were held at the home of his sister, Audrey Hancock, in Maywood. Dillinger was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Not surprisingly, there have been theories that it was not John Dillinger who was killed outside the Biograph Theater, but rather a double. A scar on the left side of his face had apparently been removed by plastic surgery and his fingerprints had been removed by acid. FBI chief Melvin Purvis also noted that Dillinger drew his gun from his pocket the evening he was killed--he usually kept it at his waist. Mickey Mouse, originally a theater animation, appeared on the big screen for the first time on November 18, 1928. You have to picture for yourself, the attraction, not only of a delightful cartoon character, but also the lead player in the first ever sound cartoon, at a time when silent films were still playing in theaters. This was all brand new and innovative, and Steamboat Willie took the public by storm. He was the first animated international personality, who laid the groundwork for the entire Disney empire. He symbolizes everything that Disney stands for in a positive and upbeat philosophy. When other cartoonists were experimenting with innuendo and sexuality, or stealing ideas from one another, the Walt Disney creations became original, enjoyable, and something for the entire family, regardless of age to enjoy together. The most delightful and the most enduring, and this is indicated by the strong demand for such items as Disney's Tinkerbell coloring pages and personal items like watches and lunch boxes, which display any number of the Disney animated favorites. The birth of Mickey Mouse occurred on a cross-country train ride (a four day journey) in early 1928. Walt was returning from a business meeting along with his wife. At the age of 26, and with an active cartoon studio in Hollywood, Walt had set out to arrange for a new contract for his creation, Oswald the Rabbit, but the backers turned him down. As they owned the copyright, they took control, leaving Walt with nothing. To prepare to announce the unpleasant news to workers back home, Walt gave birth to a sympathetic mouse that he first named, "Mortimer". By the end of the ride, which concluded in Los Angeles, Lillian Disney suggested to her husband that the first name was too stuffy. He was renamed, "Mickey." Walt and his head animator, Ub Iwerks, soon completed their first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Plane Crazy." But no distributor would buy the film. Not one to quit, Walt produced a second silent Mickey Mouse cartoon, called "Gallopin' Gaucho." It was less than a year since Warner Brothers had introduced the talkies with Al Jolson as the "Jazz Singer" (late 1927). In 1928, Walt Disney began work on his third Mickey Mouse cartoon, this time a talkie, entitled, "Steamboat Willie." To add sound to the film, Walt had to take the animated portion to New York since West Coast studies did not have the equipment. The young man invested everything he had into the film, and when it was completed, Walt screened it for New York exhibitors. A manager at the Colony Theater liked Walt and thought he would take a chance by showing the innovative talking cartoon. "Steamboat Willie" was a rousing success. Walt immediately added sound to his first two cartoons and offered all of his exhibitors a package of three short talkie cartoons. The creator, himself, supplied the voice for all Mickey Mouse cartoons up through World War Two. In 1946, when Walt became too busy to continue the job, an experienced Disney sound and vocal effects man by the name of Jim McDonald, inherited the task. McDonald was destined to continue his high-pitched duties until he retired in 1974, and the job passed on to Wayne Allwine. Soon after his introduction to the local market, Mickey Mouse became famous beyond all expectations, to the point where people coming to the theater first asked if they were going to "run a Mickey" before they would consider buying admission. Remember that this was just months before the disastrous 1929 stock market crash, and the ensuing economic decline in America. Mickey's popularity continued strong throughout the Dirty Thirties. Theater managers got smarter and soon had to headline the charming little mouse with large signs proclaiming, "Mickey Mouse playing today!" Patrons did what many movie goers were able to accomplish, until they started to clear out the theaters at the end of each feature, as they do today, by sitting through multiple showings of the feature just to see Mickey again. Remember that cartoons were as popular for adults as they were for children, and there was no other way to view them. It was only when television later arrived, that the early cartoons could first be shown to home audiences on the small screen. Walt Disney produced 87 cartoon shorts during the 1930s in which Mickey Mouse was employed as everything from a giant killer, to a cowboy, to a detective to an inventor. Other cartoons of the time were repetitive, boring musicals with dancing flowers and silly images that lacked a storyline and the individual and identifiable personality of the mouse and his friends. An entire family of characters was created for the Disney stable including, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Pluto, Donald Duck, and some of the lesser knowns, Clarabelle Cow and the gruff Peg-Leg Pete. In 1932, barely 4 years after the world was introduced to the delightful rodent, Walt Disney received an Oscar for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. Although the Depression originated in the United States, it resulted in drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country of the globe. But its social and cultural effects were no less staggering, especially in the United States, where the Great Depression ranks second only to the Civil War as the gravest crisis in American history. The timing and severity of the Great Depression varied substantially across countries. The Depression was particularly long and severe in the United States and Europe; it was milder in Japan and much of Latin America. Perhaps not surprisingly, the worst depression ever experienced stemmed from a multitude of causes. Declines in consumer demand, financial panics, and misguided government policies caused economic output to fall in the United States.The gold standard, which linked nearly all the countries of the world in a network of fixed currency exchange rates, played a key role in transmitting the American downturn to other countries. The recovery from the Great Depression was spurred largely by the abandonment of the gold standard and the ensuing monetary expansion. The Great Depression brought about fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory. The French recovery in 1932 and 1933, however, was short-lived. French industrial production and prices both fell substantially between 1933 and 1936. Germany’s economy slipped into a downturn early in 1928 and then stabilized before turning down again in the third quarter of 1929. The decline in German industrial production was roughly equal to that in the United States. A number of countries in Latin America slipped into depression in late 1928 and early 1929, slightly before the U.S. decline in output. While some less developed countries experienced severe depressions, others, such as Argentina and Brazil, experienced comparatively mild downturns. The depression in Japan started relatively late (in early 1930) and was, by comparison, mild. 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. 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.   Betty Boop was the first female flapper cartoon ever. 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 little like her soon-to-be-famous self, however. Grim Natwick, a veteran animator of both Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' studios, was largely responsible for creating the character, which he modeled on Helen Kane, a singer and contract player at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons. In keeping with common practice, Natwick made his new character an animal, in this case, a French poodle. Beginning with this cartoon, the character's voice was performed by several different voice actresses until Mae Questel got the role, in 1931, and kept it for the rest of the series. Natwick himself later conceded that Betty's original look was quite ugly. The animator redesigned her in 1932 to be recognizably human in the cartoon Any Rags. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her poodle fur became a bob haircut. She appeared in ten cartoons as a supporting character, a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons she was called "Nancy Lee" and "Nan McGrew". She usually served as studio star Bimbo's girlfriend. She was not officially christened "Betty Boop" until the 1932 short Stopping the Show that same year. This was also the first cartoon to be officially part of the Betty Boop series and not a Talkartoon.   In 1935 Britain was just coming out of a severe depression. There had been a dramatic decline in the traditional industries of coalmining, shipbuilding, steel and textiles, and in the industries supplying them, such as Cradley Heath’s chain-making industry, which supplied the navy and commercial shipping with heavy chain. Many new industries were set in the Midlands. One example is the Revo Electric Company in Tipton. The new industries offered well-paid work for many, but levels of unemployment were still high. In 1931 unemployment in Dudley peaked at 38.8%. Cradley Heath was badly hit, at 36.3%. Other Black County towns suffered unemployment rates of over 30%. By 1934 levels had fallen. In Dudley, for example, it was 20.8%, but large numbers were still suffering the humiliation of means-tested benefits. The Means Test was still operating in 1935. Unemployed workers, who had exhausted their 26 weeks of benefit, had to answer searching and personal questions in an attempt to qualify for assistance. Inspectors regularly visited the homes of claimants to check whether they had any other form of income, or any goods that might be sold. The National Government, a coalition of various parties, was in power in 1935. Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister in June 1935, taking over from Ramsay MacDonald. Some people in Britain reacted to the Depression by supporting extremist groups. On the extreme left wing was the Communist Party of Great Britain (C.PG.B.), and on the far right, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.). Moseley saw himself as a second Mussolini, and by early 1934 had recruited 50,000 members to his newly named British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.), but it did not pose a serious challenge to the government. By 1935, support for the BU.F. was declining and there was widespread anti-fascist feeling throughout the country. Communism appealed to many working-class men and middle-class intellectuals, although it had limited success in the country as a whole. Nevertheless, the Communists were at the forefront of campaigns in support of the unemployed and against the Means Test. The communist-inspired National Unemployed Workers’ Movement sought to raise the profile of the unemployment issue through hunger marches, factory raids to protest against overtime working and mass demonstrations aimed in particular at Poor Law Guardians. Despite the activities of extremist political groups, the National Government continued to enjoy the support of the majority of the British public throughout the 1930s. For many people in Britain the 1930s was a period of great hardship. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 started a worldwide economic depression that lasted for much of the decade. Old industries such as steel, ship-building and coal mining suffered the most. For the people of Britain the spectre of unemployment was always present. The general election of 1929 saw the Labour Party become, for the first time in their history, the largest party in Parliament. They then formed the government under Ramsey MacDonald. On 23rd August 1931 the Cabinet voted to cut unemployment benefit by 10%. Several ministers resigned. MacDonald then formed a new ‘National’ government with many Labour MPs, Conservative MPs and some Liberal MPs. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party but the Labour Party did not recover its strength until 1945. The 1930s also saw the rise of minor parties that offered radical solutions to Britain’s economic problems. Both the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and the British Communist Party gained in popularity. The BUF looked to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy for inspiration whilst the Communists were inspired by Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. The BUF never gained any seats in Parliament while the Communists managed to win just one seat in 1935. The Thirties began quietly with an international treaty extending previous agreements to reduce naval armament, but as the years passed they quietly dissipated as the nations of the world moved inexorably toward war. In the United States, the period began with disturbing indications of a dark economic depression that soon became harsh reality. Forced by this circumstance to effect rigid economies, the expansion of Naval Aviation was slowed, the aircraft inventory was barely sufficient to equip operating units, research and development programs suffered, and operations were curtailed drastically. But as the nation began its program to recover prosperity through the initiation of public works, money was made available for more naval aircraft, for new ships and for modernizing naval air stations. The upward swing began. In spite of the hardships, there were surprising gains in aviation technology. Engineers and aircraft manufacturers produced more dependable products, aircraft equipment and components were refined and improved, and aircraft performance rose sharply. Better radios of reduced size, more accurate bomb sights, supercharged power plants, controllable-pitch propellers, efficient retractable landing gear and folding wings; all contributed to the improvement of aircraft performance and made air planes better instruments of war. 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"). 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. During the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, which lasted from the end of the silent era in American cinema in the late 1920s to the late 1950s, thousands of movies were issued from the Hollywood studios. The start of the Golden Age was arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent era and increasing box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a formula - Western, slapstick comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture) - and the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For example, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at 20th Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille's films were almost all made at Paramount, and director Henry King's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox. At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of the actors who appeared in it; MGM, for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this — a trait that does not exist today. Yet each movie was a little different, and, unlike the craftsmen who made cars, many of the people who made movies were artists. For example, To Have and Have Not (1944) is famous not only for the first pairing of actors Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–) but also for being written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner (1897–1962), who worked on the screen adaptation. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and was able to acquire their own string of movie theaters, after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. MGM had also owned the Loews string of theaters since forming in 1924, and the Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre strings as well. Also, RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America) responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films , and developed their own method, known as Photophone, to put sound in films. Paramount, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in the late 1920s as well, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan. By the 1930s, all of America's theaters were owned by the Big Five studios - MGM, Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., and 20th Century Fox.

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