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c haPter 3

The ‘20s: Culture,

Consumption, and Crash

I

n the HBO show Boardwalk Empire, “Nucky Thompson” is a politician with
mob connections, living in a world of organized crime, corruption, beauti-
ful women in “speakeasies,” or illegal nightclubs, and plenty of illegal cham-
pagne and “bathtub gin.” It is, as many Americans imagine it, what the 1920s
was like. Few decades have the reputation of the “Roaring ‘20s,” a time, in
popular lore and in media and movies, when Americans finally exhaled from
the trauma of the Great War, the economy expanded, sexual relations changed,
and people loosened up and had fun! This version of that decade is not incor-
rect, but it is incomplete. Entertainment and sports became accessible to the
masses. Babe Ruth—the cigar-smoking, beer drinking, womanizing New
York Yankee slugger—became one of the best-known, and ironically most-
admired, men in America and made the amazing salary of $80,000 a year,
more than the president. When asked about his salary compared to Herbert
Hoover, he joked “I had a better year than he did.”
Men and women interacted more often and more scandalously as sexual-
ity became more overt and sex more liberated. Despite a constitutional ban
on alcohol, booze flowed freely. People enjoyed popular music like ragtime
and jazz, often going out with groups of friends, men and women together,
to enjoy singing and dancing and a few drinks. And politicians like “Nucky”
were often at the center of it all, taking kickbacks, helping their friends, and