With the introduction of talking movies,The Jazz
Singer(1927) being the first of significance, and
color films a few years later, the motion picture
reached technological maturity. Costs and profits
mounted; by the 1930s million-dollar productions
were common.
Many movies were still tasteless trash catering to
the prejudices of the multitude. Sex, crime, war,
romantic adventure, broad comedy, and luxurious liv-
ing were the main themes, endlessly repeated in pre-
dictable patterns. Popular actors and actresses tended
to be either handsome, talentless sticks or so-called
character actors who were typecast over and over
again as heroes, villains, or comedians. The stars
attracted armies of adoring fans and received thou-
sands of dollars a week for their services. Critics
charged that the movies were destroying the legiti-
mate stage (which underwent a sharp decline), cor-
rupting the morals of youth, and glorifying the
materialistic aspects of life.
Nevertheless the motion picture made positive
contributions to American culture. Beginning with
the work of Griffith, filmmakers created an entirely
new theatrical art, using close-ups to portray charac-
ter and heighten tension and broad, panoramic shots
to transcend the limits of the stage. They employed,
with remarkable results, special lighting effects, the
fade-out, and other techniques impossible in the live
theater. Movies enabled dozens of established actors
to reach wider audiences and developed many first-
rate new ones. As the medium matured, it produced
many dramatic works of high quality. At its best the
motion picture offered a breadth and power of impact
superior to anything on the traditional stage.
Charlie Chaplin was the greatest film star of the
era. His characterization of the sad-eyed little tramp
with his toothbrush moustache and cane, tight frock
coat, and baggy trousers became famous throughout
the world. Chaplin’s films were superficially unpreten-
tious; they seemed even in the 1920s old-fashioned,
aimed at the lower-class audiences that had first found
the movies magical. But his work proved both univer-
sally popular and enduring; he was perhaps the great-
est comic artist of all time. The animated cartoon,
perfected by Walt Disney in the 1930s, was a lesser
but significant cinematic achievement; Mickey
Mouse, Donald Duck, and other Disney cartoon
characters gave endless delight to millions of children.
Even more pervasive than the movies in its effects
on the American people was radio. Wireless transmis-
sion of sound was developed in the late nineteenth cen-
tury by many scientists in Europe and the United
States. During the war radio was put to important mili-
tary uses and was strictly controlled, but immediately
thereafter the airwaves were thrown open to everybody.
Radio was briefly the domain of hobbyists, thou-
sands of “hams” broadcasting in indiscriminate fash-
ion. Even under these conditions, the manufacture of
radio equipment became a big business. In 1920 the
first commercial station (KDKA in Pittsburgh) began
broadcasting, and by the end of 1922 over 500 sta-
tions were in operation. In 1926 the National
Broadcasting Company, the first continent-wide net-
work, was created.
It took little time for broadcasters to discover the
power of the new medium. When one pioneer inter-
rupted a music program to ask listeners to phone in
requests, the station received 3,000 calls in an hour.
The immediacy of radio explained its tremendous
impact. As a means of communicating the latest news,
it had no peer; beginning with the broadcast of the
1924 presidential nominating conventions, all major
public events were covered live. Advertisers seized on
radio too; it proved to be as effective a way to sell
soap as to transmit news.
Advertising had mixed effects on broadcasting.
The sums paid by businesses for airtime made possible
elaborate entertainments performed by the finest actors
and musicians, all without cost to listeners. However,
advertisers hungered for mass markets. They preferred
to sponsor programs of little intellectual content, aimed
at the lowest tastes and utterly uncontroversial. And
good and bad alike, programs were constantly inter-
rupted by irritating pronouncements extolling the sup-
posed virtues of one commercial product or another.
In 1927 Congress limited the number of stations
and parceled out wavelengths to prevent interference.
Further legislation in 1934 established the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), with power to
revoke the licenses of stations that failed to operate in
the public interest. But the FCC placed no effective
controls on programming or on advertising practices.
Advertisements from 1925 and 1927at
http://www.myhistorylab.comThe Golden Age of Sports
The extraordinary popularity of sports in the postwar
period can be explained in a number of ways. People
had more money to spend and more free time to fill.
Radio was bringing suspenseful, play-by-play accounts
of sports contests into millions of homes, thus encour-
aging tens of thousands to want to see similar events.
New means of persuasion developed by advertisers to
sell lipstick, breakfast cereal, and refrigerators were
applied with equal success to sporting events and to
the athletes who participated in them.
There had been great athletes before; indeed
probably the greatest all-around athlete of the twenti-
eth century was Jim Thorpe, a Sac and Fox IndianReadtheDocumentThe Golden Age of Sports 649