Manifest Destiny, Progressivism, War, and the Roaring Twenties 207Great War, became another pop ular commodity, resulting in a broad-
casting system that enveloped the nation. The motion picture camera
had been invented by Thomas Edison in 1896 , but not until the begin-
ning of the twentieth century did the motion picture industry emerge
as an art form, especially with the production of The Birth of a Nation
in 1915. Motion picture theaters were opened in thousands of cities and
towns, and by the 1930 s the industry enjoyed an investment value of $ 2
billion and employed nearly 500 , 000 people.
Perhaps the most spectacular technological development of this pe-
riod in U.S. history was the growth of the airplane industry. It started at
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17 , 1903 , when Wilbur and
Orville Wright made the first successful flight aboard a heavier-than-air
plane. During World War I, aviation began to show its value and im-
portance. Stimulated by the war, the airplane industry took off, and
twenty-four plants were established, producing more than 20 , 000 planes
a year. Aviation became an integral part of the nation’s army and navy,
and soon airplanes carried mail, passengers, and cargo around the world.
Journeys that had once taken days, weeks, or months to complete now
took only hours. Then, on May 21 , 1927 , in a solo flight, Charles A.
Lindbergh flew his monoplane The Spirit of St. Louis from New York to
Paris in thirty-three hours nonstop. The age of flight had truly arrived.
In time, especially after the introduction of jet-powered planes, mem-
bers of Congress would fly home to their districts for the weekend, go-
ing as far away from Washington as Alaska and Hawaii.
A mer ic an societ y ch anged in many other ways following
World War I. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, intro-
duced in 1917 and ratifi ed in 1919 , prohibited the manufacture, sale, and
transportation of intoxicating liquors. The Volstead Act, passed over
Wilson’s veto on January 16 , 1920 , was intended to implement the
Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibition had become law, but many
Americans had no intention of changing their drinking habits. To ob-
tain liquor, they relied on bootleggers, or they made it themselves in
their bathtubs. This ac ceptance of illegal activities corrupted the think-
ing of Americans throughout the country and encouraged a carefree
disregard for the law. Even in Washington, among the very men who