This definitions covers Key Terms You Must Know within Life Changes in 1920s for GCSE History. Revise Life Changes in 1920s in America 1920-1973 for GCSE History with 10 exam-style questions and 6 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 9 of 13 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
Topic position
Section 9 of 13
Practice
10 questions
Recall
6 flashcards
📖 Key Terms You Must Know
- Consumer society
- A way of life in which buying and owning goods is central to people's identity and daily experience. America in the 1920s was the first true consumer society — driven by mass production, advertising, and credit. People defined themselves by what they owned: their car, their radio, their refrigerator.
- Hire purchase (instalment credit)
- Buying goods by paying a small deposit and then making regular weekly or monthly payments — "buy now, pay later." 60% of cars and 80% of radios were bought this way by 1929. It expanded consumer markets enormously but also meant millions of Americans were carrying debt they could not easily repay.
- Mass media
- Communication channels — radio, cinema, newspapers — that reach very large numbers of people simultaneously. Radio was the first truly national mass medium in the USA. By 1929, 10 million households had a radio, meaning the same news, music, sport, and advertising reached Americans from coast to coast. This created a shared national culture that had not existed before.
- "Talkie"
- A film with synchronised sound and dialogue, as opposed to the silent films that came before. "The Jazz Singer" (1927), starring Al Jolson, was the first commercially successful talkie. It transformed the film industry — silent film stars who had poor voices lost their careers, while new stars rose. Cinema became even more popular as a result.
- Suburbanisation
- The movement of people from city centres to suburbs — residential areas on the edge of cities. Only made possible by the car, which allowed workers to commute to work. The growth of suburbs created demand for new houses, new roads, and new shops, further driving economic growth.
- Jazz Age
- A nickname for the 1920s, reflecting the popularity of jazz music — an African-American musical form that spread from New Orleans to national audiences via radio and record. Jazz symbolised the social changes of the decade: young people, freedom, improvisation, breaking rules. Some older and more conservative Americans hated it precisely for these reasons.