The 1920s #1

In the new year, I hope to research 1925 in detail. Meanwhile, here’s some general information about the 1920s, starting with some flapper slang.

Airedale – an unfashionable, not with-it man
Alarm clock – a chaperone
Apple sauce – flattery
Banks closed – no petting or kissing
Barneymugging – the opposite of banks closed
The bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas, the elephant’s instep – the best

In 1925 Clarence Birdseye, pictured, invented a process for frozen food. Later, he invented the double belt freezer. His initial product line featured 26 items, including 18 cuts of frozen meat, spinach, peas, a variety of fruits and berries, blue point oysters, and fish fillets.

More flapper slang from the 1920s

Billboard – flashy man or woman
Biscuit – a cute, possibly promiscuous, woman
Cake basket – a limousine
Clothesline – local gossip
Corn shredder – a dancer who treads on your feet
Dropping the pilot – getting a divorce
Edisoned – being asked a lot of questions
Eye-opener – marriage
Father Time – a man over thirty

🖼️ The Flapper, 1922

In 1925, a number of record companies improved on an electrical recording process originally developed by Western Electric and produced a more lifelike sound.

Jazz dominated the music scene. The word jazz arose out of West Coast slang, c1912. At that time it did not refer to music. Jazz was used in an article about baseball in 1913 and appeared in reference to music in a Chicago Daily Tribune article of 1915.

On 5 August 1926 Warner Brothers produced the first Vitaphone movie, Don Juan (the third highest grossing film of the year). The Vitaphone system used multiple 33 1⁄3 rpm gramophone records to play back music and sound effects synchronised with film.

The Jazz Singer, the first part-talkie, followed in 1927, then the first all-talkie Lights of New York, in 1928, then the first all-colour all-talkie On With The Show, in 1929. The silent movie era arguably ended with Modern Times in 1936.

The 2020s

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