In what ways did the mass media of movies and radio accelerate the pace of life in the 1920s?
Motion pictures also became tremendously popular in the 1920s. Movies had first become popular in American cities beginning in the 1890s, when they were shown in nickelodeons. These were small arcades in which individual customers inserted a nickel to view short, silent movies in hand-cranked movie viewing machines. In the early twentieth century, movie-makers began to make longer films, and to screen films in theaters, in which many people could watch the same film together. Movie companies also began constructing "motion picture palaces," elegant theaters that would make movies seem more elegant. These theaters replaced the nickelodeons, which were often in working-class neighborhoods. By the 1910s, the movie industry, which had begun in New Jersey and New York, had largely relocated to Hollywood, California. Within a few years, actors and actresses, such as Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, became some of the most famous celebrities in America. Movie makers also created longer, feature-length films that had more complicated plots. In 1927, the first sound movie, The Jazz Singer, marked the beginning of the "talkies."
In addition to movies, another mass medium, radio, also helped to transform American culture in the 1920s. The first radio station, KDKA, began broadcasting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1920. Within a few years, hundreds of radio stations were in operation, and radios became a fixture in most American homes. Radio enabled Americans to learn of breaking news stories much more quickly and to hear popular music.