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No. 18 Vol. 8
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August 2022
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The 1920’s Life in Morris County
By Henry M. Holden f we open the window of history into the Morris County of the 1920s, we will see images of smartly dressed people, flappers, jazz bands, and speakeasies. Fast cars, pleasure-seeking adults, energetic stock markets, and the birth of Hollywood’s “golden age” are also in this window of history. In fact, Morris County was a microcosm of America. But there is another side to the story. The decade started on a positive note with the end of the Great War and the worldwide pandemic that had combined killed millions of people. But it also ended with the economic turmoil unleashed by the 1929 stock market crash, the resulting Great Depression, and the shadows of another world war. But what happened between the beginning of the decade and its end? James Thomas, Department Head of the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown & Morris Township Library, and his team have put together an outstanding photo exhibit that explores life in Morris County during the “roaring 20s” “It took about 27 hours to set up this exhibit,” said Thomas. “It is the first exhibit I’ve been part of where we focused on just one decade. We have a great team here and we worked long and hard on the exhibit. I learned more about the 1920s in Morris County than I knew before we put the exhibit together. I was reminded of the
important changes in society in the 1920s. This is our first onsite exhibit in three years,” said Thomas. “We began the research on the exhibit last summer (2021).” Captioned on many of the photographs are histories that have been forgotten. For example, Lou Gehrig, of New York Yankee baseball fame, played in Morristown under an alias, “Lou Long, “and “Lou Bush.” As a student athlete at Columbia University, Gehrig was banned from playing in any pro or semi pro capacity. However, the young Gehrig managed to sneak away and spend the 1922 season playing for the Morristown Colonials, at Collinsville Field. With the end of World War I, Morris County and all of America would begin to witness the great military industrial power put to civilian use. A fledgling auto industry at the beginning of the war was now capable of producing thousands of automobiles for civilian use. And it did. America soon became mobile, driving to vacation and tourists’ destinations and homes in the now-growing suburbs like Morris County. The explosion of automobile ownership affected not only the daily lives of residents but also strongly changed the character of neighborhoods and downtowns. The developing middle class resulted in a residential building boom and greater discretionary income. There was a new form of advertising introduced during this decade. Two hall-
With the changing dynamics of the 1920s, women had less domestic drudgery thanks to labor-saving devices like the electric laundry. (Credit: Morristown & Morris Township Library)
marks of America’s 1920s corporate culture were the emphasis on bureaucratic standardization, and managerial hierarchy to maximize productivity and profits. Retailers embraced customer focused sales practices to indulge the public’s comfort and desires, whether in extravagant downtown department stores or the dry goods stores on Main Street. Store owners began to allow customers to inspect and handle goods
unsupervised, as opposed to the traditional method of keeping products safely behind a counter under a clerk’s supervision. On January 16, 1920, one year after its ratification, the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating beverages. However, it did not prohibit the private possession continued on page 4
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