Using this info Lifestyle and Culture 
The 1920s brings to mind images of women with bobbed hair, the Charles- ton, jazz musicians, silent film stars, Model T Fords, and athletes such as Babe Ruth and Howie Morenz. 
Music and Dancing 
Jazz was the music of the 1920s. Originating with musicians in New Orleans, the sound soon spread across the United States and north to Canada. The most famous jazz musicians were Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Duke Ellington. As jazz evolved throughout the decade, other musical genres took shape, including blues and swing, which would become more popular in the next decade. 
The Jazz Age encouraged daring and energetic dances. Some adults 
considered them indecent because of their suggestive movements. The Charleston was the most popular dance. The Black Bottom and the Fox Trot were popular as well. 
Movies 
Silent movies were rarely silent. They were shown with piano or organ accompaniment, sound effects, and subtitles. Live orchestras played at larger theatres, frequently using music written specifically for the film. When "talkies" arrived in Canada in 1927, theatre jobs for musicians disappeared. 
Comedy was the most popular type of movie during the era of silent films. The humour was usually slap- stick-people got hit on the head, fell into holes, or were smacked in the face with custard pies. Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin were the most famous comedians. 
Figure 2.16 Examine this photograph of a Charleston dance marathon in 1926. Why might some adults have objected 
to the Charleston? Are there dances today that some adults object to? If so, why? 
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The newsreel, a collection of short news clips, became a standard part of movie theatre programs, along with short cartoons, a sports reel, and a travelogue. By the end of the decade, thousands of Canadians regularly attended one of the more than 900 
movie theatres across Canada. 
Canadians in Film 
Several Canadians played a major role in early movies. Walter Huston, Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, Fay Wray, and Mary Pickford were famous Hollywood actors. With his three brothers, Jack Warner founded Warner Brothers Pictures in 1923. The company released the first motion picture with synchro- nized sound, The Jazz Singer, in 1927. Decades later, the company became Time Warner Inc., one of the world's largest media and entertainment companies. 
Louis B. Mayer grew up Saint John, New Brunswick. In his late teens, Mayer moved to Boston and then opened his first movie theatre in 1907. Within a few years, he had the largest theatre chain in New England. Several years later, Mayer started his own pro- duction company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures. In 1924, it became Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). 
Professional Sports 
Canada was sports crazy in the 1920s. Canadians followed the heroics of 
such North American athletes as Babe Ruth in baseball, Bobby Jones in golf, Howie Morenz in hockey, and Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld in the 1928 Summer Olympics. The media helped make the 1920s the golden age of sports in Canada. Newspapers promoted all sporting events. Popular magazines such as Maclean's ran regular articles. Radio and film created a mass appeal 
for sports. Cinemas showed films of famous boxing matches and provided highlights of important sporting events prior to the feature film. 
Baseball was the most popular summer sport in Canada. Its popular- ity reflected the growing influence of American culture in Canada. Every community had an amateur baseball team. Toronto won the Little World Series in 1926. The Montreal Royals and the Toronto Maple Leafs played in the International League, a step below the majors. 
The National Hockey League was established in 1917. There were five teams: two in Montréal, one in Toronto, one in Ottawa, and one in Québec City. In 1924, the Boston Bruins were the first American team to join the NHL. They were joined by the New York Americans in 1925. By 1926, the NHL had another team in New York (the Rangers), as well as teams in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit. Although profes- sional hockey was becoming concen- trated south of the border, the majority of players were still Canadian. 
American Influence on Popular Culture 
Sparked by improvements in printing technology, more than 300 American magazines circulated in Canada dur- ing the 1920s. The best sellers were Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, and McCall's Magazine. For every Canadian magazine printed, eight were imported from the United States. The leading Canadian magazines were Canadian Home Journal and Saturday Night. Canadians were reading more American books and magazines than Canadian publications. This situation alarmed some Canadians who feared we were losing our culture. 
"If baseball were not already the national pastime of the United States, I suspect we would long ago have declared it ours." 
-William Humber, Canadian sports historian 
Learn more about the early history of hockey 
"After 1919, most creative people, whether in painting, writing or music, began to have a guilty feeling that 
Canada was as yet unwritten, unpainted, unsung... In 1920, there was a job to be done." 
-Arthur Lismer, Group of Seven artist 
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COMMUNITIES 
Unit 1: Forging a Canadian Identity: 1914-1945 
The Group Of Seven 
In 1920, seven young Canadian artists-Arthur Lismer, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, J.E.H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley-created a national artistic identity that allowed Canadians to discover the beauty of the Canadian landscape. The Group of Seven, as they called themselves, challenged Canadians to stop looking to Europe for their artistic inspiration and to embrace art created by Canadians that celebrated the beauty of Canada. They travelled to Algonquin Park and Georgian Bay in Ontario and the Laurentians in Québec to capture some of Canada's magnificent land- scapes. They used brilliant colours and thickly applied paints to capture sunlight on red sumacs, shimmering blue waters, and white birch trees against backdrops of green and black 
evergreens. 
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"An Art must grow and flower in the land before the country will be a real home for its people." 
Source: From the Group of Seven's first exhibition catalogue, 1920. 
The Group called themselves Canada's national school of painters. Yet in their early years, there were many harsh critics within the artistic establishment. Their work was described as "hot mush," "Hungarian goulash," and just plain "bad taste"! With the support of the National Gallery of Canada, however, the Group's influ- ence quickly spread throughout Canada's artistic community. When Johnston dropped out of the group in 1920, A.J. Casson replaced him. To broaden their artistic base beyond Toronto, the Group then invited other artists to join them, including Montréal's Edwin Holgate and 
Winnipeg's L.L. FitzGerald. In 1932, the Group of Seven disbanded, sat- isfied that they had achieved their goal of bringing a uniquely Canadian style to landscape painting. 
Learn more about the Group of Seven 
Figure 2.21 Since they often painted together, the styles of the Group of Seven developed along somewhat similar lines. Above Lake Superior was painted by Lawren Harris in 1922. How does Harris portray the landscape? What subjects would you paint to represent Canada today? 
Responding 
1. What are the central features of the art created by the Group of Seven? 
2. In what ways did the Group challenge Canadians' views of themselves? 
3. Find some art books or websites on the Group of Seven. Then write a critique of their 
overall style and approach to their work. 
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The Canadian Authors Association was founded in 1921 to promote nationalism and to convince Canadians to buy Canadian books. Maclean's magazine promised to print only Canadian non-fiction writing and to use Canadian spellings. Other Canadian magazines followed. Canadian pub- lishers asked for higher tariffs on American magazines and for lower tariffs on raw materials such as paper and processing equipment to make their publications cheaper to produce. But their efforts failed-few politi- cians wanted to increase the price of these popular American publications. 
By the end of the decade, Canada had 51 radio stations, compared with over 600 stations in the US. The limited range of many Canadian stations meant that some rural areas received no radio signals, while others had their 
signals drowned out by the more pow- erful American transmitters. In 1930, about 40 per cent of Canadians received only American stations. Because US stations had a larger market, they could afford to develop more appealing and more varied programs. As a result, some Canadian stations obtained the right to broadcast American programs by becoming affiliates with networks such as NBC and CBS. 
Initially, Canada had a thriving feature film industry, with Canadian film crews, casts, and settings. By 1929, however, Famous Players distributed 90 per cent of all feature films in Canada. The immense popularity of American movies was particularly troubling to some Canadians, who worried that American ideas and cul- ture would corrupt young moviegoers. Answer: 
What influence did American culture have on Canada? Name 3 athletes or artists and explain their contributions.