Q: What do we actually mean by the ‘Roaring Twenties'?
A: The term was originally coined in the 19th century, when it was used to describe young people aged in their own ‘roaring twenties’ - particularly men who were sowing their wild oats before settling down.
As for the decade, the 1920s, the explosion of youth culture and emergence of ideas about adolescence at the time meant that ‘Roaring Twenties’ came to be an appropriate moniker for the period itself. That said, it wasn't in widespread popular use until around 1924, when people started to feel that the decade had a personality and needed to be described in such a way.
Q: Did the 1920s ‘roar’ for everybody in the US?
In terms of thinking about the 1920s as an era when people were having a great time and enjoying a booming economy, that really wasn't true for everyone. Certainly, when we look at the US, the reality of the Roaring Twenties was that it was very much a middle and upper-class phenomenon. It only applied in part for the working classes due toof what would become, in the 1930s, the Dust Bowl - and, of course, this idea of fun and prosperity wasn't true for the vast majority of the country's African-American population either. Many black people were moving north where they believed they would have better opportunities to find work - something known as the Great Migration - but they were still paid less than their white counterparts.
