The Golden Twenties Part III: Travel, Beaconsfield, and Music
A movie palace in Pittsburgh (1926)
The American mass consumer culture of the 1920's was the envy of the world. Even the Germans, rulers of a vast empire and hegemons of Europe, were astonished by the American standard of living. For not only were many Americans better fed and clothed than the rest of the world, they had the time and money to purchase goods and services most couldn't dream of. This led to a flowering of popular entertainment. New rail, cruise, and plane services allowed Americans to see their vast empire and the world beyond. The dream factories of Lincolnwood produced films popular across the globe. And in the nightclubs of New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, Havana, and California, a new musical style was being born that took the country by storm.
In the aftermath of the Mexican War and the World War, travel exploded in popularity. The United States now stretched from Anchorage, Alaska, to Panama City, Panama, from Boston, Mass, to Hong Kong. This understandably gave many Americans an urge to see as much of their empire as they could. How much one could see was, of course, a function of wealth. However, a boom in cars, railroad travel, cruises, and even aeroplanes made it more accessible than ever. For the working man and his family, numerous railroads offered affordable travel packages in "
coach only express trains." These packages were typically regional in scope: a Californian would be able to hit most of the continental West Coast, including Baja California (soon to be Cali proper), while a Southerner would be able to see a good portion of Old Dixie. These were "
hop on, hop off" tickets where families could travel to set destinations along set railroads, hop off at a destination, stay a few days, then hop back on the next train to their next destination. Increasing numbers of ordinary Americans also used cars, but the relatively poor state of road infrastructure limited the utility of this option. For middle class and wealthy Americans, a flowering of cruise lines offered them the opportunity to see more far-flung regions of the empire. The ultimate expression of this was the proliferation of the so-called "
Liberty Cruises" a multi-month cruise that would start on the East Coast, swing through the Caribbean, go onto Panama, stop off in California, visit Hawaii and Manila, and stop in Hong Kong. These were the province of the ultra-rich, mainly due to the amount of time involved to see all these places. Nonetheless, it was very much affordable for a middle class family who saved a little cash to take less glamorous, much more direct liners to a variety of exotic locales within the empire. For the ultra-rich, flying became the way to go. For those traveling to the far-flung corners of the nation, Hong Kong, Manila, and Havana all became the big tourist hotspots. Abroad, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Prague all saw noticeable upticks in American tourism, although foreign tourism was still mostly limited to the wealthy.
For those who wanted an escape closer to home, the American movie industry provided an answer. Although films were being made in the 1910's, the 1920's is when they took off. Silent films made a big splash first, with sound being provided by other means. Slapstick comedies and dramas were the main products of this period, as they could function more easily without sound. In 1924, Moses Williams, a Black man from Louisville, KY, invented modern sound pictures. With this, the film industry reached a whole new level. With the implementation of sound into movies, their popularity exploded. Dozens of studios popped up all across the country. Competition could get brutal, and it wasn't uncommon for some unscrupulous studio heads to hire mobsters to disrupt the production lots of their rivals. For the first half of the Twenties, the industry was decentralized, with major hubs in Los Angeles, New York, and Florida. However, none of them would be the ultimate center of the American movie industry. Instead, George Brown and Marty Aaronson, a Black real estate developer and a Jewish entrepreneur began attracting studios to a planned community they wanted to build outside of Havana. Drawing in studio bosses with cheap land to build studio lots, access to the luxuries of Havana (to keep stars happy), and the two magnetic salesmen even secured tax concessions from the governments of Cuba and Havana, both of whom wanted more Americans from the Homeland around so they could secure statehood more quickly. The first major studio, Goldstein Brothers Film Studio, moved to the new community outside Havana (dubbed Beaconsfield) in 1926. The other major remaining studios, Columbia Pictures, Juarez and Mayer Productions, and Golden Eagle Films, moved to Beaconsfield within a couple years. It really was the perfect setup. The climate in the region meant that filming could basically occur year-round, although hurricane season could be problematic. The easy access to Havana meant that the movie stars could blow off steam in the casinos, brothels, race tracks, and speakeasies, while also being close enough for the studios to monitor and control them. Speaking of stars....
With the rise of the film industry came the rise of movie stars, and America's intense celebrity culture. The biggest stars of the era, Greta Garbo, Maria Gabriella Perez, Anabelle Williams (the first Black female star) Marty Arbuckle, Clark Gable, and William Martinson, lived lives so charmed as to be unbelievable to most. They went to raging parties so wild, the term "
Beaconsfield Pow Wow" became slang for a wild party. They drove fast, custom cars, not Fords (no offense to Mr. Ford). They wore tailored suits and dresses, and were never caught looking less than spectacular. Their dates weren't soda jerks from down the road: they cavorted with fellow stars, athletes, socialites, and even aristocracy. Finally, they were
everywhere. Maria Gabriella Perez was twice as recognizable to the American public as the First Lady. Even abroad, movie stars were mobbed by fans. It was the prospect of having all this, the fame, the glitz, and the glamor, that drove thousands of young Americans and foreigners to flock to the sunny tropics of Beaconsfield, for much the same reasons their forefathers flocked West. The image of Beaconsfield was of a magical realm where the American Dream was supercharged into a reality warping force. Anyone could go there, reinvent themselves, get discovered, and get rich. The city came to represent the wildest dreams of the entire nation. The truth was decidedly less glamorous. In reality, the majority of the people who would flock to that golden paradise would never become famous. After all, stars only shine so bright because they're distant from others and comparatively rare. If they were lucky, they could settle down, get hitched, and carve out a piece of middle-class prosperity for themselves in Beaconsfield's less glitzy districts, one day looking back on their dreams as a crazy fancy that led to more. Many others would either become permanent members of the poor working class needed to sustain the luxury of the powerful, or would be forced to return home poorer and more cynical. Even if one did get picked up by a studio, the life was not exactly as advertised. The stars might have the fame, the luxury, and the hot dates, but the studio bosses had all the money and power. This group of six founders, Midas Goldstein, William Goldstein, Jack Willoughby (Columbia), Antonio Juarez, Leo Mayer, and William Greene (Golden Eagle, the sole Black man among their number) had total control of the entire film industry. They even controlled the box office, each studio having theaters who were beholden to it. If the movie stars seemed like Greek gods to the public, they were nothing more than chess pieces to the bosses. At best, you would be forced into an insane work schedule, with bosses procuring substances like cocaine and amphetamines to get em going, followed by barbiturates, tranquilizers, and whiskey to knock em out, if necessary. Stars were also practically property, most not being allowed to leave the island of Cuba without permission. Keep in mind, this is if you're fairly lucky. Sexual, physical, and psychological abuse were always an ever-present threat. The only one of the bosses to get a true comeuppance was Antonio Juarez. For years, he sexually abused Maria Gabriella Perez, a star his studio elevated to fame. She was dating and later married Julio Erikson, the "
Swedo Bandito," one of America's most feared gangsters. When he learned of the abuse on March 11th, 1925, he made a telephone call. The next day, Juarez was found at his desk with 137 bullets in him. The funeral was closed casket. After public hysteria died down, corrupt Cuban authorities ruled the death a suicide. Despite the sordid underbelly of Beaconsfield, the impact of the industry can't be overstated. The musicals, dramas, and comedies it produced literally altered the world's psyche.
The final pop culture phenomenon we will explore is the world of music. In the 1920's, Hispanic and Black influences combined to create a whole new world of music. From the Black community came the genre of jazz. Drawing from a variety of influences, jazz and the ensuing big band and swing genres became a national sensation. Jazz clubs popped up across the country, and jazz records sold in huge numbers. However, jazz wasn't the only music to hit the American mainstream in the Golden Twenties. From Cuba and Santo Domingo came merengue and son cubano. These Latin styles of music were faster than most American music, with more energetic tempos and rhythms than even most jazz. They were combined with unique styles of Latin dance, which were far more sensual than anything America really would have entertained. This music also exploded across the nation, and learning the merengue became a must for any young city slicker trying to score a date.
Predictably, there were parts of the country that were.... unenthused by the spread of Latin dance. If you guessed that the part being referred to is the South, congratulations, you are correct. In a way, Southern apprehension was almost paradoxical: in most other regards, they were actually coming closer to the Caribbean/Latin territories (defined as the Hispanic Caribbean and Panama) in terms of political, social, and even cultural identity. However, this was mostly being done within the context of Anglo-Protestant cultural dominance. When Southerners went to the Caribbean, they didn't go to learn Spanish and convert to Catholicism: they went to teach English and spread Protestantism. The idea that the Hispanic Catholics might gain a serious cultural foothold among the mainland American populace was abhorrent. Furthermore, the more intimate and sensual nature of the merengue unnerved even most moderate Southerners. "
There are certain protocols for public behavior,
and the Babylonian merengue breaks them all" as Reverend Hezekiah Johnson of Atlanta First Baptist put it most famously. Several Southern states made the performance of merengue music a felony, and when this was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1926, police suddenly reported a massive uptick in disturbances that all seemed to coincide with the locations of merengue clubs, which of course would mean they would have to shut them down after each complaint, sometimes for months. However, despite these efforts, Latin music would remain popular in the South as well.
A film crew on Columbia Pictures' lot in Beaconsfield (1926)
One of hundreds of ocean liners fulfilling the middle class's desire for imperial tourism (1924)
A merengue club in Panama City (1924)