5 Creative Lessons From the Roaring 20s
- Productivity
Zach- 22 minutes read
Perhaps it’s romanticizing the past, but as we move into the new 20s, what creative lessons can we learn from the roaring 20s to support creative living today?
When looking at the 1920s, there are many similarities with today, but will the 2020s roar the same as the 1920s? Will we make the same mistakes or learn from the past? What elements support a creative renaissance, and what lessons can we learn from famous creative minds of the time?
The Power of Hope
The creative boom of the 1920s started with the end of a terrible time in history. WWI affected everyone. When the war to end all wars ended in 1918, people joined together to celebrate peace and hope. The 20s began with relief, hope, and joy. It became a celebration that hope was possible in the face of suffering. This hope drove creativity and creative living and is the first lesson to learn from the 1920s.
Every creative from the lost generation and before was speaking of peace and hope. The painter Fernand Léger wrote to a friend and painter André Mare about a “hurricane of life forces filling the world.” The young composer Darius Milhaud returned to a jubilant Paris and spoke of hearts swelling with boundless hope. While observing the peace and celebration, the Swiss architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret asked, “What will tomorrow bring?”
Many creatives knew peace didn’t mean tranquility, but after so much suffering, life carried new meaning. Life was a gift, and now it was time to celebrate it.
A creative who has hope has agency. Hope helps a person stay determined to reach their goals even when there are challenges. Without hope, success is far less likely. A 2009 study found that employees’ sense of hope explains their creative output at work. Hopeful people have a greater sense that life is meaningful. Hope not only improves a person’s well-being, but it also improves productivity up to 14% in the workplace — more than intelligence, optimism, or self-efficacy.
Lessons
Have hope that tomorrow can be better. You’ve made it through suffering. Use that hope to imagine a better future.
- “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Lean on your support system – Surround yourself with other creatives to support and foster hope.
- “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead
Turn to books and art that inspire hope.
- “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ― Pablo Picasso
It’s never too late to live the life you want to live. Evaluate your purpose and life goals.
- “For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald
Communities Build Connections
Much like the 1920s, the current 20s is a divided time. Surviving WWI created a lot of fear. Many wanted to isolate and control change. Prohibition, immigration restrictions, nationalism, discrimination, sexism, isolationism, culture wars fought to control people out of fear. This fear led many creatives to seek and create communities for support, knowledge, and inspiration. Many creative minds were looking at the world differently. They wanted to travel, experience new things, and connect with other creative minds. Creatives do a lot of work to discover novel ideas, but without a community and other creatives to share ideas with, novelty can not be tested or validated. A creative renaissance starts with a creative community.
In the 1920s, creative communities popped up all over. Paris, Harlem, New Orleans, and Hollywood burst with creative life. There was a magical harmony of openness and sharing creativity. Cafés became a nexus of ideas. Expatriate communities showed the power of international relations and creativity. Ideas birthed movements to challenge the status quo and bring freedom to all. For the first time in American history, more people lived in the cities than in rural areas. People were getting out of their comfort zones and experiencing new perspectives. Communities are melting pots for creativity, filled with elements to inspire creative thinking.
Creativity is made up of the individual and the environment. Solitude can benefit the creative process, but a community can support creativity in ways solitude can not. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‘s System Model says, “Psychologists tend to see creativity exclusively as a mental process [but] creativity is as much a cultural and social as it is a psychological event.” A creative person requires a domain (community) that holds a cultural matrix of information and a field (creative gatekeepers) to judge ideas for their novelty. Communities build connections, evaluate novelty, and share knowledge. Creativity has the power to change the world, but it takes the community to test and share ideas.
The creative communities of the roaring 20s were key to the success of many famous creatives and cultural shifts during the time. There were also new technologies like the radio that helped spread ideas faster than ever before.
Lessons
Learn from other cultures and creative minds.
- “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.” ― Claude Monet
Communities keep creatives accountable and offer feedback for growth.
- “A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.” ― Salvador Dali
“I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work.” ― Augusta Savage
Experience the world and other communities.
- “I am a citizen of the world.” ― Sylvia Beach
Live In the Moment
With new hope and celebration, people were living in the moment and enjoying it to the fullest. The 20s also saw the growth of the middle class, new money, and new technologies that freed up more time for leisure and experience. Vacations, nightlife, and the booming cinema experience drove a new consumer-oriented economy. New lifestyles were popping up and a philosophy of living in the moment inspired new ways of creative living. Life or the creative process wasn’t just about work anymore. It was about living and experiencing new things to inspire creative work.
Not even prohibition could stop people from celebrating. Many creatives even moved abroad to escape constraints such as this and seek a lower cost of living. Fun cities like Paris swelled with creative expats, like Ernest Hemingway. He found the moment through travel experiences and drinking late into the night with other creative minds. He even planned his creative time around living in the moment. The mornings were for his writing, and the afternoons were for experiences.
Studies show that having time to engage in creativity daily can lead to a more positive state of mind, and the more attentive a creative is to the present moment, the more positive emotions one can feel. Living in the moment is also a part of triggering the creative benefits of play.
Just like the roaring 20s adoption of the assembly line and other technologies that made life easier, new technologies are popping up today to make life easier. Ai and automation are joining the workplace and freeing up more time for people to live. The 5-day workweek is being questioned, and lifestyles are changing. Will we learn from the past to use this new time to explore creativity and a better living?
Lessons
Don’t judge the moment. Just experience it.
- “Let everything happen to you, Beauty and terror, Just keep going, No feeling is final.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke
- “You live but once; you might as well be amusing.” ― Coco Chanel
To prepare for the future, focus your work on the moment.
- “Life is a preparation for the future, and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.” ― Albert Einstein
- “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” ― James Joyce
Pay attention to the small things.
- “Great things do not just happen by impulse, but as a succession of small things linked together.” ― Vincent Van Gogh
Identity and Freedom of Self-Expression
How we express ourselves forms the basis of our identity. It’s a journey of self-discovery. By discovering your authentic self through expressing feelings, thoughts, or ideas, you can live a more fulfilling life and help others do the same. Research Judith Glaser says, “Neuroscience is teaching us that ‘self-expression’ might be one – if not the most important ways for people to connect, navigate and grow with each other.”
Through hope, new creative communities, and living in the moment, the 1920s was able to foster self-expression in new and exciting ways. New technologies not only made life easier but created new ways to share ideas. Photography and cinema had emerged as the newest vehicle for artistic expression. Women’s clothing changed for freedom of movement and empowering women for self-expression. Coco Chanel was one of the lead French fashion designers and businesswomen inspiring cultural trends and fashionable creativity. She taught many how to create the life they want and the power of expressing themselves through fashion. Flappers were a generation of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short at the time), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. There was a growing culture of self-expression changing how we see and connect with the world. New perspectives of self-expression and having the freedom to do so inspired change. The women’s suffrage campaign fought for the right to vote and won with the passing of the 19th Amendment. Creativity, self-expression, and calls for more freedom were seen everywhere.
In Harlem, New York City, the Harlem Renaissance was taking place. It was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, and politics. Some say its important cultural force never ended and continues to inspire creatives today. This renaissance inspired the jazz age and encompassed a wide variety of cultural elements and styles to support black creatives. There were new opportunities for self-expression. Art and creativity were being used to prove their humanity and demand equality. The Harlem Renaissance was successful in that it brought the Black experience within the corpus of American cultural history, but there were was more struggle to come and even to this day.
Self-expression brings out the best of us and shows us what we can become. It leads to remarkable innovation, inspiration, and motivation for change. Understanding your true self and having the freedom of self-expression is vital to creativity and improving the world.
Lessons
The mind is always free.
- “There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ― Virginia Woolf
Freedom must be practiced and sought after.
- “The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. Every truth we see is ours to give the world, not to keep for ourselves alone, for in so doing we cheat humanity out of their rights and check our own development.” ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” ― William Faulkner
Discover your true self and accept who you are.
- “My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.” ― Coco Chanel
- “The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” ― Albert Einstein
- “My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.” ― Louis Armstrong
- “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” ― Coco Chanel
- “Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.” ― Louis Armstrong
Introspection - Cultivating Mindfulness for Growth
The final creative lesson to learn from the roaring 20s is introspection. Something that wasn’t done during the time because most people were lost in the moment. History is doomed to repeat itself without proper introspection and growth, and that’s exactly what happened. The roaring 20s was a wild and fun time for many. There were advancements in technology, creativity, and culture, but there were also many issues and suffering that went ignored. Many felt left out of the prosperity. Resentment grew in the agricultural areas. Poor and disadvantaged missed the wave of cultural trends. Due to a lack of awareness and introspection, more pain and suffering were on the way. Creative expression boomed in the 20s but would soon suffer for some time. If we are to learn anything from past creative renaissances, it’s mindfulness to learn from the moment.
Wall Street crashed in 1929. Then the Great Depression brought years of hardship worldwide. This global economic and political crisis culminated in the Second World War. The roaring 20s started as a celebration and ended in disaster. Many of the positive qualities of the 20s that supported creativity were gone. In 1999, psychologist Dean Keith Simonton investigated the influence of war and other social upheavals on creativity. He found war results in a decrease in creative accomplishment. Creativity can have a positive effect on mood and well-being, but it also works the other way around. There must be a balance of supporting well-being for creativity and supporting creativity for well-being.
The process of introspection isn’t only for self-discovery but also for reflecting on the moment. Introspection is a mindfulness practice that can help people make connections. History often repeats itself because of a lack of introspection and learning from past mistakes. The creative process is full of failures. Without introspection to make changes, growth is impossible. The philosopher Plato asked, “why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?” Introspection is a powerful source of knowledge. Without it, there can be no self-discovery. The passion, speed, and excitement of the 20s had many benefits for creativity, but a lack of introspection led to more suffering.
As we enter a new 20s with new forms of automation, changing work structures, and redefining lifestyles, will we learn from the past and create a new lasting renaissance of creative expression and living, or are we just as doomed as the roaring 20s to repeat mistakes of the past?
Lessons
Practice a growth mindset. There’s always more to learn.
- “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” ― Albert Einstein
- “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” ― Coco Chanel
Learn from your failures, mistakes, and experiences.
- “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Introspection requires courage and self-compassion.
- “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ― E. E. Cummings
We’re always changing.
- “A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.” ― Gertrude Stein
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
