Entertainment In the 1920s Australians spent much of their leisure hours at home reading or singing around pianos with friendsand famil. Gramophones were strting to produce a much better sound and the new musical genre of jazz started to become a hit.
Music And Dance: Dances held at church halls,dance studios, town halls and splendid hotels provided meeting places for young adults and were a great form of entertainment. Bands played a range of music on instruments including pianos, saxophones and drums.
The new genre of jazz music filled the air at parties and dances. Young woman in three quarter-length tubular dresses kicked their heels high and twisted there legs in the new dancing styles such as the "Charleston" or glided more intameatly with their partners cheek to cheek, in the tango.
Movie Theatres: As the 1920s progressed, Movies totally eclipsed live theatre. Hoyts established magnificent picture palaces with mable staircases and statues, luxurious carpets and plush velvet seats.
English: Photo of Al Jolson with Irving Berlin
Alabama Theatre / Alabama Theater / Birmingham
Alabama TheatreIt cost between six and ten sents to escape from reality and dream with lovers or anxiously watch cops and robbers as good triumphed evil at the picture theatre.
The advances of technology thrilled audiences with the introductions of talking pictures in 1927. Al Jolson starred in the first talking picture, "The Jazz Singer" and with those words the era of silent film passed into history as the new technologys of the roaring 20s took over, The Radio: Houseshold entertainment was transformed by the "wireless". The first regular broadcasts commenced in 1923 to a limited audiene who listened to the very crackly and unclear waves thought earphones connected to their crystal sets. By the starts of the 1930s Three Hundred Thousand Australians owned "wireless" important news, live music recordings, politician speeches and live sports were all broadcast directly to the wireless sets.
Transport Flight: The 1920s have been called the golden years of aviations. Aeroplanes began to fly back and forth across the continent. Towards the end of the decade Australias first International Flights occurred. In February 1928 Bert Hinkler successfully completed the first ever Australia to England Flight. Later in the year Charles Kingsford Smith piloted the first flight from USA to Australia it took nine days and a flying time of 83 hours (10 hours in present time).
QANTAS was formed in 1920 by P J McGuiness and W H Fysh. It made regular flights between Charleville and Cloncurry. Although in the 1920s Aeroplanes were seen as very risky and were much to expencive for most people to use. Only a few people could be seated in the open cockpits.
The Flying Doctors were formed in 1928 under the name of The Australian Aerial Medical Service. This allowed doctors to treat people living in remote areas of Australia quickly. They could be treated on the spot or flown to the closest hospital.
Cars: In 1920 only 75,628 cars were registered, about one in seventy Australians owned a car, 9 years later there were 546 210 Cars registered and one in twelve Australians owned a car. Car Factoris were set up in many parts of Australia and cars started to get mass produced in the mid 20s. This lowered prices greatly but unfortunately Cars were still too expencive for the average Australian to afford.
Buses & Trains: In the 1920s Trains undertook a great change. Electric trains started to replace Steam Trains in all major cities of Australia. Governments had the initiative to connect Buses and Trains services together. Buses waited for trains to pull in at stops and then drove the train passengers to areas not yet serviced by railway lines.
English: Charles Kingsford Smith in his flying gea...
English: Prime Minister Bruce presents a cheque an...
English: Bert Hinkler, aviator. Commemorative phot...