The Roaring Twenties

Historians say exactly when King Arthur lived, but the legend of his court at Camelot, and the exploits of the Knights of the Round Table, is something that most children know. My favorite version of the 1967 musical story starring the incomparable Richard Harris.

For some, it is a story of Camelot chivalric deeds and the pursuit of the Holy Grail. Lisa Hilton in his book on medieval England Queens Consort note that Camelot, as Le Morte d'Arthur, is an elegiac narrative of the Middle Ages, as the period of disintegration into civil war during the wars of roses back by their own excesses. The title track of the film Camelot Burton ends:

    There was once a place
    For a brief shining moment that was known
    As Camelot.

It is my Camelot. A glorious moment in history that accelerates the joy and satisfaction that ultimately, of coarse, destruction fuels.

For me, 1920 is a perfect example of an age of Camelot. In England, the bright young things immortalized by Evelyn Waugh in his work of 1930, vile bodies, were the creatures of the ultimate party, so vividly portrayed in Stephen Fry in 2003 movie called Bright Young Things inappropriate. It was a period of decline and debt-fueled parties.

The Roaring Twenties, the period is known, was characterized by the valve. The most popular dance was the Charleston. Previous dances were performed either with outstretched arms, or waiting in a steady partner. In Charleston, the movement of the arms are an important part of the dance and bewildered conservative estimates that woman move, as it seemed a chicken coup -. "Tomboys" or length of the hem of the skirt is shortened in the decade 1920 - as happened in the 1960s. Corsets were abandoned and the focus was on freedom of movement and joy.

A silent movies Hollywood peeked and gave way to talkies, but the Hollywood stars of the time was enormous. Three of the biggest stars, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, with director David Llewelyn Wark Griffith established the studio United Artists are still famous today. Fairbanks and Pickford were a married couple most of the 1920s and invitations to his mansion in Beverly Hills Pickfair often were more popular than the invitations to the White House. They were the Brad and Angelina of their day. A 2006 article in the Los Angeles Times by Patt Morrison was called Our Very Own Camelot Morrison said: "They [Fairbanks and Pickford] made a virtual realm of Hollywood 1920, themselves and their king, queen, and Pickfair Camelot".

It was not just the dance, fashion and roared separation, however, the stock market has been enjoying a prolonged bull market. Even ordinary people have paper fortunes. Brokers and banks were so confident that the bull market that people commonly provided 90% of the purchase price of the shares and someone could take $ 20 and $ 200, but the actions that increase the value of $ 250 in a few months, giving the investor a quick profit of $ 50 on an investment of $ ten million. Today, we can say that the market has been strongly oriented.

The 1920s were in all directions in a whirlwind. As always faster the carousel was magical. Ultimately, the mountain of debt took on himself and on Black Thursday, October 29, 1929, Wall Street suffered its biggest fall day of my life (so far) and the market continues to decline for the next month. The clash began and the world was swept into the Great Depression. Camelot 1920 period came to an abrupt end, crushed by debt and excess that took the Roaring Twenties shine so brightly.

The magic was not, however, completely lost. Women retained many freedoms we have in America and the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in the summer of 1920 to give women the right to vote. In many ways, the modern lifestyle has formed during the 1920s Camelot.
                                                
Kate writes about the history and especially the history of the 1920s and ancient Egypt. You can find more of his writings in the 1920s following pages.