The Great Gatsby  

AoE: Time & Space  
The purpose of this assignment is to increase your schema in order to help you understand the nuances 
of the historical and cultural allusions and context within the novel. Your goal is to explore each topic 
through online articles and videos as a form of background research.   
 

#1: 
The 
Roaring 
Twenties 
& 
The Jazz 
Age 

 
The ROARING TWENTIES:  
 
Check out this short 6-minute ​video​ and answer the following 
questions. ​*I picked this movie because it was impressively 
created by high school students! 
 
1. What two primary media advances were made during 
this time period? How do you think this affected 
American society? 
- The two primary media advances were in the radio and 
film industry. I think this affected American society by 
giving people more options for entertainment. In their 
free time, they would go out and watch a movie or listen 
to music on the radio to have fun. I think this effected 
American society by making it so that people expected 
to be entertained when they went out. 
 
2. In what ways did the arts progress during the 1920s and 
which group seemed to benefit most from it? 
- The arts progressed in the form of radios and 
phonographs in the 1920s. This made music accessible to 
all people. Most people now had household radios and 
had the ability to gather around them for 

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entertainment. The group that seemed to benefit the 

most was the Jazz band group. Everyone enjoyed Jazz 
and the younger generations would go to music halls to 
dance. 
 
3. How did women evolve during this period? 
- During this time period, the younger generation 
flappers were young women with bobbed hair and short 
skirts who drank smoked and were more sexually free. 
 
4. Summarize the essential aspect of the Roaring 20’s and 
explain what primarily caused it, according to the video:   
- The most essential aspect was the increasing use of the 
assembly line which was popularized by Henry Ford 
which allowed mass production of products used in 
many factories. Henry Ford primarily caused this with 
the start of his mass production of affordable cars. 
 

#2: 
Immigration 

 
IMMIGRATION: 
 
Next, watch this ​Khan Academy video​ and answer the 
following questions. ​*If you’re already tired of videos, feel free 

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to skip around the document, as the next two sections require 

reading articles.  
 
1. What causes mass migration into cities from rural 
farms? 
- There were more economic opportunities. Immigrants 
and migrants could get factory jobs. While more women 
were able to participate in the labor force. 
 
2. Again, how does the role of women evolve during this 
time period? ​Your answer will be different than the one 
above… 
- Women began to fill the ranks in employment 
categories that were beginning to be defined as female 
professions like nursing and teaching. There were many 
women that continued to work even after they were 
married. The clericy jobs were usually closed to minority 
women whose options for work outside the home were 
limited to domestic services or agricultural labor. Some 
African American women began to train in segregated 
institutions such as black nursing schools for black 
hospitals. 
 
3. What causes a resurgence of the KKK, as well as the 
government desiring to pass the Emergency Quota Act 
and the Immigration Restriction Act? 
- The causes were that there were radical communists 
threatening the country as well as the flawed racial 
psuedoscience that casted all those who weren’t 
descended from Northern and Western Europe as less 
evolved. This led to a sence to white protestants that the 
country was becomming less and less american. The 
fears led them to pass the Emergency Quota Act which 
limited the amount of immigrants allowed from Europe 
and even enforced the Immigration Restriction Act to 
reinforce these laws even further 
 
4. Finally, what do these laws and racist groups show 
about who they believed were eligible to be part of the 
American people during this time period?  
- These racists laws and groups showed that they beleived 
no immigrants or any people other than white people 
should be eligable to live and be part of the american 
people. This shows that they thought everyone else was 
unworthy. 
 

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#3:  PROHIBITION:  
Prohibition   
First, augment your schema by researching the term 
prohibition​ and write the definition here IN YOUR OWN 
WORDS: ​forbidding someone to do something usually by 
implementing laws to prevent them from trying. 
 
Do the same for the term ​bootlegger​: ​someone who illegally 
distributes goods for profit.  
 
Then do the same for the term ​speakeasy​: ​a secret club where 
alcohol was sold illegally during booze-ban days from 
1920-1933 
 
Next, visit the ​PBS article​ and skim through to find the crucial 
information to answer the following questions:  
 
1. What were the TWO causes of America’s prohibition? 
- Alcohol consumption 
- The belief that crime rates and family neglect would 
lessen if alcohol was prohibited 
 
2. According to the article, what were the unintended 
effects of the prohibition laws (which would undoubtedly 
happen again today!)?  
- It turned many law-abiding citizens into criminals. It 

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made alcohol more desirable and fashionable. 

Consumers were eager to get a hold of it. It gave birth 
to many different types of alcohol that often had 
poisonous ingredients and a higher alcohol content 
percentage 
 
 

#5: 
The 
American 
Dream 
&  
The 
Self-Made 
Man 

 
The AMERICAN DREAM: 
 
Quickly review the ​Investopedia Article​ and watch the short 
movie on the site to learn about the American Dream. Then, 
list at least THREE main concepts associated with this dream:  
1. an individual can live life to its fullest as he or she 
defines it 
2. each man and each woman shall be able to attain to 
the fullest stature of which they are innately capable 
and be recognized by others for what they are, 
regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or 
position 
3. The American Dream is achieved through sacrifice, 
risk-taking, and hard work, rather than by chance. 
 
Next, visit this ​article​ and read through the sub-section titled, 
“The Self-Made Man Myth and The American Dream.” ​*You do 
not have to read the entire page! ​Then, list at least EIGHT 
qualities that a self-made man will have, or will definitely not 
have, according to the author:  
1. Perseverance 
2. Arises from a poor background 
3. determined 
4. Hardworking 
5. ingenuity 
6. Will not achieve goals through inherited fortune 

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7. Will not achieve goals through family connections 

8. Will not achieve goals through other privileges 
 

  LAST, in a short paragraph of 4-5 sentences, make a case 

whether or not the American Dream and the Self-Made 
Man still exists today, nearly a hundred years after ​The 
Great Gatsby​ was written:  
The American Dream and the Self Made Man still exists 
today because everyone is able to reach their goals 
through sacrifice and hard work. Everyone is able to 
become successful no matter where they come from. The 
self-made man also still exists because people who are 
born in lower/ poorer families have to work extremely hard 
to get to where they want to be in life. In order to be 
successful they have to implement all of the characteristics 
of a self-made man in order to fullfill their dream. 
 
 

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