3SE New York in the 1920's

New York in the Roaring Twenties

New York City prospered during the exuberant 1920s as the wealth of the United States almost doubled. Manufacturing increased by sixty percent. As European immigrants and migrants from the rural South flooded New York, it became a city of ethnic villages. In 1900, New York City’s population was just under three and a half million, but by 1920 it was home to more than five and a half million people. 

Manhattan hummed with assembly-line produced automobiles, the rumble of underground subway trains, and harbor horns and whistles. By 1900, New York’s electric lights and cinemas were dazzling newcomers. 

To view the bustle of 1920 New York City, watch Ray Foster’s nine-minute film of New York City in 1920