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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Critics call jazz immoral…ugly…ridiculous as it rockets to popularity in the early 1920s. Did the “Devil’s music” really lead to the downfall of society? Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| Circa 1900 | Dixieland Jazz gets its start in New Orleans. |
|---|---|
| 1917 | Original Dixieland Jazz Band makes first jazz recording. |
| August 1919 | Dance masters declare all-out war on jazz evil. |
| September 3, 1919 | Dancing public has gone “jazz mad” and “the jazz craze must go,” says Chattanooga dance instructor. |
| March 13, 1921 | Imps invent jazz to torment imbeciles, says Dr. Van Dyke. |
| January 25, 1922 | Jazz dancing creates an army of imbeciles, says North Dakota cleric. |
| June 8, 1922 | French thinkers describe jazz as “ugly, ridiculous, and indecent,” but also admit that the public “can’t find anything too jazzy.” |
