Anything Goes was written in 1934, during the height of the "Great Depression", but someone watching it today would find little or nothing to indicate this. It is really an invocation of the 20s, known as the Jazz Age, and of the life Cole Porter himself led at the time.

World War I ended in November 1918 and with the return of the soldiers, regular peacetime activities could continue. 1920 brought the 19th Amendment. Not only did this give women the vote but seemed to liberate them in other ways. The Gibson Girl shed her corsets and morphed into the Flapper with her loose dresses which ended above the knees and her hose which was rolled beneath them. (She powdered the knees themselves). She smoked and drank in public and wore her hair in a short bob. She danced and voted and even wore makeup!

There was also a technical revolution and consumer goods abounded. Henry Ford invented the assembly line so that even the middle class could afford automobiles. Thousands were employed constructing the miles of paved needed highways for them. The first commercial radio station opened in Pittsburgh and, by 1930, most American families had bought their first radio and even installed that truly marvelous gadget, their first telephone! In 1927 the film The Jazz Singer brought limited talking to the movies and by 1928 the full-fledged talkie was produced. Lindbergh soloed across the Atlantic although commercial transatlantic flight was not yet available.

There was also a cultural revolution. 1925 brought F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Hemingaway's A Moveable Feast, set in Paris, introduced the Lost Generation of which a young Cole Porter was a full-fledged member.

At the same time, the American Immigration Act set quotas for new immigrants from countries which were already represented here by many immigrants. If these 2% of recent arrivals were from a certain country, further immigration from that country was severely limited.

The "liberation" of women in 1920s was accompanied by the Volsted Act (the "Noble Experiment"), the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition. Making of wine or cider (but not beer) was allowed at home, but the manufacture or importation of all other alcohol was strictly prohibited. This led to "moonshine" or illegal liquor, smuggling, organized crime, the American Mafia, and the title of "Public Enemy Number One".

This world, for most people, ended with the bank failure of October 29, 1929. In the days before the insured bank account, unemployment insurance and government welfare, thousands suddenly lost their savings and their jobs. It was the Great Depression! Long "bread lines" were formed by those seeking the food provided at the soup kitchens established by private charities such ad the Salvation Army. "Shantytowns" of shacks make out of old boxes appeared. Since they had no running water, they were situated near rivers or fire hydrants. Brother Can You Spare a Dime became the anthem of the Great Depression.

Somehow Cole Porter and his society friends managed to continue their pre-Depression lives as depicted in Anything Goes.

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Revised August 2009
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