In any age and any given society, cultural practices reflect the
material circumstances of people's everyday lives. According to Joel
Dinerstein, it was no different in America between the two World Wars-an
era sometimes known as the "machine age"-when innovative forms of music
and dance helped a newly urbanized population cope with the increased
mechanization of modern life. Grand spectacles such as the Ziegfeld
Follies and the movies of Busby Berkeley captured the American ethos of
mass production, with chorus girls as the cogs of these fast, flowing
pleasure vehicles.
Yet it was African American culture, Dinerstein argues, that ultimately
provided the means of aesthetic adaptation to the accelerated tempo of
modernity. Drawing on a legacy of engagement with and resistance to
technological change, with deep roots in West African dance and music,
black artists developed new cultural forms that sought to humanize
machines. In "The Ballad of John Henry," the epic toast "Shine," and
countless blues songs, African Americans first addressed the challenge
of industrialization. Jazz musicians drew on the symbol of the train
within this tradition to create a set of train-derived aural motifs and
rhythms, harnessing mechanical power to cultural forms. Tap dance and
the lindy hop brought machine aesthetics to the human body, while the
new rhythm section of big band swing mimicked the industrial soundscape
of northern cities. In Dinerstein's view, the capacity of these artistic
innovations to replicate the inherent qualities of the machine-speed,
power, repetition, flow, precision-helps explain both their enormous
popularity and social function in American life.
