2. The twenties were the years when drinking was against the law, and the law was a
bad joke because everyone knew of a local bar where liquor could be had. They were
the years when organized crime ruled the cities, and the police seemed powerless to
do anything against it. Classical music was forgotten while jazz spread throughout the
land, and men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie became the
heroes of the young. The flapper was born in the twenties, and with her bobbed hair
and short skirts, she symbolized, perhaps more than anyone or anything else,
America's break with the past. From Kathleen Yancey, English 102 Supplemental Guide
(1989): 25.