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| The 1920s |
| 1920: F. Scott Fitzgerald The talented, troubled author makes a big splash with his novel "This Side of Paradise," based on his boozing Princeton years. 1921: Movies and blue laws The forces of the new modernity, as depicted in racy movies from a place called Hollywood, clash with the old morality of Trenton. 1922: Princeton's team of destiny Inspired by a coach known for his profanity, the Princeton Tigers win the national college football championship -- their last. 1923: Pottery industry A strike cripples Trenton's once-thriving trade and foreshadows the industrial decline of a later era. 1924: Ku Klux Klan Reacting the loose morals of the flapper age, the anti-Catholic, anti-black Klansmen march through Hamilton. 1925: The chutes that saved 5,000 lives Trenton's ingenious Switlik family use silk and string to help create America's parachute industry. 1926: Prohibition Trenton deals with the ban on booze the same way as the rest of America: It looks the other ways while speakeasies thrive. 1927: The bad boy of music George Antheil, the piano-playing genius from Trenton, is hissed by a Carnegie Hall audience for his avant-garde "Ballet Mechanique." 1928: The first troopers A young officer on Jersey's new state police force is murdered in Robbinsville, during a time of progress and criticism for the troopers. 1929: End of prosperity Trenton is celebrating its 250th anniversary with a giant parade and speeches predicting a rosy future on the very day of the Great Crash. |
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