Ch.13 A Turbulent Decade

WEDS: 1/22- GoalsDiscuss the economic conditions after the war.Explain the reaction to the new immigration.

Postwar Troubles

• Demobilization

• Shift from Wartime to peacetime

• Rapid after WWI – 4 million soldiers returned to civilian life in a year

• Women had to relinquish jobs

• Inflation skyrocketed (spending spree caused demand to outpace supply)

1920-1921 Recession

• $2 billion in war contracts cancelled

• 10%+ of labor force unemployed

• Farm Crisis

• Prices fell

• Debt causes problems

• Sound familiar?

Labor Strife

• Management ignored labor demands• 1919- 3600 strikes – 4 million workers• Seattle General Strike (Feb. 1919)- YOUTUBE

VIDEO CLIP• Shipyard workers demanded higher pay and shorter

workdays• 110 other unions joined• 60K workers walked off jobs• Mayor blamed on bolsheviks and summoned police

Seattle Labor Strike

• Strike ended after 5 days

• No demands met

• Negative publicity for labor unions

Other Strikes….

• Boston Police Strike – unsuccessful

• The Steel Strike – 365 K workers walked off jobs –

• labeled immigrants as non- loyal Americans

• Brought in AAs and Mex-Ams to work

• Unsuccessful

THE RED SCARE

• Anti-communist hysteria

• The Palmer Raids • 1919- 36 bombs found in US mail

• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s house bombed by an Italian anarchist

• Palmer launched an anti-Red crusade

• J. Edgar Hoover put in charge

• Raids arrested thousands – most immigrants

• Emma Goldman – jailed in 1917 for opposing draft

• Author of Mother Earth

• 1919- deported to Russia

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti tried for a payroll robbery and murder in Boston

• Convicted and sentenced to death

• Outcry –belief that they were found guilty due to their anarchist beliefs

• International appeal

• Aug. 23, 1927 – electrocuted

• Upton Sinclair and Boston• On August 23, 1977 Governor Dukakis issued

proclamation that said that they had been treated unjustly and "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names."

Closure

•What did the Sacco and Vanzetti case reveal about America in the 1920s?