1920’S UNIT REVIEW:

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

The Automobile Culture:

1. How did the Model T revolutionize the

American economy?

Ford River Rouge Complex

Massive production facility cut costs

Mastered assembly line process

Copied by other manufacturers

Lower costs led to low prices for consumer goods

Consumption skyrockets

Buying on Credit

Installment plan:

A system that lets

customers make partial

payments (installments)

over a period of time until

the total debt is paid

Consumers buy things on

credit they otherwise

wouldn‘t buy

The Automobile Culture:

2. What is a consumer culture and why did it

develop in the 1920s?

Rise of a Consumer Economy

Consumer economy: An economy that depends on a large amount of buying by consumers—individuals who use (or ―consume‖) products

The Automobile Culture:

3. How did the automobile revolutionize

American culture?

By 1929, most middle-class

Americans in cities or towns

would most likely own:

--Car

--Washing machine

--Radio

--Refrigerator

--Other small

appliances

Things That Led to More

Independence

25% women worked outside the home

Automobiles

New social values

Voting rights

Freud: New ideas about sexuality (It‘s normal

and healthy)

The Automobile Culture:

4. How did the automobile change living

patterns?

Ford Model-T

Most popular car in

America in the first three

decades of the 20th

century

$1000 when introduced in

1908

Model T's cost fell every

year

Less than $300 in 1927

1920: One car

for ever 15

people

1929: One car

for ever 5 people

Result:

Popular culture; radio; jazz; heroes of

the 20s:

1. Why did a national culture develop in the

1920s?

2. What impact did the radio have on popular

culture?

Mass Media Creates a National

Culture

Chain stores, branch

banking, national

brands, etc.

Seeing same movies, listening to same radio

shows

Creates common ground that breaks down

ethnic boundaries in America's cities

What does that today?

Mass Media

National Radio

Shows

Hollywood

Movies

National

celebrities

Popular culture; radio; jazz;

heroes of the 20s:

3. How did trends in fashion and music reflect

the spirit of the times?

After WWI

Americans wanted to rejoice and redefine

themselves

Rejected the past

Led to new lifestyles and social values

Life of a Flapper•Wild partying

•Smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol

–unheard of if you were a woman!

•Lived reckless lives and clung to

youth

•Flappers were the first of the women

to flaunt their sexuality

•Their lifestyles were shown in the

way that they dressed and danced

The Flapper Look

•Wore heavy make up

•Clothes: a dress just below the knee,

stockings, heels no corset

•The look was influenced by Coco

Chanel

•Gender bending—tightly wrap their

chest to flatten it

•The ―Tube‖—Lower hipline and

straight from shoulders to hem

THE JAZZ AGE

The era from right after WWI until the stock

market crash in 1929, during which jazz

increased in popularity. It was a reaction to the

hardship of the war and was characterized by

prosperity, extravagance and self-indulgent

behavior

Popular culture; radio; jazz;

heroes of the 20s:

4. Who were the most popular heroes of this

time? Why did hero worship become popular?

Rise of the National Celebrity

Hero worship: Intense or excessive admiration

for a hero or a person regarded as a hero;

seen widely in the 1920‘s

Babe Ruth

Baseball hero of

1920‘s pop culture

Helped popularity of

baseball to explode

714 career home

runs and 2,814 hits

Charles Lindberg: Celebrity Pilot

First non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1927

Seeing same movies, listening to same radio

shows

Creates common ground that breaks down

ethnic boundaries in America's cities

What does that today?

Organized crime; Cultural

backlash; Scopes Trial:

1. Why did Prohibition lead to organized crime?

Underground Market Booms

Estimated income of bootleg liquor

industry in 1929: $3 billion

Entire United States federal budget in

1929: $2.9 billion18

Rise of Organized Crime

• Prohibition created huge consumer market unmet by legitimate means

• Meant that criminals ran the market

• Criminals get rich

• In 1927 Al Capone makes $60 million

• Organized crime gainspower in cities

• Increases lawlessness

Al Capone

Organized crime; Cultural

backlash; Scopes Trial:

2. How did organized crime affect the American

way of life?

Weakened Law Enforcement

Leads to public contempt for police

Organized crime leaders, bootleggers and

speakeasies pay bribes to cops

In 1927, Al Capone had half of Chicago‘s

police on his payroll

Organized crime; Cultural

backlash; Scopes Trial:

3. What is the connection between the religious

revival of the 1920s and the Scopes Trial?

Clash of Cultures

Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance.

Bryan claimed that ―If evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued, "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial."

Vs.

Showdown: Modernists v.

Traditionalists

In response to new social patterns of

modernism, a wave of revivalism developed

Trial emerged as a conflict between social and

intellectual values

Journalists looking for a showdown—who

would dominate American culture?

Traditionalists or modernists?

OR

Organized crime; Cultural

backlash; Scopes Trial:

4. Why did the Scopes trial become the ―trial of

the century‖?

Clash of the Titans

Case argued by the

two most famous

figures possible: a

showdown of rivals

Darrow represented

modernity

Bryan represented

tradition

Showdown: Modernists v.

Traditionalists

In response to new social patterns of

modernism, a wave of revivalism developed

Trial emerged as a conflict between social and

intellectual values

Journalists looking for a showdown—who

would dominate American culture?

Traditionalists or modernists?

OR

Harlem Renaissance:

1. What was the connection between the Great

Migration and the Harlem Renaissance?

Title

1930

1920

1911

1920

Harlem Renaissance:

2. What was unique about the artists‘ message?

3. How did this movement affect American pop

culture and perceptions of African-Americans?

Music: Jazz

• Began with African-American musicians in New Orleans and transported North during Great Migration

• Blended blues and ragtime with improvisation and syncopated rhythms to produce totally new sound

• Has been called the single greatest contribution Americans have made to world culture

• Jazz influenced all American popular music that came after it

Literature

At the same time, African-

American authors were

giving their own voice to

the experience of being

black in America

Plays depicting African-

Americans with complex

emotions are put on stage

(challenged minstrel

images)

Harlem Renaissance:

4. Who were the major figures of the Harlem

Renaissance?

LANGSTON HUGHES

Poet, playwright and

novelist

His first collection of poems:

I, Too, Sing America (1925)

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Novelist, short story writer,

folklorist and anthropologist

Novel: Their Eyes Were

Watching God

Major influence on Ralph

Ellison, Toni Morrison and

Alice Walker

INTELLECTUALS:

MARCUS GARVEY

Became convinced uniting blacks only way to improve their condition

Founded the United Negro Improvement Association in 1914 to unite blacks

Back-to-Africa movement

Goal to form their own country

Black Star Line: fleet of ships used by the UNIA

Red Scare and the Palmer Raids;

Immigration reform:

1. What made Americans ―afraid‖ of radical

ideas?

Russian Revolution

Czar Nicholas II is

unpopular due to WWI

and high casualties

Forced to give up power

Leads to a communist

revolution in 1917

Labor Strikes Make U.S. Leaders

Nervous

1919: A wave of labor strikes sweeps nation

after Armistice

Boston Police Strike

Steel and Coal Strikes

Strikes Broken Up By Force

Nervous business

owners fear

Communists have

infiltrated their workers

In reality, cost of living is

twice what it was before

the war

Red Scare and the Palmer Raids;

Immigration reform:

2. What actions did the federal government take

against suspected radicals?

Palmer Raids

A campaign of raids to

identify and root out groups

whose activities posed a

"clear and present danger"

to the country, such as

communists, socialists and

anarchists

Red Scare and the Palmer Raids;

Immigration reform:

3. How did this change immigration to the US?

Quota

Numerical limit on

immigrants from each

foreign nation

Quotas set low for

Eastern and Southern

Europe

Asian immigration

banned

Red Scare and the Palmer Raids;

Immigration reform:

4. What were the long term effects of the Red

Scare?

Red Scare

An intense fear of communism and other ideas

considered extreme

New Immigration Laws

•1921 Emergency Quota

Act: Sets quota for each

country to the # of people

from that country living in

the U.S. in 1910

•1924 Immigration Act:

Sets quota for each

country to the # of people

from that country living in

the U.S. in 1890

•Reduces immigration of

―New Immigrants‖ by

97%

The Great Migration; Rise of the

KKK:

1. What caused African-Americans to move from

the South?

Push Factors:

Why to Get Out of the South

Jim Crow laws

Lynching and KKK

Flood

Boll Weevil infestation

The Great Migration; Rise of the

KKK:

2. Why did conditions in the North appealed to

African-Americans?

Pull Factors:

Why to Head North

Jobs

NAACP

Leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois

and Booker T. Washington

inspire people

The Great Migration; Rise of the

KKK:

3. What impact did the Great Migration have on

American racial relations?

Racial Conflict

African-Americans face

anger and hatred from

whites

Whites fear job

competition

Black women often

domestics in white

households for low wages

The Great Migration; Rise of the

KKK:

4. Why did the Ku Klux Klan experience a revival

in the 1920‘s and how was it different than the

KKK of the past?

Some Factors That Lead to Rise of

KKK

Film: Birth of a Nation

•1915 silent film

glorifying the KKK during

the Civil War era

•Highest-grossing film of

the silent era

•Remained highest-

grossing film for 22

years

•Helps to revive the

KKK, which had mostly

died out in the 1870‘s

Presidents of the 1920s;

Economic Boom:

1. How did Harding and Coolidge reflect the

laissez-faire theory?

3. Why was the 1920‘s a ―great time to be rich‖?

Warren G. Harding, (R) 1921-1923

Elected on campaign of ―a return to normalcy‖

Considered by some historians to be worst president in history

Hostile to government regulations from Progressive era

Staffs regulatory agencies with officials from the industries meant to be regulated

Many regulators are philosophically opposed to government regulation and deeply corrupt

Worst President Ever?

A Great Time to Be Rich

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon lowers

income tax rates for wealthiest Americans

from 73% to just 25%

Investors enjoy one of the greatest periods

of market growth in U.S. history

The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaks

in 1929 at more than six times its value in

1921

Less than 1% of U.S. population owns

stock, so directly benefits only the wealthy

Presidents of the 1920s;

Economic Boom:

2. How did the Teapot Dome scandal affect the

American Presidency?

Teapot Dome Scandal

Harding‘s Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, gives away oil drilling rights on federal land for $300,000 in bribes

Fall later goes to jail

The worst of several scandals in Harding‘s administration

Harding dies before full extent of scandal comes to light

Calvin Coolidge (R), 1923-1929

Harding's replacement

Also an economic conservative

Reputation for respectability

Most famous for saying "the business of America is business‖

‗Coolidge Prosperity‘ defines the 20s: Robust economic growth and widespread affluence

Known as ―Silent Cal‖

Show me the money

Presidents of the 1920s;

Economic Boom:

4. Why was the wealth and economic success of

the 1920‘s not felt by farmers?

A Terrible Time to Be a Farmer

Collapse of agricultural prices in 1920

Poverty, crushing debt and foreclosures

During WWI U.S. farmers benefit from high demand and high prices throughout the world

Many European farmers can‘t produce during war, which drives up prices

Farmers Left Behind

From 1920 to 1921, farm prices fall at catastrophic rate

Price of wheat falls by ½

Price of cotton falls by ¾

Farmers suddenly can‘t make payments

Rural wealth falls far behind urban wealth

More than 90% of U.S. farms still lack power into the 1930‘s

Rural access to telephones actually falls during the 20‘s