1. Themes: 1920’s associated with…. Eat, drink & be merry, for tomorrow we die • Return to normalcy after WWI • US turned inward---isolationism • first modern era in the U.S. • change from a rural society to an urban. • Roaring Twenties, The Jazz Age • Development of the Youth Generation 2. Cultural clashes in US • Traditional America vs a changing Modern America • Hostility towards un-American ideas • Why? Feared communism…….. Red Scare Red Scare • Resurgence of the KKK KKK • Immigration restrictions • Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
Transcript
1. Themes: 1920’s associated with….Eat, drink & be merry, for tomorrow we die• Return to normalcy after WWI• US turned inward---isolationism• first modern era in the U.S.• change from a rural society to an urban.• Roaring Twenties, The Jazz Age• Development of the Youth Generation
2. Cultural clashes in US • Traditional America vs a changing Modern America• Hostility towards un-American ideas
•Why? Feared communism……..Red ScareRed Scare•Resurgence of the KKKKKK• Immigration restrictions•Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
• Scopes Trial---evolution vs creation • Liberated woman vs traditional
• Flappers• Margaret Sangor----Birth control
• African Americans move to the cities• led to race riots
3. Revolution in styles and technologies.• electricity, radio, automobile, mass media• Fads---new dances, music & clothing• Economic habits of buying on credit, investing in the stock market on margins in the midst of falling agricultural prices.
4. American heroes:• Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh
5. Presidents during the 1920’s• Dominated by Conservative Republicans • Supported return to laissez faire
• Warren Harding 1921 to 1923•Teapot Dome Scandal
• Calvin Coolidge 1921 to 1929
6. Foreign policy during the 1920’s and early 30s.Washington Naval Conferences to limit arms build-up- heavily favored Allied nations
Kellogg-Briand Pact- Attempts to outlaw war
Dawes Plan- Foreign Aid provided to Germany to help meet costs of war reparations to allies, who in return could pay off debts to the US.
Snapshot WWI prosperity to recession- cost of
living doubled, unemployment, shortage of consumer goods (inflation), decline of union gains, assoc. with radicalness
Conservative Politics- – rejected progressive Dem. And returned
laissez-faire Repub.– Isolationist policies, high tariff to ensure
Economy not strengthened…– Majority: Farming and wage labor– Incomes did not rise– Erodes purchasing base
Effect: slow slide to depression
The Second Industrial Revolution
U.S. develops the highest standard of living in the world – Despite short term costs– Held 40% of world’s wealth– electricity replaces steam – modern assembly line introduced
• People or adjuncts of machines?
Rise of the airline industry Modern appliances and conveniences begin to
change American society corresponding rise in entertainment & leisure
The Automobile Industry Auto makers stimulate sales through
model changes, advertising Auto industry fostered the growth of
other businesses Autos encourage movement and more
individual freedom. Ford’s Tin Lizzie- Model T-$850-$350 Mass Production
Glenwood Stove and Washing Machine
•Radio sets, parts and accessories brought in $60 $60
millionmillion in 1922…
• $136 million$136 million in 1923
•$852 million$852 million in 1929
•Radio reached into every third homeevery third home in
its first decade.
•Listening audience was 50,000,000 by 1925
In 1931- Frederick Lewis Allen: shaped the popular image In 1931- Frederick Lewis Allen: shaped the popular image of the 1920s of the 1920s
Only YesterdayOnly Yesterday, depicted the 1920s as a cynical, hedonistic , depicted the 1920s as a cynical, hedonistic interlude between the Great War and the Great Depression--interlude between the Great War and the Great Depression--a decade of dissipation, jazz bands, raccoon coats, and a decade of dissipation, jazz bands, raccoon coats, and bathtub gin. bathtub gin.
Allen argued that World War I shattered Americans' faith in Allen argued that World War I shattered Americans' faith in reform and moral crusades, leading the younger generation reform and moral crusades, leading the younger generation to rebel against traditional taboos while their elders engaged to rebel against traditional taboos while their elders engaged in an excess of consumption and speculation. in an excess of consumption and speculation.
Decade notable for obsessive interest in celebrities
Sex becomes an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainment
Eat, drink & be merry, for tomorrow we die
Return to normalcy Teen Culture Jazz Age first modern era in the U.S. Culture wars between old and new ways
“Flappers” sought individual freedom
Ongoing crusade for equal rights
Most women remain in the “cult of domesticity”“cult of domesticity”
sphere
Discovery of adolescence
Teenaged children no longer needed to work
and indulged their craving for excitement
•Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
were Italian Italian immigrantsimmigrants charged
with murderingmurdering a guard and robbing a
shoe factory in Braintree, Mass.
•The trial lasted 1920-1927. Convicted on circumstantial evidence, many believed they had
been framed for the crime because of their anarchist and pro-union activities.
•In this time period, anti-foreignismanti-foreignism was high as well.
•Liberals and radicals rallied around the two men, but they would be executed.
Postwar Red Scare
On May 1, 1919--May Day--postal officials discovered 20 bombs in the mail of prominent capitalists, including John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, Jr., as well as government officials like Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A month later, bombs exploded in eight American cities. On September 16, 1920, a bomb left in a parked horse-drawn wagon exploded near Wall Street in Manhattan's financial district, killing 30 people and injuring hundreds. The bomb was suspected to have been the work of alien radicals. Authorities came up with a list of subjects and even questioned the man who had recently reshod the wagon's horse. But despite the offer of an $80,000 reward, no one was charged with the crime.
Postwar Red Scare
At a victory pageant in Washington, D.C., a sailor shot a man who refused to stand during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner, while the crowd clapped and cheered. A clerk in a Waterbury, Connecticut clothing store was sentenced to jail for six months for remarking to a customer that the Russian revolutionary Lenin was "the brainiest" or "one of the brainiest" world leaders.
In November 1919, in the Washington State lumber town of Centralia, American Legionnaires stormed the office of the International Workers of the World (IWW). Four attackers died in a gunfight before townspeople overpowered the IWW members and took them to jail. A mob broke into the jail, seized one of the IWW members, and hanged him from a railroad bridge. Federal officials subsequently prosecuted 165 IWW leaders, who received sentences of up to 25 years in prison.
Postwar Red Scare
In 1919 and 1920, President Wilson's attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, led raids on leftist organizations such as the Communist Party and the radical labor union, the International Workers of the World. Palmer hoped to use the issue of radicalism in his campaign to become president in 1920. He created the precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which collected the names of thousands of known or suspected communists.
In November 1919, Palmer ordered government raids that resulted in the arrests of 250 suspected radicals in 11 cities. The Palmer Raids reached their height on January 2, 1920, when government agents made raids in 33 cities. Nationwide, more than 4,000 alleged communists were arrested and jailed without bond, and 556 aliens were deported--including the radical orator Emma Goldman.
Palmer claimed to be ridding the country of the "moral perverts and hysterical neurasthenic women who abound in communism," but his tactics alienated many people who viewed them as violations of civil liberties.
Postwar Labor Strife
During the 1920s, many of labor's gains during World War I and the Progressive era were rolled back. Membership in labor unions fell from 5 million to 3 million. The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed picketing, overturned child labor laws, and abolished minimum wage laws for women.
Detroit police inspecting equipment
found in a hidden underground brewery during the prohibition
era.
Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department's
Prohibition Bureau during a time when
bootlegging was rampant throughout the
nation.
Chicago gangster during Prohibition who controlled the
“bootlegging” industry.
Al CaponeAl Capone Elliot Ness, part of the
Untouchables
Elliot Ness, part of the
Untouchables
Wets Vs. Drys“Noble Experiment”
At midnight, January 16, 1920, the United States went dry; breweries, distilleries, and saloons were forced to close their doors. Led by the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the dry forces had triumphed
Advocates of Prohibition argued that outlawing drinking would eliminate corruption, end machine politics, and help Americanize immigrants.
65% adopted prohibition laws before 18th Amendment- WWI made it seem patriotic. The Anti-Saloon League called Milwaukee's brewers "the worst of all our German enemies," and dubbed their beer "Kaiser brew."
Anheiser-Busch made it through Prohibition by making ice cream, near beer, corn syrup, ginger ale, root beer, yeast, malt extract, refrigerated cabinets, and automobile and truck bodies.
Wet vs. Dry
The wording of the 18th Amendment banned the manufacture and sale (but not the possession, consumption, or transportation) of "intoxicating liquors." Many brewers hoped that the ban would not apply to beer and wine. But Congress was controlled by the drys, who advocated a complete ban on alcohol. A year after the ratification, Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which defined intoxicating beverages as anything with more than 0.5 percent alcohol. This meant that beer and wine, as well as whiskey and gin, were barred from being legally sold.
Wet vs. Dry The federal government never had more than 2,500 agents enforcing the law. Enforcement of Prohibition was originally assigned to the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS); hence, the enforcement agents who destroyed moonshine stills were called “revenuers.” In 1930, enforcement transferred to the Justice Department.
Enforcing the law proved almost impossible. Smuggling and bootlegging were widespread. Two New York agents, Izzie Einstein and Mo Smith, relied on disguises while staging their raids--once posing as man and wife. Their efforts were halted, however, after a raid on New York City's 21 trapped some of the city's leading citizens. In New York, 7,000 arrests for liquor law violations resulted in 17 convictions.
Prohibition failed because it was unenforceable. By 1925, half a dozen states, including New York, passed laws banning local police from investigating violations. Prohibition had little support in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.
Wet v Dry
Effects of Prohibition:– Cut death rate from alcohol by 80%– Prohibition quickly produced bootleggers, speakeasies, moonshine,
bathtub gin, and rum runners smuggling supplies of alcohol across state lines. In 1927, there were an estimated 30,000 illegal speakeasies--twice the number of legal bars before Prohibition. Many people made beer and wine at home. It was relatively easy finding a doctor to sign a prescription for medicinal whiskey sold at drugstores. A potential buyer who sent a liquor sample to a laboratory for analysis was shocked when a chemist replied: "Your horse has diabetes."
Wet vs. Dry
Prohibition also fostered corruption and contempt for law and law enforcement
Al Capone's Chicago organization reportedly took in $60 million in 1927 and had half the city's police on its payroll. Homicides increased in many cities, partly as a result of gang wars, but also because of an increase in drunkenness.
During his presidential campaign in During his presidential campaign in 1932, New York Governor Franklin D. 1932, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who never hid his fondness Roosevelt, who never hid his fondness for martinis, called for Prohibition's for martinis, called for Prohibition's repeal. repeal. The noble experiment ended at 3:32 The noble experiment ended at 3:32 p.m., December 5, 1933, when Utah p.m., December 5, 1933, when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition.Amendment, repealing Prohibition.
•The U.S. Government began to restrict certain “undesirable”“undesirable” immigrants from entering the
U.S.
•Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and Immigration Act of 1924Immigration Act of 1924
• Kept out immigrants from southeastern Europe.
•The U.S. Government began to restrict certain “undesirable”“undesirable” immigrants from entering the U.S.
•Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of Emergency Quota Act of 19211921, in which newcomers from Europe were
restricted at any year to a quota, which was set at 3% of the people of their nationality who lived
in the U.S. in 1910.
•Immigration Act of 1924Immigration Act of 1924, the quota down to 2% and the origins base was shifted to that of
1890, when few southeastern Europeans lived in America.
Cartoon from 1919: “Put them out and
keep them out”
Rural Americans identify urban culture with Communism, crime, immorality
Sex becomes an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainmentCommunities of home, church, and school are absent in the cities
Conflict: Traditional values vs new ideas found in the cities.
Rural Americans identify urban culture with Communism, crime, immorality
Sex becomes an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainmentCommunities of home, church, and school are absent in the cities
Conflict: Traditional values vs new ideas found in the cities.
Rise of the KKK was do to the ever changing of a traditional America. 1925: Membership of 5 million1926: Marched on Washington.
Attack on urban culture and defends Christian/Protestant and rural valuesAgainst immigrants from Southern
Europe, European Jews, Catholics and American Blacks
Sought to win U.S. by persuasion and gaining control in local/state government.Violence, internal corruption result in
Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930 but will reappear in the 1950s and 1960s.
IKAIKAImperial Klans of America
1925
The first conflict between religion vs.vs. science being
taught in school was in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.
John T. Scopes
Respected high school biology
teacher arrested in Dayton,
Tennessee for teaching
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
Clarence Darrow
Famous trial lawyer who represented
Scopes
William J. BryanSec. of State for
President Wilson, intelligent
spokesperson turned evangelical
leader. Represented the
prosecution.
Dayton, Tennessee
Small town in the south wary of
the encroachment of
modern times and secular teachings.
The trial is conducted in a carnival-like atmosphere. The
people of Dayton are depicted by pro-
evolution forces as ‘backward’.
Issue: The right to teach and protect Biblical
teachings in schools.
Connected to: Who should decided- local control over
school curriculum or government run
curriculum?
Evolution Theory: Darwin’s pervasive theory that all
species have evolved from lower forms of beings over
billions of years.
Outcome: Teacher fined but evolution slowly supplanted
creationism in the public schools
The 1920 ElectionThe 1920 Election
Wilson’s idealism and Treaty of Versailles led
many Americans to vote for the Republican, Warren
Harding…
US turned inward and feared anything that was
European…
Wilson’s idealism and Treaty of Versailles led
many Americans to vote for the Republican, Warren
Harding…
US turned inward and feared anything that was
European…
• Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall leased naval reserve oil land in
Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to oilmen Harry F. Sinclair
and Edward L. Doheny
•Fall had received a bribe of $100,000 from Doheny and about three times
that amount from Sinclair.
•Fall found guilty of taking a bribe.
•Sinclair and Doheny were acquitted of charges.
Harding and CoolidgeHarding and Coolidge
• Republican presidents appeal to traditional American values
• Harding dies in office after 2 years.• Scandals break after his death
– Teapot Dome Scandal
• Calvin Coolidge becomes President after Harding’s death in 1923.
• Republican presidents appeal to traditional American values
• Harding dies in office after 2 years.• Scandals break after his death
– Teapot Dome Scandal
• Calvin Coolidge becomes President after Harding’s death in 1923.
Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall leased naval reserve oil land in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to oilmen Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. DohenyFall had received a bribe of $100,000 from Doheny and about three times that amount from Sinclair.Fall found guilty of taking a bribe.
The 1924 Election
The 1924 ElectionCalvin Coolidge served as
President from 1923 to 1929.
“Silent Cal”.
Republican president
Calvin Coolidge served as President from 1923 to 1929.
