THE 1920s

Changing culture

ESSENTAIL QUESTIONS

• What Social, political and economic changes occurred in America in the 1920s?

• To what extent did the political and economic policies of the 1920s differ from those of the progressive era?

• How did the rapid changes of the 1920s highlight the clash between modern and traditional values?

• How did these changes both unite and divide Americans?

MODERN ISSUES THAT DIVIDE

• Kim Kardashian• The Super Bowl• Health Care• Monsanto and the soybean• Gay Marriage• Legal ization

Homogenization through Technology

• Film: • Radio:• Cars:• Americans had more leisure

time, and higher wages led to money spent on entertainment

Film and Radio in the 1920s

• Created common fashion icons • Allowed for the growth in popularity of major

league sports• Allowed for a national “conversation” about

social, economic, and political events

FILM

Changing Roles of Women

• Some women embraced the more modern ideas of the 1920s using their newly achieved right to vote to explore the possibilities of freedom and political power.

The Vamp

The “It Girl”

• Clara Bow known as “The It Girl”

• Women smoked, drank, and danced

• Clashed with conservative views of morality

FLAPPERS

Mass Production

• Henry Ford brings automobile to the masses with assembly line production

• With new assembly prices could drop low enough for workers to afford

CONSUMERISM

• People now had money to worry about things they had never had time to worry about before

• New ideals of fashion and beauty allowed for advertising like this

CONSUMERISM

• Movie star and sports hero culture contributed to the advent of celebrity promotion

CONSUMERISM

• Electricity and industrial production led to the invention of time saving devices that became symbols of the middle class

Harlem Renaissance

• Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities after WWI

• The “Jazz Age “ begins.

• Art, poetry and music transforms mainstream American culture as well as African American culture

Langston Hughes

• What happens to a dream deferred?• Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?

• Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

• Or does it explode?

Music

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9SQdSLW27Q

• Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith

• Blues and Jazz began to make there way into mainstream “White” music and dance clubs

CULTURAL CLASHES OF THE 1920s

Prohibition

• Some women saw new freedoms as renewed responsibility to safeguard the morality of America and Americans

• 18th amendment made alcohol illegal

PROHIBITION AND VIOLENT CRIME

• “I make my money from supplying a public demand. If I break the law, my customers, who number hundreds of the best people in Chicago, are as guilty as I am. The only difference between us is that I sell and they buy. Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a businessman”—Al Capone

Fundamentalism

• Scopes “monkey trial” 1925

• Teacher put on trial for teaching about evolution

• http://movieclips.com/u54X-inherit-the-wind-movie-a-plea-against-fanaticism-and-ignorance/

NATIVISM

• Immigration act of 1921• 3% of those of a given

nationality living in the US in 1910 could immigrate

• Later Changes to 2% of those living here in 1890

NATIVISM AND THE KKK

Red Scare and Anti immigration

• The Sacco and Vanzetti Trial

• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti executed

ECONOMY

Economics of Consumerism

• Speculation—Stock Market and Land boom• Buying on Margin—Using credit to buy stocks

you cant afford• Installment Plans---paying over time for things

you cant afford• Overproduction on farms

Politics of prosperity

• Harding1. Appoints cronies2. Corruption leads to TEA POT DOME scandal3. Some small legislation to help farmers

Democratic Party Splits

• North---Immigrant/Catholics• South—White supremacist protestants• Progressives---often seen as socialists

• Split leads to conservative republican victory 1924

Return to Laissez Faire Politics

• Coolidge1. Veto McNary Haugen Bill—would have let

govt buy overproduced food and sell on world market

2. Veto Railway Labor Act---would have allowed collective bargaining rights for workers