The Modern Temper•Chapter 25 Guiding Questions•What accounted for the nativism of the

1920s?•What was meant by the Jazz Age?•How did the new social trends of the

1920s challenge traditional attitudes?•What was modernism, and how did it

influence American culture?

The 1920s

• Era of Excess• The Roaring Twenties• The Jazz Age• F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922)• Like a jazz musician, the 1920s

were intoxicated with nervous energy.

• Jazz• New Orleans, Kansas City,

Memphis, Harlem, Chicago

NATIVISM

• Race Riots• Red Scare • Fear of Communism• Immigration Restriction • Socialist, Communist, or Anarchist• KKK • “100% Americanism”• Catholics, Jews, immigrants and African Americans

were threats to America

FUNDAMENTALISM

• Strict adherence to the basic principals of a subject (Christianity and the Bible)• The trend had been growing since Charles Darwin’s theory

of evolution had first been introduced• In 1925, Tennessee outlawed the teaching of evolution in

schools and colleges• John Scopes disobeyed the law, and a trial erupted • William Jennings Bryan - prosecution • Clarence Darrow of Chicago - defense lawyer.

• Scopes was found guilty• However, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the fine

on a technicality, while leaving the anti-evolution law in place

PROHIBITION

• Prohibition was ratified in 1918 in the Eighteenth Amendment• Although it made the sale of liquor illegal, it was

impossible to enforce • The manufacture and distribution of alcohol during this

time period encouraged organized crime to control it“After one year from the ratification of this article, the

manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation therof into, or the exportation therof

from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby

prohibited.”

The New Woman

•Women gained the right to vote in federal elections with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. • Following World War I and the contribution

made by women in the workforce, Wilson would renounce his reservations about the amendment and publicly support it. • Although the number of women in the

workforce would climb after the war, they still principally worked in traditional occupations, as secretaries, dressmakers, and clerks.

The Great Migration

•Between 1910 and 1930 almost 1 million African Americans left the South.•When white workers were drafted for

the war, African Americans were encouraged to move north and take over for the soldiers. • In a mover known as the Great

Migration, over 323,000 went north during the war, and by 1930, 615,000 more had joined them.

The Harlem Renaissance

•Manhattan• 1890 – 1 out of 70 were African- American• 1930 – 1 out of 9 were African American

• A self-conscious effort in the New York black community to cultivate racial equality by promoting African American cultural achievements• A literary and artistic movement• Into Bondage • The painting by Aaron Douglas exemplifies how

black artists in the Harlem Renaissance used their African roots and collective history as artistic inspiration.

Consumer Culture

• Things that had once been only obtainable by the wealthy now were purchased by the middle class. • Radios and movie theaters became commonplace, and they drove the

American desire to talk the same, dress the same, and experience the same lifestyles they saw on the big screen.

Consumer Culture• Since the Wright brothers’ flight in 1903, the use of planes advanced

slowly• In 1927, Charles Lindbergh would fly across the Atlantic solo. • Still, automobiles were the more numerous and significant revolution in

travel• Henry Ford’s assembly-line technique cut the cost of his Model T

substantially and made it affordable for a new generation of Americans

MODERNISM

•When Albert Einstein announced his theory of relativity, he upended two centuries worth of conventional wisdom leading to the birth of the modern physics movement• Scientists would apply this redefinition of thought in other disciplines as

well•Whereas nineteenth-century authors and artists had taken for granted

that everything in the world could be readily observed and represented accurately, their twentieth-century counterparts found themselves in a reality where new things could actually be created• Their works would reflect this outlook• Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein were leaders in the modernist

movement.

The Lost Generation• This term was coined by Gertrude Stein to

describe the generation of adults who came of age during World War I

Gertrude Stein Pablo Picasso’s 1906 portrait of the writer