1900 Automobile manufacture increases rapidly after 1900. 1903 Wright brothers flew their heavier-than-air machine at

Kitty Hawk. 1919 Alien radicals deported to Russia.

1920‘s Decade of revolt in manners and morals. Decade of general prosperity.

1921 Brief postwar depression.1923 Intermediate Credit Act extended further credits to farmers.1924 Immigration Act of 1924 permanently limited immigration by

application of quota system.1925 Ku Klux Klan began to subside rapidly. Scopes Trial for

violation of Tennessee anti-evolution law.1926 Radio came into popular use.

1927 Lindbergh made solo flight across Atlantic.1928 Sound films introduced.

1929 Stock market crash.1933 Prohibition Amendment repealed by 21st Amendment

• Economic and Social Developments of the 1920's

• In economic and political matters the twenties were years of reaction and conservatism. But in manners, customs, morals, and literature it was a time of revolt.

• economic developments During the twenties the United States enjoyed unusual prosperity, except for the farmer. New industries added to the prosperity and almost everybody enjoyed an increase in the standard of living.

• *The Depression of 1921—A short primary postwar depression began in 1921 as a part of the readjustment to a peacetime economy. It occurred, more specifically, due to the cessation of wartime loans to Europe and Europe's inability to buy from the United States. Europe's agricultural recovery lessened the demand for America's war stimulated agricultural abundance.

• American consumers went on a buyers' strike against prices driven too high by speculative hoarding. High American tariffs discouraged foreign trade. Agricultural prices and consumer goods fell sharply in price. A slow, steady recovery set in during 1922, and by 1924 the pros perous twenties began for most groups in the economy.

• Urban Prosperity and New Industries—During the decade of the twenties the American standard of living improved more rapidly than ever before. A small core of unemployment remained, and some industries, such as textiles and coal mining, suffered chronic depression, but most urban dwellers and many farmers lived much better than ever before. People had more leisure time to enjoy popular spectator sports and engage in outdoor recreation.

• The automobile, radio, and motion pictures became available to nearly everyone. "Talking pictures" had become common in 1928. Mass production made the new gadgets and entertainment available, and the mass entertainment, with the national advertising that supported the radio, brought a greater uniformity in manners and customs. Installment buying increased the market for consumer goods by enabling families to buy certain items on credit. Mass merchandising in groceries at "chain stores" and in miscellaneous goods at variety store chains brought lower prices to consumers.

• The Automobile—After the combustion engine had been harnessed to the horseless carriage about 1900 this new rubber tired "automobile" caught on rapidly. It was Henry Ford who visualized the low cost production of an automobile that almost everyone could afford.

• In 1908 he developed the "Model T" and in a few years had already developed a market for several hundred cars per day. Soon after the war it seemed that almost every family had managed to buy a car. Most early automobile makers were forced out by the few large and efficient firms that came to dominate the market.

• The automotive revolution in transportation, like the coming of the railroad, had vast repercussions on the total economic life of the nation. Allied industries sprang up. Highway construction and improved roads became necessary. The petroleum industry multiplied its output as gasoline became its leading product. The pattern of town growth began to stretch towns out along the roads.

• Filling stations and garages became an all too familiar part of the American scene. The rubber and steel industries benefited enormously. About one in every seven persons came to depend directly upon the automobile for his livelihood. Touring became a popular sport; the farmer became less isolated from life in the towns.

• Aviation—This new industry of the twenties had its beginning about 1903 when Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their heavier-than-air machine briefly at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. World War I stimulated the industry when several thousand planes were produced for the military service.

• In 1926 the Air Commerce Act and in 1927 the solo flight of Lindbergh gave an impetus to commercial aviation, and in a few years commercial aviation became established.

• The Farm Problem—Millions of acres of land were plowed up during World War I to produce food and fiber to win the war. Government subsidies and exhortation encouraged this expansion. After the war European agriculture recovered and needed fewer imports of goods. Increased production for export by foreign agriculturists helped produce a surplus in world markets. In the United States consumers changed their diet and ate less wheat and meat. The use of machines and the substitution of gasoline-powered tractors for draft animals both increased the production and released tens of millions of acres from the production of feedstuffs for draft animals.

• This increased the production of crops for the market. The surplus crops kept average prices low. Many farmers had bought land in the prosperous war years at high prices and later found interest .payments extremely burdensome. Many were foreclosed and tenancy increased.

The Farm Bloc—Members of Congress in both parties from the farm states combined to seek government relief for the farmer. The Intermediate Credit Act (1923) extended intermediate term credit to farmers. The McNary-Haugen Bill passed Congress in 1927 but President Coolidge vetoed it; 1928 he vetoed it

again. These bills called for devices to subsidize the export of surpluses of farm produce.

• social developments

• Rapid social changes in the 1920's brought greater freedom in morals and sharp changes from the earlier Victorian customs. The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote. The broadmindedness of the twenties in social customs was offset by a narrow provincialism with respect to foreign influences.

Harlem Renaissance

• The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African-American social thought and culture based in the African-American community forming in Harlem in New York City (USA). This period, extending from roughly 1920 to 1940, was expressed through every cultural medium—visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history and politics. Instead of using direct political means, African-American artists, writers, and musicians employed culture to work for goals of civil rights and equality. Its lasting legacy is that for the first time (and across racial lines), African-American paintings, writings, and jazz became absorbed into mainstream culture. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after an anthology, entitled The New Negro, of notable African-American works, published by philosopher Alain Locke in 1925.

• The prohibition of alcohol, 1920-1933, is one of the most interesting • policy experiments in U.S. history. Temperance movements waxed and waned in the

U.S. from early in the nineteenth century, and these movements produced numerous state prohibitions. Many of these prohibitions were subsequently repealed, however, and those that persisted were widely regarded as ineffective. Amid the atmosphere created by World War I, support for national prohibition reached critical mass, and the country ratified the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in January, 1919.1 Under this amendment and the Volstead Act, which provided for the enforcement of Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol were prohibited by federal law.2 The Amendment was popular for many years, but beginning in the late 1920s support began to erode.3 In 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th, ending Prohibition.

• The wartime spirit of sacrifice and idealism had resulted in the ratification of the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution. The problems of enforcing it and strong minority opposition kept the issue alive in politics.

• Prohibition—The century old movement for the prohibition of the sale and consumption of alcoholic, intoxicating beverages realized its goal of nationwide prohibition in 1919 in the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act.

• The long campaign of opposition to alcoholic beverages was based upon various claims that intoxicants 1) caused crime and lawlessness, 2) were injurious to health, 3) caused poverty and increased the tax burden, 4) were a waste of national resources and reduced the efficiency of workers, and 5) created great hazards to life and property in a mechanized society.

• The rural and Protestant communities, especially in the South, supported prohibition while the cities and the more recent immigrants opposed it. In the political contests in the 1920's prohibition remained one of the main issues and one that the average voter felt most strongly about. Candidates were classified as either "wet" or "dry." The Democratic Party, except in the rural South, included more "wets" than the Republican Party.

• During the twenties, people became progressively more dis satisfied with the operation of prohibition. 1) Many objected to and defied the law as an unjustified interference in personal morals. 2) Speakeasies and other hidden establishments catered to the drinking public. 3) Gangsters, bootlegging, political corruption, and other evils flourished on the illegal liquor traffic.

• Prohibition seemed to be creating a disrespect for the law. 5) Absence of regulation caused the sale of poisonous liquor with consequent blindness, permanent injury, and death. 6) When the depression struck, it was argued that repeal would help bring an end to the hard times and produce tax revenues on liquor sales.

• In the 1932 campaign the Democrats promised repeal. Following their victory, Congress submitted a repeal amendment to the states. They rushed to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment by special state conventions. This was the first amendment to be so ratified. Repeal returned the control of the liquor traffic to the states where Various solutions were worked out for its regulation.

• Intolerance of the 1920's—The Communist Revolution in Russia in 1917 and agitation elsewhere convinced Americans that the Reds were a serious threat to the United States. Two explosions contributed to the "Big Red Scare" of 1919-1920: a bomb exploded at the home of Attorney-General Palmer in 1919 and in 1920 a blast in Wall Street killed 38 persons. In December, 1919, 249 alien radicals were deported to Russia on a special ship. Reactionaries seized upon the red scare to condemn Socialists and labor leaders. The wave of anti-foreignism probably prejudiced a judge

• Reactionaries seized upon the red scare to condemn Socialists and labor leaders. The wave of anti-foreignism probably prejudiced a judge and jury who gave the death penalty to Sacco and Vanzetti, alien Italian anarchists, on very weak evidence.

• The Ku Klux Klan—The revived Klan grew rapidly and became active over the whole country in the early 1920's. It attacked minorities and non conformists who deviated from the pattern of 100 per cent Americanism as determined by the prejudices of the Klansmen. The movement subsided, about 1925, after people became aware of its abuses and its national leaders were found guilty of misappropriating funds or using the organization to make money for themselves.

• Immigration Act of 1924—Congress in 1917, over' President Wilson's veto, passed a literacy test requirement to restrict immigration. A flood of immigrants started coming in after the war. Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act in 1921 as a stopgap until a permanent well-considered law could be written. The Immigration Act of 1924 1) limited immigration to an annual quota for each country of two per cent of Americans of that national origin residing in the United States in 1890. 2) An overall limit of 150,000 immigrants per year was fixed.

• The law gave further offense to the Japanese by excluding them and other nationalities from the Far East. The "national origins" system was later modified by adoption of the census of 1920, but it still favored immigrants of northern Europe. There were no quota restrictions on immigration from other nations of the Americas, but the wide latitude of administrative discretion permitted restriction by property requirements and by other means of selection.

• Life in the Twenties—The war experience, for whatever the reason, brought an end to Victorianism in American manners and morals during the "Roaring Twenties." A time of disillusionment, materialism, and prosperity, everyone seemed bent upon having a good time in this "Jazz Age." Women defied the older conventions; they started wearing dresses that grew progressively shorter during the decade; they bobbed their hair, wore lipstick and rouge, smoked in public, and adopted some of the manners of men.

1920’s

• The automobile worked a profound effect upon the living habits of people and upon the manners and morals of youth. The popularization of Freud brought on a frank interest in and exploitation of sex. A new generation of writers, employing a realistic style, addressed themselves to the problem of sex as well as to the social problems of the day. Educational enrollments in high schools and colleges vastly increased; John Dewey introduced his revolutionary ideas into the public schools.

• The Scopes Trial—The struggle between religious fundamentalists and modern science came to a climax in the famous "Monkey Trial" at Dayton, Tennessee. In the summer of 1925 a young high school teacher of science, John T. Scopes, was brought to trial for violation of the Tennessee anti evolution law. The noted skeptic, Clarence Darrow, as defender of Scopes, found himself opposing the famous fundamentalist, William Jennings Bryan, who strove to defend the literal interpretation of the Bible.

• Technically, Scopes was found guilty in the sensational case and was fined, but the cause of the fundamentalists suffered such embarrassment and ridicule at the hands of the defense and by national commentators that no such effort has since been made to defy the teachings of modern science. »

• Multiple-Choice• 1. The main cause of the depression of 1921 was 1)

monetary policies 2) a decline in American exports to Europe 3) war scares 4) greater use of machinery in industry.

• 2. The prosperity of the twenties was due to all of the following except 1) installment buying 2) mass merchandising 3) mass production 4) higher prices for agricultural staples.

• 3. The automobile in the twenties had the same far-reaching effects upon the nation that might best be compared with the influence the 1) railroads exerted during the seventies and eighties 2) canals had in the 1830's 3) airplanes had in the 1930's 4) steamboats had in the 1820's.

• 4. Prohibition of alcoholic beverages was most strongly supported by 1) the South 2) the foreign element in the cities 3) the Democrats 4) the working class in the cities.

• 5. Immediately after World War I all of the following occurred except 1) a renewed interest in international cooperation 2) speculation in land 3) impatience with alien radicals 4) a large number of strikes.

• 6. The main opposition to the Ku Klux Klan arose because 1) its membership resorted to violence to enforce extra legally its own moral and political concepts 2) it was fundamentally an anti-Jewish society 3) politicians abhorred it as an intolerant movement 4) it enforced strict morals during the wild twenties.

• 7. Which is untrue of the Immigration Act of 1924? 1) It established a quota system 2) it excluded legally all Japanese immigration 3) it favored immigration from Northern Europe 4) it did not greatly curtail European immigration.

• 8. Which was not a new mass industry of the twenties? 1) Civil ian air transportation 2) radio 3) movies 4) chain stores.

• Completion• 9. The manufacturer of the low-cost automobile that almost

everyone could afford was .............• 10. Famous for his solo flight in 1924 was .............• 11. The term ........ designates a combination in support• of agricultural legislation of both Republicans and Democrats

beginning in the 1920's.• 12. The leading farm relief measure vetoed by Coolidge was

known as the ............ Bill.• 13. The major party having the most opponents of Prohibition

'was the ...... Party; Prohibition was repealed by the• ............ Amendment in the year .............• 14. The most notorious case of intolerance in the 1920's was

the case of two Italian anarchists named .............• 15. The prosecution in the Scopes Trial was headed by• 16. The first successful airplane flight was made by the ........

brothers