A NEW ERA: THE TWENTIES

HIST 202 - HESEN

“The War to End All Wars” WWI ends November

11, 1918 Wilson’s Plans for

Peace:Fourteen PointsLeague of Nations

○ Irreconcilables○ Reservationists

Wilson’s Plans for Peace Treaty of Versailles

Big Four○ U.S. (Wilson)○ Great Britain (David

Lloyd George)○ France (Georges

Clemenceau)○ Italy (Vittorio Orlando)

○ NO RUSSIA!!!!

Postwar Problems Postwar

Red Scare○ A. Mitchell Palmer○ “Palmer Raids”

Strikes of 1919○ Boston Police Strike

(MA)○ Calvin Coolidge

Tulsa Race Riot (1921)○ Dick Rowland

Return to Normalcy Republican Control

Wilson diesRepublicans rule the

1920s○ Warren G. Harding

“Normalcy”○ Calvin Coolidge○ Herbert Hoover

○ Focus is on business – “The business of American is business”

Warren G. Harding Won Election of

1920 Former newspaper

editor from OhioPracticed patronage“Ohio Gang”Teapot Dome ScandalPardoned Eugene V.

Debs

Domestic Policies Reduction of income

tax Established Bureau

of the Budget Centralized federal

budget Increase in tariff

ratesFordney-McCumber

Tariff (1922)

Harding’s Death Harding

administration was fraught with scandal

He was at the center of the problems

White House – promiscuity

Died unexpectedly in August 1923

Calvin Coolidge Becomes president

after Harding dies Wins election of

1924 because he was popular with business

Took on a new way of looking at laissez faire practices

Coolidge’s Vetoes and Inaction Believed in limited

government Laissez-faire Focused on the budget Vetoed bills that

offered bonuses to WWI vets

Vetoed McNary-Haugen Bill (1928) – refused to help farmers

Election of 1928 Coolidge declined to

run for president again

Tickets:Herbert Hoover (R)Alfred E. Smith (D)

Americans went with the Republicans because of PROSPERITY

Mixed Economic Development Causes for

prosperityIncreased productivityEnergy technologiesGovernment policies

Problems:Labor

○ Open shopFarmers

A New Culture Consumerism

People bought goods….even if they didn’t need them

Gender RolesFlappers

ReligionRevivalism – Aimee

Semple McPherson

Cultures in Conflict Fundamentalism

John Scopes Trial Evolution vs. Scripture Clarence Darrow

(ACLU) vs. William Jennings Bryan

Prohibition 18th Amendment Volstead Act Sale, distribution,

manufacture of “intoxicating liquors”

Cultures in Conflict Nativism/Xenophobia

Quota Law (1921)Eastern Europeans

and AsiansNicola Sacco and

Bartolommeo Vanzetti Ku Klux Klan

Political organizationExecutions

War Debts and Reparations War-guilt clause (1918)

Blame Germany for WWI

Owes $30 billion to Allied Powers (GB and France)

Dawes Plan (1924)○ U.S. lends money to

Germany to pay back Great Britain and France

○ Leads ultimately to the Great Depression