A Unique, Prosperous,

and Discontented Time

1919-1929

CHAPTER 21

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21.1 Learning Objectives

Explain how events at the end of World War 1 shaped the decade that followed.

Fundamental Question

To what extent did America’s growing involvement in the world contribute to domestic events in 1919?

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The Prelude — The Red Summer of 1919

Major tensions of the post-war era

Racial: African Americans returning from the war no longer wanted to live in the segregated South.

Increased violence toward Blacks in American cities (mainly Northern) during the Summer of 1919.

Blacks faced the dangers of lynching; 76 lynching nationwide in 1919.

Economic: labor disputes led to several strikes.

Wave of strikes occurred due to the lifting of war-time regulations and restrictions.

Seattle General Strike; Boston Police Strike.

Worker demands for higher wages and better working conditions.

1919 Spanish Flu epidemic killed ½ million people.

This pandemic made Americans uneasy and added more uncertainty to their lives.

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The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of the Bolsheviks convinced many Americans that there was a link between radicals in the U.S. and Russian communists.

Massive strikes throughout the country enhanced these fears, proving to many that there was a link between U.S. labor unions, socialists, and Bolsheviks.

Communist parties form in U.S.

Government action to prevent the spread of communism and to restrict radicals, anarchists, and socialists was a direct response to the fears and hostilities caused by domestic and foreign events.

New organizations like the American Legion worked to ensure that Americans demonstrated their patriotism.

100% Americanism

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Anarchists threatened established American ways of life.

Use of bombs and violence to achieve their goals caused a backlash in society.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launches a series of Palmer Raids in 1919-1920

Root out individuals and organizations suspected of using, or endorsing violent action of anarchist leanings.

The Palmer Raids widened their scope to include most left-leaning associations and organizations, such as magazines and labor unions.

Palmer Raids resulted in the arrest of approximately 10,000 people.

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21.2 Learning Objectives

Analyze how Prohibition and other developments in the 1920s reshaped American culture.

Fundamental Question:

How did changes in American culture reflect the postwar desire for fun and leisure?

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The 1920s — The Exuberance of Prosperity

America retreated from Wilsons internationalism at the end of World War I and the failure of the League of Nations.

Harding’s “return to normalcy” represented a shift away from the reform measures that had dominated American politics for the past 20 years.

Harding ushered in an era that deemphasized the reform spirit and encouraged a return to traditional American values.

People were as tired of Roosevelt-era reforms as they were of Wilson’s internationalism.

Many wanted to enjoy themselves, take part in the growing national prosperity, and keep the reformers and the government out of their lives.

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Prohibition — The Campaign for Moral Conformity

The movement toward prohibition took place over the course of 100 years and gained momentum in the 1910s with the establishment of the Anti-Saloon League.

Prohibition came to fruition with the passage of the 18th Amendment banning the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcohol.

Prohibition was extremely divisive; pitted rural American values against and increasingly urban American society.

Bars and saloons often served as gathering places in immigrant neighborhoods for social functions.

The Volstead Act made the manufacture of beer and wine illegal, except for alcohol used for medical or religious purposes.

The Department of the Treasury enforced Prohibition.

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Organized Crime: Bootlegging and Ponzi

Organized crime took advantage of prohibition; supplied alcohol and made millions of illegal dollars.

Criminal organizations, such as Al Capone’s in Chicago, arose to meet demand.

Criminal gangs quickly organized to supply America with alcohol, and expanded into other illegal activities causing an increasing cycle of violence and lawlessness.

Criminal activity took place in financial investing with a scheme invented by Charles Ponzi.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator.

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Scandals during the Harding Administration

Harding’s Secretary of Interior Albert Fall, accepted huge bribes and no-interest loans from oil companies for leases on U.S. Government oilreserves in Elk Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

Veteran’s Bureau Chief squandered $200 million.

President Harding having adulterous affairs with women while married.

Harding was the first president elected with the women’s vote: 19th

Amendment had been ratified and 26 million women voted in the 1920 presidential election.

Harding died in 1923, before scandals become public. VP Calvin Coolidge became Pesident.

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The Vote for Women

19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Was the culmination of

Voter advocacy that began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Declaration.

Women’s participation in the WWI war effort and the idea that the U.S. fought for democracy.

Other women’s issues, such as birth control, came to the forefront in the 1920s.

Margaret Sanger was the most visible leader in this movement.

Social changes in the 1920s led to the emergence of the “flapper”, young middle-class urban women who defied tradition and social expectations in their dress and behavior.

Flappers challenged the double standard that existed in American society for men and women.

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A Revolution in Culture — Technology

and the Movies

Technological innovations changed Americans’ lives and contributed to the emphasis on fun and leisure.

The radio and motion pictures brought national and international news to the people and created a common culture.

Station KDKA became one of the nation’s first radio stations, featuring news and entertainment.

Movies offered fun and entertainment. “Silent” movies predominated until 1927; “Talkies” after.

Technology enhanced the production of movies.

Stars, such as Clara Bow, Rudolph Valentino, and cartoon character Mickey Mouse entered the Hollywood movie-making scene in the 1920s.

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The Rise of the Automobile Culture

People saw ownership of an automobile as a necessity in the 1920s.

1895 - 4 cars; 1917 - 5 million; Made possible by Henry Ford and the assembly line.

The increased availability and lower cost of the automobile allowed people to travel more conveniently and gave young people degree of privacy unimaginable to earlier generations.

New forms of auto financing: buying on credit: installment buying.

The rise of the auto industry caused the growth of other industries as well.

Related industries grew: steel, paint, textiles, tires, road building contractors.

The rise of the automobile also led to the creation of other service industries, such as gas stations, repair shops, roadside restaurants and hotels (motel = motor hotel)

The rise of the automobile also caused a change in the market for real estate.

People could now live farther away from their place of work;

Rise of suburban communities.

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People Moving in the 1920s14

Migration

The 1920s was the first decade in which more Americans lived in urbanareas (cities and towns) than in rural areas.

The automobile and growing roadways allowed people to spread further than the train and streetcar tracks during the first wave of suburbanization in the 1880s.

Busses replaced streetcars in cities, adding to mobility. People could now move more freely.

Traffic congestion increased in cities.

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The Harlem Renaissance

The Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities from 1910 onward created many job opportunities.

1920s literary and artistic movement centered in Harlem.

The artwork, music, literature, poetry, and dance that characterized and celebrated the African American experience emerged from the Harlem Renaissance.

Much of the art, poetry, and literature of the Harlem Renaissance focused on the racism, discrimination, and segregation that blacks faced in America.

One of the most notable features of the Harlem Renaissance was the rise of the music gendre of jazz, which came to dominate the music scene during the 1920s.

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Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey went against the traditional protests of blacks by proclaiming that the only way the African American race could truly gain equality was to move back to Africa.

Marcus Garvey was a black separatist from Jamaica: formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)in 1914, based on the vision of self-help and independence.

Promoted racial pride and solidarity

Garvey established the Black Star Line for his Back-to-Africa movement

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Harlem in the 1920s

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21.3 Learning Objectives

Explain the elements of discrimination, hardship, and social and religious fundamentalism that shaped American life in the 1920s.

To what extent were racism, anti-immigration efforts, and fundamentalism of the 1920s the result of changes throughout the United States?

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The 1920s — The Conflicts About American Ideals

While the 1920s are often remembered as the Jazz Age—the decade of Prohibition, speakeasies, new automobiles, flappers, and parties—large numbers of Americans lived quite different lives.

Many lived quiet and law-abiding lives

Growing confidence among African Americans threatened whiteSoutherners, economically and socially.

Many people living on farms and in urban slums still lived lives of desperate poverty.

Many native-born Americans came to distrust and fear the ideas of immigrants.

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The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s

The new Klan recreated in 1915 by William J. Simmons

Support for Prohibition; opposed anything that went against native-born Protestantism.

The 1920s KKK was a hate organization that was anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-immigration (Southern and Eastern Europe, mainly)

3-8 million members nationwide during 1920s

The new KKK was no longer limited to the South

The Klan stood for strict enforcement of Prohibition and 100% Americanism.

Wanted to maintain rigid racial segregation and prevent African Americans from voting, often resulting in violence.

By 1930, Klan membership had dropped to 50,00 people.

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Eugenics and I.Q. Tests — The Science

of Discrimination

The eugenics movement used ideas from evolutionary biology, derived loosely from Charles Darwin, to “prove” that some ethnic groups were more highly evolved than others.

The eugenics movement intended to provide scientific proof that African Americans and immigrants from Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe were inferior to whites, and therefore not entitled to the same rights and opportunities.

Included various efforts to limit possibilities for those with disabilities such as deafness or limited intelligence— the “unfit”—to procreate.

Use of I.Q. tests to sort immigrants

Interest in eugenics faded in the 1930s with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s embrace of the concept of “pure” race.

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1920s Immigration Restriction

Fueled by 100% Americanism, nativists called for limits on foreign influence.

Rising fear that continued new immigration could depress wages or take jobs.

Fear from supporters of eugenics that traditional Anglo-American culture was being diluted by immigration.

Anti-immigration advocates became stronger after World War 1

1921 and 1924 Immigration acts placed a quota (limits) on immigration, especially targeting “newimmigrants” from S. and E. Europe.

The quota was based on the 1890 Census which was taken just before the massive wave of new immigration into the U.S.

Immigration from Italy, Russia and Poland fell dramatically. Completely excluded people from East Asia.

Immigration from Ireland, Mexico, and Canada was not affected.

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Immigration Restriction

Anti-immigration sentiment continued to increase and resulted in legislation restricting immigration to the U.S.

In 1917, Congress passed a literacy test law for new immigrants over President Wilson’s veto.

The Immigration Restriction Act of 1921 was the first time the U.S. established immigration quotas. The Comprehensive Immigration Law of 1924 further restricted the number of immigrants who could enter the country, basing numbers on the 1890Census.

In the midst of this anti-immigrant mood, Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and executed for robbery and murder.

Many suspect their conviction and execution was due to their Italian heritage, and not the evidence presented in the trial.

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The Farmers’ Depression

Even with its new prosperity, the United States could not consume all of the wheat and cotton and meat produced on the nation’s farms.

Farmers had been encouraged to plant more crops during World War 1.

Increased supply was offset by increased world-wide demand.

After World War 1, European farmers again entered the world market, causing an increaseof supply, and falling prices.

Farmers were in debt and continued to over-produce.

Dry-land farming practices contributed to the creation of the “Dust Bowl,” and bad weather contributed to the plight of the farmers.

For many farmers, the Great Depression of the 1930s began in 1920 or 1921.

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The Scopes Trial: Fundamentalism vs. Evolutionism

The Scopes “Monkey Trial” highlighted the cultural struggle between science and religion and the increasing urbanization of America.

John T. Scopes, biology teacher violated a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

With the growth of high schools in America, many Christian fundamentalists responded to questions of what ideas were being taught to the young.

Fundamentalists called for a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Was an element in the rural versus urban cultural battle and the great social changes occurring in the 20th Century.

Case began July 1925

William Jennings Bryan - prosecutor

Clarence Darrow - Scopes’ defense lawyer

Scopes found guilty, fined $100

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21.4 Learning Objectives

Analyze the political and policy developments of the decade.

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National Politics and Policies

in the 1920s

The 1920s brought three Republicans to the presidency

Warren G. Harding, 1921- 1923

Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1928

Herbert Hoover, 1929-1932

All focused on pro -business policies, and supported the same strategies of reduced oversight of the economy.

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Warren Harding

Harding’s administration was plagued by scandals.

Harding did make significant appointments to office.

Former president William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Andrew Mellon became Secretary of the Treasury and served in that position for al three Republican presidents. Taxes were cut and national debt reduced.

The world’s major powers attended the Washington Conference of 1921 and signed the Five Power Treaty of 1922, regulating the number of battleships of the U.S., Britain, France, Japan, and Italy.

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Calvin Coolidge

Assumed the presidency after Harding’s death; ran for the presidency in 1924 and won a decisive victory with 54% of the popular vote.

Democratic Party was badly divided between rural and urban factions.

During his terms, the nation experienced an economic boom.

The Dawes Plan sought to restructure Germany’s war reparations payments it owed Great Britain and France. (1924)

In 1927, Coolidge’s Secretary of State Frank Kellogg negotiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

Sixty-two nations sighed the pact, which outlawed war as an instrument of national policy (did not work!)

Coolidge also maintained American military forces in several Latin American countries and increased American investment around the world.

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Herbert Hoover

The tone of the 1928 election was angrier than in 1924

Democrats nominated Gov. Al Smith of New York; Irish Catholic, did notsupport prohibition.

Hoover was a “dry” who favored continuing prohibition, and a Protestant.

Smith’s Catholicism became a campaign issue.

Many white southerners simply could not vote for a Catholic; Hoover won some Southern states, breaking the Democratic control that had existed since the 1880s.

Hoover won 58% of the vote and a vast majority of the Electoral Vote.

U.S. Stock market rose to new heights after the election.

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Chapter Review

The contrasts that existed in America throughout the decade were hash and diverse.

The wealthy and the middle class experienced great prosperity, while farmers and workers suffered through extremely hard financial times.

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The nation that fought to protect democracy around the world limited free speech at home and targeted suspected dissidents during the Red Scare.

Prohibition divided the nation: people either supported it wholeheartedly or opposed it and blatantly violated the law.

There was very little middle ground.

Prohibition was seen as a clash of values between rural and urban America.

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Social Change was very great in several areas:

Greater independence for women

The infusion of African American culture throughout the U.S.

A backlash to these and other changes resulted in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, religious and social fundamentalism, and massive immigration restrictions.

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After fighting for democracy in World War 1, conditions for African Americans worsened as lynchings and race riots became more prominent.

Immigration quotas placed severe restrictions on who could enter the United States.

Technological innovations both freed and restricted people.

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