Roaring Twenties

Demobilization and Adjustment to Peace, 1920

• Mobilization-directing all resources to achieving goal, like winning a war

• Demobilization-opposite, transition process during which nation returns to state of peace

• Country didn’t need to buy vast quantities of material (War Industrial Board)

• Factories shut down to convert back to peacetime production

• Farmers had to adjust to less demand • Progressives wanted to keep federal

control of some industries, but restraints were lifted and a path to more laissez-fare economy was started

• Soldiers returned him looking for work

• Some without work

• Women, African Amer. were no longer needed in the workforse

• “Spanish Flu”-winter 1918-1919-killed more Americans than WWI

• Economic slowdown, known as the Depression of 1920-21

Red Scare

• Bolsheviks-Russian Communist, seized power in 1917

• Viewed as Anti-American, Wilson sent troops to Russia to aid opponents (“Whites”)-Bolsheviks (“Reds”-red flag)

• US refused to recognize new Russia• Communism threatens to spread to Europe•

• 1919 US had waves of strikes by uncertain workers

• Boston police, Seattle, US Steel, Coal

• Fear of communism- “Red Scare”

Palmer Raids

• A. Mitchell Palmer-Attorney General received bombs in mail early 1919

• Created new group in Justice Department headed by J. Edgar Hoover

• November-Hoover arrest 200 suspected radicals

• January-simulataneous raids in 30 cities, 6,000 arrested, mostly foreign born

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti-Italian anarchists arrested in 1920 for murder

• Unclear evidence and bias judge led to conviction

• Executed 1927

Republican Presidents

• Republicans were in power for all of the 1920smeant more conservative policies that favored business over labor

• Warren G Harding

• Calvin Coolidge

• Herbert Hoover

Warren G Harding

• Policy-”Return to normalcy”-isolationism

• New immigration laws

• Low tariffs

• Lower taxes

Higher Tariff

• Remember why tariffs were lowered in Second Industrial Rev.

• Fordney-McCumber Act- tariffs went from 0% to 38.5% on average, impacted world trade

Lower Taxes for the Wealthy

• Andrew Mellon-Sec Treasury- believed wealthy were more likely to invest in economy, so he slashed taxes on wealthy and put more on shoulder of average earner

Lax Enforcement of Business Regulations

• Government invited companied to share and collaborate, practically creating trust

• Government did not enforce former anti-trust laws

Restrictions on Immigration

• Remember before the war, all the immigration, Ellis Island

• 1917 literacy test was passed. People had to be able to read and write in their own language, intended to keep out poor, uneducated

• 800,000 immigrants 6-1920/6-1921

• Nativism grew

• Emergency Quota Act of 1921• Quota-fixed number of people permitted to

do something• Limited number of immigrants to 350k/yr• Each country assigned it own quota based

on 3% living in US in 1910-aimed at reducing “new immigrants”

• Immigrants from Asia banned except Philippines 1917

• Harding foreign Policy-no League of nations but promote American business overseas

• Washington Naval Conference-stop building new battleships and scrap old ones

• World’s first proposal of disarmament-reducing number of weapons and arms

• US and GB accepted equal amounts of large ships and Japan a little less ratio 5:5:3

• Japan agreed if US didn’t fortify pacific possessions. This would lead to their takeover in WWII

Four-Power Treaty

• US, Britain, Japan, France agreed to respect each other’s territory 12/13/1921

• Nine-Power Treaty-respect independence of China –nobody could enforce

International finance:Allied War Debts and German Reparation

• WWI-US lent $10 billion

• US impatient, bonds were carrying interest

• Britain and France demanded Germany pay $32 billion- War Guilt

• Whatever money they received was used to pay their debt to US

Dawes Plan

• 1923 Germany was unable to make War Guilt payments, German gov just printed large amounts of paper money and that caused inflation

• Dawes Plan 1924-Charles Dawes-private investors lent Germany $200 million, War Guilt payments temporarily reduced to $250 million

• Germany used its loan to pay Britain and France• Then Britain and France paid US• 1929-US reduced reparations down to $9 billion to be paid over 59

yrs.• 1931-moratorium –temporary suspension of payment• 1933- all payments canceled

Teapot Dome Scandal

• Hardin’s cabinet members were corrupt

• Veterans Bureau-stole $200 million

• Secretary of Interior arranged to have oil-rice lands in Teapot Dome, Wyoming given to his department and then he leased them to businessmen for bribes

• Harding dies of a heart attack in 1923

Coolidge Prosperity

• After Harding’s death, Calvin Coolidge (VP) became president

• “The business of America is business”

• Barely talked to public “Silent Cal”

• Immigration Act of 1924-lowered immigration to 150k/yr

• Known as National Origins Act-date pushed back to 1890

• Before WWI-Italian immigration 200k/yr

• After 1921 40k/yr

• After 1924 4k/yr

Coolidge Foreign Policy

• Geneva Disarmament Conference- Wash Naval Conference was for big ships, so countries focused on small ships (you can’t stop militarism)

• Coolidge went to League in HQ in Geneva, Switzerland in 1927-no future limitations

• Kellogg-Briand Pact- effort to outlaw was in general

• Kellogg-Sec of State

• Briand-French foreign minister

• 8/1927 15 nations signed pact not to use war unless defense

• …..and then WWII…..

Herbert Hoover

• Self made millionaire

• Head of Food Production in WWI

• Motto “Rugged Individualism”-society in which individuals are given an education and equal opportunities, benefitting those with a will to succeed

Economy

• Greater efficiency in Manufacturing• Rise of the Automobile• Expansion of Other New Industries• New Marketing Practices in an Age of

Consumerism• Speculation in the Stock Market and in Real

Estate• Prosperity of the 1920s was Unevenly

Distributed

Greater Efficiency in Manufacturing

• 1914-Henry Ford introduced electric conveyer belts in his assembly line, cut production 1/6 time

• Conveyor belt and other technologies led to more productivity

Rise of the Automobile

• Assembly line made cars affordable

• 1920-8 million cars

• 1930-3x that, 1 car for every 6 Americans

• Cars-grew industries-steel, glass, rubber, roads, bridges, gas stations

• 1929-1 out of 9 workers works in car related industries

• Cars led to school buses led to larger schools serving wider areas

• Tractors increased farm production

• Construction of suburbs-living areas in the outskirts of cities

• Real estate rose

• bootlegging-transporting hidden alcohol

Expansion of Other New Industries

• Electricity doubled in 20s

• Vacuum, refrigerator, electric toaster, natural gas, radio, movies,

• All of this-new jobs, communication, travel

New Marketing Practices in an Age of Consumerism

• Mass production=mass consumption=marketing

• Installment buying-small monthly payments which included interest

• Entertainment-half of Americans went to the movies once a week and owned radios

Speculation in the Stock Market and in Real Estate

• Speculation-buying something not for your own use but for reselling it later at a higher price

• Stocks-shares in companies sold to the public

• Speculation in stocks reached new heights

• Everyone invested led to stock prices rising.

• As stocks went up in value, more and more people wanted to buy to get rich

• People bought in “margin”- only paying 10% to buy a stock and promising to pay later, remember installment buying and credit was everywhere

• If the stock went down they lost al their investment and probably were not able to pay the 90% they owed

• In real estate- people invested in Florida

• Everyone thought they were going to get rich off of investments in real estate and in stocks

• For the 1920s it was great

Uneven Distribution

• ½ of Americans live at or below poverty level

• Farmers-overproduction because of technology led to lower prices

• Railroads became less profitable because of cars

• Coal competition from oil and natural gas

• Minority groups-less opportunities

2014 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES•AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA•Persons in family/household Poverty guideline•For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,060 for each additional person.•1 $11,670•2 15,730•3 19,790•4 23,850•5 27,910•6 31,970•7 36,030•8 40,090

•8/hr=16,640/yr - taxes

Attempts to Preserve Traditional Values

• Rural America had problems with the rise of urban society:

• Communism (red scare)

• Immigration

• Teaching Evolution

• Partying and alcohol usage

Prohibition

• Temperance Movement-crusade to ban alcohol

• Blamed alcohol for problems-poverty, crime, breakdown of families, sin

• Many women temperance leagues-far less women drank, there were no domestic violence laws

Prohibition

• 18th Amendment-prohibited manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors-1919

• Volstead Act-October 1919-intoxicating liquors include wine and beer

• Not illegal to consume

• Permitted production for medical or religious purposes

Enforcement

• Hard to enforce law-few agents, immigrants refused to obey the law

• Bootleggers-alcohol transporters

• Speakeasies-illegal night clubs that served alcohol

• NYC had between 20-100 thousand

• People disregarded the law

Gangs

• Increased wealth and in an effort to keep customers in their bar, gangs moved into gambling, prostitution

Repeal

• Repeal-cancel

• Prohibition was repealed in 1933 when the 21st Amendment was passed

Scopes Trial

• Christian fundamentalist believed the story of creationism in the Bible should be taken literally

• John Butler-helped pass a bill (Butler Act) in Tenn. That made it illegal to teach evolution in public schools

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)- formed in the 1920s

• Clarence Darrow-lawyer defending Scopes

• William Jennings Bryan-prosecution

• These two big names brought national attention

• Scopes was convicted, fined $100

New Values

• Women

• The “Lost” Generation”

• Hollywood and New Popular Heroes

Women

• 19th Amendment- gave women the right to vote

• New technology made the need for non-labor intensive jobs that women found

• Turned women into career women

• More technology in the household gave women more leisure time

Flappers

• Flappers-fashionable young women who wore lipstick, short hair

• Stop being restrictive by old society

• Margaret Sanger-opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916, before it was illegal to send information about birth control

• In 1921 started the American Birth Control League later became Planned Parenthood

Lost generation

• Literature-young writers rejecting the materialism of American life

• F Scott Fitzgerald-Great Gatsby

• Ernest Hemingway-The Sun Also Rises

Hollywood and New Popular Heroes

• 1910 director DW Griffith took actors to LA, they settled in Hollywood

• 1927-”Jazz Singer”-first talkie (movie with sound)

African American Experience and Harlem Renaissance

• Booker T Washington vs W.E.B Du Bois

• Great Migration

• Continuing Racism and Violence

• Harlem Renaissance

Booker T Washington

• Former slave, educated, endorsed by T. Roosevelt, Carnegie

• Thought the African Americans should concentrate on vocational skills

• By gaining these skills could overcome racism with hard honest work

• Atlanta Compromise-A.A would submit to segregation and white rule in the South as long there was free job training and basic rights

W.E.B Du Bois• From New England, advocated for complete

social equality• Thought of the arts as the best way to

demonstrate A.A equality• Niagara Movement- against Atlanta

Compromise- equal economic opportunity and the right to vote

• Stated NAACP-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Great Migration

• Before WWI 9 out of 10 AA living in South, sharecropping

• Great Migration-led to Harlem Renaissance

• Southern blues turned into Northern Jazz

Racism

• Great Migration led to Northern cities being more racist, segregating blacks into specific neighborhoods

• Summer 1919-Red Summer-race riots in northern cities

• Chicago Riot killed 38 and injured 500

• Tulsa, Oklahoma-AA arrested when he fell and fragged white female to not fall. White crowd went to jail to lynch, AA veterans showed up with rifles. Whited later went to black neighborhood, Greenwood, killing between 39-100s

• Lynching continued in the South

• NAACP supported Dyer Bill-lynching federal crime, did not pass

Harlem Renaissance

• Alan Locke-”Enter the New Negro”

• Langston Hughes-poet

• Jazz

• Marcus Garvey-born in Jamaica, established the Universal Negro Improvement Association-moved to Harlem

• He stated “Black is Beautiful”-encouraged blacks to form their own businesses and act independently

• “Back to Africa” movement

• Tried and convicted of mail fraud, later deported

Other Minority Groups

• Hispanic-no restrictions on immigration because of the need for farm laborers, exception to Southern nativism

• US Border Patrol in 1924-required $10 visa to enter, many Hispanics crossed illegally

• American Indians-Indian Citizenship Act of 1924-made all American Indians citizens

• Jim Thorpe-native American athlete

Ku Klux Klan

• Immigrants, Catholics, Jews, flappers, African American growth led to KKK resurgence from Reconstruction period, made KKK more than just anti-black

• “Birth of a Nation”-1915 propaganda movie• Claimed “100% Americanism”• Elected to national, state, and municipal offices• Mostly democrat • At its peak in 1920s- 6 million in 1924

Florida

• 300 thousand people move to FL 1923-25

• Roadways built-Tamiami trail 1928

• Third airport in US opens in Miami 1912

• People began vacationing in FL

• Speculation led to land boom

• 20s hurricanes destroyed real estate

Rosewood

• African American community by Gainesville

• White women in nearby town accused unknown AA of assault, other witnesses denied her claim. Same day, coincidentally, black prisoner escapes jail. Sheriff goes to Rosewood with group looking for escaped accused. Killed and burned down many homes