twenties
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Twenties
“Return to Normalcy”
1) Isolationism
2) Resurgence of nativism- Fear of foreign-born people
3) Political conservatism
- End of the Progressive Era
Threat to “normalcy” – communism • Russian Revolution
– March 15, 1917 Czar Nicholas II abdicated throne
– October/November 1917 Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin seized power, established government based on communism
– March 1919 Third Communist International meeting was held in Moscow, Russia• Advocate worldwide revolution
“Red Scare” in the United States• “Red Scare”
– Fear that Communists would take over in the United States– Palmer Raids
• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer– Appointed J. Edgar Hoover to lead the new antiradical division of the
Justice Department (August 1919) later became the FBI– Suspected Communists, socialists, and anarchists hunted down– Inconclusive
– Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti• Anarchists from Italy, avoided draft in WWI• Accused of robbing and killing a factory paymaster (April 1920)• Found guilty and executed (August 1927)• Many believed that their conviction/execution was a result of the
times
Anti-immigrant Response• Revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
– Had been somewhat inactive since 1870’s– Used “Red Scare” and anti-immigrant feelings
(resulting from end of WWI) to harass all those that were different
– Edward Clark• Pyramid structure members kept $4 out of the
$10 membership fee for every new member they recruited
• 1924, 4.5 million members nationwide– Opposed: African Americans, Jews, Catholics,
immigrants, unions, saloons, & alcohol
Election of 1920 & A “Return to Normalcy”
• Warren G. Harding (R, OH)– Senator from Ohio– “looked like a president
ought to look”– Calvin Coolidge (R, MA)
running mate– Promised a “return to
normalcy”– Easily won
• 404 -127
Harding’s Administration• Calm
– Pardoned Debs• Disarmament
– Washington Conference & Kellogg-Briand Pact (1921)• Nations of the world agreed to disarm and not to resort to war
• Isolationist– The Emergency Quota Act (1921)
• Established maximum number of people who could enter the U. S. from each foreign country
• Cut European immigration• Chart p. 438
– Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922)• Highest tax on imports to that date• Made it difficult for Britain and France to pay their war debt to the U.S.
– Britain and France looked to force Germany to pay them their war debt so they could repay the U. S.
– U. S. loaned money to Germany
Scandal in Harding’s Administration• Cabinet selections
– Good• Charles Evans Hughes (Secretary of State)
– Later become CJ of SC• Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce)
– Future president• Andrew Mellon (Secretary of the Treasury)
– Reduced the national debt by 1/3 by 1923
– Bad• Ohio Gang
– Harding’s friends from back home– Albert B. Fall (Secretary of the Interior)
Teapot Dome Scandal• Oil-rich lands at Teapot Dome, Wyoming & Elk Hills,
California– Albert Fall had these lands transferred to the Interior Department
• Secretly leased the lands to two private oil companies (received $325,000 in bonds and cash)
• Harding’s goodwill tour– Set out on a trip from D.C. to Alaska in the summer of 1923– Knew his administration had been labeled as corrupt & wanted to
talk to normal people– Returning from Alaska to San Francisco became ill and died on
August 2, 1923– Body had to be transported back across the country– Calvin Coolidge became president
Business in the 1920’s• Automobile industry
– Car Wars• Ford v. General Motors
– Henry Ford v. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
– Time of prosperity• Coolidge & Hoover led pro-
business administrations• Americans owned 40% of the
world’s wealth– Changes
• Paved roads• New houses—garages • Gas stations, repair shops,
underwater tunnels (Holland Tunnel, 1927)
• Urban sprawl spread of cities people can live further away from jobs
• Akron, OH; Detroit, Dearborn, Flint, & Pontiac, MI
Car Wars• Ford Motor Company• Henry Ford
– Assembly line & standardization• “The way to make automobiles is to make one automobile like another automobile, to
make them all alike—just like one pin is like another pin when it comes from a pin factory…”
• “build a car for the great multitude”• Model T
– 1908, $850– 1925, $290– Increased output and improvement of production led to reduced prices
• Ford believed that every $ chopped off the price led to a thousand new buyers• Early 1920’s, FMC produced over 50% of all the automobiles in the world
– Very basic, all the same style & color (black)– 1919, Henry Ford bought all of the outstanding shares of FMC and took it private– “first-mover advantages”– Competition from GM will lead to the development of the Model A
• 1927, more luxurious than the Model T, available in different colors, covered roof• 1933, new models every year
Car Wars• General Motors• Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
– Graduated from MIT– 1918 United Motors & General Motors merger, Sloan made VP– Sensed the desire for different models and “status symbols”
• Designed different lines at progressively higher prices to imply higher social status
• “a car for every purse and purpose”– Chevrolet competed w/Ford’s Model T– Pontiac– Oldsmobile– Buick– Cadillac
– Beginning in 1925, and continuing for 61 years, GM’s profit performance exceeded Ford’s
Prosperity?• New advertising• Installment plan
– Way of paying for goods over an extended period of time, without putting too much money down at the time of purchase
– Over-extend themselves– Relevance to today?
Societal Changes in the 1920’sNorth
-Urban
-NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia
-museums, plays, sporting events, nightclubs
-immigrants
-many different religions (Catholicism, Judaism, Protestantism, etc…)
South & West
-Rural
-small towns
-Fundamentalism
-Protestant movement grounded in a literal interpretation of the Bible
-Bible was inspired by God and therefore all of its stories were true down to every detail
Societies Clash in the 1920’s• Prohibition
– Reformers had long considered alcohol a prime cause of corruption
• Fundamentalists (Anti-Saloon League)
• Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
– 18th Amendment (ratified 1919, enacted 1920)
• Prohibited the manufacture, sale, transport, import, or export of alcoholic beverages
• Repealed by 21st Amendment (1933)
– Failed• Government didn’t budget
enough men or money to enforce
• Speakeasies hidden saloons and nightclubs
• Bootleggers liquor smugglers
• Organized crime Al Capone
• Scopes Trial (“Monkey Trial”), July 1925– March 1925, TN passed nation’s first
law that made it a crime to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution
– ACLU promised to defend any teacher who would challenge the law
– John T. Scopes, biology teacher in Dayton, TN taught evolution & was arrested
– Scopes was obviously guilty but the trial became more about the debate between the role of fundamentalism and science in society
– ACLU hired Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes
– William Jennings Bryan served as a special prosecutor
– National press cover the trial (Chicago’s WGN covered it live)
– Case turned when Darrow called Bryan as an expert witness on the Bible
– Darrow caught Bryan in ambiguity– Scopes found guilty, fined $100
Changes for Women in the 1920’s• 19th Amendment (ratified
1920)• Equality vs. double
standard• Flapper
– Young woman of the ‘20’s that embraced the new fashions and attitudes of the day
• New work opportunities– All types of jobs (traditional
and non-traditional)– By 1930, 10 million women
were in the workforce• Marriage changes
Schools & Media in the ‘20’s• Schools
– Enrollments increased• 1926, 4 million Americans attended high school
– Expanded education• Broad range of students (immigrants)• Vocational training
• Media– Expanded news coverage
• Many media publications (newspapers & magazines) originated in the ‘20’s
– Time, Reader’s Digest, New York Daily News, etc…– Radio
• Most powerful communications medium to emerge in the ‘20’s• Made news available instantly
Heroes and Entertainment• Charles Lindbergh
– First to make a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic• Sports heroes
– Babe Ruth– Jack Dempsey– Knute Rockne & Notre Dame
• Movies– 1925, fourth largest industry in nation– Hollywood & silent films
• Charlie Chaplin– 1928, Disney’s Steamboat Willie
• Theater, Music, & Art• Literature
– Sinclair Lewis first American to win Nobel Prize in literature (Main Street, Babbitt)
– F. Scott Fitzgerald coined term “Jazz Age” for the 1920’s, wrote The Great Gatsby
– Ernest Hemingway WWI vet, A Farewell to Arms
Harlem Renaissance• Literary and artistic movement celebrating African-
American culture led by well-educated, middle class African Americans– Harlem, NYC world’s largest black urban community in
the ‘20’s• The Great Migration
– Race riots in the North– NAACP
» W. E. B. Du Bois» James Weldon Johnson antilynching legislation
– Explored and celebrated their African heritage• Langston Hughes
– Movement’s best-known poet– Everyday lives of working-class African Americans– Incorporation of jazz and the blues
Roaring Twenties• Economic prosperity• New ideas• Changing values• Personal freedom• Art, literature, and music