america in the roaring twenties. palmer raids, 1919 attorney general of usa, a. mitchell palmer...
TRANSCRIPT
America in the Roaring Twenties
Palmer Raids, 1919Attorney General of USA, A. Mitchell Palmer•Arrested 6000
radicals after bombings in 8 cities
•Galleanists: “There will have to be murder; we will kill, because it is necessary”
•Palmer’s own home in DC was damaged by a bomb
•249 communists and anarchists deported to Russia, 1919
Anarchist Luigi Galleani, deported to Italy 1919
•Exiled, imprisoned, escaped•Promised “We will dynamite you!” after passage of Anarchist Act•Published bomb-making manual, The Health is In You!
Emma Goldman deported, 1919
Subscription list of Mother Earth provided gov’t with names during Red Scare
J. Edgar Hoover led Department of Investigation (later the FBI)
Alexander Berkman
Red Scare
•Anarchist Act, 1920
•State laws against Criminal Syndicalism
•Prosecution of Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”)
Sacco and Vanzetti Case, 1927
•Charged with murder of paymaster and security guard in armed robbery•Braintree, MA 1921•Italian immigrants, draft dodgers, anarchists•Executed 1927 after high-profile trial•Radicals claimed political frame-up
American Legion
•Patriotism
•Veterans Rights and Benefits, especially the “Bonus”
•Conservatism
•Law and Order
•Anti-radicalism
Revival of Ku Klux Klan
• Anti-foreign, anti-black, anti-Catholic
• Strong in Midwest and South
• 5 million dues-paying members
• Powerful in Democrat Party• Led parade of 40,000 in
Washington, DC 1925
“Invisible Empire”
Immigration Quota Act, 1924
•New laws limited a country’s immigration to 3% of the number who had been in the US in 1910•Intended to cut back on those coming from Eastern Europe•Changed to 2% of those in 1890 census, 1924•Total exclusion of Japanese•No quotas for Canadians or Latin Americans
Prohibition: the Noble Experiment
•Popular in South and Midwest, not in big cities•Difficult to enforce•Corruption, bribery•Bootleggers, smugglers, moonshiners•Gangsterism, organized crime worth $12 billion
Al Capone aka “Public Enemy
#1”
Scopes Monkey TrialDayton, TN 1925
•John Scopes was fired for teaching evolution, illegal in Tennessee•Fundamentalists vs Darwinists •Wm J. Bryan vs Clarence Darrow•H.L. Mencken wrote about the trial, ridiculing Bryan and his followers•Inherit the Wind is based on this case
Economic Prosperity
•Cheap fuel, coal and oil•Electrification of cities•Automobile•Household appliances: refrigerators, washers, vacuums, radios•Advertising•Credit buying, installment plan, “buy now, pay later”•Mass entertainment: spectator sports, movies•High profits and wages
Auto Industry•Assembly line, mass production techniques•Industry leaders: Ford, Sloan, Olds•Detroit became the “Motor City”•500,000 Model T’s by 1914•Rubber, glass, fabric, repair, gas stations, travel industries grew rapidly•Freedom, tourism, leisure•Growth of suburbs•6 million jobs by 1930
Henry Ford with “Tin Lizzie”
Charles Lindbergh & Spirit of St. Louis
Jazz Age•Hollywood movie industry: first “talkie” was The Jazz Singer•Jazz bands popular in New Orleans, Chicago, New York•Widespread popularity of radio programs: news, sports, music, drama, religion•Harlem Renaissance displayed black musicians, singers, dancers, artists, writers
A typical Flapper
Movie Stars of the 1920s
Clara BowCharlie Chaplin
Rudolph Valentino
George Herman “Babe” Ruth
New York
Yankees
“The Bambino”
“The Sultan of Swat”
Louis Armstrong, “Satchmo”
Jazz Band, Harlem 1920s
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues
“The Negro Speaks of
Rivers”
Marcus Garvey•Jamaican immigrant•Black Nationalist•Favored black-owned businesses, racial pride and unity•Universal Negro Improvement Association•Popular among working-class blacks in Harlem•“Back-to-Africa” Movement•Black Star Steamship Co.•Convicted of fraud, deported
The Lost Generation
F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway
The Great Gatsby The Sun Also Rises
Cynicism, alienation, pessimism
H.L. Mencken Sinclair Lewis
Baltimore Sun; American Mercury Main Street; Babbitt; Elmer Gantry
The Politics of Boom and Bust
The Politics of Boom and Bust
Warren G. Harding
•Republican from Ohio•“Back to Normalcy”
•Easygoing, amiable, intellectually flabby
•“Not a bad man, just a slob”—Alice Roosevelt
•Pro-business, anti-reform•Appointed Taft as Chief Justice
•Pardoned Eugene Debs•Poker-playing whiskey drinker
•Enjoyed socializing with his cronies, the “Ohio Gang”•Died of a stroke, 1923
Presidential Election of 1920
Eugene Debs received pardon from Harding, left federal prison
Harding’s Cabinet
Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State
Andrew Mellon, Secretary of
Treasury
Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce
Albert Fall, Secretary of
Interior
Republican Foreign Policy•Isolationism—No membership in League of Nations•Negotiations for oil drilling rights in Middle East•No diplomatic relations with communist gov’t of Russia•Disarmament Conference reduced size of naval fleets•Kellogg-Briand Pact renounced war, declared it illegal•Tariffs raised, reducing world trade, causing retaliation, hurting Europe’s ability to repay debts from WW I•Left problems such as Japan’s invasion of Manchuria to a weak League of Nations
Teapot Dome scandal leads to bribery conviction of Albert Fall
Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
•Honest, frugal, hard-working, laconic; “Silent Cal”
•Favored lower taxes, reduction of public debt
•“The business of America is business”
•Sworn in as president after sudden death of Harding
•Conservative Republican from Massachusetts
•Enforced Prohibition
•Kept Mellon as Sec of Treasury
•Allowed loans to Germany, which paid Br and Fr, who repaid USA
Presidential Election, 1924
Herbert Hoover, 1929-
1933•Coolidge said “I do not choose to run” in 1928•Republicans nominated Hoover, a Quaker engineer from Iowa, former Sec of Commerce and Food Administrator in WW I•“Rugged Individualism”•Isolationism, small government, low taxes, free enterprise•Signed Hawley-Smoot Tariff, his worst mistake
Presidential Election of 1928
Stock Market Crash October 1929
5000 Banks Failed
4 million unemployed in 193012 million unemployed in 1932
Soup Kitchens fed jobless men
“Hooverville”
Hoover’s Policies
•Gov’t loans to railroad, banks, rural credit corporations: Reconstruction Finance Corporation
•Public Works like Hoover Dam
•Encouragement of private charity and local government to provide direct “relief”
•Norris-LaGuardia Act to help labor unions: no “yellow-dog” contracts, no court injunctions against strikes and boycotts
•Optimistic speeches: “Prosperity is just around the corner”
•Hawley-Smoot tariff
“Bonus Army” veterans protest in Washington, 1932
Douglas Macarthur led troops to expel Bonus Marchers from DC, 1932