Introduction to the 1920sIntroduction to the 1920s

U.S. History

Mrs. Janiak

PLHS

A. Eighteenth Amendment= Increase in Crime• Eighteenth Amendment known as the Volstead Act, commonly

referred to as Prohibition made it a federal offense to-– Create or sell alcohol– But still legal to purchase or use alcohol

• By 1930, over 1/3 of the 12,000 inmates of federal prisons were prohibition violators

B. Nineteenth Amendment and the New Woman

• Women voting: opportunity for greater social standing and independence.

• Marked an era for a fresh beginning for women.

• Fashions, attitudes, habits, behavior, and social norms began changing from the strict Victorian era to a new female image in the 20s.

C. Return to “Normalcy”

• Dismantled the “war machine” to a peace era

• Workers lost jobs in the war production factories.

• Two million troops returned home looking for work

• Senate rejected the League of Nations, giving Americans the feel that their lives would not be disrupted by war again.

D. Labor strikes

• Increasing paranoia of communism known as the Red Scare, led to the arrests and deportation of radicals and Socialists, often in labor unions.

• Needing higher wages, Seattle workers, nationwide steelworkers and coal miners and the Boston police produced widespread panic by striking.

E. Great Migration, Jim Crow

• 500,000 African-Americans moved to the Northern cities by 1919, led to increased competition for jobs and social tension among races.

• Race riots broke out in Chicago and Washington D.C.

• “Jim Crow” laws= laws in the South requiring strict segregation of African-Americans, attempting to keep African-Americans inferior to the whites

F. Nativists and Paranoia

• Concerned about changes to tradition like labor unions, radicals, immigrants and African-Americans led to stronger nativist organizations.

• KKK- spread nationwide and sought to restrict Jewish and Catholic immigrants, repress the African-Americans.

• Federal Bureau of Investigation- began surveillance of any groups/ people thought to be “un-American”

H. Cultural changes

• First commercial radio broadcast= new age of home access to information and entertainment

• Literary creativity• Baseball (Yankees bought Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox)• Musical entertainment• Silent films• New dances- the Charleston• Buying items on credit• New household appliances