The 1920s

Decade of Contrasts

Warren G. Harding

The Harding Scandals

Teapot Dome

Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall

Harding Funeral

Calvin Coolidge

Meanwhile on the cultural front . . .

The Jazz Age

Flappers

Prohibition

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The decade of the 1920s was “the gaudiest spree on record”~F. Scott Fitzgerald

Eugenics

• Claimed that blacks, Italians, Jews, and other groups were “human weeds.”

• Said that Australian aborigines were “the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development.”

Margaret Sanger

Klan Resurgence of the 1920s

Social Commentators of the 1920s

Sinclair Lewis

Social Commentators of the 1920s

H. L. Mencken

But meanwhile . . .

Billy Sunday

William Jennings Bryan’s Campaign against Darwinism in Schools

The Scopes Trial, 1925:A Publicity Stunt

• A publicity stunt• Intended to put

Dayton, Tennessee, on the map

• Based on the false claim that Scopes actually taught Darwinism

• A response to the ACLU’s solicitation

The Scopes Trial

Clarence Darrow

The Scopes Trial,Differing Objectives

• Dayton town boosters: to put Dayton on the map

• Bryan: to defend a belief in the special creation of man

• Darrow: to attack and ridicule Bryan, the Bible, and Christianity

The Scopes Trial

The Scopes Trial and the Media

H. L. Mencken

Politics

The Election of 1928

Al Smith, Democrat Herbert Hoover, Republican

Winner

The Great Bull MarketThe Stock Market Crash of 1929