The 1920’sThe 1920’s

The Roaring Jazz Age or the Turbulent Twenties?

What is Happening Here?What is Happening Here?

What Does This Movie Poster What Does This Movie Poster Suggest About the Era?Suggest About the Era?

The 1920s Must Be….??The 1920s Must Be….??

Turbulent Decade or Jazz Age?Turbulent Decade or Jazz Age?

• Prohibition and Women’s Suffrage usher in the decade

• US becomes more modern• Movies, radio, the car, mass production• Harding, Coolidge and Hoover: Scandals• The Red Scare• US stays isolated from foreign affairs• More Americans lived in towns and cities then in

the countryside

Do we need so many laws??Do we need so many laws??

• Do laws help to prevent crime or do they assist in the creation of crime? Explain.

Prohibition and Women’s Prohibition and Women’s SuffrageSuffrage

PART I

Why Prohibition???Why Prohibition???

• Began in the progressive era, a time of reform in America

• Improve social conditions• Reduce crime & family instability• Increase economic efficiency• Purify politics• Alcohol reduced efficiency of soldiers.• Progressives, Baptists, Methodists, Protestants,

women’s temperance unions all pushed for prohibition

Trading Alcohol for Al Trading Alcohol for Al CaponeCapone

• Prohibition – alcohol is illegal• 18th Amendment 1/1919• Volstead Act 10/1919,

established Prohibition Bureau (Eliot Ness), set penalties

• Speakeasies, bootlegging, organized crime

• Medicinal uses• Enforcement issues• 21st Amendment 1933 –

repealed the 18th

A Raid in Lake OntarioA Raid in Lake Ontario

Was this “noble experiment” a Was this “noble experiment” a success???success???

• Was prohibition a success? What did the Senate judiciary committee of 1926 feel about the progress of prohibition?

Women’s Suffrage Women’s Suffrage • Movement began during

colonial times• Women made great strides

toward equality during WWI

• 19th Amendment 8/26/20• "The right of citizens of

the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

• 1920 Women vote in election

A Time of AmendmentsA Time of Amendments

Explain the purpose of each of the following three Constitutional Amendments: 18th, 19th & 21st. Which do you feel is the most important? Explain.

THE USA AFTER WWITHE USA AFTER WWI

The Economy, The Red Scare, Immigration and Politics

Part III

BOOM TIMESBOOM TIMES

“One hundred thousand people flocked into the showrooms of the Ford Company in Detroit; mounted police were called out to patrol the streets of Cleveland, in Kansas City so a great a mob stormed Convention Hall that the platforms had to be built to lift the new car high enough for everyone to see”

Post WWI IssuesPost WWI Issues

• Communist Russia– Will Communism infect the

minds of Americans?

• Postwar Economy– High unemployment

– Inflation

– Low wages

• Labor Unrest– Worker’s strikes crippled

production

Land of Opportunity? Land of Opportunity? • Red Scare

– Paranoia and exaggeration caused hysteria

• Bomb Scares – 36 mail bombs discovered• Bolshevism

– Communist Conspiracy, a call for a worldwide revolution of workers

– .5% of Americans

• Palmer Raids – raids in 33 cities. 4000 arrests and 560 deportations of “communists”

• Nativism – National Origins Act 1924– Limited immigration, European, 2% of the number of

people living in the US from that country (census 1890)

The Red Scare Was….The Red Scare Was….

“A nation-wide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent — a revolution that would destroy private property, Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of Life.”

- Historian L.B. Murray

"These attacks will only increase the activities "These attacks will only increase the activities of our crime-detecting forces" of our crime-detecting forces"

The Impact of National Origins The Impact of National Origins ActAct

Does he have a point?Does he have a point?

“Not for at least half a century, perhaps at no time in our history had there been such a wholesale violation of civil liberties”

- Historian William Leuchtenburg

Review QuestionReview Question

What was America so SCARED of after WWI and in the early 1920s? Why? Name two consequences of this fear?

3 Strikes!!! – (3,600 in 1919)3 Strikes!!! – (3,600 in 1919)

• Seattle General –60,000 peaceful• Boston Police – 75% of officers

– “agents of Lenin”– “Bolshevik nightmare” – Strikers did not regain their jobs

• Steel Strike – Pennsylvania, 365,000, Black and Mexican replacement workers are brought in, strikers jailed beaten or shot!

• How did these strikes help “fuel” the Red Scare?

Sacco and VanzettiSacco and Vanzetti

Seriously?Seriously?

“This man Vanzetti, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable [guilty], because he is an enemy of our existing institutions…..The defendants ideas are cognate [associated] with the crime”

-Judge Thayer

Returning to Normal and Returning to Normal and Keeping it CoolKeeping it Cool

29 & 30 – Republican Presidents 29 & 30 – Republican Presidents • “A return to normalcy” – Harding 1920

– The Ohio Gang– Teapot Dome Scandal – Albert B. Fall

• “Keep it cool with Coolidge” 1924• “The business of government is business”-Silent

Cal– Prosperity and Thrift– Very popular after Harding’s corruption– “I do not choose to run for president in nineteen twenty

eight”

• Republican capitalism– High Tariffs – to stimulate domestic business– Trickle-down “a rising tide floats all boats”

Cars and ConsumerismCars and Consumerism

Part IV

Henry FordHenry Ford

• Assembly Line Production- cut production time in ½

• Model T• Output

– 1920-1.9 mill– 1930-5 mill

• Payment Plans – Workers

• Gave birth to 400,000 miles of new roads

• Road side businesses

Working on the Chain Gang?Working on the Chain Gang?

“The chain system [assembly line] you have is a slave driver! My God! Mr. Ford. My husband has come home and thrown himself down and won’t eat his supper – so done out! Can’t it be remedied?……..That $5 a day is a blessing one bigger than you know but oh they earn it”

- Wife of a Ford worker

Review QuestionReview Question

• Who said “The business of America is business”? How did he support this claim?

• The auto industry was one of America’s best during the decade of the 1920s, use statistics to support this statement. If you could hold one person responsible for this who would it be and why?

Creating ConsumersCreating Consumers• 1926 – 75% of cars on credit• Items that were “pleasing” to look at• Planned obsolescence – creating something that is

planned to go out of style• Chain-stores, A&P 14,000 by 1925 • Advertising – pre WWI = $500 million by 1929 $3

billion– Magazines, newspaper, billboards, radio– Targeted women– Slogans, jingles, celebrities

Marketing WisdomMarketing Wisdom“To keep America growing we must keep

America working, and to keep America working we must keep them wanting; wanting more than the bare necessities; wanting the luxuries and frills that make life so much more worthwhile, and installment selling makes it easier to keep Americans wanting”

- Car dealer

HOMEWORKHOMEWORK15 POINTS15 POINTS

• DUE FRIDAY 10/1: FIND AN ADVERTISEMENT IN A RECENT MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER. CUT OUT THE AD.– EXPLAIN WHY IT IS AN EFFECTIVE AD– EXPLAIN WHY YOU CHOSE THAT AD– IS YOUR AD SIMILAR OR DIFFERENT

FROM THE ADS OF THE 1920’S? EXPLAIN

Women and African Women and African Americans in the 1920sAmericans in the 1920s

PART III

Women of the 1920’sWomen of the 1920’s

• Women were able to vote and serve on juries but they gained little influence

• Few women held positions in political parties or were elected to office

• Women had greater job opportunities but faced tremendous discrimination at work

• The social lives of women changed most

Flappers – The Exception or the Flappers – The Exception or the Rule??Rule??

• The “new woman” • “Stylish, adventurous, independent, career

minded”• No more corsets, short skirts instead• Bobbed or short hair style• Participated in sports and drove cars• Taxi drivers, teachers, stenographers, pilots etc. • Most women were still house wives (married &

older, a small percentage were flappers (young & single)

FLAPPERSFLAPPERS

W.E.B. Du BoisW.E.B. Du Bois

– We Return

– We return from fighting

– We return fighting

Historian David Levering Lewis Historian David Levering Lewis Wrote….Wrote….

“In the course of his long, turbulent career, W. E. B.

Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism”

Violence EruptsViolence Erupts

• By late 1919 25 Race Riots erupted

• “People [African Americans] were seen to flee from their burning home, some with babies in their arms”

• “The colored troops fought nobly [In WWI]. We have something to fight for now”

The Great Black MigrationThe Great Black Migration

• General trend of Urbanization

• 1920s 800,000 Blacks moved North

The Fight For Equality The Fight For Equality BeginsBegins

– NAACP- W E B Dubois (1909)• Formed the anti-lynching committee• The Crisis – newsletter which published accounts of

violence• Appealed to the well educated

– Marcus Garvey (UNIA) -“We shall now organize”• Aimed to unite all those of African descent worldwide,

lost hope of achieving equality in America• “Back to Africa”• Black owned businesses• Appealed to the working class• “He made black people proud, he taught them that black

is beautiful”

White BacklashWhite Backlash• 1920 100,000 new members,

fueled by the red-scare

• Nativism – white Protestant American born, white supremacy

• The new KKK

– 1920-over 700 lynchings

– North & Mid-West

– Infiltrated all aspects of society

Review QuestionReview Question

**Yesterday we discussed the challenges that blacks faced “growing up in the 1920s”. What efforts were made in the quest for equal rights during this decade? How did some of “white America” respond to this?**

““Growing up Black”Growing up Black”

What was Daisy Bates’ experience like growing up

black in the 1920s?

Jazz, Sports, Radio and Jazz, Sports, Radio and Religion Religion

Part IV

Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance • Flourishing of artistic

development

• Glowing pride in black culture- “The New Negro”

• Langston Hughes

• Zora Neale Hurston

• Harlem Jazz– Savoy, Cotton Club

– Duke Ellington

– Count Basie

– Benny Goodman

– Louis Armstrong

THE DUKETHE DUKE

IF WE MUST DIE - IF WE MUST DIE - Claude McKayClaude McKay

“If we must die, let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry

dogs….What though before us lies an open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

Langston HughesLangston Hughes

“We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, & we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves”

““The Lost The Lost Generation”Generation”

• Rise of a new generation of American Writers

• Reflected gloom of WWI and scorned “superficial” middle class

• Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms

• F. Scott Fitzgerald – This Side of Paradise & The Great Gatsby

                                                   

                                                                

1927 – 11927 – 1stst Talkie – The Jazz Talkie – The Jazz SingerSinger

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

AL JOLSON

Sports of the 1920sSports of the 1920s

BABE RUTH JIM THORPE

Charles Lindbergh – “Spirit of St. Charles Lindbergh – “Spirit of St. Louis”, non stop NY – Paris (1927)Louis”, non stop NY – Paris (1927)

Monkey BusinessMonkey Business• The Scopes Monkey Trial• 1925• John T Scopes (teacher)• Dayton, Tennessee• Teaches theory of evolution to his class• Tennessee state law outlawed the

teaching of anything but the Biblical creation story

• William Jennings Bryan – Prosecutor (fundamentalist)

• Clarence Darrow (ACLU) – defense attorney

Science vs. ReligionScience vs. Religion

• Bryan represented many Americans who felt that evolution contradicted their religious beliefs

• Darrow “Today it’s the public school teachers, tomorrow the private, the next day the preacher and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers”

• Scopes loses and is fined $100• Bryan who was called by Darrow as a witness

came to represent “narrow-minded” Americans

John T Scopes Darrow

Jennings Bryan