Copy of America in the 1920s

America in the 1920s

• What post-war struggles did America experience during the 1920s? What were these scares?
• How did the flourishing of American business increase American's standard of living?
• What effect did the Prohibition have on social norms? How did social norms expand?
• How did American culture change during the 1920s? Include examples of the Scopes Trial, the automobile, music, art, and sports.
• How did the Harlem Renaissance give African-Americans a voice and enter popular culture?

Learning Objectives

Post War Struggles and Scares

The Palmer Raids

The Red Scare

A Change America

Palmer appointed J. Edgar Hoover as his special assistant.

Together, along with their agents, hunted down suspected Communists, socialists, and anarchists (people who opposed any form of government).

Homes and offices were invaded without search warrants, and jailed suspects without legal counsel. Hundreds of foreign-born radicals would be deported without a trial.

May 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the robbery and murder of a factory paymaster and his guard in South Braint, Massachusetts.

Communism- economic and political system based on one-party government ruled by a dictatorship. In order to equalize wealth and power, Communists would put an end to private property, substituting government ownership of factories, railroads, and other businesses.

Remember Vladimir Lenin from Russia? His Communist party is now calling for a world wide Communist take over.

70,000 radicals created a Communist party in America, many from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

When several bombs were mailed to government and business leaders, the public grew fearful that the Communists were taking over.

U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer looked to combat this "Red Scare."

As American soldiers returned home from the war, they found a changed America.

Returning soldiers faced unemployment or took their old jobs back from women or minorities. The cost of living had doubled. Factory workers and farmers suffered as wartime orders diminished.

Many Americans responded with feelings of nativism (prejudice against foreign-born people). They also continued to believe in isolationism, or the policy of pulling away from involvement in world affairs.

Labor Unrest

Immigration Becomes Limited

1919- America saw more than 3,000 strikes.

The Boston Police Strike- no raises since WWI, no unions. Boston police went on strike. Governor Calvin Coolidge sent the National Guard. "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." New police were hired and the strike ended.

The Steel Mill Strike- workers wanted shorter work hours and a living wage, as well as union recognition. U.S. Steel Corporation refused to meet with them. 300,000 workers walked off the job. The company hired "strikebreakers" and used force against the workers on strike. U.S. Steel linked the strikes to communism. The workers would return to work, but would not receive an eight hour work day until three years later.

The Coal Miners' Strike- John L. Lewis (leader of the United Mine Workers of America) called the union's members to strike on November 1, 1919 to protest low wages and long workdays. Attorney General Palmer obtained a court order to send the miners back to work. Lewis would give secret word to miners to continue the strike. Workers would get a 27% pay increase after a month.

As more and more immigrants migrated to the United States, groups of bigots used anti-communism as a way to harass groups unlike themselves.

The most famous of these groups would be the reemergence of the Ku Klu Klan. This group looked to use scare tactics and violence against minorities, destroyed saloons, opposed unions, and attempted to drive all Roman Catholics, Jews, and foreign-born people out of the country.

Congress would limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe with the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. This act would establish a quota system- setting up a maximum number of immigrants allowed into the country.

Labor Movement Loses Appeal

The labor movement was hurt by the 1920s. Union membership dropped from 5 million to 3.5 million.

Membership declined for several reasons-

• much of the work force consisted of immigrants willing to work in poor conditions
• since immigrants spoke a multitude of languages, unions had a difficulty organizing them
• farmers who had migrated to cities to find factory jobs were used to relying on themselves
• most unions excluded African Americans

"Looks like a President ought to look"

- American Public

Warren G. Harding

Elected the 29th President in 1921

Elected on his platform of "normalcy"

American Industries Flourish

Calvin Coolidge and his successor Herbert Hoover fit the pro-business spirit of the 1920s- keep taxes down and business profits up, and give businesses more available credit in order to expand.

With the expanding use of the automobile, paved roads were made across America, the most famous of these is Route 66, and you could

travel from your rural homes to the city for shopping and entertainment.

Urban sprawl- the unplanned and uncontrolled spreading of cities into surrounding regions

The car would become a status symbol- a possession believed to enhance the owner's social standing.

By the late 1920's, 80% of the world's registered drivers will be in the United States, with one in five people having a automobile.

The Flourishing American Business

The Harding Presidency- Scandalous!

Struggling for Peace

At the Washington Naval Conference (called to solve problems relating to arms control, war debts, and the reconstruction of war-torn countries), Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes urged that no more warships be built for ten years and the five major naval powers (U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) scrap many of their largest warships.

In 1922, the U.S. adopted the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, raising tariffs on U.S. imports by 60%, the highest level ever.

This forced Great Britain and France, who were to repay their 10 Billion dollar loans back to the U.S. by selling goods to the U.S. or by collecting money from Germany for reparations, to collect this money from Germany.

Germany would default on the payments, and French troops would march into Germany. The U.S. would arrange for loans to be made to Germany from U.S. banks in what was known as the Dawes Plan. This allowed Germany to repay Britain and France, so they could pay the U.S.

Airplanes!

Airplanes began to be manufactured and used for the U.S. Postal Service and to ship goods.

People also began to use airplanes as transportation to travel long distances in short amounts of time.

The first transatlantic passenger flight company was established in 1927. (Pan American Airlines)

It's Electric!

By the end of the 1920s, more and more homes had electricity and used electric appliances such as refrigerators, stoves and toasters.

With new products, also came new ways to advertise. Companies would hire psychologists to study how to appeal to people.

Standard of Living Soars

America owns around 40% of the world's wealth

The average yearly income went from $522 to $705

Scandal, Scandal, Scandal

Harding's Cabinet:

Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State

Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce

Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury

Ohio Gang- friends of Harding who obtained positions within his cabinet that would cause scandals and embarrassment for the President.

Main Problem- Harding didn't understand the issues and his corrupt friends would use their government jobs to get wealthy illegally.

Teapot Dome Scandal- land was set aside in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California for use by the U.S. Navy. Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, transferred this land from the Navy to the Interior Department, then leased the land to two private oil companies. He would receive "loans, bonds, and cash" totaling more than $400,000. Later, he would be convicted of bribery.

Superficial Prosperity

Businesses expanded as productivity increased. Companies began to merge and chain stores began to appear across the nation. Banks began to branch out within the cities.

Farms began to produce more, driving food prices down. Iron and railroad companies began to become less profitable.

Installment plan- enabled people to buy goods over an extended period, without having to put down much money at the time of purchase.

Harding will die suddenly in office on August 2, 1923. His Vice-President Calvin Coolidge, would become President and win reelection 2 years later.

Prohibition and New Social Norms

Cities increased in size during the 1920s, with nearly 2 million people leaving farms and towns to move to larger cities.

Prohibition- in 1920, the 18th Amendment outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol.

Many believed that too much drinking led to crime, wife and child abuse, accidents on the job, and other serious social problems. Support for this claim came mostly from the rural South and West.

Prohibition Bureau was in charge of enforcing Prohibition. It would be underfunded and employ approximately 1,500 federal agents.

Speakeasies- illegal saloons or nightclubs. It would get its name because when inside, one spoke quietly, or "easily" to avoid detection.

Medical and Religious alcohol was still allowed through special means.

Bootleggers- people who smuggled alcohol into the country from Canada, Cuba, and the West Indies.

Organized crime flourished during Prohibition as bootlegging empires would be created, such as Al Capone's.

Prohibition would be a failure and be repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.

Harlem Renaissance

Notable People

Harlem Renaissance- a literary and artistic movement celebrating African-American culture.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington

Louis Armstrong

Science v.s. Religion

4 Million High School Students! Up 3 Million since 1914.

Increasing News Coverage- City newspapers began to make their way to rural areas, magazines began to be mass-circulated around the nation.

Radio broadcasts start to become more and more important as Americans began to be able to listen to the President speak or listen to the World Series as it happened.

The Protestant movement grounded a literal, or non symbolic, interpretation of the Bible was known as fundamentalism.

Did not believe many scientific discoveries - believed all important knowledge could be found in the Bible.

Rejected the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin.

These fundamentalists called for laws to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools. Tennessee was the first to pass such a law.

The American Civil Liberties Union would pledge to defend any teacher that taught evolution, and John T. Scopes would be the first to defy this law.

Clarence Darrow- the most famous lawyer in the 1920s that would be selected by the ACLU to defend Scopes in court.

Williams Jennings Bryant- 3 time president candidate would be the prosecutor.

The Scopes Trial would be a fight over evolution and the role of science and religion in public schools and in American society.

Education and Culture

Charles Lindberg- first man to complete a non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean

Babe Ruth- baseball star for the New York Yankees

Walt Disney

George Gershwin- concert music composer who merged traditional elements with American jazz

Georgia O' Keeffe- artist who produced intensely colored canvases of New York

Sinclair Lewis- first American to win a Nobel Peace prize in literature.

F. Scott Fitzgerald- author of "The Great Gatsby" and "This Side of Paradise."

Ernest Hemingway- author of "A Farewell to Arms."

Americans began to pay more attention to athletes, celebrities, and authors.

Flapper- emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes of the day.

Attitudes on what was acceptable for a woman to do began to change and views on marriage as an equal partnership.

The Changing Life of Women