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