The New Era1920s

Life cover, July 1, 1926

"One Hundred and Forty-three Years of LIBERTY and Seven Years of PROHIBITION."

(Private Collection)

Life cover, July 1, 1926

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

What aspects of life created the reputation of the “Roaring 20s”?

In what ways and to what degree were the 1920s a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on the one hand and traditional values on the other. (Consider Race relations, immigration/ nativism, role of women, consumerism)

BUSINESSBOOM

BUSINESS PROSPERITYECONOMIC PROSPERITY:

productivity: up 50%

unemployment: 4-9-

12%? real income: up 25%standard of living: (where?)

indoor plumbing central heatingelectricity (2/3 by 1930)

CAUSES OF BUSINESS PROSPERITY: Increased productivity (scientific management, machinery)

Increased use of oil and electricity Favorable government policy (tax breaks, antitrust)

Gross National Product, 1920-1930

Unemployment, 1920-1930

Automobiles & Industrial Expansion

Henry Ford‘fordism’

Ford Highland Park assembly line, 1928(From the Collections of Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village)

“Trying out the new assembly line“ Detroit, 1913Henry Ford (1835-

1947)

1913: 14 hours to build a new car1928: New Ford off assembly line every 10 seconds

1913: car=2 yrs wages1929: 3 mos. wages

Auto Manufacturing

PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS unions lose WWI gains:

open shopscompany unionsinjunctions

“welfare capitalism”employment insecurity

PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS Income Distribution, 1929

$10,000+$5,000-$9999$2000-$4999Under $2000

65%29%

5%

1%

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970

40% of all U.S. families lived on >$1,500 per year – in poverty range

PROBLEMS FOR FARMERSMechanization

Farm income down 66%

“parity” McNary-Haugen BillAgricultural Marketing Act (1929)

TILLING ONE ACRE OF LAND1900: 90 mins. using 5 horses 1929: 30 mins. using a 27-hp tractor2000: 5 mins. using a 154-hp tractor

PRODUCING 100 BUSHELS OF WHEAT ON 5 ACRES1890s: 40-50 labor hours 1930: 15-20 labor hours

SOCIETY, CULTURE & VALUES

Farm vs. Nonfarm Population, 1880-1980

1920 CENSUS:

First time majority of U.S. population in urban areas (towns 2500 or greater)

1920: More workers in factories than on farms

1930: Still 44% live in rural areas

CONSUMERISM

(electric) appliancesautomobilesadvertising (image vs. utility)

buying on creditchain stores

Consumer Debt, 1920–1931

General Electric ad (Picture Research Consultants & Archives)

CONSUMERISM: Impact of the Automobile

Replaced the railroad as the key promoter of economic growth (steel, glass, rubber, gasoline, highways)

Daily life: commuting, shopping, traveling, “courting”

Increase in sales: 1913 - 1.2 million registered; 1929 - 26.5 million registered

(=almost one per family)

Passenger Car Sales, 1920-1929

Filling Station, Maryland in 1921

Impact of the Automobile: Trains and Automobiles, 1900-1980

Jones, Created Equal

Automobiles &

Consumerism

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved

< Ford ad: “Every family -- with even the most modest income, can now afford a car of their own."

“Every family should have their own car. . .You live but once and the years roll by quickly. Why wait for tomorrow for things that you rightfully should enjoy today?"

(Library of Congress)

Dodge advertisement photo, 1933

CONSUMERISM & Automobiles

Chevrolet Advertisement 1925

Ford Motor Company showroom 1925

July 4, Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts, early 1920s

MASS CULTURE: Radio

New mass medium

1920: First commercial radio station By 1930: over 800 stations & 10 million radios

Networks: NBC (1924), CBS (1927)

The Spread of Radio, to 1939

MASS CULTURE: Movies

Movie “palaces”“talkies” (1927)

Will Hays

80 million tickets sold per week by 1930 (population: 100 million)

(Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library)

MASS CULTURE: Popular Heroes

(Private Collection)

Charles Lindbergh (National Archives)

“success ethic”“self-made man”Bruce Barton- The Man Nobody

KnowsThomas EdisonCharles Lindburgh

ROLE OF WOMEN:the “New Woman”

the “New Woman”

“pink collar” jobs

Women’s fashions, 1920Women in the Workforce, 1900-1940

ROLE OF WOMEN – the “flapper”

the “flapper” – fact and myth

ROLE OF WOMEN: Women and Politics

Impact of suffrageLeague of Women VotersNational Women’s PartyAlice PaulMargaret Sanger Alice Paul

Sheppard-Towner Act

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ARTLiterature

“lost generation”F. Scott FitzgeraldSinclair LewisErnest HemingwayH.L. Mencken - “booboisie”

Eugene O’NeillF. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald on the Riviera,

1926 (Stock Montage)

Eugene O’Neill

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART African Americans

Harlem RenaissanceLangston Hughes

Langston Hughes

I’ll Take My Stand

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART JazzJazz

“The Jazz Age”Louis ArmstrongDuke Ellington

Louis Armstrong & the Fate Marabel band, 1919

Louis Armstrong

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS

Religion

“modernists”

“fundamentalism”

Scopes TrialAmerican Civil Liberties UnionClarence DarrowWilliam Jennings Bryan

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS:Prohibition

ProhibitionThe noble experiment

“wets and dries”

Al Capone

Alphonse “Scarface” CaponeGovernment agents breaking up an illegal bar during Prohibition

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest

National Origin Act of 1924

Number of Immigrants and Countries of Origin, 1891-1920 and 1921-1940

Percentage of Population Foreign Born, 1850-1990

Immigration, 1921-1960

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest

Communist International3rd International Goal (1919): promote worldwide communism

Red ScarePalmer Raids (1920)

A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home bombed, 1920

Police arrest “suspected Reds” in Chicago, 1920

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest

Sacco & Vanzetti

HAVE A CHAIR! from The Daily WorkerIS THIS THE EMBLEM? from The Daily Worker

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1921

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest

Birth of a Nation - D.W. Griffith

“new” Ku Klux KlanLeo Frank

(Picture Research Consultants & Archives)

Ku Klux Klan initiation, 1923. The Klan opposed all who were not “true Americans”. (c) 2000 IRC

Black Population, 1920

Ku Klux Klan

(mid-1920s)

(Private Collection)

Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 1926

BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT

BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT

Warren G. Harding“Return to normalcy”Herbert HooverAndrew MellonThe “Ohio Gang”

Teapot Dome Scandal

Harding with Laddie, June 13, 1922

Albert B. Fall (left)

BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT

Calvin Coolidge“The business of America is business”

President Calvin Coolidge Coolidge throwing out first pitch 1924

BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT

Herbert HooverAl Smith

Herbert Hoover

Election of 1928

Hoover, Ford, Edison, and Firestone

Feb 11, 1929

The Great Crash

Stock Market Prices, 1921–1932

Stock Market crash: October 24, 1929 (Corbis-Bettmann)

New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

SOURCES

http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/special_features/image_bank_US/1920_1930.htmlBrinkley, American History: A SurveyKennedy, American Pageant 13e (History Companion)Faragher, Out of Many, 3rd Ed.; http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_faragher_outofmany_ap/Jones, et al., Created EqualNashAmerica: Pathways to the Present