Cab Calloway: Minnie the Moocher

1920’s & 30’s

An Era of

Prosperity &

Crisis

The Roaring 20’s Dance Craze!

1914 – 1926: wages rose +28%

Consumer economy developed

Economy that depends on a large amount of spending by consumers

More profits for

businesses

Higher wages

More money in people’s

pockets

More spending

Buying on Credit Electric Power Advertising Rise in

Productivity

•People wanted

more of the new

modern

conveniences

•Manufacturers

developed

installment plans

•11 – 40% interest

•Refrigerators,

washing machines,

radios, electric

lighting

•1919 – 1920: value

of electric

appliances doubled

•Spoke less about

the product &

more about how

the product could

enhance people’s

lives

•Celebrities

appeared in ads

•Many criticized

the psychology to

persuade used in

ads

•To meet consumer

demand,

productivity had to

increase

•Measure of

country’s

productivity, GNP

(total value of

goods & services a

country produces a

year)

•1921 – 1929: US

grew +6% yr

•Better machines &

assembly line

helped meet these

demands

1896: Ford had perfected his version of a

lightweight, gas powered car – “quadricycle”

1903: started own auto company

1908: sold 30,000 Model T

Ford adapted the assembly line for his auto

factories

Made the assembly line more efficient

Allowed a Model T to leave the factory floor

every 24 seconds

1908 – 1927: +15 million cars produced

More cars produced = lower prices = more

people can afford them

1910: $980

1914: $490

1915: $390

1000’s of new businesses began to serve

automobiles

Movie making, radio broadcasting, publishing

flourished

1st domestic airlines began

Nation’s businesses soared (doubled profits in

10 years)

African Americans

Unskilled laborers

Farmers

Farmers did well during the war, but went

broke in years after

RR suffered

Movies Newspapers & Magazines Radio

•Began in 1890’s

•Audiences continued

to grow

•1910:5000 theatres

•1930: 22,500 theatres

•1929: roughly 80

million tickets sold per

week

•Movie making : 4th

largest business

•1927: 1st sound film:

The Jazz Singer

•Some actors

transitioned from

silent to “talkies”

•1920’s: circulation & size of

print media increased

•News print doubled between

1914 – 1927

•Larger circulation = more $$

from advertisers = greater

profits for publishers

•NP chains began publishing

tabloids

•Replaced serious news with

entertainment with focus on

fashion, sports & sensational

stories

•Magazine sales rose

•1929: 200 million copies of

Saturday Evening Post,

Reader’s Digest, Ladies Home

Journal & Time sold per year

•Most radios were used to

communicate with each

other

•1920: Frank Conrad used

a radio transmitter to

send music & baseball

scores

•Westinghouse began

broadcasting programs

•1st radio station: KDKA

Pittsburgh

•1922: +500 radio stations

with commercial sponsors

•Everyone began hearing

the same music, news,

jokes & radio shows

Hit radio airwaves in 1920’s & became a

nationwide craze

Youth loved to listed & dance to jazz

Jazz “The Devil’s Music”: too suggestive

Harlem was the center of Jazz

+500 jazz clubs

Most famous: Cotton Club

Dance craze: the Charleston

Louis Armstrong

Benny Goodman

Teddy Wilson Duke

Ellington

Period of rapid change

WHY?

Exposed to the horrors of war, questioning the “norm”/

ideas & attitudes that existed before the war

Flapper symbolized the revolution

“Breezy, slangy, and informal in manner; slim &

boyish in form; covered in silk & fur that clung

to her a s close an onion skin; with carmined

[vivid red] cheeks & lips, plucked eyebrows &

close fitting helmet of hair; gay, plucky &

confident”

~Preston Slosson The Great Crusade and After

Flapper Image

Shorter hemline Amount of fabric to make a dress:

1913 – 19.5 yards

1928: 7 yards

Bobbed hair

Wore heavy make up

Drank

Smoked

Danced

Rossberg’s Irish Great

Grandmother

Bathtub Gin

Women Working & Voting

For many, style was an issue of convenience

15% wage earning women were professionals

20% clerical positions

Mainly single, white women

Married working women

1920: 23%

1930: 29%

No advancement to leadership roles & expected to quit once pregnant

Voting

1923: 35%

Why such a small #?

ERA Proposed: 1923: Never passed

1928: 145 in 38 state legislatures

Accounting office 1925

Demographics changing

Rural-Urban Split

Economic gap between rural & urban

Farms economically stressed; pass by prosperity

Industrial & commercial activity booming

1920’s: 6 million moved from rural to urban areas

Public high school attendance

1920: 2.2 million

1930: 4.4 million

Values:

Rural: preserve traditional values

Urban: defy traditional values

Push factor: Jim Crow laws in the South

Pull factor: job opportunities

1860: 93% lived in South

1910: 89%

1930: 80%

North: no promise land

Discrimination by whites

Lower paying jobs

WWI refugees applied for entry to US

US passed quotas to limit immigration from

S. & E. Europe, China & Japan

Employers turned to immigrants from Mexico

& Canada to fill low paying jobs

Cities expanded transportation systems

enabled suburbs to be developed

More people owned cars

Trolleys

1915: Col. William J. Simmons revived

the KKK

Used modern publicity to increase size

& influence

1922: 100,000 members

1924: 4 million

Grew more violent with size

Police stepped up enforcement & by

1927 KKK activity was decreased again

“Klansmen are to be examples of pure patriotism. They are to organize the

patriotic sentiment of native-born white, Protestant Americans for the defense of

distinctively American institutions. Klansmen are dedicated to the principle that America shall be made American through the

promulgation [circulation] of American doctrines, the dissemination [spread] of

American ideals, the creation of wholesome American sentiment, the preservation of

American institutions.”

~Klansman’s Manual 1925

In 60 Secs write

down as many

descriptive words,

questions,

comments, etc.

that come to mind.

60 Seconds

Start Timer

60

15

45

30

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Sung by: Billie Holiday

Songwriters: Dwayne P. Wiggins/ Maurice Pearl/ Lewis Allan

© Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., EMI Music Publishing

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1929

# o

f Lynchin

gs

Year

Whites

African Americans

“Red Summer”: 1919: violence between

blacks & whites erupted in 25 cities

Riots worst in Chicago after the “accidental”

death of a 17 yr old African American

23 African Americans & 15 whites dead; 537

wounded

1920’s NAACP (National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People) worked t

pass anti-lynching laws

Law enforcement improved & lynchings

decreased

NAACP worked to protect voting rights of

African Americans but had limited success

Some African Americans dreamed of a homeland where they could live in peace

1916: Marcus Garvey established UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association)

Sought to build African Americans’ self respect & economic power

Urged African Americans to return to “Motherland Africa”

Followers wore uniforms

Gathered $10 million for Black Star Line to carry followers back to Africa

1925: mail fraud charges; sentence commuted & deported to Jamaica & UNIA fell apart

Inspiration for other “black pride” movements

Nativists cut immigration

1921, ‘24, ‘27 Acts create yearly

quotas

Favor immigrants from North/West

Europe over South/East Europe

1924 Act: Bans Asian Immigrants

Trial & Execution of anarchist

Italian immigrants, Sacco &

Vanzetti, portrays the anti-

radicalism & anti-immigrant bias in

the US

What is a HERO?

Americans became fascinated by them in the

1920’s

Admired for bravery, modesty, the way they

showed Americans how to meet new

challenges with spirit & vitality

Opened the field of aviation for more women

Inspired by Lindberg

1928: 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic (as a

passenger)

1932: 1st women to fly solo across the Atlantic

1st person to fly solo from Hawaii to California

1937: she & Fred Noonan attempted to fly around the

world & disappeared

Spectator sports became big business in the

1920’s

Commercialization = larger audiences

Jack Dempsey: American fighter; 1921

Heavyweight Champion of the World

Demsey v. Carpentier: 1921:

$1 million in ticket sales

"How could anyone get hurt playing

football?“

Jim Thorpe

Sultan of Swat; The Great

Bambino

George Herman Ruth

Played for Boston Red Socks &

NY Yankees

714 home runs

1927: 60 home runs in a 154

game season

7 time World Series Champ

(1915, ‘16,’18, ‘23, ‘27, ‘28 &

‘32)

Hazel Wightman & Helen Wills: Olympic &

Wimbledon tennis stars

Gertrude Ederle:

gold & record for Women’s Freestyle Swimming

1926:1st women to swim the English Channel

35 miles: beat men’s time by 2 hours

More people began to participate in sports

More leisure time

Golf, tennis, swimming

Hazel

Wightman

Sinclair Lewis: attacked American society in writings

“Savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of

Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world”

~Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (1920)

1926: Refused Pulitzer Prize

1930: 1st American to receive Nobel Prize for Literature

American society of 1920’s troubled a group of writers Rejected the need for material things

Scorned American popular culture as being “artless & uninspired”

Left US for Europe; most ended up in Paris E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Called themselves “The Lost Generation”(a people disconnected with their country & its values)… popularized by Fitzgerald

Flappers made the term their own Rebels against the culture of their time

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes & oh, my friends-

It leaves a lovely light

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Cultural center for African Americans & home of a literary awakening

1914: 50,000

1930: 200,000

James Weldon Johnson: God’s Tombstone

Leading writer

Executive Secretary of NAACP

Alain Locke: New Negro

Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes are Watching God

Langston Hughes: most celebrated writer

Poetry, short stories, journalism & plays

What was the purpose of Prohibition?

List 2 groups in favor of prohibition.

What made the ASL so effective?

What was the message of prohibition propaganda?

What was the “ultimate buzz kill” for prohibition?

18th Amendment (1/16/1920)

Main Goals:

1. Eliminate drunkenness

Abuse of family members & others

2. Get rid of saloons

Eliminate prostitution, gambling & other vice

3. Prevent absenteeism & on the job accidents

Volstead Act (1919): system to enforce

Prohibition – widely ignored

To get their liquor people turned to bootleggers

Versions:

Operated stills

Smuggled liquor

Transported to retail outlets

Restaurants, nightclubs & speakeasies

“Some speakeasies are disguised behind florists’

shops, or behind undertakers’ coffins. I know

one, right in Broadway, which is entered through

an imitation telephone-booth; it has excellent

beer…”

~Paul Morand (1929)

Potential for profit from liquor helped the

development of organized crime.

Joined forces to create a large, efficient

operation

Expansion of territory = clash with other

gangs

Later began to include

Gambling

Prostitution

Racketeering

Fundamentalism Evolution

•Supporting traditional Christian ideas

•Problems in society:

1. Science & Technology were taking a

larger role in everyday life

2. War & widespread problems were

causing more people to question the

role & existence of God

3. Some scholars argued that the Bible

was a document written by humans

& was historically inaccurate

• Fundamentalists argued:

1. God inspired the Bible so there are

no contradictions

2. The Bible is literal & true

•Humans evolved over time from

simpler life forms

•1925: Tenn. Science Teacher, John T.

Scopes taught evolution & was arrested

•Scopes Trial

•William Jennings Brian & Clarence

Darrow

•10 days; 1st trial broadcast

•Judge: Jury is to determine IF Scopes

taught evolution

•Guilty & fined $100

•Grueling case exhausted Bryan & he

died a few days later

Wonderful Prosperity Everybody Ought to Be

Rich

Welfare Capitalism

•1925: stock values: $27

billion

•1928: values rose by $11

billion

•10/1929: stock values:

$87 billion

•Wages had increased

+40% since 1914

•Unemployment: -4%

•Business success became

an obsession; a religion

for some

•Americans trusted advice

of corporate leaders

•Encouraged Americans to

invest

Welfare capitalism

(employers raised wages

& provided benefits in the

interest of strengthening

company loyalty &

morale)

“I am firm in my belief that anyone not only can be rich, but ought to be

rich”

~John J. Raskob

“Growing unemployment, business depression,

or some false step” would trigger a reaction

against Republican policies.

~Belle Moskowitz (1928)

Decreased corporate

profit

Employee Layoffs

Drop in Consumer spending

Prices drop to

sell products

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1928 3/4/1929 9/3/1929 11/13/2029

Stocks

Stocks

Hoover’s

Inauguration Day

All time high: 381

Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat

10/23: : DJIA

dropped 21

pts in 1 hr

10/24: Black

Thursday:

investors begin

to sell: stocks

prices fall

10/28:

prices

continue

to fall:

people

race to

get $$ out

of stocks

10/29: Black

Tuesday16.4

million

shares sold

Pres. Hoover: nation’s

business is “on a sound

& prosperous basis”

Total losses after crash:

$30 billion

($39.7 trillion today)

Crash was part

of the nation’s

business cycle

Effects of crash initially felt only by those who were heavily invested in the stock market

Soon effects began to ripple through the nation’s economy Risky Loans

Consumer Borrowing

Bank Runs

Bank Failures

Lost Savings

Production Cuts

Increased Unemployment

More Production Cuts

All signs of economic contraction (economic decline) Long decline = depression

Great Depression: 1929 - 1941

Investors

• Investors lose millions

• Businesses lose profits

Businesses & Workers

• Consumer spending drops

• Businesses cut investments & production. Some fail.

• Workers laid off

Banks

• Businesses & workers can not repay bank loans

• Banks run out of $$ & fail

• Bank runs

• Savings accounts wiped out

World Payment

• Overall US production plummets

• US investors have little/no $$ to invest

• US investments in Germany decline

• Garman war payments to allies decline/stop

• Europeans can not afford American goods

• Allies can not pay debts to US

Low crop prices = low income = can not pay

mortgages = homes & farms taken by bank &

sold at auction

South: tenant farmers & sharecroppers

expelled from farms

Angry farmers dumped thousands of gallons

of milk in protest

1931 – 40: Drought & farming practices =

Dust Bowl

On Health On Families On Minorities

•People starved

•Children suffered long

term effects

•Mental Health:

depression, suicide, shame

•Families moved in with

other families to make

ends meet

•Divorce rate dropped

•Men (Fathers, Husbands)

felt like failures

•Married women laid off

•Increased lynchings

•Asian & Hispanic

Americans were deported

•1932: 56% African

Americans were

unemployed

•Harlem: National Urban

League & Father Divine

opened soup kitchens

“Children scavenged through the streets like animals for scraps of food, and stayed

away from school… Each day 4000 children stood in bread lines. With their sunken,

lifeless eyes, sallow cheeks, and distended bellies, some resembled the starving

children in Europe during the war.”

~ Historian Robert Conot

Prohibition Repealed Empire State Building End of an Era

•Feb 1933: 21st

Amendment passed

•End to a “failed social

experiment’

•8 states continued the

ban on liquor

•Symbol of hope

•Construction began 1930

•Developer: John J.

Raskob

•102 stories; 1250 feet

into the sky

•67 elevators traveled at

1000 feet

•Opened May 1, 1931

•4000 paid $1 on opening

day to go to the

observation deck

•Symbols of 1920’s fading

away

•31: Capone sent to jail

•32: Lindbergh baby

kidnapped & killed

•33: Former Pres.

Coolidge died

•35: Babe Ruth retired

•Henry Ford became an

enemy of the working

class