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Chapters 32

THE ROARING TWENTIES

If “Progressivism” was:

– Moralistic (Wilson, the

Jungle, Tarbell, etc)

– A change oriented society

(evolution, sexuality, etc.)

– Minority rights (labor laws,

female suffrage, African

American, etc

– “Rationalized” capitalism

(labor laws, Frederick Taylor,

etc)

– Inventive (telephone, cars,

electricity, etc)

– But ultimately

DISSILLUSIONING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the Roaring 20’s was BOTH:

•Anti-moralistic

(Liberal???)

•Black Pride (Harlem)

•Major economic

growth

•Disillusioned

•Reactionary (Scopes)

•Racist: KKK moves

North & West

•Weak growth in certain

key economic areas

•Hopeful

You should know enough about history by now to predict

what the NEXT period would bring??

Many people grew tired of “Progressive Moralism” and reacted to its continuance with a strong Middle-Class “Conservative Moralistic” backlash which was met with a counter-culture backlash:

• Prohibition ⇒⇒⇒⇒ speakeasies and gangsters

• Indecency laws ⇒⇒⇒⇒ Flappers and Sheiks

• Criticism of new immoral mass media ⇒⇒⇒⇒ they flock to it

• Anti-evolution laws ⇒⇒⇒⇒Scopes Monkey Trial

• Nativism ⇒⇒⇒⇒ ACLU, Harlem Renaissance, etc

• Red Scare and Anti-Labor ⇒⇒⇒⇒more Strikes and Unionism

– Re-emergence of the KKK ⇒⇒⇒⇒ Harlem Renaissance,

Marcus Garvey, Black pride

– “The Business of America is Business” Calvin Coolidge ⇒⇒⇒⇒

the rise of a counter-culture (Jazz, Post-Impressionism,

Hemingway, e e cummings, etc

– Ultimately it became a Shoving match between

• Rural vs. urban

• Old vs. young

• Law vs. crime

• Nativist vs. immigrant

• Fundamentalism vs. science

• Racism vs. tolerance

• Moralism vs. materialism

• “lowbrow” vs. “highbrow”

• Censorship vs. exploration

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Threats to the old Order

The Great War– Ended the “Age of Innocence”

(Gay 90’s)

– Disillusionment

• Did Not make the “world safe for

democracy”

• Did Not “end all wars”

• Failure and fight over the Treaty and

Article 10

– Exposed the fragility of life

(21,000,000 killed by the FLU!)

– Demonstration of the terrors of

technology

• Highest ratio of killed & injured of any

war

• Machine guns, tanks, airplanes

– “Back to Normalcy” whatever

THAT is??

• B/w 1919 and 1920 the

national income dropped from

$79 Billion to $63 Billion

• The per capita income

dropped from $835 to $672

• Homebound vets replace

women, blacks, etc.

• Labor returns to striking, so

Big Business “strikes” back.

Labor loses!!!

• Business must re-tool and that

always creates a mild

recession

Total decline in union membership• Too much emphasis on skilled labor

which received:– higher wages

– paid vacations

– sick leave, etc.

• Active gov’t support of business

• Labor tied to Bolshevism, anarchism, socialism

• Success of Welfare Capitalism (Fordism) designed to tie worker to job emotionally and economically:

• workplace cafeterias

• industry sponsored sports activities

• profit-sharing and stock options plans

• People’s Capitalism: worker then went out and spent all, or more, than he made

• Consumer driven society (the last one till 1950)

AntiAnti--Labor Labor AntiAnti--Labor Labor

“If Capital & Labor Don’t Pull Together” “If Capital & Labor Don’t Pull Together” –– Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune

Coal Miners’ Strike Coal Miners’ Strike -- 19191919Coal Miners’ Strike Coal Miners’ Strike -- 19191919

“Keeping Warm” “Keeping Warm” –– Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times

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Steel Strike Steel Strike -- 19191919Steel Strike Steel Strike -- 19191919

“Coming Out of the Smoke” “Coming Out of the Smoke” –– New York WorldNew York World

Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike --19191919

Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike --19191919

“He gives aid & comfort to the enemies of “He gives aid & comfort to the enemies of society” society” –– Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune

Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike -- 19191919Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike -- 19191919

“Striking Back” “Striking Back” –– New York Evening WorldNew York Evening World

Consequences of Labor UnrestConsequences of Labor UnrestConsequences of Labor UnrestConsequences of Labor Unrest

“While We Rock the Boat” “While We Rock the Boat” –– Washington TimesWashington Times

The “Red Scare”The “Red Scare”The “Red Scare”The “Red Scare”

“What a Year Has Brought Forth” “What a Year Has Brought Forth” –– NY WorldNY World

“Red Scare” “Red Scare” ---- AntiAnti--BolshevismBolshevism“Red Scare” “Red Scare” ---- AntiAnti--BolshevismBolshevism

“Put Them Out & Keep Them Out” “Put Them Out & Keep Them Out” ––Philadelphia InquirerPhiladelphia Inquirer

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Government Excess & Threats Government Excess & Threats to the Civil Liberties of Americansto the Civil Liberties of Americans

Government Excess & Threats Government Excess & Threats to the Civil Liberties of Americansto the Civil Liberties of Americans

�� 1919 1919 –– International International goalgoal ----> > promote worldwide communism.promote worldwide communism.

�� Attorney General, A. Mitchell Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer (Palmer (The Case Against the The Case Against the RedsReds))

�� Palmer Raids Palmer Raids -- 19201920

“The “The RedRed Scare”:Scare”:

Congressman Victor Berger (WI)Congressman Victor Berger (WI)Congressman Victor Berger (WI)Congressman Victor Berger (WI)

You got nothing out of the war except the flu and Prohibition.

You got nothing out of the war except the flu and Prohibition.

““RedRed Scare” Scare” –– Palmer RaidsPalmer Raids““RedRed Scare” Scare” –– Palmer RaidsPalmer Raids

A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home Bombed, 1920A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home Bombed, 1920 Police Arrest “Suspected Reds’ in Chicago, 1920Police Arrest “Suspected Reds’ in Chicago, 1920

““RedRed Scare” Scare” –– Palmer RaidsPalmer Raids““RedRed Scare” Scare” –– Palmer RaidsPalmer Raids

Warren G.

Harding

• 2nd rate editor

• 2nd rate politician

• 2nd rate husband

• Worst president ever

– Played 18 holes every day

– During prohibition played poker and drank till 3

A.M. most nights

• Couldn’t say NO. Delegated authority. Made

some terrible appointments. Some good ones

also.

5

• Bad appointees:

1. Sec. of Interior Albert Fall leased gov’t U.S. Naval oil reserves for bribes and kickbacks. Sent to prison

2. Attn General Dougherty used his office to destroy strikes for his bidness partners

3. Sec. of Vet’s Bureau (Charles Forbes) sold bedsheets for 20% of their value then bought them back for a 200% markup. Kept the difference. Sent to prison.

• Good appointees:

1. Sec. of State Charles Evans Hughes gets Washington Treaty signed cutting worldwide military $. (Five Power, and Nine Power Agreements, Kellogg-Briand Pact)

2. Sec. of Commerce Herbert Hoover.

3. Sec. of Treasury Mellon cuts taxes and size of government (Trickle-Down)

Nan Publishes a book

• The President’s Daughter

• Harding goes to Alaska and dies on the return

voyage.

• Coolidge takes over– well kinda – mostly he

slept.

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Urbanization

• 1920 census places 51% of population in city

setting (105 million population)

• Rural areas fear loss of influence– growing image of hayseed, hick, rube, hillbilly

– struggle to reassert traditional agrarian values

– can’t keep the children on the farms

– 1921 depression hits farmers the hardest. Farm income drops

from the 1919 high of $10,000,000,000 to the 1921 value of

$4,000,000,000.

– Farm expenses increase.

• Isolation and depersonalization of city-life

• EXCITEMENT of the city life.

URBAN VS. RURAL� Throughout the 1920s, Americans found

themselves caught between urban and rural

cultures

� Urban life was considered a world of

anonymous crowds, strangers,

moneymakers, and pleasure seekers

� Rural life was considered to be safe, with

close personal ties, hard work and morals

�New York City was home to over 5 million

people in 1920

� Chicago had nearly 3 million

Cities were impersonal

Farms were innocent

EXPANDING NEWS COVERAGE

� As literacy increased, newspaper circulation rose and mass-circulation magazines flourished

� By the end of the 1920s, ten American magazines -- including Reader’s Digest and Time

– boasted circulations of over 2 million

Newspapers sold

Middle-class morality

and a flash of sex

Advertising became a business that

then increased business, that …

Technology• Model T (1908)

– Mobile society

– Privacy

– Fed. Hwy Act (part of dept of defense) spends $1,000,000,000 on roads

– “Struggle Buggy” “Brothel on Wheels”

– assembly line (Fordism) went from

• 1919 = 1 person in 16 owned a car

• 1929 = 1 in 5 owned a car

• Telephone:

– connection to one’s neighbors

– Party lines, but dial phones in urban areas.

• Radio:

– 612 stations by 1930

– news and entertainment to rural areas

– brought people back to the house again—of course they weren’t talking to each other

– Amos and Andy

– “Cliffhangers”: The Shadow, The Lone RangerBurns/Allen

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RADIO COMES OF

AGE

� Although print media was popular, radio was the most powerful communications medium to emerge in the 1920s

� News was delivered faster and to a larger audience

� Americans could hear the voice of the president or listen to the World Series live

Technology

– Movies:

• 1st movie = The Great Train Robbery 1903

• 1st propaganda film: =The Birth of a Nation 1917

• 1st Talkie = The Jazz Singer 1927

• Set teenage styles and roles

– Sheik = Valentino

– Sweetheart = Lillian Gish (“The Dish”)

– Vamp = Theda Bera

• Hayes Code = censorship was by the movie industry

and self-imposed

• Whole industry seen as dominated by Jewish

element

The Sheik 1921

KingKong

1933

JazzSinger

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Greta GarboENTERTAINMENT AND ARTS

� Even before sound, movies

offered a means of escape

through romance and comedy

� First sound movies: Jazz

Singer (1927)

� First animated with sound:

Steamboat Willie (1928)

� By 1930 millions of

Americans went to the movies

each weekWalt Disney's animated

Steamboat Willie marked the debut of Mickey Mouse. It was a seven minute long black and

white cartoon.

Other advances:

– Air travel

– Medicine

– The “world shrinks”

– Middle class SOARS

– Education reform and Dewey

– Washing Machines

– Vacuum cleaners

– Refrigerators

– Stoves and ovens

– EZ Credit and huge debts

– Massive increase in Government involvement

• Spending increases 10 X’s in 1918

• Gov’t employment is doubled

• Fordney-McCumber raises tariffs again

• 5,000 gov’t agencies created in 20 months

• gov’t crushes the IWW and socialist party

• couldn’t pull back from war powers granted

– New theories

• Freud– Sexual repression leads to neurosis

– Therefore, enjoy sex

– Childhood influences (Oedipal and Electra Complexes)

– Id, ego, and superego

• Darwinism becomes scientifically accepted and taught

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

CLASH� Another battleground during the 1920s was between fundamentalist religious groups and secular thinkers over the truths of science

� The Protestant movement grounded in the literal interpretation of the bible is known as fundamentalism

� Fundamentalists found all truth in the bible – including science & evolution

SCOPES TRIAL

� In March 1925,

Tennessee passed the

nation’s first law that

made it a crime to teach

evolution

� The ACLU promised to

defend any teacher

willing to challenge the

law – John Scopes did

Scopes was a biology teacher who dared to teach his students that man

derived from lower species

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SCOPES TRIAL

� The ACLU hired

Clarence Darrow, the

most famous trial lawyer

of the era, to defend

Scopes

� The prosecution

countered with William

Jennings Bryan, the

three-time Democratic

presidential nominee

Darrow

Bryan

1

2

3

4

5

6

Despite the guilty verdict, Darrow

got the upper hand during his questioning of

Bryan

SCOPES TRIAL� Trial opened on July 10,1925 and became a national sensation

� In an unusual move, Darrow called Bryan to the stand as an expert on the bible – key question: Should the bible be interpreted literally?

� Under intense questioning, Darrow got Bryan to admit that the bible can be interpreted in different ways

� Nonetheless, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100

Bryan

Darrow

“Flaming Youth”

– Flappers (see handout)

– New attitudes:

• Drinking

• Smoking

• Necking and petting

– Double Standards begin to be questioned

openly

• Women in work force

• 19th amendment

• Margaret Sanger (contraceptives and abortion)

• Later marriage age and choosing to be single

• Less parental and community supervision

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THE TWENTIES WOMAN

� After the tumult of World War I, Americans were looking for a little fun in the 1920s

� Women were becoming more independent and achieving greater freedoms (right to vote, more employment, freedom of the auto)

Chicago 1926

THE FLAPPER

� During the 1920s, a

new ideal emerged for

some women: the

Flapper

� A Flapper was an

emancipated young

woman who embraced

the new fashions and

urban attitudes

NEW ROLES FOR WOMEN

� The fast-changing world of the 1920s produced new roles for women

� Many women entered the workplace as nurses, teachers, librarians, & secretaries

� However, women earned less than men and were kept out of many traditional male jobs (management) and faced discrimination

Early 20th Century teachers

THE CHANGING FAMILY

� American birthrates

declined for several decades

before the 1920s

� During the 1920s that

trend increased as birth

control information became

widely available

� Birth control clinics

opened and the American

Birth Control League was

founded in 1921

Margaret Sanger and other founders of the American Birth

Control League - 1921

MODERN FAMILY EMERGES

� As the 1920s unfolded, many features of the modern family emerged

� Marriage was based on romantic love, women managed the household and finances, and children were not considered laborers/ wage earners but rather developing children who needed nurturing andeducation

Harlem Renaissance

– Flowering of A/A art

• Claude Mckay

• Langston Hughes

• Zora Neal Hurston

– Black pride and self segregation pushed by Marcus

Garvey

• UNIA (United Negro Improvement Association)

• Back to Africa movement

• Black Star Line

• Military appearance to intimidate whites

• Almost a comic figure, arrested and deported back to Jamaica,

but other, more responsible leaders picked up the cause.

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Harlem Renaissance

(cont.)

– Returning black veterans demanded civil rights

• Had earned them in battle

• Europe lacked this form of racism

• Chicago riots of 1919

– W.E.B. Dubois and his integrationist movement

• “The Crisis” – official magazine of NAACP

• NAACP

• National Urban League

• “Talented Tenth” led to leaders like Thurgood Marshall

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

� Between 1910 and 1920,

the Great Migration saw

hundreds of thousands of

African Americans move

north to big cities

� By 1920 over 5

million of the nation’s 12

million blacks (over 40%)

lived in cities

Migration of the Negro by Jacob Lawrence

AFRICAN AMERICAN

GOALS

� Founded in 1909, the NAACP urged African Americans to protest racial violence

� W.E.B Dubois, a founding member, led a march of 10,000 black men in NY to protest violence

MARCUS GARVEY - UNIA

� Marcus Garvey believed that

African Americans should build

a separate society (Africa)

� In 1914, Garvey founded the

Universal Negro Improvement

Association

� Garvey claimed a million

members by the mid-1920s

� He left a powerful legacy of

black pride, economic

independence and Pan-

Africanism Garvey represented a more

radical approach

HARLEM, NEW YORK

� Harlem, NY became the

largest black urban

community

� Harlem suffered from

overcrowding,

unemployment and

poverty

� However, in the 1920s it

was home to a literary and

artistic revival known as

the Harlem Renaissance

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AFRICAN AMERICAN

WRITERS

� The Harlem Renaissance was primarily a literary movement

� Led by well-educated blacks with a new sense of pride in the African-American experience

� Claude McKay’s poems expressed the pain of life in the ghetto

Mckay

LANGSTON

HUGHES

� Missouri-born Langston

Hughes was the

movement’s best known

poet

� Many of his poems

described the difficult lives

of working-class blacks

� Some of his poems were

put to music, especially jazz

and blues

I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh,

And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.

Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed–

I, too, am America.

ZORA NEALE

HURSTON

� Zora Neale Hurston wrote novels, short stories and poems

� She often wrote about the lives of poor, unschooled Southern blacks

� She focused on the culture of the people– their folkways and values

AFRICAN-

AMERICAN

PERFORMERS

� During the 1920s,

black performers won

large followings

� Paul Robeson, son of

a slave, became a major

dramatic actor

� His performance in

Othello was widely

praised

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LOUIS

ARMSTRONG� Jazz was born in the early

20th century

� In 1922, a young trumpet

player named Louis Armstrong

joined the Creole Jazz Band

� Later he joined Fletcher

Henderson’s band in NYC

� Armstrong is considered the

most important and influential

musician in the history of jazz

EDWARD KENNEDY

“DUKE” ELLINGTON

� In the late 1920s,

Duke Ellington, a jazz

pianist and composer,

led his ten-piece

orchestra at the famous

Cotton Club

� Ellington won

renown as one of

America’s greatest

composers

BESSIE

SMITH� Bessie Smith, blues singer, was perhaps the most outstanding vocalist of the decade

� She achieved enormous popularity and by 1927 she became the highest- paid black artist in the world

Counter-Reactions– Klan reborn

• “Colonel” William Simmons ⇒⇒⇒⇒ Hiram Evans ⇒⇒⇒⇒ David Stephenson

• Cross Burning

• Birth of A Nation by D.W. Griffith. Glorified the Klan

– Used for recruitment ($4 kickback for every new recruit)

– Pres. Wilson calls it “History written in lightening”

• 5,000,000 members by 1924 including growing # of women

• 40,000 march on D.C.

• membership is almost a must for southern democrat politicians

– 12 senators

– 11 governors

– tens of thousands of local officials

– almost splits the Democratic Party in 1924 over a plank condemning the Klan. It finally passed by only 5 votes

Ripped from the headlines!

• Get KKK march picture

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– E.O.H.G.• Kill all Koons and Katholics.

But also

• Jewish

• unions

• un-fit mothers

• drunks

• wife-beaters

• divorcees

– lost most membership in 1930 (< 10,000) when

• Grand Dragon Stephenson was convicted of murdering his

MISSTRESS!!!!

• Internal feuds over who got the graft and corruption money

• Violent tactics are exposed by Ida B. wells

• 1917 = 34 lynchings

• 1918 = 60 “

• 1919 = 70 (38 killed in the Chicago riot alone)

More Counter-Reactions– Nativism:

• Anti-syndicalism laws (Anti-Union)

• Immigration restrictions

• Sacco and Vanzetti

• Scientific racism by Ripley and Grant. (later used by Hitler as proof of Aryan superiority

• Woodrow Wilson inflamed anti-immigrant sentiments when he said “citizens born under other flags inject America with the poison of disloyalty.”

• 1921 Emergency Quota Act restricted yearly immigration to 3% of the # living in US in 1910.

• Immigration Act of 1924 lowered it to 2% of the 1890 numbers.

• ACLU is founded to fight for rights taken away during WWI

• 1919:

– 30 brown paper package bombs sent to prominent citizens

– 20 lbs of dynamite exploded in 7 different cities.

– A car bomb killed 33 people on Wall St. NYC.

– Palmer raids and the RED SCARE

• Played on post war patriotism: SOS = “shoot or shipout”

• The day after the “Fighting Quaker” declares war on terrorism a bomb explodes on his door.

– 10,000 radicals are arrested & held w/o charges

– 244 “Bolsheviks” shipped out on the “Soviet Ark”

– 600 other deported.

Even More Counter-Reactions– Prohibition:

• WCTU, but really its WWI that gets 18th Amendment passed

• Enforced by the Volstead Act.

• Actually it DID reduce total consumption, better family

atmosphere, and less absenteeism, but at the cost of

– Gangsterism : Al Capone

» Became a public hero to many

» Made $110 million in one year

» Responsible for an estimated 110 deaths

– police corruption

– blurring of the line between legal and illegal activities, good and bad,

etc. rise of the anti-hero in American mythology. We now root for

the criminal to “get away with it”.

Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933

when it was repealed by the 21st

Amendment

SUPPORT FOR PROHIBITION

� Reformers had long believed alcohol led to crime, child & wife abuse, and accidents

� Supporters were largely from the rural south and west

� The church affiliated Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union helped push the 18th

Amendment through

15

Poster

supporting prohibition

SPEAKEASIES AND

BOOTLEGGERS

� Many Urban Americans did not believe drinking was a sin

� Most immigrant groups were not willing to give up drinking

� To obtain liquor illegally, drinkers went underground to hidden saloons known as speakeasies

� People also bought liquor from bootleggers who smuggled it in from Canada, Cuba and the West Indies

GOVERNMENT FAILS TO

CONTROL LIQUOR

� Eventually, Prohibition’s fate was sealed by the government, which failed to budget enough money to enforce the law

� The task of enforcing Prohibition fell to 1,500 poorly paid federal agents --- clearly an impossible task

Federal agents pour wine down a sewer

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SUPPORT FADES, PROHIBITION

REPEALED

� By the mid-1920s,

only 19% of Americans

supported Prohibition

� Many felt Prohibition

caused more problems

than it solved

� The 21st Amendment

finally repealed

Prohibition in 1933