The Modern Era: The Red Scare to the 1928 Presidential Election

1919-1928

Economic demobilization and post-war recession 1918-1922

• Post-WWI period marked by repression and reaction.• Inflation, unemployment, and bankruptcy• Labor unions struggled to keep pre-war gains• -1919 over 36,000 strikes affecting 4 million workers• -Boston police strike causes rise in crime• -Sept. 1919 350,000 steel workers strike• Workers ask “where is the democracy we fought for?”

Red Scare

• Fear of Communism resulting from Russian Revolution and spread in E. Europe.

• Fear of immigrants• Fear of radicals• Result of strikes that

threatened to shut down the economy.

Palmer Raids (1920)

• Raided alleged radical centers and arrested 6,000, mostly immigrants.

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Two Italians accused of murder and sentenced to death

• They were most likely innocent but victims of prejudice since they were immigrants

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) tried unsuccessfully to have the decision appealed

National Origins Act (1924)

• Banned immigrants from East Asia

• Severely reduced immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe

Nativism• Favoring native citizens of a

country over foreign born immigrants. Anti-immigration

Eugenics• A social movement claiming

to improve the genetic features of humans through selective breeding and sterilization, based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society.

Race Riots

• 400,000 blacks served in WWI

• Returned home to parades and were heroes to urban blacks

• This had almost no impact on whites

• Racism continued• Increase in lynching in the

South including over 70 veterans

• Led to riots

Chicago Race Riot (1919)

• Black teen swam too close to white beach

• He was stoned from shore until he drowned

• No arrest so blacks rioted• Whites retaliated• Chicago at war for a week• Blacks defended

themselves and demanded government protection

Rebirth of the KKK

• D.W. Griffith’s A Birth of a Nation

• over 5 million Klan members

• Declined after a series of scandals in 1925

Prohibition- 18th Amendment The Volstead Act

• Causes• Religious• Health, domestic abuse,

reduced business production

• WWI grain sacrifice food v. alcohol

• Many blamed immigrants

• Effects• Consumption of alcohol

declined• Work productivity

increased• Increased disrespect for

law • Organized crime

(smuggling/bootleg)

DRYS• Reformers• Towns mostly in South and

West• Native Protestants• Churches• Women• Fear• Targeted immigrants

WETS• Cities mostly North and East• Immigrants• Upper and middle class

urbanites• Catholics

Many opposed Prohibition

Disposing of illegal alcohol

Speakeasy- illegal bar

Scopes Trial (Modernists v. Fundamentalists)

Modernists• Adapted religion to the

teaching of modern science• Mostly urban middle class• ACLU• Clarence Darrow• Scientists• northeast

Fundamentalists• Rejected new scientific

discoveries about the origins of man and the planet especially Darwin’s Theory

• Highly evangelical movement- Billy Sunday

• Feared changing values in America

• William Jennings Bryan• Rural communities of South

and West

• The Scopes Trial was a landmark case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating a Tennessee law which made it unlawful to teach evolution.

• The trial drew intense national publicity, as reporters flocked to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side.

• William Jennings Bryan, three time presidential candidate, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes.

• The trial saw modernists, who said religion was consistent with evolution, against fundamentalists who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge.

• The teaching of evolution expanded

Business Prosperity: New Technologies and Innovation, Government Policy and Consumerism in the 1920s

• Normalcy- a return to life before the war during Warren Harding Presidency

• Teapot Dome- scandal in which government set aside oil-rich public land for Sec. of Interior Albert B. Fall. He was the first cabinet member convicted of a felony.

• Ford-McCumber Tariff- raised import tax to 60%, highest level ever.

Causes of Business Prosperity

• The business boom led by a spectacular rise of 64% in manufacturing output from 1919-1929 resulted from two main factors:

• 1. Demand from European market as Europe was drowning in debt and had to rebuild its industry after WWI.

• 2. New technologies and innovations:

• -Automobile• -Radio• -Movies/ Motion picture

industry• -Commercial Aviation• -Energy technologies• Government Policies• -Consumerism

Automobile• Henry Ford used a moving

assembly line which increased production w/o increased cost.(Taylorism/time-motion studies and scientific management)

• This reduced the price of the car.• He also increased the wages of his

workers to create more demand for his cars.

• Related industries- gas stations/refineries, motels, road construction, supermarkets, etc.

• The automobile led to suburban development as well.

Radio

• Commercial radio broadcasting

• By 1925 over 2million, by 1929 almost every family had one.

• News, sports, radio programs

Movies/Motion Picture Industry

• Early films were silent• Sound was added in 1927

with the film The Jazz Singer and were known as “talkies.”

• Weekly film attendance rose from 40 million in 1922 to 100 million by 1930.

• Newsreels were added to the front of film. For the first time people could see news from around the world.

Commercial Aviation

• Advanced technologies, such as pressurized cabins. Allowed for the commercialization of aviation.

• Glenn Hammond Curtiss was an aviation pioneer and founder of the American aircraft industry.

Energy Technologies

• Increase of oil and electricity through the 1920s

• Increasingly oil was used to power factories and provide gas for cars

• Electrical generation for homes and factories increased 300% during the decade

Government Policies

• Favored business by offering corporate tax cuts and doing nothing to enforce antitrust laws of Progressive Era.

• Limited government, less government spending, lower taxes, and high tariffs spurred economic growth for the rich but did not really trickle down to the poor.

Consumerism

• Electricity in homes enabled millions of Americans to buy new consumer appliances

• Advertising expanded as business found new ways of manipulating consumer’s demand by appealing to their desires.

• Installment plans allowed consumers to buy on credit

The Revolution in Manners and Morals

• Americans experienced cultural conflicts as customs and values changed in the 1920s.

• Impact of mass media: radio, movies, newspapers, and sports. Many of the defining features of modern American culture emerged during the 1920s.

Sigmund Freud

• From Vienna, Austria• Psychoanalysis• Taught that sex was the

central and pervasive force which moved mankind

• First requirement of mental health was to obey your libido

Changing Women’s Roles• Women employed in a variety

of settings• Labor saving devices gave

women more free time• Less economically dependent

on men• Margaret Sanger-championed

birth control to give women more freedom

• Flapper-young , with short bobbed hair, wore lipstick, freedom and mobility of cars, smoked, drank, and discussed/engaged in sex

Positive Effects of Women’s Rights

• 1920- the 19th Amendment was ratified allowing women the right to vote

• Technology allowed more free time to pursue interests: education, work, developing own identity

• Planned Parenthood (Margaret Sanger) educated women about reproduction

Negative Effects of Women’s Rights

• Women spent less time with children and family

• More responsibilities meant more stress

• Women’s morals declined

Organized Crime/Gangster

• The goal was originally to control the distribution of alcohol but soon included other activities: prostitution, gambling, drugs, racketeering, and extortion.

Causes of 1920s Crime Wave

• Cars made a fast getaway vehicle• Prohibition- a law few wanted and few

enforced• Machine gun- deadly in drive-bys• Dirty cops• Growth of cities- easy to hide out• Growth of the mafia

Al Capone

• Used bribes and violence to control his Chicago criminal empire

• 522 gang killings in Chicago in the 1920s

• $100 million a year business

• Ran 10,000 speakeasies• Arrested in 1931 for tax

evasion