XVII. Electrical Revolution A. Industry shifts focus & power source

1. late 19th century U.S. made for manufacturers

2. early 20th switch & manufacture for consumers

3. change from water to coal & now electricity

a. 1880s electric generators to drive machinery

i. Thomas A. Edison & George Westinghouse

b. 1882 Edison’s 1st commercial power station N.Y.

c. by 1900 over 3,000 stations in U.S.

4. transformation slow to electricity

a. 1902 2% of business uses

b. 1929 over 80% use electricity

c. light bulb replaces gas lights, cleaner & safer

d. by 1929 2/3rds homes in U.S. use electricity

e. Electric Chair & use of alternating current

B. Automobile changes everything

1. invented in late 19th century but 1920 price cut to affordable

2. 1900 only 8,000 registered cars by 1929 nearly 27 million

3. Model T

a. a team of engineers invented assembly line Ford first to use

b. in 1913 used for Model T reduced time from 14 to 1 1/2 hrs.

c. in 1912 coast $600 by 1924 only $290

d. light weight, easy to repair & most popular in history

e. stays the same year after year with little change

f. no gas pump or starter

4. Automobile spurs economic growth

a. manufacturing end

i. Thousands of tons of steel needed

ii. glass, rubber, cloth, other raw materials

b. maintenance

i. gas stations & garages replace livery stables & troughs

ii. traffic lights, paved roads, billboards, parking lots

c. off shoots of industry

i. trucking improves local delivery & remote access

ii. tractors revolutionize farming

5. Cities grow bigger

a. almost anyone can afford

b. independence from rail lines & street cars

i. Tourism increases, motels & drive-ins

c. decline of corner store, local church & one room schools

i. people could go further distances for better services

d. growth of the suburbs

i. no longer the domain of wealthy alone

ii. by 1920 over half population live towns over 2,500 (city)

6. Cultural changes brought by Automobile

a. courtship practices change

i. couples escape chaperoning parents

ii. Necking in back seat & new morality

b. Advertisement changes

i. Automobile is symbol of good life, freedom, power & sex

ii. one of first products offered on credit

a. Toledo, Ohio 1915 group of businessmen

offer installments on car payments

b. so successful others follow suit & extended

credit to almost everything

C. Mass communication changes American Culture

1. Alexander Gram Bell’s telephone in 1876

a. one million in 1900 by 1920s over 13 million

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2. Radios even more common

a. 1920s first broadcast from Detroit

b. 1922 NY broadcasts first commercial

c. at first primarily classical music

d. later sports, politics & disasters

e. eventually live radio dramas

3. The decade of Sports

a. college sports grew prominent

b. professional baseball teams gained new popularity

c. Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Jack Dempsey gain national fame

4. Motion Pictures grow in their significance

a. before war only working class went

b. after war everyone goes

c. theaters help spread new social mores

i. parents alarmed at influence of movies

ii. Producers sell romance & escapism

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5. Sigmund Freud changed American innocence

a. Freud's emphasis on sex brought new consciousness

b. Teddy Roosevelt last President to skinny dip in Potomac River

6. Reaction & Revival

a. William J. Seymour 312 Azusa St. 1906-1922

b. Aimee Semple McPherson & Angelus Temple 1922

c. Billy Sunday

7. Conflict between changing values and tradition

a. Tennessee v. John Scopes 1925

b. biology teacher warned and forbidden to teach evolution

c. American Civil Liberties Union hires Clarence Darrow

d. World Christian Fundamentalist Association hired W. J. Bryan

e. Darrow attacks Bryan's religious and scientific knowledge

f. Jury convicted Scopes

g. Bryan dies of stroke a few days later (humiliation?)

h. trial symbolized American resistance to changing society

D. Minorities in the Modern U.S.

1. The most important political issue of day was Immigration

a. open door policy for most of 18th and 19th centuries

b. starts to change after the Civil War

i. 1880s San Francisco concerned about Chinese immigration

ii. 1888 U.S. passes first immigration restriction

a. prohibit unskilled Chinese

from entering country

b. Irish work on railroads

from east unskilled labor

iii. Anti-Japanese movement follows

a. San Francisco again discriminates against Japanese

b. refuses to let Japanese children in school

c. 1906 Theodore Roosevelt's "Gentleman's Agreement"

i. limits unskilled Japanese immigration

c. 1917 concerns in East about Eastern European immigration

i. fear of communism

ii. fear of overtaxed public services

iii. 1st general restrictions on immigration

iv. Wilson vetoes but it is still passed

v. must pass literacy test

vi. prohibits anarchists & communists

d. end of WWI brought more immigrants both legally and illegally

e. Congress reacted with 1921 immigration act

i. restricted to 3% of nationality present in 1910 census

ii. 1924 changed to 2% of 1890 census (fewer East Europeans)

iii. 1927 National Origins Act quota limited to 150,000 a year

a. quota for each country that cannot be held over

2. Mexican Americans

a. boarder remained open with Mexico

i. lack of unskilled labor with immigration restrictions

ii. Mexicans continued to cross into the United States

iii. Civil war ravaged the country & many decided to stay

b. a number move to northern cities & find jobs in industry

c. treated similar to Blacks & Asians (internal colony)

d. denied access to housing & civil rights

3. African Americans make some solid advances

a. Marcus Garvey

i. young Black Jamaican immigrant to U.S.

ii. a moderate tried to instill pride in being Black

iii. Universal Negro Improvement Association

iii. political power through self-help & economics

iv. Blacks should seek economic opportunities & return to Africa

v. started chapters of UNIA across country

a. taught self-help and Garveyism

b. belief that both God and Jesus were Black

vi. repatriation very popular going back generations

a. gained support from racists organizations (KKK)

b. started steam ship company, Black Star Line

c. sold stock to thousands of African Americans

d. company failed due to Garvey naivety

i. sold inferior ships and equipment

e. methods used to sell stock were illegal

f. convicted of defrauding stockholders in 1923

vii. sentenced 5 yrs but pardoned in 3

viii. deported Jamaica 1927, died there

b. Harlem Renaissance

i. group of Black artists, writers,

musicians & intellectuals

ii. wrote about Black experience

iii. gave culture new importance

iv. Whites came to Harlem to sample illegitimate pleasures

a. illegal sex, drugs, alcohol, atmosphere

b. listened to new sound, Jazz played by the greats

i. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson

c. first purely American Music

d. develops strong influence

E.Volstead Act &18th amendment made alcohol almost totally illegal

1. inadvertently sponsored underground economy

2. smuggling from Canada, Mexico or Cuba

a. fleets five miles off the Florida coast

b. speakeasies and bathtub gin

c. disrespect for the law

3. Al Capone was a hero until the St. Valentine Day’s Massacre

a. tried to destroy rivals in south Chicago Bugs Malone Gang

b. stopped by Eliot Ness and Untouchables & tax evasion

F. "The Lost Generation"

1. Group of young whites Americans left the U.S. for Paris

2. unhappy with growing materialism & U.S. involvement in war

3. wrote about America and longing for their home

a. F.Scott Fitzgerald,Ernest Hemingway, E.E.Cummings ,T.S.Eliot

William Faulkner,Ezra Pound,John Steinbeck,John Dos Passos

b. 1920 one of most productive decades in American literature

c. Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Tokelas