The Roaring Twenties
Jessica Rosario
A Booming Economy: The 1920’s
Income
increases
People purchase
more goods
“Boom Cycle”
Companies expand
and hire more
people
Companies earn
higher profits
· The efficiency of the
assembly line helped to
decrease car prices.
Ex.) Model-T 1909 - $850
1916 - $360
1924 - $290
* Employment and the
standard of living increased.
* As World War I ended,
technology focused on
consumer goods. Ex) radios,
washing machines,
telephones, and cars
* An increase in wages caused
an increase in buying power.
1925 RCA Radiola Super VIII
Postwar Developments At Home
The years after the “War to End ALL Wars” are
characterized by:
•rising middle class
•social unrest and violence
•more leisure time
• economic problems
•autos and assembly lines
• labor unrest
•Prohibition and gangsters
• fear of immigrants
•conflict between a “loose
•fear of communism
society “ and the “moral
society”
• racial tensions.
•In 1919 - more than 3,600 strikes
•A general strike in Seattle,
Washington, nearly paralyzed the city, Strikers were
called radicals and
and U.S. Marines were sent in to
violent, and the
restore order. The strike failed.
business leaders,
•The greatest single labor action, also political leaders
ended in failure, was the Great Steel
and newspapers
Strike in January 1920. It involved
turned against the
350,000 steelworkers in several
workers, leading to
Midwestern states.
the decline in the
union movement.
The Palmer Raids and other Anti-Communist
Measures
•Hysteria grows when a series of bombings occurred in the spring of
1919.
•The Post Office intercepted several packages addressed to leading
politicians and businessmen, that were set to explode when opened.
•One bomb exploded outside the home of the attorney general, A.
Mitchell Palmer.
•Palmer sets
up an anti-radical division of the Justice Department,
appoints J. Edgar Hoover to direct what becomes the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI)
Ku Klux Klan
•1920 The Klan hires 2 sales agents to
help expand their power base beyond the
south.
•They directed their hatred against
anyone who was not white and
Protestant.
•They now targeted Catholics, Jews,
Asians, and immigrants as well as African
Americans.
•1925 The Klan had as many as 5 million
members. They elect five senators and
four state governors -in northern not just
southern states.
The oil reserves of
Teapot Dome,
Wyoming, and Elk
Hills, California shall
be for US Naval use
only.
Teapot Dome,
Wyoming
Property of
U.S. NAVY
Elk Hills,
California
OIL
U.S. NAVY
1912
President William H. Taft
Objective: To examine the Teapot Dome Scandal and the KelloggBriand Pact.
Do Now: What was the Ohio Gang, and what problems did Charles
Forbes cause for President Harding?
• The “Ohio Gang” were President Harding’s friends, whom
he appointed to his Cabinet.
• Charles Forbes, appointed by Harding as the head of the
Veteran’s Bureau, stole millions of dollars from the bureau.
“I can take care of my enemies all right, but my
friends keep me walking the floors at night.”
- President Warren Harding
The Teapot Dome Scandal
Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center on the Teapot Dome
Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 near Midwest, Wyoming.
• In the early part of the 20th century large oil reserves
were discovered in Elk Hills, California and Teapot
Dome, Wyoming.
• In March of 1921, President Warren Harding appointed
Albert Fall as Secretary of the Interior.
Pres. Warren Harding
Secretary of the
Interior Albert Fall
Objective: To examine the Scopes Trial, the election of 1928, and
the intolerance of the 1920’s.
The Scopes Trial
· John Scopes, a Tennessee
teacher, taught his students about
Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution in violation of state law.
John Scopes
Lucky Lindy
· In 1927, Charles
Lindbergh flew the Spirit
of St. Louis on a solo
flight across the Atlantic
from Long Island
(Roosevelt Field) to
France.
1925 Ku Klux Klan march on Washington, D.C.